Monthly Archives: February 2014

Review – Arrivals and Departures, The Ayckbourn Ensemble, Oxford Playhouse, 6th February 2014

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You know that thing when you’re having a conversation with someone, but actually you’re hardly concentrating because you’re wrapped up in other thoughts about other problems – and you hope the person you’re talking to doesn’t notice; well, has it ever occurred to you that the person to whom you are talking is also not concentrating because they too are immersed in their own thoughts and daydreams? No, me neither. But that is the central tenet of Alan Ayckbourn’s 2013 play, Arrivals and Departures, his 77th, would you believe; I was going to call it his new play but I see that there’s already a 78th opening in Scarborough this summer.

This very inventive and rewarding play is set at a London railway station and, from reading the programme notes, you get the feeling Ayckbourn has always wanted to set a play in a railway station. Observing people in transit, people waiting for others to arrive, and the people who work at the station, and so on – I think this has been an ambition. For Arrivals and Departures, it’s almost as though he has taken the ideas for two separate plays – a “train station” play and a “memory, obsessed with one’s own thoughts” play, and very successfully woven the two together.

Maybe there are even traces of a third play here too – in the actual plot, which is way beyond the boundaries of your average domestic comedy. When the play starts you are a little confused as to the set-up, but you quickly realise that you are watching the preparations for a military security operation, an attempt to ambush and capture a terrorist on the train coming down from up north into London. This doesn’t feel like typical Ayckbourn territory, but then he has written about so many subjects now that I don’t think there is such a thing anymore. As the rehearsals for the ambush team progress, we meet Barry, a well-meaning but over-talkative Yorkshire traffic warden, who is the one person that has met the terrorist and would be able to recognise him in a crowd – so he is there to confirm that the guy they capture is the right one. We also meet Ez, (not Esme, as she will frequently point out) a somewhat wayward and unconventional soldier whose job it is to protect Barry, should it come to that particular crunch.

As we await the arrival of the train containing the terrorist, code name Cerastes, we see flashbacks in Ez’s mind as she recollects her childhood and the difficult relationships with her mother, and how, as a result, she finds it hard to commit to a relationship with Rob, a seemingly decent soldier type, which has its own unfortunate consequences. Her conversations with Barry get in the way of her thought processes, but his good nature starts to break down her resistance; and when the terrorist does finally appear, she successfully manages to protect Barry, although Barry is convinced they’ve got the wrong man. Here comes the interval.

I won’t tell you what happens next, but it’s absolutely not what you were expecting. Suffice to say, this is a “time” play, so expect Ayckbourn to manipulate the usual conventions to make his point. I was kind of dreading a rehash of his play “Improbable Fiction”, which was the last Ayckbourn we’d seen at the Oxford Playhouse, and which had a hilarious first act but (for us) a totally stupid, useless, surreal and not at all satisfying, second act. I needn’t have worried. Arrivals and Departures is a supremely better play, which opens up a lot of loose ends before neatly tying them all together. I do have one criticism though – the structure of the play requires a certain amount of repetition in the plot and dialogue, and I did think that this detracted a little from its overall dramatic intensity. However, there is also the fun for the audience of working out where there will be repetition and where there will be new material – you can’t always second-guess it. The plot climax definitely moves the action forwards, and is one of the most touching conclusions to a play I’ve seen in some time. To be honest, the lady on the other side of Mrs Chrisparkle sobbed her heart out.

Kim Wall plays Barry and it’s a complete star performance. I’ve told you before how I first came across Mr Wall, so I won’t bore you with that story again; however, he remains one of my favourite actors, and I wonder why he has never really hit the big time. Barry’s vocal mannerisms, the way he doesn’t like to let a silence go unfilled, his potential to be really boring, his underlying total kindness, his dignified but positive response to the cruelty of life and his complete lack of regard for his own safety, are all beautifully brought to life in Mr Wall’s performance. Equally good is Elizabeth Boag as Ez, uncomfortable, soul-searching, reserved, but with the possibility of allowing the ice in her heart to thaw. Mrs C pointed out how extraordinarily well she conveyed anger (Mrs C has a great dislike of the default position of “anger = shouting” in some productions we’ve seen). There’s a brilliant scene between Ez and Barry, where she loses her cool with him and tears an unnecessarily sharp strip off him – her gradually changing reaction as she realises what she has done is superbly conveyed.

It’s an excellent ensemble performance throughout, with the cast of eleven playing thirty roles. In the performance we saw, the role of Quentin, the leader of the security operation, was played by Peter Halpin and he was superb; a vain, self-absorbed little Hitler if ever there was one. When his operation comes to a not-entirely-satisfactory conclusion, all he can think about is himself. It’s a very clear depiction of someone who isn’t actually as good at their job as they think they are, or indeed ought to be. In all the memory scenes, I particularly enjoyed Sarah Parks as Ez’s worrisome mother, and James Powell as the young Barry, all 70s suit and ineffectual bonhomie; but all the cast give an excellent account of themselves.

I would have liked to see the other productions that are in repertory with this play, all performed by this Ayckbourn Ensemble company; namely a revival of 1992’s Time of my Life, and two one-act farces combined under the title Farcicals, which sound like an antidote to the serious themes of Arrivals and Departures. However, as Mrs C often tells me, “you can’t see everything”. The plays are on at Warwick Arts Centre this week, and then go on to Cambridge, Cheltenham, Bath, Watford and Windsor. If Arrivals and Departures is anything to go by, these audiences are in for a treat.

Review – 12 Years a Slave, Errol Flynn Filmhouse, Northampton, 5th February 2014

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I’m not sure I’ve ever really seriously thought about slavery before. In an abstract sense, yes of course, one knows that it is a terrible thing and that Wilberforce was a good man, but that merely scratches a tiny part of the surface. If I thought about it all, I would come up with the fact that you have no freedom, you work hard hours every day and probably have little to eat and drink and no real place to live. If I thought of slave traders, I would think of some fictional character like that in Le Corsaire, or 1001 Nights, something out of Kismet, or Up Pompeii. If I thought of their masters, I would probably envisage some mean ogre of a swine towering above a bunch of workers, threatening them with (but maybe not using) a whip. If I thought of the slaves themselves, I’m not sure what I would envisage; probably nothing more horrific than Paul Robeson singing Ol’ Man River. But having now seen 12 Years a Slave, I am ashamed of that ignorance.

This film paints a very different picture. I could not have imagined the sadistic relish with which the slave handlers whip and torture their slaves within an inch of their life – or if they went an inch too far, who cares. I could not have imagined the slave purchasing process, taking the wife and kids out dressed in their smart suits and crinolines, to inspect, prod, slap and humiliate naked men and women in someone’s fancy drawing room. I could not have imagined the sense of fear that meant that when your fellow slaves were being beaten, whipped or hanged you had no choice but simply to look away with no outward emotion. I could not have imagined that a slave would be required to whip another slave whilst their master and mistress ogled the process with glee. I could not have imagined the association of these vile landowner slave-owning families with adherence to their Christian God. I could not have imagined that the women were as happy to abuse their slaves as the men. I could not have imagined that you could buy a slave with a mortgage. I could go on.

This is not an easy film to watch. I underestimated the grit and determination that Mrs Chrisparkle and I would need to see it to the end. We are not used to watching violence, but the violence in this film is shocking, sadistic, visceral, graphic; yet perfectly justified. The personal tragedies that unfold on the screen split husband from wife and family, mother from children; and if these victims show too much emotion, or challenge an injustice, they die; disposed of as a no longer needed commodity, like a worn-out pair of pants; but not just slung away in a bin, ripped to shreds first.

I think one of the things that subtly emphasises the horror of this true story of a free black man in 1840s Saratoga, New York, who was tricked into being drugged and overpowered to be sold as a slave, is the fact that it is a very beautiful film. That irony is clear throughout – stunning cinematography, great acting, great costumes, beautiful sets, and a marvellous soundtrack. Those gorgeous captures of sunsets over the Mississippi are to die for; trouble is, uncountable thousands (millions?) of slaves did just that. It’s so striking that all this beauty is based on such ugliness; the immaculate and expensive Sunday-best clothes of the families, the stately residences and outhouses that the slaves build, are all at an inestimable cost of life and humanity. It made me want to go over to America, find some of those beautiful houses and torch them. Mrs C tried to pacify me by saying that previous generations have probably already done it.

Chiwetel Ejiofor puts in an immense performance as the formerly free Solomon, full of dignity and despair at injustice, perpetually hanging on to some distant hope that life remains worth living. Lupita Nyong’o is incredibly moving as the devastatingly abused Patsey, raped by her master, assaulted by her mistress in return, and almost flayed alive as a punishment for absenteeism to procure a small bar of soap, to which she pathetically hangs on during her torture. Michael Fassbender is very strong (in more ways than one) as the Biblically unstable landowner Epps and Sarah Paulson unnervingly brilliant as the vile Mrs Epps, of whom I could only say at the end, taking the words of Willy Russell’s Rita, “wasn’t his wife a cow”.

If you survive the 134 minutes of unrelenting misery (Mrs C’s description), at the end you feel flat, wasted, despairing of humanity, and guilty about your own freedom; well we did. Never has quaffing a superb Argentinian Malbec during a film, whilst luxuriating in the Errol Flynn’s fantastic leather seats, felt quite so shallow. For me, I accepted the film for what I take it was meant to be – a no-punches-pulled drama about the inhumanity of slavery. But Mrs C’s reaction was far more morose. The violence was just too much for her, and even if the film had decent motives, she couldn’t help think, what’s the point; there is still people-trafficking and slavery, there is still discrimination, prejudice and brutality against our fellow men; as a planet we have learned nothing about how to live as one. I could barely get another word out of her all night. So take note chaps, this is not a good movie for a date.

A very fine film, yes, and no doubt an important one too. But check your tick boxes before committing to it – it can make you feel desperately sad, much more than you would expect; with side effects of high-level anxiety, guilt and worthlessness that take between twelve and twenty-four hours before starting to pass out of your system.

Review – Rent in Concert, Derngate, Northampton, 3rd February 2014

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Some emotional shows just grab you. They speak your language. They reach your heart. They stay with you for ever. Others just don’t. It was on 19th August 1999 that Mrs Chrisparkle and I finally got to see Rent for the first time. We were in Row F of the Shaftesbury Theatre’s Royal Circle. For many people that would be a great seat, but for me that’s just too far from the stage for me properly to connect with what’s going on. We both share one chief memory of that original production – that the music was way too heavily over-amplified. It was the first time we’d ever experienced a show where the production team simply didn’t trust the performers’ voices to reach the back of the theatre. From the resulting sound distortion we didn’t hear half the lyrics. My other main memory is that Angel’s death was really moving; and that when he gets “resurrected” at the end to join everyone else on stage it filled your heart with gladness. The rest of the show – I could basically take or leave.

But this is a show that never goes away. It has a massive following, the “Rent-Heads”; and has been hugely successful around the world. A winner of four Tony awards, the original New York production ran for twelve years, making it the ninth longest running Broadway show at the time. And when I heard that Rent was making a comeback here in its “in Concert” format, I thought that was an excellent idea, and that we should give it another chance to impress.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect. Our only other experience of “unstaged” performances is with the Lost Musicals at Sadlers Wells, where dignified performers in dinner jackets sit around in a semi-circle with their script on a clipboard, taking to the floor to act out a scene with no scenery when the pianist cues them in. I didn’t think Rent in Concert would be quite like that, but who knows? Anyway, when you enter the auditorium you see that there is a very useable set with steps and ledges, scaffolds and seats, and cubbyholes for the musicians to inhabit, in full view of the audience, but separate from the action. Additionally there’s a video screen at the back used to give an extra sense of setting, and also so that you can see what the character Mark is filming. It’s a really well thought out design, and gives plenty of space for some of those multi-character numbers where people are in different locations but singing the same song together.

There are many very good things about this show. The structure is clever and satisfying, with its allusions to Puccini’s La Bohème, its parallel characters and songs, and how it modernised 19th century suffering from consumption to 20th century suffering from AIDS. It also forcibly reminded Mrs C and me of the musical Hair, with its themes of dissatisfied youth and protest, and the worries of parents that their children aren’t living decent lives. Also, the music is superb; Jonathan Larson’s tunes are very stirring and memorable, and they are performed really well by the band, led by Scott Alder on the occasion we saw it. The big set piece numbers are sung beautifully, especially Seasons of Love, La Vie Bohème, and the finale, No Day But Today, although I have to say I wasn’t half so moved this time when the resurrected Angel came back on stage. I was very impressed with the wardrobe department too – Mimi’s matching leopard skin coat and boots were perfect in their downmarket sexy sluttiness, Angel’s transformation from supermarket t-shirt and jeans to camp Santa was catwalk-amazing, Benny’s flash suits told you all you needed to know about his wealth; and the plain winter clothes of the rest of the cast were both realistic and served as a good contrast to the others.

On the whole, the performances are also great. Kerry Ellis has such a superb stage presence, and although I wouldn’t necessarily say I was a “fan”, I thought the stage brightened up every time she came on. Her performance with Rory Taylor of “Light My Candle” was particularly stunning, but I thought she was excellent in everything she did. Another performer with great stage presence is Mykal Rand, whom we last saw as a glamorous and camp Electra in Starlight Express, and he plays Collins with great emotion, terrific singing and surprising vulnerability for a big bloke. Interestingly, he was one of the ensemble in the 1999 production we saw – I guess this show is in his blood. I also really enjoyed the performances of Ruthie Stephens as Maureen and Lisa-Marie Holmes as Joanne, both separately and together. For me, Maureen’s “Over the Moon” protest-performance song simply goes on too long, but Miss Stephens did it cheekily and quirkily, and the audience loved it. Joanne’s duet with Mark, the “Tango Maureen” was crisply and amusingly delivered; and the scene where you see Joanne and Maureen’s relationship start to crumble, “Take me or Leave me” was absolutely spot-on. Kenny Thompson has a superb singing voice as Benny and you could hear every word – a rarity in this show; and there was great support from all the members of the ensemble.

But it’s that lack of clarity of the lyrics that is my real bugbear. The music, both instruments and vocal, is still very over-amplified so that you can only hear about half the lyrics to many of the more raucous numbers. This probably isn’t an issue for the Rent-Heads who know it back to front and inside-out already. But to people like Mrs C and me, this is a major stumbling block. Presumably the producers realise this, as the programme contains a very detailed synopsis of the entire show; I guess they simply expect you not to follow the words properly. We read the synopsis closely, before the show and during the interval, but even then you still can’t remember every plot development (and there are lots); so we were still faffing around trying to make head or tail of what was going on from time to time. This was particularly annoying in the song “Contact”, because, once again, I couldn’t hear the lyrics so I pulled out the programme and tried to read the appropriate part of the synopsis (white print on black background in dim lighting, not very helpful), failed, then looked back at the stage to find that Angel had already snuffed it and I never noticed. They’re using the over-amplification as an almost Brechtian device to distance the audience from the action – making the substance subsidiary to the style.

Another example of this is the really harsh lighting effects. I’m all for dramatic lighting, but you have moments where a number of really glaring lights are projected right into the audience’s eyes, and not just for a split second, but for what feels like ages. It’s very uncomfortable, painful almost, so that you have to put your hand to your forehead to save your eyes. Perhaps they should issue us with sun visors. Bizarrely though, whilst the audience is overlit, some members of the cast are underlit at times, with them speaking or singing in the dark so that you can’t tell who it is who’s talking. I think the Lighting Design team need to go back to school.

However, there’s no doubt that the audience absolutely adored it and that it got a standing ovation from most sections of the audience. I did enjoy it, but something about this show irks me too. I reject the allegation that it’s because I’m “too old” for it – I was once 19 you know, and I remember it clearly! I think it’s just one of those shows that, for some reason, just doesn’t speak to me. If you’re a Rent-Head you’ll love it; and there’s no doubt that the talented performers and musicians absolutely fling their hearts and souls into it. There are still another eight dates on this tour, so if you think you’d like it, go for it!

Review – Eric and Little Ern, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 1st February 2014

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Can you believe it was thirty years ago that Eric Morecambe died? I remember it so clearly, along with the deaths of John Lennon and Marc Bolan, as being one of those really momentous losses to the world of entertainment. Ernie Wise’s death is somehow not so memorable to me – that was in 1999. I never saw Eric Morecambe live on stage, but I did see Ernie Wise, in 1988 when Mrs Chrisparkle and I took the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle to see The Mystery of Edwin Droooooood (those extra o’s will mean something to you if you saw the show). That’s where the name Chrisparkle comes from – I told you about that four years ago but you’ve probably forgotten.

Thirty years – that’s virtually two generations of fans who never had the chance to see the UK’s favourite double act in person. Yes, there have been other double acts of course. The Two Ronnies; Mike and Bernie Winters; Cannon and Ball; The Chuckle Brothers… yes I know I’m drifting wildly. But make no mistake, Morecambe and Wise were THE number one entertainers of the 1960s and 70s. In those pre video and internet days, my schoolfriends and I could not wait to watch their regular comedy shows on TV. If you missed it – you missed it. Particularly at Christmas, where it would be the highlight of everyone’s festivities, the jewel in the crown of BBC1’s Christmas night schedule. We would get back to school and instantly start talking about how brilliant the sketches were, how wonderfully they took the rise out of their guests, and how pythonesque were the appearances of “not now Arthur” Tolcher on his harmonica, or Janet Webb closing the programme in her own special fabulously diva way.

But now you can see the closest thing possible to the real deal – the performances of Ian Ashpitel and Jonty Stephens in their Edinburgh Fringe hit, Eric and Little Ern, currently playing odd dates at London’s Vaudeville Theatre whilst also touring round England until March. This is a most affectionate look back at the lads, created with a warmth and care that honours and respects their memory. The only similar show I’ve seen before was Clive Mantle as Tommy Cooper in “Jus’ Like That”, where the impersonation was very good but never more than an impersonation. Messrs Ashpitel and Stephens, however, do such a good impersonation of Morecambe and Wise that it is sometimes really easy to forget that they aren’t the originals. It’s most apparent when they look at each other in profile; as Eric would say, you can’t see the join. Perhaps they’re not quite so convincing when they sing, because the vocal nuances that really strengthen the characters’ identities get slightly lost, but that’s a really minor point.

The scene is Ernie’s hospital room, presumably in his final days, as his dicky heart is getting progressively weaker. He is suffering in bed, when Eric enters, dressed as a doctor; then Eric starts checking his notes, playing with his machine that goes beep, making prank calls on the telephone and misbehaving exactly like you would expect him to in a hospital. It’s a surreal meeting, as Eric is obviously long dead; whether he’s a ghost, or the embodiment of Ernie’s memories coming back in a tangible way, or just pure poetic licence (I favour the latter), it makes no difference. It gives you an opportunity to see an imaginary conversation between them where they reminisce about their early career, where Eric larks about like a naughty schoolboy, where Ernie pompously tries to write another one of his plays, where they re-enact a few of their greatest sketches, where they squabble in bed together like they used to, where they sit on the settee together in their imaginary flat, where they talk about how they miss each other. It’s very touching and very believable.

For the second act, the stage is set for the full-on Morecambe and Wise routine in front of the traditional front of house curtains, including talking to people in the wings (“can he say fracas? No, fracas. He’s looking it up”), a recitation of “To Be or not To Be”, slapping Ernie on the chops and rearranging his wig, throwing the imaginary ball into the paper bag, and ending up with “Bring Me Sunshine”. It makes an audience full of Morecambe and Wise fans deliriously happy. A hilarious surprise (but not unkind) heckle from the dress circle near the end absolutely threw the guys as we all fell about laughing, so much so that they decided to go off and come on again – a great way to deal with it.

If you’re a Morecambe and Wise fan you will love it. If you’re non-committal towards them (or just too young to remember them) a lot of it might go over your head and you might wonder what the hell we’re all laughing at. If you’re actively not a fan, I’d recommend going to see something else. But our packed-out audience at the Royal in Northampton absolutely loved it.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 31st January 2014

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Last Friday’s Screaming Blue Murder could have started better for me. As we were waiting for the show to start, a young man blundered in, tripped over a chair leg and ended up spilling his cider all over my trousers. These things happen of course, but I would have preferred an apology rather than just an embarrassed titter. So I had to look to Mrs Chrisparkle to provide tissues to mop up my wet legs that remained cold and clammy for the rest of the evening. Never mind, his mother apologised to me in the interval and she was a stunner.

No Dan Evans this week, instead we had Angie McEvoy hosting. Angie’s been here a few times, both as host and as an act, and I must admit I do like her style. She’s very laid back, very relaxed; perhaps sometimes a little over-quiet, and there were times when she could have torn strips off those noisy so-and-so’s at the back who were having their own party and really irritating the rest of us. She did eventually do her wonderful heckle put-down act, which we’ve seen before and works a treat. She also did her routine involving Calpol, which always hits the funnybone.

Our first act was Luke Benson, 6ft 7in of Geordie comic. He had a good matey vibe about him, which contrasted quite nicely with some surreal wordplay – for example, he said he’d had his appendix removed, which now made him quite hard to reference. I guffawed. Others guffawed about two seconds later, which I guess meant I was more in tune with him than everyone else. I also liked his line about “describe yourself in three words”; answer – “concise”. Took me a while to get it. Took Lady Duncansby until the interval. He went down well in the audience.

Second was Jessica Fostekew, who reminded me a little of Helen Lederer, with her rather exquisite voice and general cuteness. She started off with a load of fast and furious one-liners, in a kind of Brechtian style, by telling us in advance that was what she would do, and by hurtling to the punch line almost before we’d had the chance to assimilate the lead-up. She had some good entertaining material, and I did enjoy her doing the travel news.

The final act was Geoff Boyz, a likeable Scottish guy with a strong confident style, some punchy material and the best Robert de Niro impersonation you are ever likely to see. He did a really good routine about staying as a guest in someone else’s house which brought out all the comic anxieties all of us face under those circumstances. One of those rare occasions where the headline act definitely worked the best.

Great news that it was a full house, as the numbers haven’t been great recently. Still the best comedy value you can get.

Review – Trevor Noah, The Racist, Royal and Derngate, 30th January 2014

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Mrs Chrisparkle and I are always keen to see new comedians, so when they announced that Trevor Noah would appear at the Royal and Derngate, I had to do some Googling to work out whether we should book. I discovered that he was South African but had also been “big in America”, which is an interesting combo; so although neither of us really had a clue who he was, we booked.

So, it appears, did most other African people within a ten mile radius of Northampton. “Anyone in from South Africa?” asked Mr Noah, early on in his gig. “YES!” came a massive cheer of about 50% of the audience. He seemed surprised and delighted; and then ribbed them all for staying in a country where the climate is so appalling. About 15 minutes later, he spoke about taking his act round some other countries in Africa: Namibia – he liked; Botswana – he liked; Zimbabwe – he skipped. “AAAAAHHH!” sighed another huge proportion of the audience. “What?” he exclaimed, “are you all from Zimbabwe?” “YES!!” came another massive cheer. Mrs C and I felt quite outnumbered, never having been further south in Africa than Abu Simbel. So Mr Noah definitely got a “home crowd” vibe on what was, we discovered, the last night of his UK tour.

He’s a very funny, engaging guy who instantly put us all at ease within a few seconds of his unassumingly modest arrival on stage. He’s quite laid back – but not too much; uses (comparatively) very clean language which always makes me think the comic has thought harder and more creatively about the linguistic delights of what he’s going to say; and he also does a great range of comic voices, not only across the African spectrum but also from around Britain, and it’s very funny to hear British accents done by an African. He connects really well with the audience (although I wouldn’t have been surprised if half of them knew him personally anyway after those cheers) and he’s completely happy to go off and exhaust any tangent that the audience takes him, before cunningly returning to his set material.

Not only does he have a very warm style of delivery, he’s also got some very inventive and revealing material. He is great at highlighting the cultural differences between South Africa and the UK, and also with America and other places. For example, he gets lots of humour from pointing out how we’re happy when it rains in winter because at least it’s not so cold; how we’re very reserved and careful with how we interact with children, but in South Africa, basically anyone can give them a good smack “as a sign of kindness”; and how an African audience will laugh riotously at him, whereas a British audience will say to themselves, “oh yes that is very clever and funny” and titter inwardly and smugly. Just as he was making that observation on stage, I was doing precisely that same inward appreciation in Row C. He has some excellent material about contrasting crime in South Africa with crime in the UK (i.e. ours is very cute and theirs is very scary), which involves him unnecessarily going down dark alleyways in the UK simply because he can.

He also has some fascinating and touching material about race and skin colour; whilst his mother is black South African, his father is white German Swiss, and he shares lots of emotionally charged reminiscences of growing up in Soweto under apartheid. Having a relatively light skin colour, he definitely wasn’t considered white but wasn’t really black either. One of the reasons he decided to live in America for two years was so that he could finally discover what it was like to be black. This takes us into some very funny and moving material about race and identity – including how the locals burst his idealistic balloon (figuratively speaking).

Among his most entertaining sequences was the story of his trip to Zambia and how his host said it was very important that he should not be gay in Zambia, as it is illegal – which then makes him go off on a flight of fancy about how the Zambian police might cope with the enforcement of their anti-gay laws. It’s a really funny and not remotely homophobic routine, pointing out the ridiculousness of their law. And I also really enjoyed his routine speculating about the case of Shrien Dewani, who is alleged to have arranged the murder of his wife whilst honeymooning in South Africa. It felt slightly wrong to laugh about a case that is actually taking place at the moment, but his material was so clever and so insightful that you couldn’t help but love it.

A naturally funny man with excellent material, with a most entertaining emphasis on looking at culture clashes between the nations. Despite the name of his show, whilst race plays a major part in his material, he’s definitely not racist. He went down hugely well in the theatre, and Mrs C and I went home feeling that we’d enjoyed a comedy night from a uniquely fascinating angle. If you saw him on tour, you’ll know. If you missed him, damn! Let’s hope he comes back again soon.