Review – Jack Absolute Flies Again, Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, London, 27th July 2022

Posted on July 29, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

One of the greatest joys of the British theatre in the 21^st century has been the rise of the playwright Richard Bean, whose One Man Two Guvnors stands out as one of the true comedy highlights of the past twenty years. Now, in collaboration with Oliver Chris, who also starred in that play, he has taken another old play and given it a modern update – this time, Sheridan’s The Rivals, which has been inventively shaken up and repositioned in Sussex in 1940, where Churchill has requisitioned Malaprop Mansion as an RAF base where our brave chaps are taking flight daily to shoot down their German enemies, or, rather, scrambling their spitfires, pressing the tit and bagging a Jerry (thanks to the helpful glossary of terminology in the programme.)

If you know The Rivals, there’s a lot of fun to be gained by comparing Sheridan’s characters with Bean & Chris’ modern equivalents. We still have the braggart Sir Anthony Absolute paying court to Mrs Malaprop. We still have Young Absolute trying to woo Lydia Languish who only has eyes for another, whom Absolute impersonates (in an amusing northern switch, Ensign Beverley becomes Dudley Scunthorpe). Julia and Faulkland are still in love, Sir Lucius O’Trigger the Irish baronet in love with Lydia is now Bikram “Tony” Khattri, a Sikh pilot, and Lydia’s maid Lucy is still up to no good. Today, Mrs Malaprop’s lexicographical mishaps have taken a turn for the worse and the fourth wall is broken more than ever, and the writers surprise us with what could be a sad ending, if only the rest of the tone of the play wasn’t so buoyant.

It’s all presented in a slightly larger-than-life style; the gardens and boudoir of Malaprop Mansion are colourfully realised in Mark Thompson’s set design and his military uniforms for the characters are crisp and convincing. The direction is fast and furious, and to say it’s played for laughs is an understatement. That’s because, deep down, apart from the surprisingly moving last five minutes, “laughs” are basically all there is. The play constantly bombards us with so much joking, wordplay, physical comedy or any combination of the three, that there is no time to take breath between them. Inevitably, some of the jokes don’t land, whereas others land beautifully. There are some brilliantly funny sequences, primarily between Mrs Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute, but there are also several scenes that languish (geddit) and don’t hit the spot.

Caroline Quentin is rapidly becoming one of our grandes dames of theatre, and she rises beautifully to the challenge of getting every other word wrong as Mrs Malaprop. It must be so difficult to continuously, deliberately, say the wrong word – your brain must be going nineteen to the dozen trying to correct yourself. She does some fabulous pratfalls, and even if they’ve given her way too many malapropisms (my favourites were clitoris and Mexican), it’s still a terrific comedy performance. She’s partnered with a lot of comic bluster from Peter Forbes as the pantomimish baronet Sir Anthony Absolute, channelling his Ronnie Barker Hark at Barker persona from the 1960s. Like everything else in this show, it lacks subtlety, but the characterisation is spot on!

Impossible to tell if this made a difference to the energy of the show, but for our performance we saw George Kemp as Jack Absolute, in what I suspect may have been quite a last minute change, judging from the very supportive round of applause to him from the rest of the cast and his facial expression that said phew! during curtain call. He certainly looks the part, very dapper and heroic, and gave a very good performance. Kelvin Fletcher is also excellent as the fitter Dudley Scunthorpe, all engine oil and short vowels, and it was entertaining (if not vital to the plot) to have a dance number where Mr Fletcher could exercise his Strictly credentials.

Kerry Howard provides a crowd-pleasing performance as the mischievous and wise-beyond-her-status maid Lucy, pointing out Khattri’s poetic plagiarisms, and indulging in a rather sweet game of Hide The Duck with Dudley. I was slightly put off by her vocal characterisation being straight from the Catherine Tate stable, but then Ms Tate does so many characters that sometimes similarities may be inevitable. Natalie Simpson is a delightfully gung-ho Lydia Languish, and there’s great support from Jordan Metcalfe as the wilting Roy and Helena Wilson as his innamorata Julia (who has probably the best line in the show), James Corrigan as the never-give-up Bob Acres and Tim Steed as Brian Coventry, the senior RAF officer who’s clearly holding back a secret, and whose life at base might become more interesting with the revelation that one of the new fighter pilots is “a Brian too”, nudge nudge, wink wink.

For all the effort that’s put into the show, and for all its excellent pedigrees, there is something about it that somehow, unfortunately, just doesn’t quite work. It’s the old sum of the parts not equalling the whole kind of thing. I guess it’s possible to just try too hard to be funny; less is more, and all that. It’s the kind of show that Mrs Chrisparkle would describe as relentless, which is not a compliment, although oddly she actually enjoyed it more than me. If the National Theatre were expecting the next One Man Two Guvnors, they’ll be disappointed, but nevertheless it’s certainly full of derring-do and frequently titillates your beer-lever.

Production photos by Brinkhoff Moegenburg

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 23rd July 2022

Posted on July 28, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

On a truly high buzz having seen the brilliant Crazy For You that afternoon, our party of roving theatregoers turned their attention towards Roy Williams’ Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads, on its second preview at the Minerva. Most of us are pretty partial to our football, and it wouldn’t remotely surprise me if we consulted our old diaries we would find that at least some of us were dahn the pub on Saturday 7^th October 2000, the precise date on which this play is set.

I’d seen two plays by Mr Williams before – one I loved and one I pretty much loathed. I loved Soul, his play about the life (and death) of music legend Marvin Gaye. I loathed Days of Significance, his examination of the lives of young people who have been affected by a tour of military service in Iraq. Basically, I reckon I had a 50:50 chance of enjoying Sing Yer Heart Out or not.

Of course, I must emphasise that this was a Preview performance. By the time it reaches its press night all sorts of changes might have occurred – although I would think that was fairly unlikely, especially given the play was produced at Chichester last year in their garden tent – to excellent reviews, which is no doubt why it has been brought back to enjoy further life at the Minerva. I should also point out that the show had to be stopped for about twenty minutes during the first act, when an audience member fell ill. The staff at the Minerva handled the emergency brilliantly. However, it was perhaps a little more unsettling for me than for most of the rest of the audience as the lady concerned was sitting directly behind me and, whilst she was suffering, chucked the water she was presumably drinking all over me. I was drenched. And while – of course – she was in a much worse state than me, I was left a soggy mess throughout the rest of the first half (I managed to dry out in the interval). So it wasn’t the best of circumstances to enjoy the play. These things happen. I hope the lady is better now.

The play is set in a south London pub as it is being set up to watch the vital England v Germany World Cup qualifier match on television. Regulars arrive to watch it. Excitement and enthusiasm turn to disappointment after Germany score. And then go on to win. Kevin Keegan resigns. The play ends. But it’s not quite as simple as that. There are personal undercurrents between many of the characters who have come to watch the match. Racial and other tensions figure highly. Glen, the landlady’s son, tries to ingratiate himself with a couple of young black guys, Duane and Bad T, who respond by attempting to bully him. Landlady Gina’s also had a relationship with Mark, one of the guys in the pub. Another of the customers is Lee, a police officer who’s recently been assaulted, and his brother, Lawrie, is an outright racist yob. One of the older men, Alan, a devoted follower of Enoch Powell, sinisterly tries to influence the younger men to be the same – or to manipulate and outwit the black guys. When the mother of one of the youths arrives to complain that one of the drinkers has assaulted her son (that’s because they went off to find him because they’d stolen Glen’s jacket, hope you’re keeping up with this), policeman Lee takes “control”. And that’s all in the first act. In the second act, things start getting messy.

Let’s talk about the good things about this production first. The best thing is the staging. The Minerva has been converted into the George Pub with immaculate attention to detail, and when you walk in, you really do feel that you’re in a well-loved, rather downtrodden local pub. The old-fashioned circular bar at the back. The worn, taped down carpet. The pool and bar football tables. The fact that the front row seats have been replaced by bar chairs, tables, and stools. You couldn’t get more authentic. TV screens show us the match while the pub regulars are watching it. Perhaps best of all, above the bar, the scene occasionally moves to the Gents toilet, which you can see through opaque windows. It’s one of the most lifelike, convincing sets I’ve ever seen; even down to the handpump that decided to stop working during the performance with the result that Sian Reese-Williams playing Gina deftly swapped the beer to a lager from another pump. Designer Joanna Scotcher deserves every award going.

And then there are the performances – all of them excellent. For a play that has very few sympathetic characters, it’s hard to say that you “enjoyed” them all; but Richard Riddell as Lawrie is a most convincing thug, constantly teetering on a knife-edge of losing his self-control, and Michael Hodgson plays Alan with huge insidiousness; you can really see how his behaviour could needle the most balanced of people. Mark Springer is excellent as Mark, his calm exterior concealing a torrent of upset inside. Sian Reese-Williams is also very good as landlady Gina, showing all that direct assertiveness required for a woman to run an establishment like that. Alexander Cobb’s strong performance as Lee surprises us with the way his character can turn on a sixpence. But the whole cast come together as a seamless ensemble, creating a combined very believable and physical performance.

But here’s the But – and I realise I’m pretty much on my own here – I really did not like the play. Not because of the bad language, the racism, or the violence; all those elements go to create a challenging play, which is something I relish. However, having set up all this aggression and racism, the play then does so little with them. It just tosses them in the air and says look at this isn’t it awful. It doesn’t make us think differently about the world we live in, it merely wallows in the despair of the worst aspects of human behaviour, offering no solutions, no hope, no light for the future. Some of these characters are violent, or racist, or both. Quelle surprise. Many of our party guessed the final plot twist, as all being sadly predictable. You know that things are going wrong when, rather than concentrating on the play, you end up watching the England v Germany game on the television and following Lawrie and Alan’s pool match – Mr Riddell is a ridiculously talented pool player! The production is visually thrilling, but this static play just left us flat and depressed. A game of two halves, one might say.

Production photos by Helen Murray

Three-sy Does It!

Review – Crazy For You, Festival Theatre Chichester, 23rd July 2022

Posted on July 25, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Just as the ecstatic applause at the end of the first act was dying down, Mrs Chrisparkle turned to me and said This is the kind of show you usually hate – and she’s totally right. I like my musicals to be meaty. To pose problems. To issue challenges. To delve deep into the heart of humanity and winkle out nuggets of truth so that you come out of the show a different person from the one you went in as. Crazy For You does absolutely none of those things. And it is, quite simply, a glorious delight from start to finish.

Director and choreographer Susan Stroman, who had worked on the original 1992 production, was already making plans for a revival of this Gershwin extravaganza way back when none of us had ever heard of Covid. Then, with all the theatres shut, and not much hope for the future on the horizon, it naturally retreated to her back-burner. That is, until the fickle hand of fate prompted Chichester Artistic Director Daniel Evans to ask her if she would bring the show back to Sussex. And, with a superbly talented cast and production team to bring it to reality, this early juke-box musical (it feels like it should be from the 1930s but it isn’t) is gracing the stage of the Festival Theatre, and sending its audiences on their merry way home with a spring in their step and pretend tap-shoes on their feet.

As I indicated at the beginning, the plot is very simple. Theatre-mad Bobby Child is sent by his bank-owning Mamma to Nevada to foreclose the mortgage on an inactive little theatre way out west. But it’s not in Bobby’s nature to ever close a theatre down, especially when it’s owned by the father of the only girl in the town, the feisty Polly, with whom Bobby instantly falls head over heels in love. The rest of the show revolves around his attempts to both woo Polly and also impersonate Bela Zangler, the impresario, in a last-ditch attempt to stage a show so that audiences can return and the theatre can become financially solvent again. But I wouldn’t worry too much about the plot. It’s really not important.

The show takes Gershwin songs from a number of their Greatest Hits, including I Got Rhythm, Someone to Watch Over Me, They Can’t Take That Away from Me, Nice Work if You can Get it, Embraceable You, and plenty of other showtoonz. Musical Director Alan Williams leads a fantastic 16-person band – which is a pretty big quantity of musicians – and you can instantly tell how full and rich the sound is. Before any action takes place, during the overture, Ken Billington’s lighting design puts the shimmering front curtain through its paces with a range of warm exciting colours, preparing you for the visual feast to follow. All these visual and audio cues really gee you up in expectation of a great show, so the audience is truly buzzing even before the performance truly gets underway.

And it’s a show of sheer enjoyment. Ken Ludwig’s book is full of fun; silly jokes that hit perfectly, rewarding routines, such as the two Zanglers mimicking each other in a mirror, cartoon effects like the tweety-bird sound when a character hits their head, and there’s an early contender for the Best Performance in a Musical by a piece of tumbleweed award, as the aforementioned stage contraption merrily makes its way across the Deadrock landscape. Each piece of comic business, each interactive musical moment, each comic characterisation goes towards making the show a thing of total bliss. And, to be fair, yes, the substance of the show is lightweight and fluffy and doesn’t make you think again about the Human Condition. However, unlike some juke-box musicals, the structure actually works, and the choice of songs does largely make sense, with many of them either forwarding the plot or giving us a further insight into the singer’s character. And there are plenty of reputable musicals that don’t achieve that.

As you would expect from Susan Stroman, the choreography throughout is dynamic, thrilling, inventive, comical, and passionate, and makes big demands on the star performers who rise to the occasion superbly. Chichester had already taken Charlie Stemp to its heart after his rise to fame and fortune in Rachel Kavanaugh’s Half a Sixpence six years ago, so it was no surprise that he received a star round of applause on his typically ebullient first entry on stage. Mr Stemp is a master (if not THE master) of song-and-dance on stage, and responds to Ms Stroman’s demands with all the brilliance you’d expect. But he is more than matched by a fantastic performance by Carly Anderson as Polly, who has a dream of a voice and wonderful comic timing, and together they are pretty much matchless.

There’s also an impressive physical comedy performance from Tom Edden (you’d expect nothing less from him) as Bela Zangler, Merryl Ansah is a delightfully tricky Irene, with a terrific surprise up her sleeve that comes later in the second act; Gay Soper is wonderful as Bobby’s frosty mother Lottie, and there’s excellent support from Mathew Craig as the grumpy Lank Hawkins, Don Gallagher as Polly’s living-in-the-past father Everett, and from Adrian Grove and Jacquie Dubois as the frightfully British Fodors, unexpectedly arrived to review Lank’s Hotel. The boys and girls of the ensemble are also fantastic, with many hilarious and endearing vignettes, as well as brilliant singing and dancing skills. Sadie-Jean Shirley, Kate Parr, Mark Akinfolarin and Joshua Nkemdilim in particular stand out, but everyone pours their hearts and souls into delivering a magnificent performance.

Like The Unfriend a few weeks ago, Chichester have come up with another tremendous triumph that is totally West End-ready. We went as part of a group of eight and every single one of us adored every minute of it. That’s got to be a good sign!

Production photos by Johan Persson

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – The Southbury Child, Bridge Theatre, London, 6th July 2022

Posted on July 7, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Here’s another of those plays that has spent a long time in coming to fruition, battling its way through the rigours of Covid and Lockdowns and all the other ghastly things that flesh is heir to over the last couple of years. But, as always, good things come to he who waits, and Stephen Beresford’s The Southbury Child is a fascinating, at times hilarious, at times tragic play, chock-full of trigger warnings and difficult subject matter.

The premise is very simple. Local vicar David Highland is to conduct the funeral of a child – young Tyler Southbury. Her mother’s simple wish to make the ceremony less funereal is to have the church full of balloons. Tyler loved balloons. She loved Disney. So Disney balloons would be best. David Highland is no high-and-mighty po-faced clergyman; he’s had his own share of escapades, including a drink problem and having an affair, so you might expect him to be more on the side of the experimental and flexible wing of the Church – if it’s going to make the family more able to face the awful process of a child’s funeral, what’s the harm in some balloons?

However, David has his principles – specifically where it comes to church traditions and practices – and balloons are a step too far for him. Cue a massive backlash against David and his family from the villagers. How could he be so heartless? The local bishop decides he needs to send in a new curate, Craig, as a kind of troubleshooter-cum-support mechanism but he can’t prevent things from getting truly out of hand. Will David suspend his principles just this once, for the sake of the village and the affected family? You’ll have to watch the play to find out.

Alcoholism, the death of a child, infidelity, car crashes, racial prejudice, revenge; Stephen Beresford pulls no punches where it comes to dealing with the trickier subjects. And he makes those subjects hit hard by employing a devilish sense of humour, which makes the two and a half hours of this play absolutely fly by. Mark Thompson’s domestic set has the presence of the local church looming threateningly over it as a backdrop; no matter where you go in this play you can’t escape the Church. And those principles… do they strengthen the Church, and the relationship between the church and the parishioners, or do they drive a wedge in between them, showing the Church to be anachronistic and out of touch? That’s a question for you to decide.

Nicholas Hytner has assembled a brilliant cast who really get to grips with their characters and give us moments of high drama as well as dishing out the comedy with enviable deftness. Alex Jennings is superb as David Highland; an amiable, good-humoured kindly man but one for whom the red mist descends when the tensions get high. Phoebe Nicholls is also excellent as his long-suffering but humourless wife Mary; together they paint a very credible picture of a couple who tolerate each other but could have wished for better. I really enjoyed the performance of Josh Finan as Tyler’s uncle Lee, negotiating the details of the funeral, getting strangely inspired by the vicar but then furious with his stance over the balloons; he too has his own deep regrets to overcome, and Mr Finan shows us expertly the anguish that a few misplaced lies and misjudgements can create.

Jack Greenlees is extremely good as the curate Craig, finding his way in a strange and strained environment, trying to balance his religious needs with his family life; Racheal Ofori sparkles (literally) as the party-girl, ex-actress daughter Naomi who gets a kick out of teasing anyone who’ll stand still, just to get a reaction; and Hermione Gulliford injects the character of the doctor’s wife Janet with just the right amount of snobbish dislikeablility. There’s also great support from Jo Herbert as the frustrated daughter Susannah, Holly Atkins as local police officer Joy and Sarah Twomey as the grieving mother Tina Southbury.

I hope I’m not giving the game away by revealing that the final scene of the play depicts the final preparations for Tyler’s funeral, tiny white coffin and all. Mrs Chrisparkle found this scene highly emotional. I must say that I didn’t. I thought it simply depicted an event that would have been best played out in our own minds; although it was delicately done I still feel that it lacked subtlety, and that as a result the play ends with a bit of a soggy bottom. Just my personal opinion – you may well not agree. This co-production with the Chichester Festival Theatre continues at the Bridge Theatre until 27^th August.

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The Rocky Horror Show, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 4th July 2022

Posted on July 5, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Dust off those fishnets and snap your corsets, it’s the return of those funsters from the planet Transexual in the Galaxy of Transylvania, hitting the stage again with a new production of The Rocky Horror Show, which has already been touring extensively throughout the UK and, after a pause at the end of this week, will start again later in the year. For one week only, the Royal and Derngate will be playing host to Brad and Janet’s salutary tale of what not to do when your get a flat tyre (sorry, tire) in the rain within sight of a creepy old castle. Next time, ring the AA. So much easier.

Richard O’Brien’s evergreen musical still has the power to delight, thrill and shock audiences. Shock? Surely everyone knows what to expect when they see this show? Apparently not, as I discovered when we took my in-laws Lord and Lady Prosecco last night only to realise they had never seen or heard anything about it. And Lady Prosecco was shocked, I tell you shocked. I remember being told that every day, someone somewhere hears Handel’s Water Music for the first time. Just because something has been around for ages, doesn’t mean to say that everyone knows it.

The last time I saw Rocky Horror was in 1999, with Jason Donovan as Frank N Furter and the late great Nicholas Parsons as the Narrator. I think things were a little more staid then than they are now, as I have no recollection of the cross-banter between audience and cast that studded last night’s show. And from what I can gather, we were a relatively reserved bunch. Heaven only knows what happens on a Saturday night.

This is a very simple show to critique because it’s simply excellent all the way through, with no exceptions. Staging – tick. Lighting – tick. Costumes – tick (fab). Band – tick (outstanding). Performances – tick (brilliant throughout). As for the show itself, I haven’t changed my opinion that I formed when I first saw it at the King’s Road theatre in Chelsea back in the 70s. Yes, I am that old. It’s an outstanding show – until about three-quarters of the way through when it simply loses its way. You completely believe the outrageous story and group of characters – it’s lifted from those old movies or comic books – you only have to suspend disbelief a tiny bit; until the science fiction part truly kicks in, and then we don’t believe in it anymore. It also suffers – and that is the right word I think – from having nearly all the best songs in the first half; Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me being the obvious exception. It does feel odd to have everyone on their feet doing the Time Warp barely twenty minutes into the show; then you all have to sit down again for the show to resume and there’s an obvious drop in energy. Of course, The Time Warp comes back at the end, but that’s encore, innit.

Nevertheless, it’s still a wonderful show and I can’t imagine a better production. Proving that his Strictly experience was no fluke, Ore Oduba is fantastic as Brad, with all that stuffy innocence that the role requires, and Haley Flaherty a perfect Janet, sweetly giving into sexual pleasure in her very sensible bra. Stephen Webb uses his sensational voice to great effect as Frank N Furter, and Philip Franks is superbly mischievous as the Narrator, bringing in cutting references to modern life, battering down any misplaced interventions from the audience, and having better Prince Andrew and Boris Johnson material than most stand-up comedians. Rocky regular Kristian Lavercombe gives us a Riff Raff full of physical comedy, and Lauren Ingram’s voice is perfect for Columbia’s vocal show-offs. But everyone in the cast fits their roles absolutely perfectly and turn in first-class performances all round.

A fabulous fun night at the theatre. Let your hair down, don’t chuck anything on stage, and do wear your best inappropriate lingerie.

Production photos by David Freeman

Five Alive Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – The Comedy Crate, Five Edinburgh Previews, The Charles Bradlaugh, Northampton, 3rd July 2022

Posted on July 4, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Five Edinburgh Previews for a fiver each? Yes please! It was a full day at the Charles Bradlaugh pub on Sunday to watch these five (well, six really) eager young artists perfecting their comic offerings for our delectation and the future enjoyment of those lucky enough to go to the Fringe in August – including us! Two of these acts are previous winners of Chrisparkle Awards so you already know they’re going to be great. Bear in mind, of course, that all these shows are Work-in-Progress, so it’s unlikely that they’d be comedy perfection yet. One was, indeed, absolutely Edinburgh-ready; two were very close to getting there, and two still needed a fair bit of work, but that’s absolutely The Name of the Game, as Abba would have it. So let’s take them one by one…

Norris and Parker: Sirens (Monkey Barrel Comedy, 21:15, 3-28 August except 17^th)

“Let Piscean comedy duo Norris and Parker lure you into their fever dream for a surreal hour of wild, nautical madness. Debauched sketch comedy for lovers of the strange, the sordid, the musical and the dark.” That’s what it says on the Edinburgh Fringe website.

New to us, Norris and Parker are a chirpy couple who clearly have comedy coursing through their veins, and Sirens is a varied show with many highlights but also a few bits that need some refining. The opening number is great, with smart and witty lyrics, and I really loved their ITV drama sequence Deep Sh*t which beautifully assembled all those midweek 9pm northern drama clichés and took the mickey out of them. The interplay between the two performers works very well, hinting comically at all sorts of rivalries with their friendship, and there is lots to enjoy. Maybe the two Lighthouse sequences, where they’re performing Norris’ play, need some tightening up. But I’m sure this will be a great show on the Fringe.

Edinburgh tickets available here!

Markus Birdman – The Bearable Heaviness of Nearly Not Being (PBH’s Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth, 17:10, 6-28 August except 9^th, 16^th and 23^rd)

“The award-winning comedian returns with his 15th solo show. Fresh from supporting Jason Manford on tour, including two nights at The Palladium. It’s about life. It’s about death. It’s about getting knocked down, and getting up again. It’s about laughing in the face of it all. It’s about an hour.” That’s according to the Edinburgh Fringe website.

Winner, not only of the Chrisparkle Award for the Best Screaming Blue Murder Stand-up for 2013, but also the Best Screaming Blue Murder Stand-up for the Decade in my 2020 Honours List, I’m already hooked when it comes to Mr Birdman – he only has to speak a few words and I’m in hysterics. This new show is absolutely ready for Edinburgh, and is a comic account (it could be nothing else) of his recent health journey (yes, the J word), having suffered a second stroke last year which has severely affected his sight. Its very personal nature gives it an unquestionable authority, and although we can’t fail to be moved by his plight, there’s no sense of self-indulgence or begging for sympathy; every observation is as razor-sharp and pinpoint accurate as usual, and the hour is literally crammed with fantastic and consistently top-grade material. Absolutely loved it, it’s going to be a Big Fringe Hit.

Edinburgh details here!

Mark Simmons: Quip Off the Mark (PBH’s Free Fringe @ Liquid Room Annexe/Warehouse, 13:45, 6-27 August, every day)

“The Mock The Week panellist and master of one-liners returns with another show jam-packed with cleverly crafted jokes and improvised gags.” Taken from the Edinburgh Fringe website, with the spelling mistake corrected.

A regular Comedy Crate favourite, we’ve only recently seen Mark at the Albion Brewery in Northampton, and there aren’t many who think faster on their feet than him. The simple basis for this show is that he’s been emptying the loft at his mum’s house and found a box full of comedy memories from when he started stand-up. So he’ll tell a few jokes from his old joke book, share a few pieces of advice that he received from other established comedians, and link a few of these memories to some paintings that were also brought down from the attic. It’s fascinating to see Mark do a work-in-progress because he is so critical of his own material – if it doesn’t get the instant reaction he’s seeking, then it’s out; even though it’s still (in my eyes at least) a really good joke. There’s a wonderful callback saved right to the end which has been looming in plain sight all along but you don’t see it. When he’s decided which bits to keep and which to ditch, this show is going to be amazing. Mr S at his best – you don’t stop laughing all the way through.

Edinburgh details here!

Paul Sinha: One Sinha Lifetime (The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 16:40, 4-28 August except 16^th)

“In January 2020, Paul embarked on a national tour, his most ambitious show combining stand-up, music, hula-hooping and tales of romantic validation and neurological degeneration. As it turned out 2020 proved to be the wrong year to embark on a national tour. For everyone. Undeterred, Paul returns, with the difficult second post-diagnosis album. Expect jokes and surprises. Paul has a story to tell. And an absolute banger of a title.” Yes, you guessed it, that’s what the Edinburgh Fringe website says.

Winner of the Chrisparkle Awards for Best Screaming Blue Murder Stand-up for both 2010 and 2012, and of course best known for being a Chaser on TV, Paul Sinha has an incredible gift for comedy and I’ve never seen him not deliver an absolute blinder of a routine. That said, as he himself pointed out, this was only the second Work-in-Progress show he’s scheduled for One Sinha Lifetime (agreed, great title) and there are about another fourteen to come – so he apologised in advance for the rough and readiness of his hour. And it’s true, there is a lot of work ahead of him to get this material – an account of his rise to the delicate balance of health and comedy he enjoys today – to come together. But it will, I have no doubt.

Edinburgh tickets available here!

Abandoman aka Rob Broderick: Discography (Underbelly, George Square, 21:25, 3-28 August except 15^th and 22^nd)

“Using his innate ability to craft songs on the spot, Rob creates a full discography for a fictional artist created by you, the audience. Using a sample pad necklace to trigger high-production beats, Rob creates the kind of exhilarating live experience that has won him a string of awards, and the highest of international critical acclaim. He continues to sell out his Fringe runs in Edinburgh and Australia each year, wowing audiences wherever he plays.” It will come as no surprise that that’s a direct quote from the Edinburgh Fringe website.

I’d heard great things about Abandoman but never actually seen him before, so I was really looking forward to his set. Full of attack, interacting not only with the audience but with tech in a way you rarely see, he elicits nuggets of information from audience members and then turns them into song. It’s an act that requires not only incredible creativity but also one helluva memory. He even managed to get me up on stage to confess to something naughty I’d done when I was about nine (I’m not proud of it, but I had to be honest) which got converted to the medium of music. I sense he is using new tech for this show, which occasionally let him down and introduced pauses into the procedure that I guess are normally missing. Once he’s mastered the tech, this will be another big hit for him I am sure.

Edinburgh tickets available here!

An absolutely superb night of comedy – and there are still more Edinburgh Previews on their way, keep an eye open on the Comedy Crate website for details.

Review – Richard III, RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1st July 2022

Posted on July 2, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

The Royal Shakespeare Company continues its trawl through the annals of the House of Plantagenet, specifically following on from the recent productions of Rebellion and Wars of the Roses, with this strikingly designed new production of Richard III, and a satisfying continuity of casting in many of the leading roles, including the welcome return of Arthur Hughes as King Richard, the first time a disabled actor has taken this part in the history of the Company.

Edward IV reigns as King of England, but Richard, Duke of Gloucester has other ideas. First, eliminate his kindly brother George, Duke of Clarence. Then marry Lady Anne, who had been previously married to Henry VI’s son Edward of Westminster, who died at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Edward IV dies naturally, but Richard can’t tolerate his son, the twelve year old Edward V, being king. He enlists the Duke of Buckingham to engineer his path to the throne, but when Buckingham refuses to kill Edward, he gets professional assassin Tyrell to do the deed instead. The young prince is murdered in the tower along with his brother. But it’s still not enough; and when Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, arrives with an army to claim the throne, it results in the Battle of Bosworth Field and we all know what happened there. (You don’t? You’ll have to see this play then.)

Shakespeare didn’t hold back from presenting Richard as the architect of a lot of blood and violence, and Gregory Doran’s production rings the changes by portraying these deaths in a wide range of styles, from the literally gory to the subtly suggested. It is perhaps curious that Shakespeare does not let us see the actual death of King Richard in battle: “Alarums. Enter King Richard and Richmond; and exeunt fighting. Retreat and flourish. Re-enter Richmond, Stanley bearing the crown, with divers other Lords, and Forces.” This gives a director carte blanche to finish Richard III off in whatever manner they wish, and Mr Doran has chosen to make it rather elegant and ethereal. Matt Daw’s inventive lighting design is used extensively to convey death, with maybe a quick flash of red light to depict one dispatch, or the visceral descent of vivid red seeping down the one feature of the set, a cenotaph-style tower, to suggest others. Death’s never far away in this play.

I know this isn’t a football match, but this production really is a game of two halves. Even with some judicious cutting, this is a long play, and the first Act takes us all the way from Shakespeare’s beginning to Act Four Scene One. The second Act begins with Richard’s coronation, Act Four Scene Two. As a result, we have more or less two hours before the interval, but then little more than an hour afterwards. Although there are obviously some highlights – the wannabe king’s pretence that he doesn’t seek the crown and is much happier with his virtuous Bible study is a sheer delight – the first Act has more than its fair share of longueurs. The second Act, however, is stuffed with theatrical magic and flies by. The exquisite grandeur of the Coronation. The knife-edge debate between Richard and Elizabeth regarding his plan to marry her daughter. The superb staging of the Ghosts that taunt Richard the night before Bosworth Field, and how they merge to become his ghostly horse for which he’d give his kingdom.

However, the overall vibe of the production is distinctly uneven. It veers from bloodthirsty tragedy to deep dark farce, and you can never quite pin down exactly what it is that Doran wants us to take away from it. On the one hand, for example, you have a very traditional presentation of the bereft Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, with Minnie Gale giving a very accomplished portrayal of someone so destroyed by grief that they have lost all their senses. On the other hand, the two murderers almost descend to vaudeville with their interchanges and re-appear very tongue-in-cheek as the two godly clerics either side of Richard when’s he allegedly resisting being made king. Stephen Brimson Lewis’ set suggests the staging is purely of its actual era – the music, the costumes etc are all truly fifteenth century; but then you have a couple of anachronistic piece to camera moments from Richard and his rival Richmond just before the battle as if we were watching CNN.

Fortunately the production is blessed with some terrific performances, none more than Arthur Hughes as Richard. Because Mr Hughes genuinely has a physical disability, that frees him up from the arduousness of adopting a stoop or mimicking a hunchback, so visually it’s a much more convincing presentation than you’ve ever seen the character before. With ambition written through him like a stick of rock, he fair darts about the stage in his quest to Get Kingship Done, as the phrase might be today. He doesn’t care if we like him or not; he sees other people as either useful tools or mere obstructions and has no compunction about dismissively eliminating them – even his own wife. Mr Hughes is completely riveting throughout the play, his eyes calculating risks, his gestures mocking all those around him, his vocal delivery conveying that spoilt petulance of a man who can see no other outcome than his own preferment. It’s a wonderful performance.

Kirsty Bushell is also superb as Queen Elizabeth Woodville, controlling her own grief and behaviour with quiet suppression, as a perfect contrast to the brashness of the King, or the loud lamentation of Margaret. Claire Benedict has fantastic stage presence and natural authority as the Duchess of York, and Rosie Sheehy cuts exactly the right amount of fury and suffering as Lady Anne. Jamie Wilkes’ Buckingham is delightfully conspiratorial, punching the air with a very un-Shakespearean Yes! when Richard manipulates his way to the throne. Micah Balfour is excellent as the good-humoured, trusting Hastings, Nicholas Armfield is a suitably noble Earl of Richmond (he also has a terrific moment as the Bishop of Ely when King Richard commends his strawberries), and there’s great support from Matthew Duckett as Catesby and Simon Coates as Stanley.

In addition, Ben Hall absolutely captures Clarence’s innocence and shock at being fatally lied to, and Conor Glean and Joeravar Sangha are simply brilliant as the Murderers. And huge appreciation for our Boy Treble, whose vocal purity cut through the villainy like a sword of light; for our performance on Friday night, we think he was Lysander Newton, but I am sure all four taking the role are terrific.

Part gruesome drama, part black comedy; at times slow and cumbersome, at others jam-packed with incident. A bit like life, really. But it’s the many highlights that you remember and that you appreciate, and this production is certainly a convincing and memorable end to the Plantagenets. It continues at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre all the way through till 6^th August when it is joined with the new production of All’s Well That Ends Well, and then both continue until 8^th October.

Production photos by Ellie Kurttz

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Rock, Paper, Scissors, Crucible, Studio and Lyceum Theatres, Sheffield, 28th & 29th June 2022

Posted on July 1, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

It’s always fun when a playwright thinks outside the box for new ways of presenting a story. The challenge that writer Chris Bush and Artistic Director Robert Hastie set themselves was to create three pieces that would use the three locations of the Sheffield Theatres all at the same time, dovetailing into each other and making one complete whole in the process. There’s been some precedent for this, but nothing quite on this scale. Alan Ayckbourn tells the same story three times in the Norman Conquests, from different locations within the house and garden. Michael Frayn’s Noises Off gives us the first act of the generic sex farce Nothing On from three different perspectives; in rehearsal, backstage and in performance. In both these plays you can piece together a fuller account of what’s going on simply by a hilarious mixture of repetition and relocation. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard shows what happens when characters who are not involved in the main story live out their own lives until the main play catches up with them. Here you get a sense of other lives carrying on outside of, and irrelevant to, the main plot; thus the backstage becomes the forestage (and then back again.)

Bush’s immensely inventive and hugely enjoyable triple threat of Rock, Paper and Scissors, at all three of the Sheffield Theatres simultaneously, provides another of these riveting feasts where different perspectives cast different lights on the same story all at the same time. To say it’s a technical achievement would be the epitome of underestimation; and if the unexpected happens – and this is live theatre, so it does – causing a problem or a delay in one theatre, it has a knock-on effect in the other venues, as happened when we saw them, more of which later…!

The basis for the plot is simple. Sheffield scissor makers Spenser and Son has been in business for decades. Eddie, the most recent owner, has died, and his two remaining relatives – Susie, his sister and Faye, his adopted daughter – both have plans to make something of the extraordinary building that remains. Rock chick Susie envisages a funky nightclub, whereas Faye and her partner Mel feel a residential conversion would work. But Susie and Faye haven’t spoken for years; nor did either of them realise that Omar, the manager, still had a team of four apprentices making scissors in the workshop. Too soon, then, to adapt the building for other purposes? No matter what, there are three sets of plans and practices that completely conflict with the others!

The blurb maintains that each of the three plays can stand alone; or audiences could choose to see any combination of two plays or indeed all three. In my opinion, if you were only to see one, it should be Paper as that (I reckon at least) is the only truly standalone play; if you were only to see two you should combine it with Scissors; and if you see all three, see them in the traditional order of Rock, Paper, and Scissors, as we did. Although each play is written by Chris Bush, each has a different director, a different designer, a different lighting director, and so on. So each has a very different vibe and character.

All three plays take the same central themes, although with varying degrees of emphasis. There’s the struggle between hanging on to the past versus making way for the future. Traditional values and skills set against modern cost-cutting methods. Opportunities through hard work are compared with opportunities through privilege. Bar work is offered instead of skilled apprenticeships. Hard truths and difficult problems are balanced against credible lies and living within your comfort zone. Perhaps most of all, the take-home element of these plays is what happens when you make assumptions about people, their motivations, characteristics and private lives; people have a remarkable ability to keep secrets, and then reveal them when you least expect.

Rock is dominated by the character of Susie Spencer, the opinionated, ambitious sister who wants to create a nightclub out of the old factory space, beautifully realised on the Crucible stage by Ben Stones’ wonderful design. To kickstart the project, she plans to hold a photoshoot with a top photographer and a real band to promote the new venue. Susie tends to ride roughshod and be unnecessarily critical of others, which makes her an unsympathetic character, but Denise Black’s excellent performance invests her with all the brass neck and charisma to fill out a truly credible portrayal. She gets as good as she gives from a brilliant performance by Lucie Shorthouse, who was fantastic as Pritti in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie four years ago, as Omar’s daughter Zara, plus there’s excellent support from Andrew Macbean as her long-suffering wannabe beau Leo, and a superb comic turn from Leo Wan’s Xander (who is even funnier in Scissors) as the nervous corporate design consultant. But for me, this particular play suffers from its structure and script. It expends a lot of time and energy in a comedy of mistaken identity which is amusing at first but quickly palls as you realise that a simple conversation establishing who everyone is would put an end to the confusion. It’s too obvious a comic construct and I found these elements both unfunny and tedious. There are also passages of enjoyable but irrelevant singing, and it feels like there’s a lot of padding here.

Things get so much better in Paper, which is written with much smarter tightness and purpose. The play looks closer into the relationship between Faye and Mel, their plans and their attempts to track down missing and vital paperwork to prove ownership and Eddie’s will. Samantha Power’s Faye faces the uphill task to find the will from amongst the reams of paper stuffed into his ramshackle old office. She is uncertain as to the right way to progress, unlike the much more practical and determined Mel, who divides the office into quadrants so that they can search methodically, and who takes charge of Xander’s professional visit when Faye starts to wobble. Primarily the play is a beautiful examination of the relationship between the two; the problems that lurk beneath the surface – issues of trust, respect and faithfulness, that lead on to serious mental health worries. Natalie Casey’s amazing performance as Mel had me choking back the tears as she sits on the floor desperately trying to her explain her feelings.

This emotional space is also invaded by the comically horrendous Coco and Molly – Chanel Waddock and Daisy May on excellent form – as the squabbling, pretentious, self-serving band Co-codamol. It was during one of their sparky arguments that the stage manager had to come on stage and inform everyone that due to a problem in one of the other theatres, they would have to pause the performance; Ms Waddock and Ms May looked as stunned as the rest of us felt as they were ushered off the stage. We later discovered there had been a little fire on the stage of the Studio during Scissors – much to everyone’s gasp of horror – and they were just waiting for that to “settle down”. It was a tough moment for Coco and Molly but they resumed their argument perfectly when it all re-started. Presumably other actors in the other theatres faced the same problem!

Partly due to its modest setting in the round in the Studio, Scissors feels like a much more intimate play. Here we observe the apprentices actually doing the real work, for less than minimum wage; their relationship, their arguments, their commitment (or lack thereof) and their fears for the future. They reveal so much about themselves, and the importance of their jobs to their lives and their prospects. The whole factory is their domain, so when voices are heard in other parts of the building, they immediately assume industrial espionage or burglary, they distrust everyone who isn’t part of their group, and act as though everyone else is out to get them. That’s all except Trent perhaps, who is calmness and kindness itself when dealing with others. But they all have their secrets, which will astonish, entertain, and move you to tears. Jabez Sykes is terrific as the unpredictable and defensive Mason, and Joe Usher turns in a superb professional debut as the eloquent Trent. Maia Tamrakar is a powerhouse of energy as Liv and Dumile Sibanda shows fantastic maturity way beyond her years as the earnest Ava. All four create an incredible ensemble in this play and should have wonderful careers ahead of them. It’s up to Guy Rhys’ wounded, heavy-hearted Omar to break the news of their future to them – and it’s a complex, sad but truly beautiful ending. You may take away a different interpretation of the conclusion of the plays if you only see Scissors; you’ll have a very solid understanding of the outcome if you only see Paper. I’ll say no more!

Obviously, the very nature of this production must call for a certain degree of compromise and technical jiggery-pokery in the writing and construction. Just as the Porter scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth allows for Macbeth and Lady M to wash off Duncan’s blood and change into their nightgowns before returning to the stage to deny all wrongdoing, Chris Bush has had to include tricks and passages to build in time to enable characters to leave one theatre and enter another. This may have some detrimental effect on the artistic integrity of the plays as a whole. I’m also unsure as to the necessity of having each character appear in each play; Mason’s appearance in Paper, for example, is totally irrelevant. I realise I am being super-critical for raising this, especially as it is the very challenge of staging three plays at the same time that is the most fascinating aspect of the entire production – more so than the actual subject matter of the plays. But the performances, the vision and the technical ability to stage this trio trump all criticisms. Really glad I caught this production – they only play until 2^nd July and you won’t want to miss them.