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Review – Paul Chowdhry, Live Innit, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 5th March 2018

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I can’t believe it was three and a half years ago that we last saw Paul Chowdhry doing his PC’s World show in the intimate setting of the Royal Theatre. Now he’s in the Derngate auditorium – over two nights – and virtually sold out for both shows. As he described the Derngate, that’s where the white comedians play. Only Mr Chowdhry can get away with making such remarks without causing offence because, basically, he’s just so damn funny.

It was, however, an odd evening in many respects, none of them Mr Chowdhry’s fault. Our two tickets in the middle of row F had been double-booked, so a couple who arrived a few minutes after us were disappointed to see a middle-aged couple settled in where they should be sat. The usherette took our tickets and said she would sort it with the Box Office. Then during the interval the duty manager informed us that the Box Office said we had cancelled our tickets back in September and had been refunded with a gift certificate. A hugely embarrassing moment, it felt like we were being accused of a theatre-ticket version of shoplifting. As it turns out we had in fact cancelled a different show but the Box Office had cancelled the wrong one. As a result we had to give up our choice seats and sit in a different area of the auditorium, where I would never normally choose to sit – and it felt a long way from the stage and lacked the usual atmosphere I would expect from a comedy gig. I wouldn’t say it completely ruined the night for us, but it didn’t do it any favours.

However; back to the show. We started off with a support act – Julian Deane. We’d not seen him before and I rather liked his dry and subtle delivery; he has a very clever way of setting up a joke so that the punchline comes at an unexpected point in the story, that catches you out. He has some good material about being a young parent, how it’s wrong to have a favourite child, and the difference between dyslexia and paedophilia. Although he was only on for twenty minutes, he definitely made an impact and gave us lots to laugh at. I’d say that maybe he just lacks a little vocal confidence on the big stage which could turn a very good performance into a great one. But everyone enjoyed his act and we all felt thoroughly warmed up.

Much anticipation for Mr Chowdhry, and when he comes on he just grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go for an hour and a half. His first topic was brilliant – and that’s the ridiculing of people who bought their tickets from Viagogo rather than from the venue. One person admitted to paying £60 for their ticket; others appeared too embarrassed to mention the cost. The Royal and Derngate were charging £20 and that’s all that needs to be said. I loved him calling out Viagogo for their greedy legalised touting; they’re a disgrace.

As usual, he then tried to establish the racial mix of his crowd; loads of Bengalis, quite a few Sikhs, a rich swathe of Gujaratis, a handful of Muslims and the rest were assorted white Daves and Tracies. Some comedians shy away from the subject of race. For Paul Chowdhry, it’s the glue that holds his act together. It’s as though he makes a collection of all the diversities within his audience and then fires them back at us during the course of the show. As always, there was this one guy…. a big Sikh gentleman who tried to get some banter going with Mr Chowdhry but had had one too many Kingfishers to even remember his own name. Such a character was a mere sitting duck for Mr Chowdhry’s colourfully-languaged retorts.

Amongst the matters for discussion were how last year Social Media went overboard saying that a Crimewatch mugshot of a kidnap suspect was the spitting image of Paul Chowdhry, and how it dogged him online for months; the esteem in which he is held by his family for being 43 and unmarried; observations on Tinder and terrorism; and the vitriol of the online trolls who loathe him and want him dead. Mr Chowdhry is never one to shy away from a tricky subject, and he treats us to a session on how he fights fire with fire when it comes to trolls. An evening with him is not for the faint-hearted or over-sensitive; it’s often uncomfortable and challenging comedy. For example, it’s been a long while since either of us heard the word “mongoloid” used in any context. If you’ve never seen him before, my advice is to take a leaf out of Lady Macbeth’s book and screw your courage to the sticking place before the show, if you’re used to any kind of gentility of language!

When Mrs Chrisparkle and I go to see a show, nine times out of ten we will generally agree on how good it was and how much we enjoyed it. Last night’s show, however, was the one in ten. Whilst I found myself carried away by Mr Chowdhry’s outrageous delivery and material, it left Mrs C cold. Maybe it was the change from the intimate venue to the large one that meant she didn’t feel so involved; maybe it was the unfortunate faffing around during the interval because of the tickets that put her off. Or maybe she didn’t feel there was quite enough material with which she felt comfortable. Whilst walking home, she did point out that he has a repetitive style of delivery which annoyed her; and it’s true, when he gets a good line, he’s quite likely to hammer it home four or five times to get maximum impact. I didn’t particularly notice it; but she did.

However, Mr Chowdhry did wander into one area of material that I didn’t appreciate – when he started to question depression. Maybe he was going somewhere with this but then got distracted, because, fortunately, he wandered out of that subject just as quickly as he wandered into it. But I know too many people who constantly fight depression on a daily basis to find this funny. No doubt it could be fuel for some intelligent and questioning comic material – but that didn’t happen last night. Still, that’s the thing with Paul Chowdhry – I’m sure the topics earmarked for each show are merely serving suggestions in his mind and he will always go where the audience takes him, handing out good natured abuse to all and sundry, ridiculing every Dave, Tracey and Rajesh who comes his way. As he says himself, he’s nothing if not an Equal Opportunities Offender.

At least one of us enjoyed the show! Live Innit continues its tour throughout the UK (and Australia and New Zealand) until June.

P. S. Thanks to the Box Office for sorting out last night’s ticket problems so promptly and graciously today. I can return to the Royal and Derngate with renewed confidence!

Review – Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company on tour at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 3rd March 2018

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This was a close call! The snow meant the Royal and Derngate cancelled all performances on Friday 2nd March, including the comedy night with Adam Hess and Glenn Moore, for which we had tickets and about which I was expecting to be writing today! Big shame. Fortunately, all shows for Saturday went ahead – and I would estimate about 70% of the almost fully booked audience managed to struggle in to see the play. If they had cancelled Hamlet on the Saturday we would have had no chance of seeing it… which would have been very regrettable as this is one of those rare shows that has 5 stars written all over it within five minutes of the start. But let me not get ahead of myself…

This is the first time (or the first time for ages, not entirely sure) that the Royal Shakespeare Company have taken one of their touring productions to Northampton, and I for one welcome them with open arms; with any luck this will be the start of a very fruitful co-operation between the two theatres. I also realised this is only the fourth time I’ve seen Hamlet on stage – pretty poor showing for what I always consider to be my Favourite Play Of All Time. The first time was at the National Theatre in 1976 for a four hour, uncut performance with Albert Finney as the Great Dane, Denis Quilley as Claudius, Simon Ward as Laertes and Barbara Jefford as Gertrude. I remember it mesmerised me. Then I saw an Oxford University production at the Oxford Playhouse in 1979, where, low down among the castlist, a young Tim McInnerney was a fabulously foppish Osric – definitely a forerunner to his Lord Percy in Blackadder II. In 2008 we saw the RSC production starring David Tennant – but we had tickets for when he was off sick, so we saw Edward Bennett instead and he was superb.

And now this! This production was first seen in Stratford in 2016 and is now settled in its brief tour of the UK and USA. It’s a production that takes everything you would expect from a standard production of Hamlet and throws it out of the nearest window, whilst remaining delightfully true to the original characterisations and the powerful story. The only addition to the original text that I could make out was the short opening scene where we see Hamlet awarded his degree from the University of Wittenburg – so appropriate on the Derngate stage, which is where the University of Northampton graduation ceremonies take place.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark – we know this, as Marcellus tells us so. Shakespeare’s text confirms that there are invasions from Norway, and that England and France are within relatively easy reach. But where are we really? The pounding drums that permeate the production suggest Africa, as do the appearance and accents of many of the cast – all but a few of the actors are black. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears in grand traditional West African robes, and Gertrude is bedecked in the splendid colourful dresses one might associate with Nigeria. However, the gravediggers sing a calypso, which suggests (to me) the West Indies; and Guildenstern, with her (yes, her) pale skin and fair hair could be taken for pure Danish through and through. So what’s all that about? No need for alarm. All we really need to know is that this is a different universe for Hamlet; the story has been taken up and replaced in a new geographical and racial setting, helping its accessibility to a whole new young, vibrant audience. However, rest assured that its age-old themes are as relevant and dynamic as ever.

I don’t think I’m a purist (whatever that means) when it comes to Shakespeare, because he’s big and clever enough to survive any re-imagination of his plays, no matter what a gifted director might throw at him. But he’s also incredibly versatile at lending himself to a variety of new interpretations and, if done well, each one illuminates his plays in a different way. Simon Godwin’s extraordinary production reveals so much more about Hamlet the man than most other productions. The sight of Hamlet in his first scene, his face runny with crying and nasal mucus (sorry if you’re having lunch) said so much more about his very real and solitary grief for his late father than any smart words or sarcastic glances. His interaction with the characters who are his friends is one of true joy; you can tell he and Horatio have that kind of friendship where they could tell each other anything with the absolute trust; Horatio’s grief at his friend’s death in the final scene (oops, spoilers) was truly moving. Hamlet has a roister-doister type of friendship with the guard Marcellus; a slightly more ambivalent friendship with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who prove themselves to be lousy liars when admitting that they were “sent for”. Everyone else he either distrusts or keeps up a wary distance from; seen beautifully in his brief hello to the guard Barnardo.

One of those unanswerable questions that always crops up with Hamlet is – is he mad or not? There’s no question in my mind that this particular Hamlet is 100% sane all the way through. His explanation that he will only be mad north-north-west is very definite and convincing, and every scene clearly shows his manipulations and detailed planning, to bring about the downfall of Claudius and thus take revenge on the death of his father, as his father’s Ghost so clearly insisted. Paapa Essiedu, as Hamlet, is simply stunning. His ability to get to the heart of the character is so rewarding and fulfilling to the audience. His clarity of speech, the way he juxtaposes nobility with wretchedness, his lightness of humour, his depth of tragedy… it’s a blistering performance. He’s one of those actors you just can’t take your eyes off. The clarity with which Mr Essiedu takes on all those intricate soliloquies, the deliberate way in which his Hamlet picks a fight with Ophelia, the precision of his dealings with the Players, even his paint-spattered appearance in his studio, all convinced me this was a portrayal of an intelligent and witty brain, knowing exactly what he was trying to achieve, by an equally intelligent and witty actor. Hamlet’s fore-runner, Kyd’s Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy may well be mad againe but I’m pretty sure Hamlet isn’t.

This production is also much funnier than any production of Hamlet has any right to be, but without taking liberties; it’s all legitimate humour, stemming from the text. Hamlet dragging out the dead Polonius with all the mundanity of helping with the shopping is hilarious. Talking of whom, this production actually made all those bumbling pomposities of Polonius genuinely funny; Laertes’ constant attempts to take his leave, but returning because his father hasn’t quite finished yet, surprised the audience with its modern irreverence. The Yorick scene is light, creative and almost bubbly in its freshness. By contrast, when this production gets dark, it gets really dark. Ophelia’s madness is performed with such deep sadness, with the observing characters visibly shrinking with embarrassment and confusion, that it really disconcerts the audience that you feel horrified – in a simple way of looking at it – that this lovely girl has come to this.

Paul Wills’ magnificent design is arresting from the start. The panelled halls of Elsinore, the King and Queen’s thrones (I loved how cheekily they were redesignated as the Ladies and Gents toilets for the play within a play scene), the artistic designs of Hamlet’s hanging tapestries, are all lively and ingenious. By comparison, I loved the simplicity of depicting the offstage Ghost as simply a bright light in the distance. The costumes are superb: Gertrude’s fine large-print gowns, the Ghost’s dignified formal dress, Hamlet’s colourful painter’s suit, the military garb of the soldiers, the sharp business suits of the envoys, the fancy dress of the Players, even Rosencrantz’s office geeky look (was he meant to look like the guy from the IT Crowd?) all stand out and just make the visual presentation of the play so much more enjoyable.

Clarence Smith, as Claudius, gives an excellent performance as someone who can’t quite believe his luck that his evil plan to become King was so successful, so easily. He has just the right amount of smugness for someone who’s got the power, got the girl and now wants to enjoy the fruits of his achievements. But his fright at the false fire of the murder scene performed by the Players felt genuinely horrific and from then he cuts a suitably weak figure. Hamlet almost kills him whilst praying – but such a fate is too good for him, so worthless is he. Even when presiding over the fight between Hamlet and Laertes, no one listens to him any more.

Lorna Brown is a very regal queen Gertrude, full of her high office and revelling in the stimulation of a fresh husband, until Hamlet devastates her with the truth of what she has done, when her remorse is genuine. Ewart James Walters has a strong presence as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, cutting a truly noble and furious figure; and he’s also a wily and humorous gravedigger, riposting Hamlet’s questions with his unlearned wit. I enjoyed Patrick Elue’s hearty Marcellus and his statesmanlike Fortinbras; I liked how Kevin N Golding underplayed the Player King and didn’t make him out to be a pantomime character, although his portrayal of the King in the play within the play was delightfully cruel. Buom Tihngang gives an entertaining performance as Laertes, telling Ophelia how to behave whilst not anticipating doing the same himself (hence the condoms in his case) and returning as a noble, avenging foe.

The play benefits from a magnificent ensemble who don’t put a foot wrong, but there are also three simply superb performances in supporting roles that I must mention. James Cooney is brilliant as Horatio; honest, supportive, constructive, Hamlet’s right-hand man always there to help, moving me (almost) to tears as he mourns at the end. Mimi Ndiweni is wonderful as Ophelia; full of schoolgirl cheek, hope, kindness as well as duty when we first encounter her; destroyed though grief later in the play when her mad transformation is truly painful to watch. But maybe best of all Joseph Mydell, a dignified Egeon in the National Theatre’s Comedy of Errors six years ago, who creates a real character our of Polonius’ nonsensical ditherings, genuinely funny as the well-meaning bighead. Mrs Chrisparkle announced at the end of the show that she “finally got Polonius” as a character. But, when all’s said and done, it’s Mr Essiedu whom you can’t get out of your mind for days.

This production has almost finished its tour, with a month at the Hackney Empire coming up and then a week at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in May. I don’t do star ratings; but in this instance I’ll make an exception. This is as five star a production as you can get. Scintillating, riveting, yet so true to the classic original. Can’t recommend it too strongly.

Review – Love from a Stranger, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 28th February 2018

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Time for the last production in the 2017-18 season of Made in Northampton shows at the Royal and Derngate, and Agatha Christie’s Love from a Stranger; probably the one I was looking forward to least. Why least? Because whilst I love to read whodunits, and watch TV detective programmes, I’m not sure murder mysteries transfer to the two-hour stage format that well. Of course, I recognise that Christie is a most bankable name, and that when you could buy tickets for the opening night of The Mousetrap, front stalls only cost two groats. But I was disappointed in the Peter James play The Perfect Murder that we saw a few years ago, and when I took Mrs Chrisparkle to see the Agatha Christie Company’s The Hollow in Milton Keynes in 2006, she threatened divorce if I ever booked for any of their shows again. I haven’t.

However, Love from a Stranger is a very different kettle of intrigue. If the title means nothing to you, it’s adapted from Christie’s 1924 short story Philomel Cottage, that was first published in the UK in the collection The Listerdale Mystery. If you’re a regular reader you might know that I’m currently re-reading all the Agatha Christie detective books and blogging about them as part of my Agatha Christie Challenge – fortunately I couldn’t remember the details of Philomel Cottage before seeing the play, but if you intend to see it, please don’t brush up on the short story beforehand because it will completely ruin it for you!

This is not your regular Christie whodunit with a quaint old English lady or meddlesome Belgian detective poking their noses in other peoples’ business. Whilst it has distinct Christie traits – everything that’s wrong in the world, for example, stems from those dreadful foreigners that Christie’s characters always seem to distrust so much – this is much more of a genuine thriller. You simply don’t know where the story’s going but you sense it’s not going to end well for someone. The original play was a success in 1936 but for Lucy Bailey’s production she has moved it forward to 1958. That’s perhaps a curious, random time setting, but in a sense it proves that the atmosphere and themes of the play are timeless; and, handily, it would still be perfectly reasonable for a photography enthusiast of that time to have their own darkroom. The production has an air of austerity to it, with Mike Britton’s vision of a Bayswater flat being fairly drab and featureless; the settings and costumes, whilst superbly realised, are far less glamorous than you might think the original 1930s version of the play would offer.

Having been uncertain about this production before seeing it, I can now say that it’s a humdinger of a thriller, packed with suspense and nerve-jangling moments that keep you on your toes from the start to the finish. The whole visual and audio presentation is disconcerting throughout, with eerie music that creeps in at eerie moments; buzzing, vibrating throbs that take the otherwise realistic presentation and invest it with otherworldly significance; lights flashing whenever the camera snaps; and a set that has a mind of its own, enabling the audience to see the play from more than one perspective.

At the heart of the play are two superbly performed characters – Cecily, played by Helen Bradbury and Bruce played by Sam Frenchum. Ms Bradbury delivers a marvellously controlled performance as the stifled and repressed Cecily, desperate for some excitement in her life and dreading the prospect of a staid life married to Michael. As happiness appears to blossom in her life, her joy expands as she becomes Mistress of Philomel Cottage, benevolently taking charge of her new servants but also getting increasingly concerned at her husband’s deteriorating health. She cuts a dramatic figure on stage and it’s a brilliant performance. Mr Frenchum, too, is superb as the unassuming but strangely charismatic Bruce, deftly stealing Cecily from under the nose of Michael and starting up a new life in the country. As Bruce’s role becomes more complex, Mr Frenchum takes on a truly scary persona, and the 9pm scene (if I can put it that way) between the two of them is terrifying in its suspense, physicality and constantly changing surprises.

But the whole show is littered with great performances, none more enjoyable than Nicola Sanderson as the appalling but hilarious Aunt Lulu, a social-climbing skinflint who’ll always compromise her principles if it means a free tea at Fortnum’s or being impressed with a mention of the Savoy. Alice Haig also gives great support as Cecily’s friend Mavis, a slightly bland role to which she gives real heart and character. Justin Avoth as Michael is the epitome of a stiff-upper-lip in a breakdown, Molly Logan a humorously enthusiastic domestic servant Ethel, Gareth Williams a faithful old retainer as gardener Hodgson, and Crispin Redman a hearty yet sincere doctor of the old school – I wish someone like him worked at my GP practice.

To say more would be to give away the game and that just wouldn’t be right. It’s a smashing production that builds in intensity to a stonkingly good denouement. It’s on at the Royal and Derngate until 17th March and then embarks on an extensive tour to Oxford, Guildford, Canterbury, Cardiff, Liverpool, Richmond, Leicester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Plymouth, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Cheltenham, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Salford and Norwich. A great night’s entertainment – don’t miss it!

Review – A weekend at the Leicester Comedy Festival, 24th – 25th February 2018

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This is the second year that a bunch of us have come up to Leicester for the last weekend of the Comedy Festival. So it’s not quite yet a tradition – but I could see how it could easily become one. Mrs Chrisparkle and I played host to the great and the good of the family – Lord and Lady Prosecco, Professor and Mrs Plum, Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters. We scheduled five shows for Saturday, two for the Sunday, with the promise of an early release on Sunday afternoon if we behaved ourselves. Let’s take them one by one.

It’s me Kat Bond come home now, so cold (A Work-In-Progress), Heroes @ The Criterion, 1pm, 24th February

Our first show of Saturday was to see Kat Bond do a work-in-progress show entitled It’s Me Kat Bond come home now, so cold. What would that title suggest to you, gentle reader? Something Kate Bush-related? Wuthering from a great height, perhaps? But no. Instead we find ourselves welcomed into an unexpected therapy session, where Ms Bond dispensed brief snippets of helpful advice where angels would otherwise definitely fear to tread. Ms Bond was new to Mrs C and me; although I knew she had a successful show in Edinburgh last year involving toilet paper. That show seemed to divide the critics, which is probably a good thing. After I’d booked the tickets I discovered The Scotsman had given her this damning review: “Some comics have a gift for spinning gold from meaningless nonsense. Kat Bond isn’t one of them.”

Well, I have to say, The Scotsman simply got it wrong. Ms Bond is a naturally funny person right down to her fingertips and this was an extremely inventive 45 minutes. Plenty of audience participation, and it doesn’t matter where you sit – hide in the back row, she’ll still get you. Among the highlights within our party were Mrs C providing percussion, the Countess being mimicked, the Professor having his problems attributed to a baby milk fetish, and Lord Prosecco being asked to fashion a work of art out of a piece of squidgy stuff that covered his hands with red gunk which took ages to remove – Ms Bond might have to work on that particular prop. We laughed the entire time – right from the opening moments where the audience give her the nouns that create her character’s backstory, to her rolling around on a parachute (and yes it was a small stage) and her final assessment of how our therapy session had worked (or not). Very enjoyable, and a name definitely worth watching out for.

Diane Spencer 2018 Collection, The Cookie, 3.30pm, 24th February

Our next show was to see someone that Mrs C and I have seen twice before and enjoyed very much both times – Diane Spencer. The last time we bumped into her, she was handing out flyers in Edinburgh. I apologised that we wouldn’t be able to see her show that time round, but that we’d seen her before in Screaming Blue Murder shows in Northampton and really enjoyed her gigs. And you’ve never seen someone beam with such gratitude in your life. Maybe she doesn’t often get good reviews?

This time she’s giving us her 2018 Collection, as though she were some fashion designer with an exclusive catwalk show. And why not? But you wouldn’t describe it as an haute couture collection, more a mass of neuroses involving all walks of her life. She’s now married (whoop), to Kevin, who doesn’t (yet) drink but has married into a family of alcoholics so that’s the designated driver sorted. Ms Spencer gives us the lowdown on their first Christmas together – spent at her parents – with loads of comic observations about dealing with families, saying the wrong thing, plus fainting in the bathroom, accusing a child of autism and the joys of MDMA (which I always thought was a decent alternative to plasterboard).

Personally, I could watch her for hours. She has a wonderfully posh goofy persona which she uses to great shock advantage when she occasionally drops some really filthy nuggets of comedy. She is supremely confident on the stage and you never for one moment fear that anything will go wrong. And even when it does, her quick wit and mental database of filler material comes into play so perfectly that any tangents are just as funny as her planned material. I’m guessing this was a work-in-progress show, but you wouldn’t know as she’s such a proficient practitioner of the art of stand up.

Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre – the new show, Kayal Upstairs, 6.50pm, 24th February

We walked to the Kayal Restaurant for a fabulous Indian meal (highly recommended) which also happened to be the venue (well, their upstairs room) for the next show. I’ve seen the listings for the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre every time we’ve been to Edinburgh but for some reason it’s never quite tempted me in. But on Saturday, the time and the place were right to take a punt on some puppetry madness. In the past they’ve performed Socks Do Shakespeare, Socks in Space, Minging Detectives and other delights, but the title for this year’s show was revealed on the night to be… well we never quite worked out what the title was, but it was definitely based on Super Heroes.

When you walk into the room to watch their show, a little puppet theatre has already been set up on the podium and it looks for all the world as though you’re going to see an end of the pier traditional Punch and Judy show. But whereas Punch and Judy has a number of characters, who all feel the terminal wrath of Mr Punch, the Sock Puppet theatre has just two characters, who take turns to assume various disguises throughout the show – and, inventive though they may be, they’re fooling nobody.

They’ve clearly built up a cult following, many of whom were in the audience and loved every minute. For my own part, I really enjoyed the opening sequence and getting to know the rather bitchy and petulant characters behind the sock puppets, but after a while it began to pall. The show is absolutely packed with material, but it’s all delivered in that same falsetto voice; and an hour of that was too much for me. I wasn’t the only member of our party to nod off – in fact I think there was about a 50% snooze factor. I wanted to like this much more than I did because it’s such an inventive concept, and a huge amount of work has gone into it. But I’m afraid it didn’t do it for me.

Darren Walsh: Massive Punt, Peter Pizzeria – Violin Room, 8.30pm, 24th February

I’ve seen Darren Walsh a couple of times before, guesting on other people’s shows and he’s always tickled my fancy with his relentless stream of puns and his ability to make up a joke out of any subject shouted out from the audience. No wonder he won the Best Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe award in 2015. In this latest show, the both self-deprecatingly and vainly titled Massive Punt, he constructs another series of puns of all genres. Elaborate, inventive, cringeworthy, puerile; he’s totally cornered the market.

The structure of the show is that he’s an airline captain taking us on a tour of the world, and for every country, there’s a pun. In addition to this, he has a range of visual and pictorial gags, some comedy Twitter responses, and plenty of audience participation, so if you sit in the front row, please do be prepared to play along – a few of the front row on Saturday night clearly saw it as their challenge to upstage Mr W which didn’t really help the show bounce along.

The show relies on a huge amount of pre-prepared material – including (apparently) flying to several countries to film just a tiny comedy snippet – and it’s vital that the timing of his interaction with the images on the projection screen is spot-on. Fortunately it is, so that works very well. It’s all very silly, but all very clever and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Mr W always comes across as a really likeable guy, which gives you the confidence to wince at the winceable jokes safe in the knowledge he’s unlikely to get his own back on you – just expect another teeth-grating pun to be volleyed your way. I get the feeling he just likes to see our reactions, whether or not we find them funny! Very enjoyable – it’s like one long party trick and he’s the host who’s always got one more gag up his sleeve.

Late Night Jokes On Us, Manhattan 34 – Downstairs Bar, 11pm, 24th February

We popped back to the hotel for a glass of wine before seven of us braved the last show of the evening – Lady Prosecco wandered off, muttering something about Match of the Day and Pinot Grigio. Once you’re back in the hotel it’s easy to feel all comfy and cosy – it was a very cold day on Saturday – but kudos to those hardy souls who braved the icy blast of the five minute walk to the Manhattan 34 bar for a Late Night Jokes On Us show. It’s one of those free to get in, but not to get out, variety compilation nights where a host (in this case Alex Hylton) introduces other acts from around the festival for an hour of unpredictable, unplanned and thoroughly badly behaved comedy.

I don’t think any of us had any great expectations of this show – but how wrong we were! We were all crammed into the second row from the front, and with an average age of (I think) 63, Mr Hylton decided to call us Age UK on a Day Trip, which we have now adopted as our Facebook Group name. When he asked us how we knew each other, the Countess offered up the fact that we were all family members together with assorted wives. Mr Hylton just heard “Saucy wives” so for the rest of the evening (and maybe for the rest of their lives) the Countess was Saucy Wife No 1 and Mrs C was Saucy Wife No 2. I must say Mr H was a brilliant compere and we’d love to see him do more of his own act sometime soon.

We had five acts doing roughly ten minutes each, starting off with the excellent Mickey Sharma, whom we saw at an Upfront Comedy night last year. I think Mr Sharma was a little tired and emotional, having just done his own show, and, alarmed at the prospect of performing to many of the same audience again, had to think on his feet for new material. However, we did love his routine about traffic in India, including the two motorcyclists transporting a wardrobe. Totally stupid; and if you’ve seen Indian traffic, totally believable.

Next up was Dan Nicholas; new to us, and with a thoroughly silly but funny style to him. He encouraged audience participation simply by waving his hands about – it’s actually funnier than it sounds. Then he got Front Row Mike to do the same – and it took a while before he got the drift, but then he cracked it. I don’t know if I’d had one too many by then, but my other memory of his act is his getting the entire audience to sing a simple song, just containing the word “Mike”. A thoroughly inventive and curious performer, I really enjoyed his session!

Then we had Alex Black – again (and indeed like everyone else on the rest of the bill) new to us, but what a talent! Excellent, creative material, that really had us in hysterics. Armed with a ukelele, he did some Police/Smiths mashups, and who knew how well the Smiths and George Formby worked together? You’ll never hear Leaning on a Lamppost in the same way ever again.

Next up was Rob Coleman, a slightly more mature gentleman with manic hair and a gruff and grumpy expression. He trades on his eccentric looks – he’s a bit like a comic Einstein – and much of his material is based on the difference between how he looks and how irresistible he is to women. However, the women in our group found him strangely resistible; talk of his small willy didn’t help his cause and for some reason his ten minutes didn’t quite work for us.

Our last act of the show, and of the day, was Friz Frizzle, self-described Song Ruiner, and he was absolutely hilarious. Happily plinky-plonking on his Bontempi, he gives new lyrics to well known songs – frequently surprising you with a perfectly punning title, just when your brain is racing against his, to get to the title first. But there are all sorts of ways in which you can ruin a song and he’s an absolute master of the art. I loved his versions of Chic’s Le Freak, Prince’s Purple Rain, and OMC’s How Bizarre, which Front Row Craig really didn’t understand; I’m still not sure he did, even after Mr Frizzle had repeated the punchline at least twenty times to him. His George Formby material is brilliant; but you’d have to go a long way to get a better comedy song than his paean to Rolf Harris to the tune of A Town Called Malice. Sadly I was the wrong age to get the joke of the song that he performed at the end of his routine – rather enfuriatingly all the younger people were singing along to it, grrrr. But it was a fantastic end to a hugely entertaining show that we all loved.

And that was it for one long day. It was now time to troop back to the hotel and sleep the deep sleep of the innocent. My intentions of getting a kebab and a few pints on the way came to nothing.

Kwame Asante: Work in Progress, Kayal Upstairs, 2pm, 25th February

After a lavish breakfast and a little retail therapy, we returned to the Kayal Upstairs for their Sunday afternoon programme. First up was Kwame Asante with a Work in Progress show. Mr Asante (or should I say Dr) has been juggling the balls of being both a stand-up comic and a Junior Doctor for a few years now and frankly I’ve no idea how he finds the time to do both. I’d heard about this chap a few times but never seen him, so thought it was about time we saw what he was all about.

He has a very different style from all the other comics that we saw that weekend; he’s very sincere, very gentle, very eager to please, and keen not to mislead or disappoint. He said from the start that his new show would be about him and his childhood and particularly in relation to how he was obese as a youngster and young man; and exploring the effects that it had on him. No fat-shaming, no cruelty. We’ve seen a few comics over the years who use their comedy as a method of therapy, and I think Dr A might come under that heading. However, to be honest, I thought it would have more material about his overweight years than it actually did; the majority was simply about his life as a doctor.

He had a few great routines, about how he feels when he loses a patient, the strange ways in which he encounters racism, the lies spun to him by his grandma in Ghana, and an enjoyable sequence about the worst things geriatric patients have said to him. His performance split our group; some felt he came over as so vulnerable, that they found him more sad than funny. True, he does have a vulnerability to him, but I simply thought that was an interesting insight into how he handles his two jobs. He’s not a wham bam thank you man kind of comic, his is more a slow burning story-telling style which I really enjoyed. This was the very first preview of his new show, so unsurprisingly it will need quite a bit of shaping up, but that’s what WIP is all about!

Alfie Moore: ‘It’s a Fair Cop’ Work in Progress, Kayal Upstairs, 3.20pm, 25th February

We’ve been looking forward to this final show of the weekend because we saw Alfie Moore at one of the Screaming Blue Murder shows in Northampton many years ago and he was absolutely brilliant. If you ever wondered how much comedy material you could get out of policing… well it’s a lot! He now has his Radio 4 programmes, of which several of our party are fans – I confess I haven’t heard them – and this work in progress show was structured to go through the first draft of a script for one of these shows, to see what should stay and what should go.

The subject of this particular show was a hard-hitter: sexual misconduct. As the audience, and the equivalent to the studio audience during the recording of the radio show, we were required to participate in a “judge and jury” style, giving our instinctive reaction to whether a crime had been committed, whether the perpetrator should be arrested, and so on. It was actually a really fascinating experience from a crime perspective, let alone any comedy! But, as Alfie Moore was in charge, he made it extremely funny. He gave us some great incidental material, including the amazing story of the gentleman who decided to make love to a car exhaust, and the legality (or otherwise) of being a foot fetishist and working in a shoe shop.

I love Mr Moore’s delivery style; it’s unpredictably both brash and subtle, and he’s another of these incredibly quick-witted performers, who can drop a killer punchline, sotto voce, when you’re not expecting it. His unique knowledge of the police force gives him a truly special place in the current comedy circuit and you know he’ll always startle you with his insights and experience.

We could have stayed for more comedy, but I heard the siren call of the A5199. We all enjoyed a really rewarding and, moreover, funny weekend, and I can’t wait for next year’s return visit!

The Agatha Christie Challenge – Death on the Nile (1937)

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STOP PRESS: The Agatha Christie Challenge is now available as a book in two revised volumes – details at the end of this blog post!

In which wealthy socialite Linnet Ridgeway marries Simon Doyle, the fiancé of her best friend Jacqueline de Bellefort, much to the latter’s fury. Miss de Bellefort stalks the newly married couple all round Egypt on holiday just so that she can be a thorn in their flesh. Hercule Poirot, the great Belgian detective is also on holiday in Egypt, where he refuses a commission from the new Mrs Doyle to “do something about it”. However, when one member of the love triangle is found murdered, it is up to Poirot to solve the case, assisted by his friend Colonel Race (whom we met in Cards on the Table). Intrigue piles upon intrigue, and there are many elements to the crime that Poirot identifies and clarifies before finally unveiling the killer. As usual, if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, I promise not to tell you whodunit!

The book is dedicated “To Sybil Burnett, who also loves wandering about the world”. Sybil Burnett was the wife of Air Vice-Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, and she and Mrs Christie met on a boat trip from Rome to Beirut in 1929. Although they took an instant dislike to one another, they soon became firm friends. As Christie describes her, in her autobiography: “she was a woman of great originality, who said exactly what came into her head, loved travelling and foreign places, had a beautiful house in Algiers, four daughters and two sons by a previous marriage, and an inexhaustible enjoyment of life.” No wonder she merited one of Christie’s dedications. Unlike the majority of Christie’s previous books, Death on the Nile wasn’t originally published in magazine instalments, but was first published in the UK on 1st November 1937 by Collins Crime Club; and then subsequently in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co in 1938.

I have a slight problem with this book – but it’s a good one; it’s that I cannot put out of my mind the superb film adaptation starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot that was made in 1978. As a result, I can remember large sections of the story in good detail, including all the machinations regarding whodunit. So, unfortunately, there was little sense of surprise in my re-reading this book; but the snippets from the film that I could see in my mind’s eye were very rewarding to remember. If you haven’t seen the film, I’d definitely recommend it.

It’s a highly action-packed book, with an intricate plot and several sub-plots that, whilst appearing to be relevant to the main murder story, are surprisingly tangential. Even though they have no bearing on identifying the murderer, they are fully explained and make perfect sense and are a vital part of the book as a whole. Without giving too much of the game away, there are also several deaths for the reader to enjoy – if that’s your thing – including a couple of surprises.

Poirot is on sparkling form, as you would expect; he continues that behaviour of being shockingly nosey that was very noticeable in Dumb Witness, such as when he’s given the opportunity to rifle through private documents or overhear private conversations. In fact, this book would be rather lost Poirot doing some injudicious earwigging. Tim Allerton gives us a memorable brief description of Poirot: “that old mountebank? He won’t find out anything. He’s all talk and moustaches.” Captain Hastings is presumably back in Argentina, but Poirot has learned enough from his old friend when to recognise unexpected behaviour from an Old Etonian, which helps him understand one of the sub-plots. Assisting him in the investigation we welcome back Colonel Race, although, again, Race is not quite so interested in the murder as he is in discovering the identity of a political agitator who’s been causing the government some problems over recent years.

Perhaps the most interesting new insight this book gives us into Poirot’s modus operandi is a fascinating comparison between investigating a crime and working on an archaeological dig. Christie had been on a number of digs by this stage, both with and without her husband, and she must have been thrilled when she saw the similarity between the two, which she used to excellent effect in this book. “Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition” says Poirot, “and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do – clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth – the naked shining truth.” It’s particularly appropriate to this book, not only because of the Egyptian setting, but because there’s an awful lot of extraneous matter that clouds understanding and perception of the crime in question.

Christie’s knowledge of the digs frequently added local colour to her more exotically located books and there are many references to real locations in Death on the Nile which set the scene. Linnet and Simon spend a week at the Mena House Hotel, just outside Cairo, where I also spent a few days when we went to Egypt – I’ll never forget the fantastic views of the Pyramids from our balcony. The scene then shifts to the Cataract Hotel in Assuan (modern day Aswan), still today a fantastic residence currently run as a Sofitel. The book takes in the legendary locations of Abu Simnel, Wadi Halfa (over the border in Sudan), Philae (an island in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam), Shellal and Ez-Sebua. There is no attempt by Christie (unusually!) to mask the locations of where the action of the book takes place.

By contrast, outside of Egypt and the Nile region, there are some invented locations. There is no such place as Malton-under-Wode, home of Lord Windlesham – at one stage prospected husband of Linnet – although there is a Malton in North Yorkshire. Fanthorp is said to live in Market Donnington, Northants, which I suspect is a conglomeration of Market Harborough and Castle Donington, both of which, interestingly, are in Leicestershire. Nor is there a Bellfield in Connecticut, allegedly the home of Miss van Schuyler. The desirable and trendy bistro Chez Ma Tante doesn’t exist – at least not in London, but there’s a well-respected place of the same name in Brooklyn.

As Captain Hastings is absent, the book doesn’t have a narrator; or at least, not until Mrs Otterbourne describes the decision as to whether to go to Egypt or not as “not a matter of life or death”. Christie then writes: “But there she was quite wrong – for a matter of life and death was exactly what it was.” So Christie herself is the narrator, largely story-telling simply through facts, occasionally casting out a few minor asides. The style works well for this book, which has so much content; there isn’t a lot of room for comment too. The first chapter, which is divided into twelve sub-sections, is a good example of how Christie can give you a series of snapshots, all roughly happening at the same time, to act as a first draft of and introduction to almost all of the main players in the story. Rather like Murder on the Orient Express, she gives us a murder that takes place in an enclosed environment – here a Nile cruiser, there on the luxury train. The murderer must come from within, which gives the story an added excitement, and a sense of slight claustrophobia and imminent danger. Also like Orient Express, Poirot conducts interviews with all the passengers on a one-by-one basis, throwing up clues and red herrings as he goes. This structure drives the reader on to read it with an excitable frenzy.

There are a few references to Christie’s other books; apart from the reappearance of Colonel Race, Miss van Schuyler is a friend of Rufus van Aldin, who featured in The Mystery of the Blue Train, and Poirot refers to the discovery of a scarlet kimono in his luggage, which was an occurrence on board the Orient Express. Other quotes include a passage from Frankie and Johnny (he was her man and he did her wrong) and La Vie est Vaine, by Leon Montenaeken, after quoting which Poirot confirms he knows whodunit.

Tim Allerton uses a term of – not quite abuse but definitely disapproval – horse coper – to describe Sir George Wode. I’ve never heard it before, but it’s the same as a horse-dealer or maybe today we would say horse-trader as a patronising insult. And Mrs Otterbourne is said to wear black draperies made from ninon – another term I hadn’t heard. It’s a lightweight French fabric made from silk of nylon. I thought it sounded more like when a police car drives past.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I like to research the present-day value of any significant sums of money mentioned in Christie’s books, just to get a more realistic feel for the amounts in question. There are only a few mentioned, but they’re quite relevant in understanding the difference in wealth between Linnet and Jackie. Simon believes that Jackie lives on less than £200 per year. In today’s values that equates to about £9500. She wouldn’t be paying tax, then. By contrast, Mrs Allerton estimates that Linnet’s white dress for dinner alone will have cost 80 guineas, which today would be £4000. Financially the two are miles apart. Linnet’s pearls, which she carelessly just leaves around the house are valued at £50,000. That’s a whopping £2.4m at today’s values.

Now it’s time for my usual at-a-glance summary, for Death on the Nile:

Publication Details: 1937. Fontana paperback, 8th impression, published in 1972, price 30p. The cover illustration by Tom Adams depicts a pearl-handled pistol in front of a Tutankhamun style mask. Simple, effective, and true to the story.

How many pages until the first death: One of the longest waits for a murder so far – 98 pages. Of the blogs I have already written, only The Secret Adversary and At Bertram’s Hotel make you wait longer. It’s important for the plot development and for the slant that Christie wants the reader to believe, that a particular picture is slowly painted.

Funny lines out of context: Not a lot really. Christie does tend to have Poirot “ejaculating” a few times in this book, but that’s all.

Memorable characters: This is one aspect in which this book really stands out. You have Mrs Otterbourne, the over-the-top, sex-mad novelist; Miss van Schuyler, the domineering, class-obsessed old harridan; Tim Allerton, the rather effeminate and affected young man (who surprises you by not being gay); Ferguson, the outspoken and aggressive communist; and of course, Jackie, the obsessive and controlling lover.

Christie the Poison expert:

No trace of poison here. Deaths are caused by gunshot or stabbing.

Class/social issues of the time:

A number of Christie’s usual themes get an airing in this book. In a description of Tim’s attitude to Poirot, Christie puts thoughts in his mother’s mind: “Tim was usually so easy-going and good-tempered. This outburst was quite unlike him. It wasn’t as though he had the ordinary Britisher’s dislike – and mistrust – of foreigners.” We’re not all like that, Mrs Allerton. But she is. “Do you think one of those little black wretches rolled it over for fun?” she asks, when trying to understand why the boulder was sent crashing down the hill.

There are mentions of a “negro orchestra” and the fact that, in ancient times, “negroes must pay customs duties” on entering Egypt; but these are just examples of how acceptable language changes over time. However, the word Christie (as narrator) chooses to use to describe the street vendors and bakshish hunters on the river bank at Aswan is “riff-raff”; a very snobbish and patronising term indeed.

There is a character whom Poirot suspects is a blackmailer. His description of this person’s behaviour: “the murderer comes to her cabin, gives her the money, and then […] she counts it. Oh yes, I know that class. She would count the money and while she counted it she was completely off her guard.” Poirot explains the blackmail activity by believing it is typical of “a class”.

Cornelia, who is portrayed as a sympathetic character, has strong views on equality of the sexes – or, rather, inequality. “Of course people aren’t equal. It doesn’t make sense. I know I’m kind of homely-looking, and I used to feel mortified about it sometimes, but I’ve got over that. I’d like to have been born elegant and beautiful like Mrs Doyle, but I wasn’t, so I guess it’s no use worrying.” Christie has often written characters and plot lines where she clearly disapproves of anything approaching feminism. Cornelia’s attitude infuriates Ferguson, but he’s the kind of person Christie will have disapproved of, so she delights in thwarting his romantic interest in the book.

Simon, too, has strong views about relationships between the sexes: “”You see, a man doesn’t want to feel that a woman cares more for him than he does for her.” His voice grew warm as he went on. “He doesn’t want to feel owned, body and soul. It’s that damned possessive attitude! This man is mine – he belongs to me! That’s the sort of thing I can’t stick – no man could stick! He wants to get away – to be free. He wants to own his woman; he doesn’t want her to own him.”” Those are very much the kind of antifeminist sentiments of which Christie would approve.

Classic denouement: Whilst the denouement is without question exciting, I wouldn’t describe it as a classic. There are a number of loose ends and red herrings that need to get cleared up first, and every time you think Poirot is about to start the j’accuse procedure, he ends up going off on another tangent. It also lacks a certain something in that the murderer isn’t present at the time – and all you have is their follow-up reaction, or indeed the reaction related by a third party. Poirot – or Christie – is also extremely naughty with their reader, for holding back a vital piece of evidence that really gives the game away; Poirot only mentions it at the denouement, and I think the reader can be rightly peeved not to have had access to that information in advance.

Happy ending? Somewhat mixed. Although there are clearly two weddings on the way – both of them rather unexpected – another person who did not win the lady’s affections is left out of the love stakes. And a surprise twist at the end means that you don’t really get the sense of justice being seen to be done.

Did the story ring true? In part. But how did Jackie afford to travel to Egypt and stalk Linnet and Simon when she only earns £200 a year? And the manner of two of the three murders are a blend of far-fetched and extraordinary luck. Despite that, and perhaps due to Christie’s use of real life Nile locations, you can really picture the action taking place with surprisingly realistic effectiveness.

Overall satisfaction rating: It’s not quite a 10/10 for me, with the slightly less than classic denouement, and Christie cheating by withholding evidence from the reader; but it’s definitely worth a 9/10.

Thanks for reading my blog of Death on the Nile and if you’ve read it too, I’d love to know what you think. Please just add a comment in the space below. Next up in the Agatha Christie Challenge is Appointment with Death; a story that features an appalling old woman who, if I remember rightly, gets what’s coming to her. More details than that, I cannot recall. As always, I’ll blog my thoughts about it in a few weeks’ time. In the meantime, please read it too then we can compare notes! Happy sleuthing!

If you enjoy my Agatha Christie Challenge, did you know it is now available as a book? In two revised volumes, it contains all my observations about Christie’s books and short stories, and also includes all her plays! The perfect birthday or Christmas gift, you can buy it from Amazon – the links are here and here!

Review – Cilla the Musical, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 20th February 2018

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One of the ways in which you can categorise celebrity deaths is whether or not they were expected. In 2015 we said goodbye to Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Lee, Ron Moody, Val Doonican, George Cole, Patrick Macnee and Warren Mitchell, who were all in their 80s or 90s so perhaps they were no shock. But we also lost Keith Harris (and, as a result, Orville too), Errol Brown, and, Surprise Surprise, Cilla Black. I don’t think anyone saw that coming. Cilla, who’d been a huge pop star in the 60s, then the mainstay of Saturday night BBC1 entertainment for many seasons; who then bounced back in the 1980s with Surprise Surprise, Blind Date and many other guest appearances and shows; Cilla, who after a few years never needed to use her surname because everyone knew who you meant; Cilla was dead at the age of 72 following a simple fall at her apartment in Spain.

There have been many stories, both before and since her death, about how down to earth she was (or wasn’t), how genuine her Scouse accent was (or wasn’t), and suchlike. I’m not going to go down that path, as Cilla the Musical takes its own occasional sideswipe at her character. There’s no sentimentalising her professional jealousy of Bobby’s upcoming musical career, or how unnecessarily cantankerous she could be in dealings with – for example – Burt Bacharach. But lives are full of intrigue, and if the story of Cilla didn’t dip into a few less rosy aspects of her character or her career, then it wouldn’t be as interesting as it is.

Bill Kenwright’s production took Jeff Pope’s brilliant TV series about her life (starring Sheridan Smith) as its inspiration to create a musical that tells the story of her early years as a typist, trying to break into music, meeting Brian Epstein, palling up with the Beatles, recording with George Martin, an unsuccessful attempt to break into the US market, and finishing up with her own Cilla BBC TV show. Maybe there’s nowhere else to go with that particular stage of her life and career, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt the story just stopped a bit too early. It utilises the songs of the time – not only Cilla’s hits (not all of them, mind) but also a couple of Beatles numbers, Gerry and the Pacemakers’ I Like It and the Mamas and the Papas California Dreamin’. It would be wrong to say there isn’t a duff song in the show (those early numbers are a bit weak, and I’m not a fan of Through The Years which rounds it all off) but musically it really packs a punch, with some truly classic hits which really push your nostalgia button.

I loved Gary McCann’s set from the start – a brilliant evocation of the Cavern club, with all those brick archways stretching further and further back; you really get the sense of being in some vibrant, creative basement where extraordinary things could happen. It combines perfectly with Nick Richings’ amazing lighting scheme, which gives vitality to a drab setting transforming it to somewhere genuinely exciting. The big sparkly Cilla sign that heralded in her TV show said everything you needed to know about the dual identity of celebrity – its irresistible flashiness, its essential artificiality.

The presentation of real-life people on stage is always a sticky wicket. To what extent do you do an impersonation? A half-impersonation? A mere suggestion of the real person? It’s almost impossible to get it right. And this for me is where I have something of a problem with this show. Executive Producer, Robert Willis, Cilla’s real-life son, said “we wanted somebody who wasn’t going to impersonate my mum but someone who could capture her spirit.” Kara Lily Hayworth, who won the open audition to play Cilla, is a splendid singer with a rich, beautiful voice. She also has a great feel for the character, her young cheekiness, her determination; the two moments where she rejects Bobby’s support are so realistically portrayed that they leave you quite breathless with shock. And I think it’s absolutely true – she does capture the spirit of the one and only Cilla.

But Cilla had a unique vocal quality in comparison with the other female performers of her era – the ability to combine the sweetness of the melody with the harsh reality of the lyric. It must have come from her association with George Martin or Lennon/McCartney, because you also see it so clearly in many Beatles’ tracks. Whilst I love (and to be fair, prefer) the big hits of Dusty Springfield or Sandie Shaw, in some of Cilla’s major recordings there is almost an undercurrent of anger, or violence, or utter sorrow moulded into her phrasing and enunciation. Phrases like “loving you the way I do, I take you back”, “love comes love shows, I give my heart and no one knows that I do” and perhaps most of all “when he hears the things that you did you’ll get a belt from yer dad” are all infused with true desperation or sadness; and I’m sorry to say I don’t think Ms Hayworth conveyed any of those emotions at all.

We know that she’s not impersonating Cilla, but simply giving a suggestion of her musical performances whilst singing to her own personal strengths and style. That is a fair enough position to take when you’re recreating a well-known real-life person on stage. The trouble is – the Gerry Marsden impersonation was excellent; the Beatles’ impersonations were pretty spot-on; and the Mamas and Papas sequence was fantastic. In his brief appearance as Ed Sullivan, Alan Howell absolutely captured that rather formal, uncomfortable and stilted manner of speaking that Ed Sullivan had; his slightly patronising tone when he was addressing the youth of the day on his TV show. So when the main character isn’t a strong impersonation, but so many of the other performances are, then it leaves a feeling of unbalance.

For me, Ms Hayworth’s interpretation of Cilla’s songs was simply too pretty, too stylish and insufficiently hard-edged. Singing to a child that he can face physical punishment from his drunk father, with a soft, sweet, optimistic tone, just felt wrong to me. Sometimes I don’t think the very showbizzy arrangements of some of the iconic songs did her any favours. Listen to the original recording of Step Inside Love and feel that haunting and haunted concern at the end where the trailing guitar solo just fades away as if to say… maybe he won’t come back this time. It’s a spine-tingling arrangement by Paul McCartney. In this show, it ends with a triumphant showbiz major key happy ending. That was weird. It wasn’t even as though that’s how they did it on Cilla’s TV show.

Don’t get me wrong; Ms Hayworth is a terrific singer and a wonderful new find – I just felt that emotionally she didn’t quite give enough. Mrs Chrisparkle observed that in the very moving scene where Bobby’s and Cilla’s relationship appears to be at an end, their performance of You’ve lost that Lovin’ Feelin’ was notable for the way Carl Au’s Bobby absolutely stole the number, with his passion, regret and sorrow, whilst Ms Hayworth was almost a backing singer in comparison. Talking of whom; Carl Au is superb as Bobby. The cheeky lad down the bar; the hapless negotiator; the guilt-laden son; the self-effacing boyfriend; the nervous prospective son-in-law; the desperate one who eats humble pie and asks for forgiveness. He gets them all perfectly, and is also a fantastic singer; his performance of A Taste of Honey is one of the highlights of the evening.

Andrew Lancel is very convincing as the enigmatic Brian Epstein, a man who had everything and nothing. Softly spoken, quietly manipulative, full of the sexual repression that is heartbreakingly brought out in the juxtaposition with John Lennon’s You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, I thought he really brought the character to life. Tom Sowinski also gives a good representation of George Martin’s extremely polite, business-like but friendly manner. Pauline Fleming and Neil Macdonald are excellent as Cilla’s parents, squeezing every ounce of humour out of their old-fashioned ways. Billie Hardy and Amy Bridges give great support as Cilla’s girl friends and also in a variety of other minor roles.

Hopefully the few snags we saw on the Tuesday night were ironed out for the rest of the run; it was a shame that the emotional scene where Cilla and Bobby hear of the death of Brian Epstein (sorry, spoilers) was almost ruined by frantic running sounds from backstage as cast members tried to get into place for the next scene in time. As it is, when the next scene started, one microphone was swung round too quickly to get into place and hit one of the singers on the nose (I think she may actually have yelped), and some of the solo musicians (very effective brass, by the way) were late getting on to stage so that it all felt a little shambolic. Ah well, first night in a new theatre, and all that.

It’s a feelgood show that overall looks superb and is full of great songs to enjoy. Whilst it’s not quite a singular sensation in my book, it’s still very enjoyable and if you like a dollop of 60s nostalgia to accompany a fascinating biographical storyline, It’s For You. After Northampton, the tour continues to Newcastle, Chester, Bristol, Woking, Nottingham, Aylesbury and Norwich, with further dates to be announced.

Review – Michael Petrov Performs Tchaikovsky, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 18th February 2018

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I reckon that attending live performances is habit-forming and after a while, if you see enough, you can end up on auto-pilot. That’s the reason that Mrs Chrisparkle and I kept checking our tickets on Sunday to ensure that this visit of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra really was scheduled for 3pm and not the usual 7.30pm. It just didn’t quite feel right to be there in the afternoon! There’s no doubt, however, that the matinee performance enabled several more children to attend the concert which is a great thing, especially as this was by no means a children’s programme – there were four, perfectly meaty, substantial and adult pieces of classical music to enjoy, and I hope any new youthful concertgoers found it as exciting and rewarding as we did.

Our conductor for this concert was Rory Macdonald, whom we’ve seen just once before, when Natalie Clein performed Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor three years ago. He still doesn’t seem to have aged at all, and I’m more than ever sure that he has a grand selfie mouldering in his attic somewhere. He’s an exuberant conductor, one who likes to reach out on tippytoes to get the maximum out of his musicians. With his sleek black hair and formal attire, I couldn’t get the vision of Mary Poppins’ cartoon penguins out of my head. But he does a great job, so far be it from me to take the mickey.

Our first piece was Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. What a grand way to start a concert, with its compelling tunes and robust orchestration. It’s a superbly muscular and self-confident piece of music – everything an overture should be – and the orchestra rose to the challenge magnificently. I also appreciated the slightly pacier tempo which made its strength and power stand out. A great start.

Next we had two pieces of music that were new to me. Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34 by Edvard Grieg. I love Grieg’s music and it was a treat to discover something new by him. All the woodwind and percussion left the stage so that we only had the string players – I say “only”, but the lush sound they produced was sensational for these two pure and sincere reflective pieces. There’s nothing comfortable about the Elegiac Melodies, and I found them strangely disconcerting; but I really loved the performance.

After this, there was some general reorganisation as the rest of the orchestra returned and a platform was provided, centre stage, for our soloist, the cellist Michael Petrov. Amongst all the black evening dresses of the ladies of the orchestra and the formal suits of the men, Mr Petrov strode on to the stage in a white shirt not tucked in at the waist, no collar, no jacket, no tie, but with a calm and creative aura about him. He looked like a benign dentist – the sort who doesn’t complain at you if he suspects you haven’t been cleaning your teeth properly.

Mr Petrov was there to play Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op 33. This was another piece I’d never heard before and I was instantly taken by it. Tchaikovsky takes a relatively simple theme and wraps it around his little finger with seven variations and an astonishing cadenza from Mr Petrov where you could hear a pin drop, so alert were the audience to the passionate tones he produced from his 1846 J B Vuillaume cello – proving that old is often best. The Variations are a great vehicle to show off a bravura performance and Mr Petrov did that with apparently effortless ease. He brought out the humour of some of the cheekier variations and the solemnity of the andante sections. No sheet music, no grand gestures; just a thoughtful and disciplined performance that held the audience spellbound. We absolutely loved it – and now I need to find a decent recording of this piece for my own music library.

This performance was of the Fitzenhagen arrangement of the Variations; Fitzenhagen was the principal cellist with the Orchestra of the Imperial Russian Music Society in Moscow, to whom Tchaikovsky had dedicated the work, but then who chopped and changed the Variations around, much to the annoyance of Tchaikovsky. But maybe Fitzenhagen knew what he was doing, because it’s such an enjoyable mini-concerto, and it’s usually his version that gets performed.

After the interval we returned for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4 in A Major, Op 40, better known as the Italian Symphony. As soon as its happy and playful major theme strikes up in the first movement, you’re transported away to sunny climates and a lovely Mediterranean lifestyle. Under Mr Macdonald’s enthusiastic direction, the orchestra brought us all the joy of the first movement, then to change dramatically to the crestfallen sound of the second movement, with its connotations of funereal respect, the stately minuet of the third movement and the raucous scampering of the saltarello dance of the fourth. It was all performed with amazing vigour and energy and had the audience on the edge of its seat with excitement at the end.

A fantastic concert that introduced me to some riveting new pieces and a super soloist. And it was all over by teatime! The next classical offering from the Royal Philharmonic will be in April, with a varied programme of Czech, Polish and Finnish music. Can’t wait!

Review – The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter Theatre, 17th February 2018

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Do you remember doing your A-levels, gentle reader? If you had the…pleasure…of that experience, you won’t have forgotten it. Staying up half the night cramming in essays on everything left right and centre – well for me it was English, French and German, but that’s not the point. We knew that one of the A level papers in English would have a question on Harold Pinter. Our teacher took us through The Caretaker, and I voluntarily read The Homecoming – but didn’t understand it of course. We also read, in class, The Birthday Party, and our teacher suggested we should write an essay on it for homework, but he wasn’t going to insist on it. We already had enough on our plate.

But I was entranced by The Birthday Party and started an essay on it at 7pm which I finished at 1am. I had no idea where I was going with it but I just felt the need to express my reaction to it. I handed it in, hoping that the labour of love would get me some brownie points. But I got more than that. The teacher marked me a straight alpha for it, read it out to all the other classes, and told everyone “here is a man who really loves his subject.” I’ll never forget that. And I got a Grade B in English A level!

This was Pinter’s first full-length play, originally staged in 1958 when it ran for a dynamic eight performances, no doubt curtailed because of the savaging it received from the critics. Only Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times (always the most reliable observer of drama of his age) recognised Pinter’s talent and saw in the play what others failed to see. Since then it’s had precious few revivals in the UK and I’ve been waiting for a chance to see it for over forty years. Hurrah that Ian Rickson’s production has arrived at the Comedy (I mean Harold Pinter – appropriately) Theatre, and I could not wait to book.

How the memories came flooding back. On the written page it’s very hard to get a feel for this play. Just how menacing is it? (Very.) Just how funny is it? (Surprisingly, quite a lot.) What does it mean? (Now you’re asking….) Here’s the bare bones: Stanley (morose, unkempt, petulant, seedy) has been staying at Meg and Petey’s seaside boarding house for a year now. Petey is a deck chair attendant so is out all day and in all weathers (although who sits on a deckchair in the rain?) which leaves Meg the run of the house, doing the cleaning and the cooking and generally looking after Stanley. He is their only guest. So is he really a bona fide boarding house guest, or just a figment of their imagination, a son figure to complete an otherwise empty family set-up?

Shattering the status quo, two mysterious men, Goldberg and McCann, arrive, looking for a place to stay. Meg is unsure at first, but they’re gentlemanly and flattering and win her over with ease. But what of their relationship with Stanley? It seems like he knows who they are. It seems like they know who he is. And what appears to be at first polite, distant dealings with him turn into haranguing, menacing, threatening interrogations that he cannot cope with. It’s also, apparently, Stanley’s birthday (although he denies it) and a party is scheduled for 9pm that night. What could possibly go wrong?

You could analyse this play for a year and a day and still not come up with anything like a this is what this play is about statement. But that’s the point. Pinter delights in contradiction and obfuscation. Characters say one thing and do another. They assume several identities. Symbols like Stanley’s missing piano or his toy drum take on a force of their own and challenge you to apply reason to them. But if a clear meaning did emerge, Pinter would have had to go back to the drawing board and start again. The audience is a vital part of the production as they fill in some of the gaps in an attempt to make some sense of what’s going on. But there will always be gaps when watching this play, and my suggestion is simply to revel in them.

The curtain rises to the Quay Brothers’ meticulously realised set; grimy wallpaper peeling from the walls, dark brown wooden panelling that needs updating, dumpy comfortless furniture that reflects the harsh reality of the household. Their costume design is also perfect for the time, location and characters: Stanley’s soiled pyjama top; Meg’s dowdy pinny and dress; Goldberg and McCann’s formal business suits; Lulu and Meg’s glamorous party outfits. For a play and production that relies on high impact lighting cues, Hugh Vanstone’s lighting design works perfectly, from the effect when Stanley strikes a match, the sunlight that comes in from the door that illuminates Stanley’s profile to the shock of the blackout and its subsequent revelations. There’s so much in the background to admire in this production.

Then you have six tremendous performances that really get to the heart of the text, two of which come under the “perfect casting” heading. Toby Jones is chillingly good as Stanley, a fantastic portrayal of this lethargic lump of barely concealed neuroses, pathetically pretending to a greater existence in his past whilst all too closely fearing for his own mortality. No one does “wretched” quite like Mr Jones and he was absolutely born to play this role. And Zoe Wanamaker gives a masterclass performance as the under-achieving, suggestible Meg, waxing lyrical about those lovely flakes and affecting shock but actually aroused when Stanley calls her succulent. Like Shirley Valentine, Meg has had such a little life, and Ms Wanamaker makes you feel her character long ago stopped trying to break out of it. Her “belle of the ball” moments are genuinely moving, as is Petey’s attempt to protect her from bad news at the end of the play – some great characterisation from Peter Wight there in what you might otherwise think is just a filler character. No line is wasted in a Pinter play.

Stephen Mangan and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor are excellent as Goldberg and McCann but a complete contrast from how I would have imagined them. In my mind’s eye Goldberg is almost a stereotype east-end Jew, probably lifted from a not very PC sitcom from the 1970s – very Sydney Tafler-esque (whom I note played Goldberg in the 1968 film which I didn’t even know existed). I’ve always thought of McCann as a thuggish Irish navvy-type; the kind who’d wallop you with a spade and then ask questions afterwards. These imaginary characterisations in my head are so different from the realistic, true to life performances on offer in this production. Mr Mangan gives every one of Goldberg’s lines a weight and resonance that I hadn’t known was there before. This makes the character more sinister and threatening – even before he starts becoming sinister and threatening. You can see in Mr Mangan’s eyes how Goldberg is plotting his every move in a chess game where Stanley can never occupy a safe square.

Mr Vaughan-Lawlor’s McCann is more cerebral than thuggish, in a linguistic fencing match where he forces Stanley into a position where Goldberg can go in for the kill. His newspaper-tearing torture, which I had always felt evoked the sound of bones breaking, is actually more like an attack on the mind than the body and is carried out with such intimidating concentration that it made me feel queasy. The two actors work together so well on their combined verbal attacks on Stanley, with beautifully orchestrated and executed delivery so that the poor man is powerless to protect himself. Completing the sextet is a spirited and likeable portrayal of Lulu by Pearl Mackie, the free-thinking outsider who gets caught in Stanley and Goldberg’s cat and mouse game and pays the price.

This is a simply brilliant production that really brings Pinter’s text to life and surprises you with its humour, its anarchy and its sheer menace. You don’t need to be a Drama or English student to enjoy this one. Seriously impressive and highly recommended.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 16th February 2018

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It was a welcome return last Friday to the effervescent Dan Evans hosting another Screaming Blue Murder with three wonderful acts and two delightful intervals. Another packed house – aren’t they all nowadays? – but with a really strange crowd. I think there was a large party that arrived quite late so they couldn’t all sit together; therefore the room was scattered with people who knew each other very well – which was perplexing to some of the comics but comedy gold too – as you will see…

Amongst the crowd were three baby-faced youths on the front row who admitted to being 19 years old, but I’m not so sure; but they were very good sports as almost everyone picked on them at some point. There was also a lady who worked at John Lewis’; Dan got very excited about the prospects for wheedling discounts out of her until he discovered she worked at the warehouse. Dan was on great form as always and got us in the perfect mood for an anarchic night.

Our first act was James Dowdeswell, whom we’ve seen here three times before, but there’s been a goodly gap since the last time, so his act was fresh as a daisy to us. With an IT geeky face and a certain degree of west country poshness, he delivers a range of very funny and frequently self-deprecating humour, and struck up an excellent rapport with the audience. He has some great stag-do material, and gets a lot of mileage out of his recent engagement and arrangements for his forthcoming nuptuals. All very enjoyable stuff.

And at some point during James’ routine, at the back of the room, and more vocal than was good for him, came the voice of Reg. Reg is a lorry driver. What kind of goods does he transport? White Goods. Cocaine! shouted half the people who knew him. It wasn’t long before Reg was “the supplier” to the whole audience. Nice work if you can get it. Little did we know how Reg would feature later on.

Our second act, and a change to the advertised programme, was Kate Lucas, who was new to us. Where has she been hiding all this time? Kate’s speciality is comedy songs with a twist – a twist of a neck, that is, as she gets so angry during her songs. They’re really funny and inventive – and because she has the voice of an angel and the charm of a Swiss Finishing School Product, her venom is all the more surprising and effective. She has songs that express the disappointment of how ugly a baby can be; a typical argument between husband and wife; and where you can choose to go to Heaven or to Hell. They’re all super-savage and absolutely brilliant. We even joined in. Everybody loved her!

Our headline act, and someone you can always trust to react to the room, was Russell Hicks. The first time I saw him I was disappointed that he went off tangent so much to react to what was going on around him that I felt like I missed out on his act “proper”. Now I know going off on one is his raison de comédie. He was wearing a rather flash sheepskin coat, of which he was clearly proud until someone said he looked like John Motson. Mr Hicks’ American upbringing meant he never got to watch the beloved Motty on Match of the Day, so he insisted on someone Googling his photo for him. One look at the picture and he threw the coat on to the floor in disgust and declared war on us.

But we had Reg as part of our ammunition, who, as I intimated earlier, wasn’t backward in coming forward. Mr Hicks unearthed him from the back of the room, made him swap places with Ravi (the most amenable of the 19 year olds) but then Ravi started kicking off. Mr H was clearly beguiled by a lady in an orange dress and spoke of his admiration for her primary colours when we all shouted back that orange isn’t a primary colour (because you can make if from mix red and yellow of course!) Flummoxed that we all knew our primary colours – but having whipped the room into a frenzy of enjoyment – all Mr H had to do was keep jabbing away at our idiosyncrasies and oddities, and his forty minutes just flew by. As he said at the end, this was one of the absolute weirdest sets he’d done but also one of the funniest. An absolute master at running with whatever the crowd chuck at him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite so in control.

A genuinely hilarious night’s comedy. Next Screaming Blue is on 9th March. Don’t miss it!

Review – Daliso Chaponda, What the African Said, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 15th February 2018

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The country knows – and has taken to their heart – Daliso Chaponda from his appearances on last year’s Britain’s Got Talent; but Mrs Chrisparkle and I know him from one of last year’s Screaming Blue Murder shows where he absolutely slayed the audience and I had no hesitation in awarding him the 2017 Chrisparkle Award for Best Screaming Blue Stand-up! Now he’s back at the Royal for one of his first dates in his first ever UK tour, and already he’s selling out (seats, not material) everywhere he goes. And there’s a good reason for this. The man is utterly hysterical.

But first – a support act. We spent the first half hour in the company of Tony Vino – whom we’ve not seen before – and he’s a very funny guy! He has a lot of nice observational comedy about family life including kids on roller shoes, and dealing with American customs officers’ sense of humour (they don’t have one.) I particularly enjoyed his material about having a vasectomy and sharing surgical memories with other snipped guys in the audience. But best of all was his Lion King finale, ostensibly to create an African atmosphere to welcome Mr Chaponda back for the second half, but really an excuse to get about ten people up from the audience in a hilarious re-enactment of Simba’s Greatest Hour. If you get called up, just go for it, like the Northampton guys last night. It was brilliant.

But it’s all about Mr Chaponda. There are few comics who strike up such an instant rapport because they are so genuinely likeable. He is the epitome of cheekiness, with a permanently sunny personality that he uses to enormous effect to deliver sometimes quite serious material. He doesn’t shy away from race; in fact there’s a considerable segment of the show where we’re asked to judge the relative seriousness of examples of celebrity use of the N word. But he frames it all with both irreverence and kindliness, which is a unique mix. He has some killer jokes regarding slavery. He even has a little material that’s based on his being abused as a child, whereat the audience falls silent with shock and empathy; and then he rounds it off with a perfect punchline that had me snorting into my hand.

The show is very cleverly structured, much of it spent with his telling us all the times when he thought a joke wasn’t in any way “unacceptable” but then discovering it was – with us hearing the material in order to judge it, of course. And, naturally, it’s inevitably incredibly near the knuckle and absolutely hilarious, whilst he feigns surprise at how this “innocuous” joke could possibly cause offence. He’s very quick-witted and you sense that you could see his show a number of times and you’d get a different slant each time. That said, there was some repetition of his Screaming Blue material from last year, but it’s all brilliant, so it was great to hear it again. I’d forgotten how much I love his visual representation of the problems a shorter man faces when attempting a 69.

As an encore we re-enacted his Britain’s Got Talent audition, with members of the audience as the panel, including a very butch Amanda Holden and a very white Alisha Dixon. It was an appropriate way to end the night, linking it to his best-known TV appearance and delivering a few sure-fire one-liners. Mr Chaponda is pure comedy gold. Thank heavens his history lessons concentrated on Henry VIII so that he just had to move to the UK. His tour continues right through till June so do yourself a favour and book!!