Monthly Archives: October 2026

Review – The Comedy Crate present the British Comedian of the Year, Northampton Heat, Cheyne Walk Club, Northampton, 29th October 2026

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By my reckoning, this is the fifth time that Northampton has played host to a preliminary heat of the British Comedian of the Year competition, with the eventual winner scooping the £10,001 prize (I know). Eight wannabe hopefuls battled it out with the prospect of being one of the two top-ranking of the evening to go on to the next stage. And who decides who those two will be? Why, the audience, obvs, with the aid of a QR code and a voting site. Long gone are the days of answers on the back of a postcard.

Our MC for the evening was the likeable, confident and devilishly quick-witted Deane Dixon-Foster, a dab-hand with crowd work who kept proceedings moving at a cracking pace and who I think could be One to Watch for the future. He explained we would have three acts then an interval, another three acts and another interval, followed by two more acts and the voting. Jackie at the back couldn’t quite grasp the maths, but it all fell into place as the show progressed.

Ten minutes or so isn’t long for an act to establish themselves with an audience and show the range of their artistry, but each of our eight performers acquitted themselves brilliantly, and it was probably the best overall quality of any of these competition nights I’ve seen so far. We started off with Luke Harrower, asexual in a tropical shirt, who attacked his nicely self-deprecating material like a man possessed; some great lines and a powerful start to the show. Then came Michael McKenzie, an NHS doctor by day and comedian by night, bringing his disability – he only has one leg – fully into his material with some bold and very funny content. An early contender! Before the first interval we next had Mark Row, a Milton Keynes teacher whom we’ve seen at Edinburgh in the past, with some quick-fire observations about teaching, kids, and other exasperating activities. He was on particularly good form.

After the interval we welcomed Benny Shakes, who came third at last year’s heat. Incorporating his cerebral palsy into his material, he uses his naturally slow delivery to create elegantly written jokes, frequently taking us where angels fear to tread with his material and being extremely funny in the process. Next up we had Sang Don Park, a South Korean who uses his ethnicity and appearance to create some fantastic routines. Self-confessed too podgy for K-Pop, instead he’s also a gifted beatboxer, so has an additional range of non-verbal comedy sound effects that work very well. He’s someone else who I would like to see more of in the future. The second section concluded with Sydney May, another act who used her disability (blindness) to terrific comic effect, with some occasionally challenging but always very funny material.

After the second interval we had our final two acts. Andy Gleeks, whom we saw hosting a Comedy Crate night at the Malt Shovel earlier in the year, was a last-minute replacement and knocked it out of the park, with some hilarious observations from his perspective as an Irish Catholic teaching English to the English. A totally safe pair of hands, he’s an asset to any comedy stage. Our final act was Jacob Nussey, whom we’d seen in the very same venue two years ago, work-in-progressing his Edinburgh show. His deceptively calm delivery style and wry stage authority bring a fresh innovation to the comedy scene, and he went down a storm.

Then it was time for the voting. Thanks to the glory of the Internet, it doesn’t take long to count the numbers, and our two successful artistes were (in no particular order) Andy Gleeks and Jacob Nussey, with Sang Don Park coming in a very creditable third. Good luck to Andy and Jacob as they face the next stage, and kudos to the Comedy Crate and Cheyne Walk Club for hosting such a fun evening.

Review – Heathers the Musical, Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 23rd October 2026

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I must confess, gentle reader, that I wasn’t at all sure about what I had let ourselves in for when I booked to see Heathers the Musical at the lovely Lyceum theatre in Sheffield, as part of its national tour. I’d not seen (or even heard of) the 1989 film which Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe had adapted to create this musical, which started life about twenty years ago in the USA and has reached all around the world with several productions and revivals, including winning Best New Musical in the 2019 What’s on Stage Awards. Frankly, I should be ashamed.

But in case you’re like me and need some background, three influential teenagers each named Heather rule the roost at Westerberg High School, bullying and victimising their way to the top. Get on their side and you might be protected; get on their wrong side and your life will be a misery. Veronica Sawyer thinks that sucking up to Chief Heather, Heather Chandler, will enable her to survive the course, even if that means being disloyal to her best friend, the unfashionable Martha Dunnstock. There’s a new boy in town too, Jason Dean, and he seems unimpressed by the Heatherocracy, exuding an attractive sense of cool that entrances Veronica. She and Jason become an item, but when JD starts to get – shall we say – original ideas on how to cope with the Heathers, things definitely start to get out of hand.

Heathers the Musical clearly attracts a cult following; Mrs Chrisparkle and I were almost certainly the oldest people in the Lyceum last Friday evening and my guess is that 95% of the audience was female. However, much to my surprise, the audience was extraordinarily attentive to the show and kept the ecstatic whooping to the end of each song rather than interrupting the performance. In fact, the show kept them absolutely gripped, which clearly shows that it’s doing something very right indeed.

David Shields’ set is full of character, throbbing with school life but also adapting cleverly into houses, bedrooms and so on. Ben Cracknell’s lighting and costume design is particularly effective, emphasising the show’s colour coding and the power of red; and Gary Lloyd’s choreography is energetic and entertaining, creating an excellent accompaniment to Will Joy’s seven-piece band who give full throttle to Murphy and O’Keefe’s enjoyable tunes. The songs are at their most effective when giving us unexpected insights into the anxieties and insecurities of some of the characters – Martha’s Kindergarten Boyfriend and Heather McNamara’s Lifeboat stand out for those reasons, as indeed does the predominant theme Seventeen, a plea for simply living life as an ordinary teenager without all the pressures and consequence of crime.

What really drives this show on is its fearless, unpredictable plot. Murder, attempted suicide and false suicide notes, attempted rape, ruthless bullying, body-shaming; you name it, Westerberg High’s got it. Borrowing an element of Sweeney’s Epiphany – they all deserve to die – from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and presaging some of the themes of Dear Evan Hansen, there’s not much point this show having trigger warnings because it simply contains everything. However, it’s written, directed and acted with such deft charm that – for the most part – it gets away with it.

This touring production has an excellent cast of actors, singers and dancers, headed by Gerardine Sacdalan as the likeable Veronica and Louis Hearsey as the enigmatic JD. They have good chemistry together and their terrific singing voices work well with the show’s more upbeat numbers, even if you yearn for a clearer sound quality so that you can catch all the words. Veronica Carabai as Ms Fleming brought the house down with her scene when she rounds on one of the few male members of the audience (“Steve”) and castigates him for his affair in front of his wife – kudos to the gentleman unwittingly chosen to be Steve in our performance who (in my opinion quite rightly) gave as good as he got – Heathers the Musical does maybe have to learn a few lessons about consent!

Liberty Stottor gives a great performance as Heather Chandler, exuding the kind of charisma that would demand obedience and self-abasement from her victims, whilst still strangely cutting an inspirational figure for the nobodies to admire. Lou Henry as Heather McNamara and, in our performance, understudy Tola Sokoya as Heather Duke effectively convey that pretence to bullying whilst being bullied themselves, revealing how they too are victims. In her professional debut Sophie Manners is superb as Martha, driven to despair when everything she has believed in is proven to have been false; and there’s another first-rate professional debut from Beau Jackson as Ram, who together with Markus Södergren as Kurt make a delightfully obnoxious pair of troublemakers. But the entire cast form a terrific ensemble with absolutely no weak links.

Heathers the Musical treads a very fine line between gallows humour and tastelessness, occasionally lurching on the wrong side of the balance but overall maintaining its ability to take some extremely dark subjects and illuminate them in the way that only musical theatre can. Anyway, your teenage daughter will love it, and that’s what it’s all about. The UK and Ireland tour continues to Blackpool, Cheltenham, Chichester, Dublin, Oxford, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, York, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Bradford, Chelmsford, and Torquay until it reaches Cambridge next May.

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Twelfth Night, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 23rd October 2026

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Following on from last month’s fantastic King Lear, and with the same cast apart from a change of “star performer”, Jamie Glover’s Twelfth Night is nothing if not ecologically sound, keeping the same set as Lear except that they’ve shovelled up the pea shingle to adorn someone’s driveway. Why not? Consequently, the only hint of colour in the set is from the golden globe in the backdrop representing, I presume, the sun, which deftly switches to a very atmospheric moon during the early (and superbly realised) shipwreck scene.

Otherwise, if you’re looking for colour, you have to fall back on some of the costumes. The majority are in black and white, save Olivia’s stunning green dress, Orsino’s plush red outfit and, of course, Malvolio’s fabulous yellow cross-gartered stockings. For music, we have three strolling musicians who occasionally come on to accompany David Birrell’s Feste. I’m used to Feste being quite a young, jocund chap, but this Feste is middle-aged, tends towards the morose and is thoroughly cynical, and his songs very much echo Orsino’s dying fall observation. A fascinating and well-performed characterisation; but I felt that the music didn’t help the play along at all, and simply introduced a few lulls and longueurs, pausing the action when we really all just wanted to get on with it.

This is one of those awkward productions when the sum of all its parts didn’t add up to the whole. No question, it’s a fantastic cast, none more fantastic than Matthew Horne’s Malvolio, a performance of sheer quality. Prissy of speech and pedantic of gesture, you instantly get why everyone else in the household despises him; anyone would. Matthew Horne’s verbal delivery of the role is as exquisite as you hope for; if you only associate him with sitcom-land, this performance is a true revelation.

In particular, his cross-gartered scene is brilliant, with the character engaging in a newly found sexually charged identity, including just the right level of outrageous physical comedy. But the antics of his three onlookers, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian, with whom you usually laugh along, here just seem peripheral and, frankly, a bit of a nuisance. When Malvolio is duped and thrown into jail, and in his final scene where he swears vengeance on them all, it’s one of those occasions where you really identify with him and are truly uncomfortable about how badly he has been treated.

Other strong performances come from Katie Wimpenny as a very chirpy and believable Maria, James Chetwood as a genuinely funny (rather than slightly embarrassing) Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Harry Redding as Sebastian. Mark Holgate divests the character of Antonio with the same level of nobility that he displayed as Kent in Lear, and Bebe Sanders carries much of the play with a very intelligent portrayal of Viola. And Justina Kehinde really comes into her own once Olivia abandons her mourning and vivaciously begins fancying Cesario.

All these excellent performances, yet the feeling that overwhelms you about the whole production is that it’s a little bland, a little tame. Some cutting of the text means the show proceeds quite quickly (pausing for songs notwithstanding) but that also means scenes stop and start regularly and it doesn’t have a natural flow. A full Friday matinee audience didn’t laugh much, especially in the first Act; and, overall, I just wanted more.

3-starsThree-sy Does It!

Review – Lenny Henry, Still at Large, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 20th October 2026

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Sir Lenny Henry; the Pride of Dudley and indelibly woven into the fabric of the nation since his first appearance as Frank Spencer in TV’s New Faces in 1975. He’s always been an excellent mimic; I remember watching that first appearance one Saturday night and he was a complete breath of fresh air. An amazing entertainer, at such a young age.

Now aged 68, he’s back on tour, and, as the title of the show has it, Still at Large – and he very much is. On stage he’s a curious mix of relaxed and animated; he likes to keep moving but it’s a very languid, almost lollopy way he has of perambulating around the stage. But he has an easy charm, a quick wit, and an assured delivery, with some first-rate relatable material combined with some very entertaining memories of an astonishing career.

The show is a mixture of stand-up, Q&A, and nostalgia wallowing – and there’s nothing wrong with that, particularly as his career has so many hilarious highlights to look back on. It is ironic that with such starry CV over so many decades, the one thing most people remember him for is having water chucked over him as Trevor McDoughnut on Tiswas. My advice (for what it’s worth) is Gwapple Me Gwapenuts, don’t knock it. That’s a heritage that we all love to remember; it was a privilege to be a teenager in the Tiswas years and it’s definitely something to be proud of. Fortunately, he didn’t give us a performance of the Bucket of Water Song; although there was the unexpected pleasure of a musical interlude from a famous star from the sleazier end of the spectrum at the end of the show.

He manages to make the large Derngate auditorium into an intimate stage where he can share jokes and singalongs with members of the audience, frequently bouncing off them in order to start a new topic. We learn that he now lives “in the country” and is one of three black men in the village; he lives with partner Lisa who enjoys cajoling him into long country walks because it will “do him good”. He’s not averse to appearing on the odd reality show when he has a sizeable builder’s bill coming in; those snug extensions don’t come cheap. He is feeling his age; at 68, he celebrated the fact that he travelled from Birmingham to Northampton without needing a wee – a happy life is based on mini victories.

The Q&A section was, in the best Frankie Howerd tradition, largely scripted although I think there were one of two genuine new questions in there. This gives him an excuse to bring out some enjoyable old clips, and to tell a very funny anecdote about rehearsing the role of Othello with the famously down-to-earth director Barrie Rutter. Overall, his material is very well structured and his lines meticulously planned and delivered, which allows for some excellent callbacks and killer punchlines. And who would have guessed Theophilus P Wildebeeste has undergone therapy and is now seeking consent in his lyrics?

The Lenny Henry Still at Large tour is nearing its end but there are two more dates in Brighton and Hackney. If you’ve grown up with Lenny as part of a lifetime of happy memories, you won’t want to miss it.

Review – Antigone Exits, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 13th October 2026

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The best history lesson I ever had at school was when I was about 10 years old. Teacher Mr Pepper sat on the edge of his table and got each of us kids to play a role in the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I know – gripping stuff. Sarah – you’re Eleanor, and Ross – you’re King Louis. Now you die and Christopher, you’re King Edward and Sarah, you and Christopher get married now that Ross is dead… Etc, etc; you get the picture. It explained it in a simple but vivid way, and it was one of the very few History lessons I ever enjoyed.

I thought of this lesson as the opening minutes of Nina Segal’s modern take on the Antigone story, Antigone Exits, started to unfold. Two reasons: the clarity of the storytelling and the sense of involvement – even though this isn’t an interactive or immersive production. You know the old advice about how to give a presentation? Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. There is a sense of that here; occasionally feeling that we are being told what is happening rather than being shown it. Consequently, there is also a slight feeling of repetition, which ought to be unnecessary in a production that barely reaches 65 minutes in length (no interval).

Alex Lowde’s set certainly grabs your attention from the start. Seven actors perch, somewhat precariously, on a white, tilted abstract disc affixed to the back wall. I can’t have been the only person wondering quite how they kept their balance there; it – and they – must be covered with an invisible Velcro. Some rocks lead down to the bare stage, with a microphone dangling down from the ceiling in the middle; very stark and effective. Jo Joelson’s lighting design creates all manners of colourful atmosphere; engaging, confrontational, enigmatic. Visually, the audience is totally engaged.

From their precarious perch, the actors start to tell the story of Antigone. According to Sophocles’ play, she wanted to bury the body of her dead brother Polynices, but that has been forbidden on pain of death by the new king, Antigone’s uncle Creon. Antigone, however, unlike her sister Ismene, is no pushover. And when she breaks Creon’s law, she sets in motion a sequence of events that can only ever have one, catastrophic, conclusion.

As the story progresses, the actors clamber down from their disc and use the stage, bare and featureless, until at one point Antigone pours a sticky black liquid from a petrol can all around the edges of the stage, in a modern equivalent of a libation scene, creating a perfect, gloopy circle. At first, the actors skilfully avoid treading in it, keeping their trainers and the floor nice and clean. But as soon as the actor playing Tiresias dips her hand in what by now looks like spreading molasses, again there’s an inevitability as to what happens next, and there’s no option for cleanliness.

You’re always aware that the seven actors on stage are precisely that – actors playing roles. Each of them at some point breaks from the narrative, using the dangling microphone to offer a seemingly personal story from their past, which in some way relates to death. Whether it be coping with widowhood, or a child playing with the body of a dead fox, or several other experiences, these side observations enhance the sense of artifice over reality, and give an insight into how an actor can use their own personal experiences to inform their performance. Only when a side narrative from one of the actors raises the subject of Gaza do you get the sense that the writing and production is not quite sufficiently robust to involve that important and very relevant subject without feeling that it has been shoehorned in. It’s an ambitious link to make, and unfortunately it doesn’t quite work.

That said, the acting throughout is first rate, with immaculate clarity of diction and riveting, engrossing delivery. Max Bennett gives an excellent performance as Creon, regal but not bullying, determined that the law must be upheld or else he will look like an idiot, until he is convinced to change course when it is too late. Nina Cassells’ Antigone is equally determined, totally accepting of her fate with calm inevitability; no argument will sway her in the other direction. With all the other characters trying to convince Creon that he must backtrack on his edict, except for Anushka Chakravarti’s Ismene who blames Antigone as the wilful author of her own destiny, the battle of wits that unfolds can only have one conclusion. Antigone Exits via the gap at the top of the white backdrop disc, which becomes the entrance to the cave where she will die. Afterwards, other actors also exit through that gap, denoting their characters’ own, subsequent, deaths.

It’s a powerful one-act play that tells the story of Antigone with great clarity and attempts to put a relevant spin on it for a modern audience. Theatrical, and well-acted, it certainly keeps the audience’s attention and gives you plenty of scope to think about it and discuss it afterwards. And I had forgotten quite what a great track David Bowie’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide is.

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – As You Like It, RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 10th October 2026

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Jonathan Groff

©Marc Brenner

You won’t find a better practitioner of the art of gender-blind casting than the Royal Shakespeare Company, but in Daniel Evans’ new production of As You Like It, they’ve really given it a new twist. This all-male production hasn’t changed Rosalind to Ross or Celia to Cecil, choosing to keep the female roles as female and largely removing any sense of “female impersonation” from the characterisations. By largely playing it – if you’ll excuse the expression – straight – there is no element of what we think of as drag in this production; it simply has male actors playing female roles, much as would have happened back in Shakespeare’s time. The result is a fresh, positive, emotional production that feels authentic, honest and very, very funny.

Rosalind at court

©Marc Brenner

Beautifully acted throughout, there are no weak links within the cast, and all the technical elements are superb too. Fantastic set design from Anisha Fields creates a stark contrast between the monochrome harshness of Act One’s court – a blank white set populated by grim men in black suits – to be followed by the unruly, natural countryside of Arden, where shepherds lurk behind tufts of grass and although financial poverty is rife, it can’t erode the richness of emotional support. Ryan Day’s excellent lighting creates some very striking effects to accompany the ruthlessness of Duke Frederick’s rule, which is then softened as we enter Duke Senior’s relaxed, bucolic environment.

Adam rests

©Marc Brenner

I must confess, I often regard the incidental music in productions as something akin to ignorable wallpaper, but in this instance that couldn’t be further from the truth. The music is stunning. Evans has transported Arden to rural Wales, where music seems to evolve naturally from the earth, using tradition Welsh hymns, sung in Welsh; and the blend of the voices is emotional and entrancing, the kind of music that can truly soothe a savage breast. Often the music and the action work side by side; among the show’s more memorable and emotional moments is the singing that accompanies the scene where old Adam shares food and drink kindly shared by the Lords of Arden. Stirring and powerful, it’s totally respectful of the old man and gentle in the support provided to him. It’s not all Bread of Heaven though; in one cheeky scene the cast recreate Raye’s 2025 hit Where is my Husband – and not only is it hilarious but it also integrates perfectly with the rest of the play.

Fisayo Akinade and Jonathan Groff

©Marc Brenner

And that’s the key to this production. It’s not afraid to take some risks and break the rules whilst still being remarkably faithful to and respectful of the original text. Jonathan Groff and Fisayo Akinade play Rosalind and Celia in as traditional way as possible, their girlish playfulness balanced with the injustice of their banishment and Rosalind’s determination to make Orlando work hard in order to secure her hand. For perhaps obvious reasons, there’s probably never been a more boyish Rosalind than Mr Groff’s, which only makes his regular scenes as Ganymede more believable. Only after a delightful moment of physical comedy when Orlando’s brother Oliver – a terrific supporting performance by Caleb Roberts – discovers that Ganymede might be – shall we say – womanlier than first realised, does the production allow itself a little, very subtle, admission that this boy/girl/boy game is more nuanced than at first sight.

Rosalind and Orlando

©Marc Brenner

The result of all this is that it is genuinely one of the funniest productions of this play I’ve ever seen. Once the scene shifts to Arden, the combination of Messrs Groff and Akinade works as a brilliant comedy double act, with Celia playing the straight man/woman/man to Rosalind’s natural stage dominance. With no attempt by Mr Groff to disguise his American accent, it’s another way in which the character of Rosalind stands out from the crowd; never referred to until late in the play when Orlando refers to her accent and a slight rewrite of the original provides the perfect response. Mr Akinade meanwhile excels with moments of amazing physical comedy but also gives us a superb understanding of how Celia resents becoming invisible as she is forced to withdraw from the action to let Rosalind and Orlando’s story play out. And both Groff and Akinade are remarkable at portraying that special moment of love at first sight; both funny and endearing at the same time.

Jaques

©Marc Brenner

Elsewhere, a pause inserted here and an unexpected glance added there, all go to create something very credible out of what is, on paper at least, quite an unlikely story scenario. Just an involuntary sound can have a huge impact: when Jaques commences his famous speech with the words “All the world’s a stage” (a remarkably insightful performance by Richard McCabe), the eternally entertaining Gary Wilmot as the Duke utters an “ah!” as if to say, what a fascinating concept I’m really interested to hear what you’re going to say. A simple idea that works incredibly well.

Ensemble

©Marc Brenner

The production also benefits from a superb performance by Elliot Barnes-Worrell as Orlando; perfect clear delivery from an actor who understands the nuance behind every line. Gareth Snook’s performance in the double roles of Adam and Audrey is doubly impressive; the first conveying the noble frailty of the old retainer, and the second full of cheekiness and ribaldry. You know that when Audrey and Greg Haiste’s Touchstone tie the knot they’re going to have a fantastic season of sex and laughter and then swiftly swipe left on the relationship.

Gary Wilmot

©Marc Brenner

There’s excellent support from Giles Cooper’s unexpectedly affable Le Beau, Rhys Parry Jones’ Corin and Hymen, and Tim Preston’s hilariously buttoned up Phoebe; but the entire cast is without fault, and everyone contributes to make this show the success it undoubtedly is.

It’s not often that a revival of a Shakespearean comedy is a must-see – but Daniel Evans’ production of As You Like It should be seen far and wide and unreservedly deserves a transfer.

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!