Review – The Comedy Crate Festival, Part Two, Northampton, 18th July 2026

Posted on July 19, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

As if one all-dayer comedy festival last month wasn’t enough, those nice people at the Comedy Crate have spoiled us with a second all-dayer on Saturday 18^th July. Another fifteen acts all vying for our attention in three venues at five time slots, all for the risibly cheap price of £25. It would have been a crime not to take them up on the offer! Everybody makes their own choices, and so everyone’s individual programme for the day will have been different – but here’s ours:

2 pm – Marty Gleeson in The Lamplighter

Preparing for her Edinburgh Fringe show, Dog Ear, at the Pleasance Courtyard from 5 – 30 August, Marty Gleeson presents us with a surreal selection of comic situations and fantasies that appear totally unconnected – until she weaves them all into a satisfying narrative at the end. Some of her material is downright weird and you can’t second-guess where she might be going with any of it! The title of the show comes from an observation made by an Art school teacher that nothing a creative artist shows us is accidental – it’s all there for a purpose. How does that fit in? You’ll have to see the show to find out! A work in progress show, so some areas need tightening up, but I’m sure it will be spick and span for Edinburgh. Highlights include a hilarious funeral service and some truly surreal newscasting. A veritable queen of quirkiness – just don’t call her adorable!

3.30 pm – Toussaint Douglass in The Black Prince

Last year we saw Toussaint Douglass’ WIP pre-Edinburgh show and felt it needed an awful lot of work before it got to the Fringe – and what happened? Terrific reviews and sell-out shows. This year, he hasn’t got an Edinburgh show but instead came to try out some new ideas and comic concepts to see if they’ve got legs. As you would expect, some of them do and some of them don’t. But what Mr D always has on his side is his engaging stage persona and cheeky daring when it comes to interacting with the audience. He’s excited to be the possessor of a lawn (he is from Lewisham, after all), he has an optimistic view on knife crime and overdrafts, and is keen to discover how to be a Dad. He rounded his set off with a game of What Cheese is in the Box; one member of the audience got quite close, but not close enough to win the prize (which is, presumably, the cheese). No doubt he will sift through the hour we all spent together and sort out the wheat from the chaff. It’s what Work in Progress is all about!

5 pm – Morgan Rees in The Black Prince

New to us, Morgan Rees is putting the finishing touches together for his touring show, the subtly titled What a Bummer! which will also have a brief slot at the Edinburgh Fringe at Monkey Barrel 2 from 11 – 15 August. I’m not sure about what a bummer, but certainly, what a find! Mr Rees is a breath of fresh air on stage, one of those people who just convey a natural air of happiness and positivity; you sense he would always look on the bright side of everything. Comfortably confident with loads of excellent material, much of which is about sharing his experience of coming out as gay. In many ways he provides a public service of explaining it straight to the straights, so to speak; I can imagine Mr R does more than his fair share to simply eliminate homophobia. Extremely funny and extremely likeable, he is definitely one to watch, and I’d say What a Bummer is at least 95% finished article. Be careful with your crop tops!

7 pm – Andrew Maxwell in The Charles Bradlaugh

Someone else new to us, although he’s so well known he really oughtn’t to be, Andrew Maxwell will have a three-night stand at the Edinburgh Fringe at the International Convention Centre from 14 – 16 August. One of those supremely confident and gifted comedians who you would never think would need to resort to a work in progress show as it all tumbles out of their head fully formed and laughter-perfect. Slickly delivered, his hilarious material kept us laughing for much longer than his allotted hour. A very safe bet in Edinburgh (or indeed, wherever he turns up).

8.30 pm – Andrew White in The Lamplighter

Andrew White is crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s in preparation for his Edinburgh show, What A Life! coming to the Cabaret Voltaire at Monkey Barrel from 3 – 30 August. We last saw him doing his Retirement Tour show seven years ago at the age of 19. Now at the grand old age of 26, he’s seen a bit more of the world and the trials and tribulations that life can chuck at you, and in this show he’s working out how to juggle grief with friendships and relationships. Mr White is a naturally engaging communicator and his narrative flows logically; and he has plenty of good material which will make his Edinburgh show work well. It still needs a bit of sharpening up and the addition of a bit more bite, but it’s getting there and, after all, that’s what a work in progress show is for. At the end, Mr W has a big secret to reveal – we were all sworn to secrecy so I couldn’t possibly tell you what it was, you’ll have to see his show to find out!

Do you think if we ask politely, those nice people at the Comedy Crate will do this all again next year? In the meantime, there are still some more Edinburgh preview shows to come – our next one will be on 27^th July to see Larry Dean and Finlay Christie at the Lamplighter!

Review – Sweeney Todd, Birmingham Rep, 14th July 2026

Posted on July 15, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

©Manuel Harlan

Dominating the giant Birmingham Rep stage for this triumphant production of Sweeney Todd is a looming statue of blind Justice, hovering like an avenging angel atop Elin Steele’s magnificent, simple, austere set, not quite within touching distance of the mortals below, as a constant reminder of the central theme of Sondheim’s remarkable musical. A barber sentenced to deportation to Botany Bay for life for a crime he hadn’t committed; a corrupt judge who engineered it so he could steal the barber’s wife and – eventually – his daughter. And the barber who returns to London to take vengeance against one man, only to conclude that they all deserve to die.

©Manuel Harlan

In one of the most hotly anticipated musical revivals of the year, Birmingham Rep Artistic Director Joe Murphy has assembled a stunning cast to deliver a powerful, intelligent and delightfully gimmick-free production of what he describes as Sondheim’s masterpiece. Personally, I think there are several contenders for that honour, but this is certainly one of them! But from the moment the curtain rises to reveal the opening chorus of starkly lit, dirty white-dressed Londoners imploring us to attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, you instantly get that adrenaline hit that tells you that you’re in for something truly special.

©Manuel Harlan

Paring back on the visuals, with just intimidating Georgian marble architecture, a seemingly subterranean pie shop, and a descending grille in which to cage Johanna at the judge’s house, or in the lunatic asylum, the whole appearance of this production provides a vivid contrast with the colour of the music, the characters and indeed their costumes, which are admirable in their creativity and authenticity. By removing extraneous embellishments, this assists the fluency of the storytelling, whilst still offering us a feast for the eyes and ears.

©Manuel Harlan

And, of course, it is a great show! A gripping narrative that makes us empathise with the wronged Benjamin Barker (a.k.a. Sweeney Todd), and his honourable, decent companion Anthony, who you just know will make a good husband for the equally wronged Johanna, who is terrified at the prospect of marriage to her vicious, lascivious guardian Judge Turpin. And it’s a fortuitous meeting between Sweeney and Mrs Lovett, who has kept his cut-throat razors for the last fifteen years, enabling him to return to his previous trade. If only Signor Pirelli hadn’t recognised his razors too, things might have turned out very differently.

©Manuel Harlan

Musically, Sondheim is on sensational form with this score, blending the romantic sweetness of Ah Miss and Johanna, with the black comedy of A Little Priest and By the Sea, the eerie ominousness of Not While I’m Around, the character-defining Epiphany, and my personal favourite, the song that combines almost every aspect of the show, Pretty Women.

©Manuel Harlan

The production is jam-packed with stand-out performances that truly make this a must-see show. Heading the cast is the outstanding Ramin Karimloo, who doth bestride the stage like a Colossus, as someone once said. We’ve only seen Mr Karimloo on stage once before, as Jean Valjean on Broadway, where his emotional delivery made Mrs Chrisparkle and me cry during the show, cry walking back to the hotel after the show, and then cry again when we got to our hotel room, the swine. Here he is a powerhouse of repressed fury, nailing every number with his innate integrity, bizarrely getting the audience on his side and making us want him to continue his murderous quest. This isn’t in any way an unhinged Mr Todd; he is perfectly sane, meticulously planning and calculating his way to his final revenge. And when he realises at the end what – and who – he has had to sacrifice to achieve his goal, he has no hesitation in doing the honourable thing, and offering himself up to his own, deserved, fate. I knew he’d be remarkable in the role; he sure is.

©Manuel Harlan

Australian cabaret artist Meow Meow portrays Mrs Lovett as a very larger-than-life, outrageous comic creation, going for every eccentric tic, both vocal and physical, she can recreate to get across the Hogarthian caricature on which the character is based. At times this feels at such odds with the rest of the production, where most of the characters have their ability to express themselves repressed, and even those who don’t – like the Beadle or Pirelli – follow a recognisable foppish standard. This Mrs Lovett is an unpredictable whirlwind by comparison. Ms Meow’s singing is of extraordinary quality with trills, embellishments, accents and funny voices integrated into every part of her vocal delivery. It’s a remarkable feat and she does it with amazing conviction and accuracy. For me, there were occasions when it felt just too much – however, gauging from the audience responses to her performance, I was in the minority.

©Manuel Harlan

David Bedella, however, performs the role of the judge in exactly the manner that I had hoped he would. If I were a musical theatre performer (lucky for the rest of the world that I’m not) this would be my dream role; possibly the most villainous baddie in all of musical theatre, perfect for Mr Bedella’s incredibly deep, exquisitely enunciating voice, mining all the cruelty and perversion out of every line. He doesn’t hold back from revealing quite how squalid the judge is in his disturbing performance of Mea Culpa, but it’s in that riveting duet with Sweeney, Pretty Women, an 18^th century equivalent to laddish banter, where you revel that his smug sordidness finally gets its come-uppance.

©Manuel Harlan

His sidekick, the decadent and ruthless Beadle, is given an entertainingly pompous portrayal by Julius D’Silva, all pomade and pontification, channelling his self-seeking interests as much as he wants. Silas Wyatt-Barke is excellent as Pirelli, the street mountebank, amusingly wasting time on fripperies in his shaving duel with Todd, and then blithely issuing his blackmailing threats in his own accent. Florence Andrews delivers a surprisingly emotional performance as the Beggar Woman, with hints of the real person she once was, before cruelty and anguish got the better of her mental health.

©Manuel Harlan

Jack Gibson is superb as Tobias; he has a terrific singing voice and an endearing stage presence, perfect in the assistant roles, first to Pirelli then to Mrs Lovett, and coming into his own with the harrowingly moving Not While I’m Around. There’s fine ensemble support from Emily Ivana Hawkins and Hadrian Delacey; in fact, one of the most impressive aspects to this production is how a relatively small cast create a sense of a busy, highly populated London town.

©Manuel Harlan

And what of Justice, looming over us till the bitter end, will she win the day? The innocents live on, having fought hard to defeat the evil. Shem Omari James as Anthony is a beacon of decency in a filthy world, with a fantastic singing voice

©Manuel Harlan

which buoys up the only sense of optimism for the future in the whole show – no wonder the character’s surname is Hope. And Jo Stephenson – also gifted with an extraordinary voice – beautifully conveys Johanna’s contempt and loathing for the despicable Judge Turpin and her instant attraction to Anthony, despite the latter’s occasional lapses in strong will. There’s a delightfully underplayed moment when, having been given a firearm by

©Manuel Harlan

Todd to help Johanna escape Bedlam, Anthony can’t bring himself to use it on the Master of the Asylum. You can almost hear the muttered oh for f***’s sake from Johanna as she grabs the gun and shoots him. It’s a lovely moment that says so much about how their future life together will be.

A riveting production, musically sensational, visually stunning and full of great performances. It’s scheduled to run at the Birmingham Rep until August 15^th but surely – SURELY – that can’t be the end for this Sweeney Todd. See it while you can!

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Jesus Christ Superstar, London Palladium, 9th July 2026

Posted on July 10, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

It’s always a joy to visit the London Palladium with its lush, plush auditorium, so it’s quite a shock when you arrive for Jesus Christ Superstar to see the stage bedecked in scaffolding, curling around the side and obscuring the boxes. It looks for all the world like they haven’t quite finished fixing the set. But theatre is all about being unsettled, right? Especially when you’re going to see a show that – if you’re like me and grew up with it as a teenager – you know backwards. The original rock opera (don’t give me any of that Tommy nonsense) still electrifies (musically at least) from the first few guitar chords played by the band to its final bars. This Palladium production – lifted from its successful Regent’s Park run from a few years ago – always ensures that the music is centre stage; exactly where it should be.

Advance sales for this show have been described as unprecedented for a Palladium summer run; so much so that a transfer to Drury Lane and a subsequent UK tour were announced long before its first preview. The reason for this is simple; the inspired casting of national treasure in the making, Sam Ryder. Everyone loves Sam. In fact, it’s the law that you can’t not love Sam; he resurrected (carefully chosen word) the UK’s Eurovision reputation and his personal positivity guides everything he does, something badly needed in these bitter days of hatred and feuds. More on Sam’s performance later.

However, despite the title and the star billing, this is, has, and always will be The Judas Show. Judas gets all the opportunities to take control of proceedings, has the widest range of emotions, and constantly drives the narrative. This is deftly conveyed in the first few moments of the show, when a crowd gathers around Jesus, waiting for his words, but before he can speak, Judas whips the mic stand away from him and launches straight into the arresting and exciting Heaven on their Minds, setting out his critical standpoint and distancing himself from the other apostles and the following mob. Even though we know the story inside out, it’s riveting from the start.

Tim Sheader’s production has chosen to offer some plucky theatregoers the chance to get really close to the action by having them standing onstage, separated from the cast only by some confining scaffolding. At £25 per person, it looks like an amazing opportunity to see the show from a different perspective. For the rest of us, they suggest the constant crowds that follow Jesus everywhere; and they do create a very atmospheric tableau when silhouetted against stark lighting effects. It’s a clever idea, and on the whole it works.

Perhaps the most outstanding contribution to the show is Drew McOnie’s choreography. Intense, exhilarating, conveying joy and excitement, the ensemble throw themselves into it all, telling their own individual stories as part of their movement. It’s stunningly effective within the confines of the relatively small performance space that Tom Scutt’s creative but inhibiting set design has created. The Palladium stage is enormous, but it’s a constant surprise how much of the action is required to take place in much smaller pockets of space. No wonder there has to be some creative use of the aisles as well as the stage.

When it comes to the performances, there’s no questioning the commitment and hard work that everyone puts in to make the show a success. Billy Nevers seizes control of the wonderful Simon Zealotes’ song, giving a dynamic, powerful and genuinely joyous performance that is a highlight of the first Act. David Thaxton’s Pilate blows you away, from his quietly disturbed rendition of Pilate’s Dream, through to his ridiculing of Christ before he sends him to Herod, and his masterful performance of the trial scene and the 39 lashes. The staging of the lashes is perhaps the most effective but also least brutal representation of that very difficult scene that I’ve ever watched.

Matty J and Bob Harms create a terrific double act as Annas and Caiaphas, with Mr J’s deceptively sweet vocals scarcely hiding the cruel punch of his words, and Mr Harms’ extraordinary bass tones enunciating Caiaphas’ deadly message. And Tyrone Huntley’s Judas is extraordinary in every department: always powerful vocally, even when he delivers his tenderest and most delicate moments, and with an amazing stage presence. Mr Huntley’s ability to combine musicality with humour was brilliant in the Palladium’s Hello Dolly two years ago, but I had no idea he had this level of performance in his repertoire. However, I was really surprised how the portrayal of Judas’ death came across as such a damp squib, unless there was some kind of technical problem of which I wasn’t aware; he just walks off.

The role of Herod in this production is shared between five high-profile and much-loved performers; for our performance, and until July 11^th, he was played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. If you don’t know the show, and there’s always at least one person at every performance who doesn’t know what to expect, the unexpected portrayal of Herod as a sexually ambivalent hedonist, as camp as the traditional row of tents, singing a jaunty showbizzy song that sticks two fingers up to the accepted view of Herod as a gloomy and intimidating old tyrant, really ought to take your breath away. However, for me, Mr Ferguson presented Herod in a strangely non-flamboyant fashion, allowing his glamorous costume and intricate make-up to do the work instead. The lyrics say he is “overjoyed to meet you face to face”, but this Herod isn’t remotely overjoyed, rather annoyed that his daily routine has been disturbed. Sorry, but this didn’t work for me.

Desmonda Cathabel plays Mary, and with her fantastic voice she completely gets the characterisation for Everything’s Alright and Could We Start Again Please, but her I Don’t Know How to Love Him, potentially the most recognised song of the entire show, doesn’t really hit the mark. Rather like Man of La Mancha’s The Impossible Dream, a dream that by its very description tells you it is impossible to achieve, but which X-Factor style wannabes sing as if it was A Very Big Ask but I’m going to nail it 110%, I Don’t Know How to Love Him conveys Mary’s anguished inability to get her head around what she feels for Jesus. It should only be when she finally sings I love him so at the end of the song that she has completed her journey of understanding. But I fear Ms Cathabel’s Mary delivers it as a simple love song. She knows very well how to love him; she’s known it from the start. It’s a performance that somehow doesn’t connect with the audience.

Which brings us to the object of her love, Sam Ryder’s Jesus. If ever there was a visual embodiment of how we think of Christ, Mr Ryder is it. Known for his ability to perform striking vocal ornaments he is an extraordinary force to be reckoned with. His first few words (Why should you want to know…) in response to the incessant pestering of What’s the buzz? ring out clear as a bell, mellifluous, meaningful and beautiful. However, when it comes to the softer, lower register moments, the power deserts him, and his delivery appears tentative and uncertain. In fact, at times one wonders whether he’s demanding too much of his voice. His performance highlight is Gethsemane, which triggers a standing ovation during the show, and it’s a five-minute showcase for his skills but, in our performance, I felt he toned down the embellishments, which no doubt helps preserve his voice but also makes the piece much more understandable – so that worked well for me.

There has been much difference of opinion as to how well Sam Ryder acts the part as well as singing it, but, overall, I was impressed with his ability to convey emotion, frequently through a silent stare or an unexpectedly delivered turn of phrase. And his stage presence is immense; it is, indeed, dream casting. He’s a star without question; I just hope that his voice can stay the course. So, whilst there are a few ways in which this production disappoints a little, despite those elements I truly loved it. Jesus Christ Superstar runs at the Palladium until 5^th September, then resumes its run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in October.

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Something Rotten! Opera House, Manchester, 2nd July 2026

Posted on July 3, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell’s Something Rotten! has taken eleven years from opening on Broadway to receiving its UK premiere. In that time, it’s enjoyed a two-year US tour, and had productions in Sweden, Austria, South Korea, Canada, and the Czech Republic. Why has it taken so long to hit Britain? Could it be because it is, in fact, a bit rotten?

No! Not a bit of it. Something Rotten! is one of the funniest, freshest, catchiest, most uplifting new musicals I’ve seen in ages. For a brand new show (new to the UK anyway) it feels surprisingly traditional – but for all the best reasons. Instantly captivating, it reminded me whilst watching the opening sequence of so many of those memorable, ambitious musicals of the 60s and 70s; big set, big cast, big band and big on entertainment. For the first time in years, I left the theatre after seeing a new musical with the songs still in my head – that’s such a rarity nowadays.

It’s 1595 and Shakespeare is ruling London’s theatrical roost. Meanwhile brothers and wannabe playwrights Nick and Nigel Bottom are down on their uppers, disappointing their patron, Lady Croydon, and coming up with ideas that Shakespeare always seems to have got to first. Using what little household savings he and his wife Bea have amassed, Nick employs the services of a soothsayer, Nostradamus – not the Nostradamus, but his nephew Thomas – who looks into the future and predicts that the theatre of tomorrow will be… musicals. Trouble is, no one has heard of them yet, so Nick has a job ahead of him convincing his players and Lady Croydon of this bizarre mix of plot and song. Nostradamus also predicts what will be Shakespeare’s biggest success, so that Nick can nick it first; and he’s so close to getting the title right – but not quite.

On one level, Something Rotten! tells this merry tale of the Bottoms and their struggle to out-Shakespeare Shakespeare. On another, it’s quite the most inventive love letter to theatre in general, and musicals in particular. It makes you wonder who the first person was to think of trying out this new stage format – and to admire and thank them for their innovation. There is a song in the show simply called A Musical, which doffs its cap to so many well-known musical shows, with dozens of hilarious references that make a musical theatre fan guffaw with pleasure.

But Something Rotten! is no mere parody. Nearly all the songs are individual works of genius that either move the story on or enhance our understanding of the characters, and there isn’t a wasted moment in the entire two and a half hours. This is a show that’s determined to give its audience a good time, and it delivers it in spades. The characterisations are hilarious, from the theatre fan Shylock to the secretly theatrical puritan Brother Jeremiah. from the over-the-top Nostradamus to the nauseatingly vain Shakespeare, there’s so much on stage that keeps you laughing and engaged all the way through.

Colin Richmond’s set gives an authentic sense of rickety old London and Rebecca Brower’s costumes are perfectly in keeping with the Elizabeth age, both the rich dandies and the poor downtrodden. Danny Belton’s eight-piece band produce a full, rich, showbizzy accompaniment to the witty songs, and the cast are uniformly excellent, with a hard-working and super-talented troupe and ensemble giving tremendous support throughout.

Gareth Davies gives a surprisingly upbeat portrayal of Shylock, who hopes he might play the happy good-natured Jew in Bottom’s next play. Elliotte Williams-N’Dure plays the delightfully larger-than-life Lady Croydon, hard to please but besotted, like everyone, with Bottom’s big rival. Cory English gives a fantastically energetic and madcap portrayal of Nostradamus, prancing athletically around the stage in the big musical numbers. Cassius Hackforth makes a wonderful contrast with the other characters with his thoughtful characterisation of Nigel, uncertain of his own skills, and hardly daring to fall in love with the excellent Portia, played by Carla Dixon-Hernandez, the poetry-mad daughter of Paul Ryan’s hypocrite Brother Jeremiah, portentously warning against the pleasures of the flesh whilst making endless Freudian slips revealing his true nature.

Marisha Wallace continues to knock every role she takes out of the park, with her lively, endearing and spirited performance as Bea, Nick’s long-suffering but immensely practical and forgiving wife. Her rendition of Right Hand Man is one of the true highlights of the first Act, and she lights up the stage whenever she is on. Equally powerful and impressive is a tour de force by Richard Fleeshman as the big-headed Shakespeare, portraying him as a celebrity superstar, tossing out bon-mots for all his devoted fans to gobble up. Imagine Blackadder’s Lord Flashheart as the bard and you’re part-way there. And of course, one of Manchester’s favourite sons, Jason Manford, appears as Nick Bottom, anchoring the show in his inimitable style, delivering the comedy and music with sure-footed aplomb.

It isn’t a show that makes any serious points about the human condition, but it does celebrate everything that makes us happy. And in these difficult days that’s definitely something worth making a song and dance about. Something Rotten! continues at the Manchester Opera House until 19^th July – but surely it must have a life hereafter.

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Alfie Moore, Acopalypse Now, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 28th June 2026

Posted on June 29, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

Within the first few minutes of his show, Alfie Moore asked the audience how many of them listen to his Radio 4 show. Judging from the response, I’d guess it was about 95%. He certainly knows his audience! This left Mrs Chrisparkle and me feeling like a pair of frauds as we’ve never heard his radio show, we only know him from live performance. You don’t need to know his radio output though, although it might put you at a slight advantage at odd moments if you do!

He cuts quite an ungainly appearance on stage, a slightly wobbly gait and adopting some odd angles, as though he’s just disembarked ship and hasn’t yet found his land legs. But that all goes to make his stage persona, that of an experienced police officer looking after the good folk of Scunthorpe for decades, more believable. And whilst most of his material comes from police experience, he’s not above throwing in a few Dad Jokes on the way, and to be honest those create some of his biggest laughs.

The title, Acopalypse Now, is not a typo, despite what his poster printers may have thought; it’s his policing slant on what’s going to cause the end of the world. What a jolly subject for a comedy show! But it works, as it enables Alfie to go through a number of scenarios, bringing out a fair amount of gallows humour en route. What’s it to be? Pandemic? War? Climate change? The Domination of AI? The way things are going at the moment it’s a lottery between all of them.

There are number of running themes throughout his two-hour show, including his acquiring a bike to cycle to work as part of a police drive towards saving the planet, and his dealings with a young Just Stop Oil protestor; and they become the source of many an entertaining callback. He discusses the art of the erudite heckle; and invites the audience to act as police officers for the night, choosing which course of action out of several we would opt for if it was down to us. That proved to me what a woeful police officer I would be.

His style is neither laid back nor frenetic, but somewhere between the two; and his pace is normally set to quite gradual (sometimes perhaps a little too gradual) although he can sometimes accelerate to bullet-point rapid. Basically, he talks like a police officer, which I guess is what we all paid for. As you would expect he’s confident with addressing audience members individually, asking them questions to justify their decisions or identify their attitudes – at times I wondered if we should all have been given a caution at the start so that this information could be used in evidence. One particular strength of his storytelling technique is his ability to weave facts and true stories or cases into his material, which makes everything he says totally believable. He describes events clearly so that you can completely envisage them in your mind’s eye, which really brings his material to life; a gift that not every comedian has.

There are plenty of laughs, and a lot of moments of understanding and agreement; but perhaps also the occasional longueur where you want him to get on with it a bit more! But if you like his radio show then I’m sure his stage show will feel like a natural extension. The Acopalypse Now tour continues into November, and he will be gracing the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

Review – The Comedy Crate and Northampton Comedy Festival present Felicity Ward and Lindsey Santoro, Work in Progress, V&B Wine Bar, Northampton, 25th June 2026

Posted on June 26, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

Continuing that endless quest for pre-Edinburgh perfection, those nice people at the Comedy Crate treated us to two more work in progress shows on probably the hottest night of the year, so the comedy stars had to be good to keep our attention. Fortunately, they were!

First up was Felicity Ward, who is brushing up her material for her Edinburgh show, I Wish I Could Come Out of My Shell, on at the Cabaret Voltaire from 17^th to 30^th August. It’s a lovely ironic title as there are few people who have abandoned their shell more than Felicity. A recent ADHD diagnosis (no, really?!) after becoming newly divorced, and, after a year or so of quietly coming to terms with it all, she’s now hit the dating apps, thereby discovering all sorts of new things about herself. She has some great material about bi-dating and the different vibes you get from different apps; she also reflects on her favourite TV show, Alone, gives all the inside information on her appearances in Australia’s Dancing with the Stars, and a no-holds-barred sequence of needing to do a poo when her son also needed one – let’s just say necessity was the mother of invention. A fast and exhilarating delivery of well-structured and very funny material, there’s very little further tweaking needed before she hits Edinburgh – this will be a comedy highlight of the Fringe I’m sure.

After the interval we welcomed Lindsey Santoro, an effervescent presence of uninhibited comic ideas, who hits the ground running with frenetic attack, a wonderfully confiding nature, and some bold material that takes us where angels fear to tread. She’s preparing for her Edinburgh show, It Was Like That When I Got Here, also at the Cabaret Voltaire, from 19^th to 30^th August. Much of her material is based on surviving married life as wife and mother; and she includes a hilarious sequence of going to a Haven Holidays Caravan Site, the unusual selfies she was advised to take when pregnant, and the secret pleasures of women in the jacuzzi. There’s some refinement needed to make all the material dovetail and choose exactly the right words at times, but that’s just what a Work in Progress show is all about; and Ms Santoro has the benefit of being a naturally outrageously funny person who holds the audience in the palm of her hand from start to finish.

A terrific blend of comedy and aircon! There are yet more Edinburgh Previews coming in the weeks ahead.

Review – 45 Years, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 17th June 2026

Posted on June 20, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

We can’t change what happened in our previous relationships, before we met our current partners, can we? Provided we’re honest about them? That’s one of the questions that is touched on, although not fully explored, in Hannah Patterson’s adaptation of Andrew Haigh’s film 45 Years, presently at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester.

Before Geoff met and married Kate, he was holidaying in Switzerland with his previous girlfriend, Katja, who came to an untimely death by falling into a glacier. Her body was never found or recovered – until, in a bolt from the blue 45 years later, Geoff receives a letter from the Swiss authorities informing him that her body has been found, still trapped in the ice. Obviously, this would be upsetting news to anyone, bringing back those awful days at the time of her death. But what now? Should he do anything about it? Travel to Switzerland to view the body? After all, he’s no spring chicken. And why did the authorities contact him, 45 years later, at an address that they wouldn’t have known about – unless he’d been keeping them updated?

Perhaps the ultimate question is, can Geoff and Kate’s solid, if unexciting, marriage withstand going over old emotions and allegiances without breaking, glacier-like, under the pressure? The play attempts to analyse the family unit without ever making anything too obvious, or overstated. Obsessions are suggested and secrets are suspected without being fully exposed. As Geoff tries to balance his feelings today with 45 years ago, Kate makes tiny discoveries which suggest that Geoff and Katja were perhaps more established as a couple than she realised. When Kate asks Geoff if, had she not died, would he and Katja have married, and he concludes that they would have done, you can feel the knife silently piercing her heart. Of course, that was before they had met, and all’s fair in love and war. But how come he had never told her before? How come she had never asked?

Let’s look at the facts: Geoff’s first girlfriend was Katja; she died in mysterious circumstances. He then married Kate. If she discovers that Katja’s death was anything other than a tragic accident, will he bump her off before he next marries, say, Katarina? As Johnny Nash once said, there are more questions than answers. The problem with 45 Years is that it offers us an immensely intriguing set-up but deprives us of any real resolutions. Maybe Geoff and Kate survived 45 years by simply not talking to each other. Prasanna Puwanarajah’s direction certainly suggests they live as separately as possible even when in the same room – there’s no sofa here in James Cotterill’s anodyne set, their separate chairs are always placed at a distance from each other. 45 Years is a delicate, repressed little play, more of an intellectual challenge than an emotional one. Any passion is firmly controlled – voices are rarely raised and tempers are rarely frayed. It’s all very artfully done but it doesn’t feel like real life.

Whilst the cream carpeted set reflects absolutely the blandness of Geoff and Kate’s marriage, Guy Hoare’s lighting design nicely accentuates critical plot development moments (such as they are). The device of having occasional dripping water from the ceiling could be construed as suggesting potential cracks in their relationship; or, as Mrs Chrisparkle more cynically suggested, it merely indicated that their roof was leaking.

Certainly, the powerhouse pairing of Gabriel Byrne and Geraldine James as Geoff and Kate provides the impetus that the play needs to see it through its full 80 minutes. Ms James is especially watchable, conveying Kate’s thought processes with tremendous clarity, including those moments when she decides she doesn’t want to think anymore. After all, she’s discovering that, just maybe, she has played second fiddle in Geoff’s affections for all these years. Gabriel Byrne’s Geoff is more eloquent in the things he doesn’t say, or perhaps those things he’s forced to say but he’d sooner keep hidden. Between them they do their best to bring to life the text’s intricate cross-shading of various hues of grey, frustrating an audience desperate for answers, but being true to the characters. Gillian Bevan plays their friend Lena, primarily there to add a little variety to the grey, but in every practical sense creating even more vacuum between Geoff and Kate.

This is a Marmite production. I came out of it a little frustrated by the storyline but very impressed with the acting and the fascinating premise. My three theatre companions all sported various levels of unimpressed, including the always damning that’s 80 minutes of my life I’m never getting back. The truth, as ever, is probably somewhere between the two. However, there are elements to the play that stretch the imagination thinner than the surface of a glacier. If that slide projector’s been up in the attic for 45 years, Kate is immensely incurious!

Three-sy Does it!

Review – Atonement, Chichester Festival Theatre, 17th June 2026

Posted on June 19, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

Upfront confession: Mrs Chrisparkle and I were unfamiliar with both the novel and film of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, but our theatre companions, Professor and Mrs Plum, are both avid fans of the book and assured us that the play is very faithful to the original. Christopher Hampton has adapted the book for the stage; he had also authored the 2007 screen adaptation, so I guess he didn’t have more than a few tweaks to create the finished article. I jest of course.

In case, like us, you don’t know; set in 1935, 13-years-old Briony Tallis who lives at the big family mansion has fallen head over heels in love with Robbie who works as a gardener there. Robbie, however, is smitten with Briony’s adult sister Cecilia, and Briony is jealous of their relationship. At a family gathering, Briony’s cousin Lola is raped but does not see the face of her attacker, so cannot identify him for certain. Briony tells the police that she saw that it was Robbie. Robbie protests his innocence; but whom do the police believe? In the second Act, the story continues into World War Two with Cecilia and Briony now both nurses. Briony has concluded that she was wrong to declare Robbie was Lola’s attacker – but what can she do to atone?

This production is most definitely a game of two halves. Act One comes across as fragmented and uneven, a scattergun of scenes that appear to go nowhere, backed up by an ingenious but messy two-level staging that relies heavily on projections. Half an hour in and I was completely clueless as to what the play was all about; a cross between Upstairs Downstairs and The Go-Between that pussyfooted around without ever making a point. Act Two is the production’s saving grace, acquiring a fluidity and much better storytelling finesse. The twist at the end (IYKYK) doesn’t have the emotional punch that it does, I understand, in the book; but, nevertheless, comes across as a creative intellectual puzzle that no one would ever guess. And I’m certainly not going to give the game away.

I can see why it’s obviously a very successful book; one of those rare works that not only tells its own tale but at the same time analyses its own creation, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman, or Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, or indeed Spandau Ballet’s True. Such works have a strange superpower which demands that you sit up and pay attention. I wonder, however, if the first Act would be more convincing if it didn’t align so closely with the book; the story doesn’t unfold as organically as it should.

In fact, the storytelling – at least in the first Act – takes a back seat. I overheard a couple during the interval where a man couldn’t work out what had just happened and needed his wife to clarify that Lola had been raped. I think if that vital fact isn’t made clear, then somehow the direction is going AWOL. There were a few directorial choices in the first Act that made me bridle; is it necessary, for example, when Cecilia jumps into the water to retrieve the missing parts of the jug, for her to be wearing such a see-through top? And indeed, Robbie giving us a flash of his bare bum in the bath added absolutely nothing to the story and just made me feel like the actors were being somehow manipulated. The breaking of the Meissen vase was, by the way, one of the least convincing stage effects I’ve ever seen – a proper shocker given the resources that Chichester can access. Additionally, it’s a shame that uneven LED panels creating the big screen effect at the back of the stage mean that projections of written words, or translations from French, both of which are important for plot development, look wonky at times. It’s not a huge problem overall, but it does give you the impression that the production was done on the cheap.

There are, fortunately, some first-rate performances to take our minds off some of the more ham-fisted elements of the production. Debra Gillett livens up every scene with her entertaining portrayals of the snooty Aunt Emily Tallis and the authoritarian Sister Drummond. Jonathan Oliver gives a nicely judged portrayal of the police inspector and the adult Pierrot Quincey, James Backway is delightfully obnoxious as Paul Marshall but a convincingly supportive corporal Tommy Nettle, and Isabella Dempster excellent as the privileged and pompous young Briony. At our performance, the young brothers Jackson and Pierrot were played by Jacob Isaacs and Felix Kennedy who gave very believable, assured performances.

The final scene, set in 1999, is dominated by the elderly Briony, now a successful author, played with calm conviction by Jessica Turner. In the lead roles, Jasper Talbot is excellent as Robbie, particularly in his wartime and post-war scenes, suffering both physical and mental battle scars; and Miriam Petche is also very strong as Cecilia, a determined, forthright and unforgiving character, forced to confront injustice in a manner for which she was not educated.

The second Act is engrossing, revealing, and satisfying; it’s a shame that the first Act is such a slow and unengaging introduction to the meat of the story. Nevertheless, there’s much to enjoy and admire, and there’s no underestimating the brilliance of McEwan’s plot construction. Atonement continues at the Festival Theatre until Saturday 20^th June.

Three-sy Does It!

Review – The Comedy Crate and the Northampton Comedy Festival present Nathan Caton and Hasan Al-Habib, Work in Progress, The Lab, Northampton, 15th June 2026

Posted on June 16, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

The Northampton Comedy Festival continues courtesy of those nice people at the Comedy Crate with another Work in Progress show, featuring Nathan Caton and Hasan Al-Habib in the cosy and intimate setting of The Lab. The venue only seats 35, so it’s a comfortable way of getting a really good comedy vibe without massive queues for the bar or loos at the interval. Win win.

Our first hour was spent in the company of Hasan Al-Habib, who’s preparing his Edinburgh show Stuck in the Middle (East) with You, on at the Pleasance Courtyard from 5 to 30 August. It’s a very funny title, and Hasan is a very funny man; warm, engaging and setting up an instant rapport with the crowd. Sporting an Iraq football World Cup t-shirt, his material for his new show has a surprisingly dark side, as it centres on his own domestic situation – in his words, family trauma.

After his parents’ divorce, Hasan’s homelife was dominated by his mother and his overbearing (also vicious) aunt. This is the story of how a cruel, uncontrollable influence in the household can be injurious to your health – both mental and physical. Sounds gloomy, doesn’t it? It isn’t, as Hasan has loads of comic observations en route, from his French-Iranian girlfriend to oncology, enhanced by his great gift for character voices which bring all his stories to life. He needs to polish up the funny side for the darker second part of his show, and give it a stronger conclusion, but I’m sure it’ll be in tip-top condition come August. That is, after all, the point of a work in progress show!

He’s also part of a second Edinburgh show, together with Aisha Amanduri, called 2 Muslim 2 Furious 3: Sharia? I Hardly Know Her! on daily between 6^th and 30^th August at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, which I’m sure will also be worth checking out.

After the interval we welcomed Nathan Caton, someone we’ve seen many times before, who doesn’t have an Edinburgh show in the offing but is working up some material to take on tour next year. It’s been an astonishing thirteen years since we first saw a young Nathan at a Screaming Blue Murder where he was a breath of fresh air whom we could have watched all night. Now in his forties, he already beginning to feel old (I can tell him, there’s a long way to go yet!) Thus, a lot of his new material is based on feeling old and out of touch, including how on earth did he ever go to nightclubs, and what’s all this pronoun nonsense about? Talking of age, he has some gruellingly funny reminiscences of appearing on P&O ships, has a great solution to the problem of children using social media, and has a novel idea for appearing on Don’t Tell the Bride. He admitted there was no link between any of his ideas, he just wanted to find out what was funny and what wasn’t – but Mr C has such a deft delivery that everything comes across as funny!

A very enjoyable night of WIPs! And there’s plenty more of these to choose from on The Comedy Crate website.

Review – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 14th June 2026

Posted on June 15, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

There are few more civilised ways of spending a Sunday afternoon than in the company of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with another of their matinee concerts. A pretty full Derngate auditorium welcomed first Erik Chapman, one of the First Violins, who introduced the afternoon’s concert to us, including the fact that the RPO has now been going for 80 years, and that they have been performing in Northampton for the last 24 of them – and long may it continue.

Our conductor for the afternoon was Ben Glassberg, winner of the 55^th Besançon Young Conductors Competition in 2017 at the impressively young age of 23. Traditional in style but with a youthful touch (black t-shirt beneath his dinner jacket), he gets quite animated on the podium, but never outrageously so; just enough to coax the best out of the orchestra. And the orchestra was indeed on scintillating form!

The strings take control of the first piece, Joe Hisaishi’s Encounter for String Orchestra. He is the RPO’s current composer-in-association, and this remarkable six-minute work grabs your attention from the start and never lets up. Hisaishi orchestrates the piece so that the focus moves around different sections of the orchestra, one at a time, enhancing an old-fashioned stereo effect such as you might get in your car speakers, or on a 1970s stereogram! Stringed instruments play nineteen to the dozen, left and right across the stage providing a constant audio thrill. One of the most exciting pieces I’ve heard from a living composer – I definitely now need to discover more of his work.

Still concentrating on the strings but offering a very different vibe, our next piece was Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op.47. Our soloist was the remarkable Clara-Jumi Kang, whose “Thunis” Stradivarius from 1702 produces a very distinctive, gritty sound that really gets under the skin of the notes on the stave and creates a powerful, vibrant experience. It’s a very complex piece and Ms Kang attacked those cadenzas like a demon, blistering her way through the movements to jaw-dropping effect, with incredible support from the orchestra. Slightly infra dig I know, but the audience couldn’t resist bursting into sustained applause at the end of the opening Allegro moderato movement because it was simply so exciting. A remarkable performance of a challenging piece.

After the interval, we returned for one of classical music’s big people pleasers – Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In his opening introduction, Erik Chapman had asked us all to listen to it as if we were hearing it for the first time. There’s so much more to the piece than that iconic opening four-note statement, although that does indeed dominate the first movement. But the rest of the symphony is full of glorious tunes and inspiring sequences that sweep you away with the excitement of it all. The orchestra were, as always, superb, and it was a fantastic way to round off a terrific afternoon of classical music.

The new Royal Philharmonic season at the Royal and Derngate goes on sale on 19^th June, give yourselves a treat and check it out!