Review – Kae Kurd, What’s O’Kurd, Underground at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 17th October 2025

Posted on October 18, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

It’s always exciting to go to a comedy gig and not have a clue about the comedians you’re going to see. Kae Kurd is a new name to me, so I thought I would give him a try and it turns out a large number of the comedy goers of Northampton felt the same! It was great to be part of a truly diverse audience too; all ages, all ethnicities coming together for an evening of fun. More of this please.

But first – Kae Kurd’s support act, the friendly face of Muhsin Yesilada, again new to me, but a perfect choice to start the evening with a swing. Engaging, building a confident rapport with the crowd, he delivered his material in a relaxed and surefooted style, giving every comic observation the time and space it needed to land. He has some excellent sequences concerning dealing with his horrible nephew, and that delicious pleasure you can take when an irritating child doesn’t get everything their own way. When he gently teased some latecomers, who protested their lateness because outside they’d just met Kae Kurd, his instant response was “Me too!” A very enjoyable opening act.

After the interval we welcomed Kae Kurd, another engaging stage presence with a very effective delivery style. He presents his act in quite a static way and comes across as perhaps surprisingly low energy; but his tone is unpredictable, and his material is precise, hard-hitting and frequently goes where angels fear to tread. In a deft way of getting to know the audience – and us getting to know each other – he asks for a cheer if you’re in your 20s, then your 30s, your 40s and 50s. This allows him to chat to random people in those age brackets, voicing his opinions and observations about what people are like as they get older. I had to stay silent, as I presume he has no idea there were 60+ year olds there!

He unashamedly hates (strong word, but bear with me) people in their 20s, for all their modern hang-ups and idiosyncrasies. Being somewhere in his 30s himself, that makes him fit nicely into a niche comedic role of grumpy young man. His observations are telling and funny and remarkably true. Other comedy gems of the night included an account of his time in Zambia avoiding crocodiles and hippos, an exploration of whether Donald Trump would get on with choices of pronouns and how it’s easier to be right wing than left wing. I also loved his imagining how he’d get on talking about mental health issues to his father who fought against Saddam Hussein.

He is very quick witted on stage, with a great ability to remember facts about the audience members which he uses to excellent callback effect. It’s intelligent, thought-provoking comedy that’s always relatable, and I’ll definitely follow his career with interest!

Review – Entertaining Mr Sloane, Young Vic, London, 15th October 2025

Posted on October 16, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

1964. The year of A Hard Day’s Night and Little Red Rooster, Mary Quant and Bobby Charlton. Harold Wilson became the first Labour Prime Minister since Clement Attlee. And 31-year-old Joe Orton (although he claimed he was 25 in the original programme) had his first stage play, Entertaining Mr Sloane, performed at the Arts Theatre in London. The Guardian called it “a milk-curdling essay in lower-middle-class nihilism” but owing to the support, both financial and moral, of none other than Sir Terence Rattigan, it transferred to Wyndhams’ and had a brief but artistically successful run, winning the London Critics’ Variety award for the best play of 1964.

This is a welcome and inspired choice for Nadia Fall’s first production in charge of the Young Vic. In case you don’t know: Kath lives with her father, Kemp, (the Dadda) and has a spare room which she is going to let out to Mr Sloane. He is 20, a loner; physically appealing in a dangerous way, and it only takes her twenty or so minutes to find a reason for her to remove his trousers. Her brother, Ed, appears influential and wealthy; he doesn’t trust any potential lodgers and intends to send him packing, until he too finds Sloane physically appealing and tries to find a way to get closer to him. Sloane seems inexperienced but knows precisely what both brother and sister are after and works to play the situation to his advantage. The Dadda, however, recognises Sloane as the murderer of his ex-employer. If things weren’t already dark enough, they quickly get darker.

Few creative artists make such a huge mark that they deserve their own adjective, but Ortonesque survives as the only concise way of capturing his particular brand of innovative, dangerous, surreal, sexually charged, axis-changing and rivetingly funny drama. Entertaining Mr Sloane is a classic subversion of a traditional drawing-room comedy; three acts, one location, pretentions to moderate wealth and social influence, it’s no wonder that his work is a natural crossover product of the likes of Coward and Rattigan with Pinter and Osborne.

When the text was sent to the Lord Chamberlain’s office for a licence, the only thing the censor picked up on was the overt sexual activity between Kath and Sloane; all the other undercurrents in the play simply went unnoticed. Seeing Entertaining Mr Sloane today, over sixty years since it first appeared, gives you a strangely nostalgic feel for the Swinging Sixties. You can almost taste how shocking some reactionaries would have found it, and how deliciously it would have appealed to the progressives.

What makes this play stand out though is Orton’s superlative writing skills. The words his characters speak are subtle and nuanced, and their meanings are indirect; his ear for conversational patterns is outstanding. He has that enviable ability to present an awkward, uncomfortable, potentially tragic situation and then instantly send it up so that you burst out laughing and then hate yourself for your insensitivity. No subject is ever out of bounds for Orton. Domestic violence, mistreatment of the elderly, rape and assaults; Kemp grumbles about the number of foreigners coming into the country, committing sexual assaults – some prejudices don’t change.

Peter McKintosh’s set is a work of art in itself. When you enter the auditorium a jumble of domestic items and furniture dangle suspended from the ceiling – chairs, a pram, an ironing board, an airer, and so on; and around the base, a clutter of junk and debris surround the circular stage. Orton points out that Kath and Kemp’s house is next door to rubbish tip, which gave the inspiration for the set. It’s a nice idea, but it’s really only a mention in passing, so it’s neither vital to the plot, nor does it get in the way. The decision to stage the play in the round – because, as confirmed in a programme note, it is a voyeuristic play – works well. There is no hiding place in Entertaining Mr Sloane and there is no hiding place on the set either.

Richard Howell’s lighting design allows for some ingenious effects; off-stage characters are highlighted as if frozen in time, slow-motion sequences are lit artificially to create an other worldliness, and there is a stunningly impactful, strobe-filled start to Act Two which sees Sloane transformed from subdued semi-formal clothing to leather joy boy (the uniform Ed has chosen for him), an effect that fully deserves its own round of applause from the audience. Nadia Fall has made a few other fascinating directorial choices, including an impressive tug-of-love/semi-BDSM final tableau as Kath and Ed rope up the powerless Sloane with telephone wires graphically to convey how successfully the arch manipulator Sloane has been out-manipulated by the brother and sister. I am always a sucker for effective stage combat and the scene where Sloane batters Kemp is fantastically convincing.

Tamzin Outhwaite gives a wonderfully entertaining performance as Kath, a repressed sex kitten in a pinny who moves into Sloane’s space as a surrogate Mummy, unhesitatingly taking the lead whilst protesting her respectability. Her performance is perhaps more geared towards the comedy of the situation than the darkness, with lovely moments with her false teeth, and terrific comic timing of Orton’s killer lines. Daniel Cerqueira’s Ed is a chain-smoking, snide wannabe-bully who allows himself to be distracted and influenced by Sloane, almost but never quite taking control of situations. His vocal delivery reminded me strongly of the comedian Micky Flanagan, which was slightly unsettling; but it’s a convincing portrayal of someone fighting to stay one step ahead.

Christopher Fairbank is excellent as Kemp, a delightfully grubby old man, who’s seen it all and isn’t fooled by anyone, but knows he has to behave if he wants to keep a roof over his head. And, in an outstanding stage debut, Jordan Stephens is superb as Sloane, stringing the siblings along with just the right level of innocence until he flashes into intense anger and violence.

The production does come across as a little ponderous at first, with Act One feeling a little static, with the characters slow to develop. Once the second Act kicks in, the pace builds, and the nastiness intensifies to reach its exciting and unusual conclusion. An excellent opportunity to see Orton’s first stage work – and to reflect on how he could potentially have carved out an immensely successful career had he lived.

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Cyrano de Bergerac, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 7th October 2025

Posted on October 8, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

If there’s one thing that everyone knows about Cyrano de Bergerac, it’s that he was blessed with an enormous conk. There’s no other way of putting it; coquettishly disguised in the promotional image for the production on the programme and posters. It blights Cyrano’s life, despite his bravura and positivity, and always holds him back from telling his true feelings for fear of rejection and ridicule.

For a play that presents as a frothy comedy, Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, in this new adaptation by Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson, is packed with serious issues. Its essential message – one as old as time – is to be yourself; arguably none of the chief protagonists achieve this, and (spoiler alert) it doesn’t end happily for any of them. The play also stresses the significance of language; much as one may philosophise today that “the destination is not as important as the journey”, in CdB, the meaning of what you say is not as important as the way you say it. Roxane and Christian believe that they are in love with each other, but they need Cyrano to express it for them in his miraculously eloquent way. If it was left to Christian, all Roxane would hear is I Love You and it’s just not enough embellishment. Honestly, you can’t satisfy some people.

In a rewarding development from Anthony Burgess’ long-established translation of the play, in this production the sense of verse is much more modern and less intrusive. Rostand’s original 1897 play is written in verse and Burgess’ adaptation is heavy-handed and, frankly, overwhelming. Evans and Stevenson have created a much subtler format, creating a metrical language for each main character, but it’s only Cyrano’s lines that feel like verse, and they help to make the character stand out above the crowd.

They’ve made some sensible cuts to the original – probably they could have made more, as that first scene set in the theatre still has the ability to irritate with its total irrelevance to the rest of the play. The staging of that scene is bizarrely cumbersome. Not only do we all have to stand for the entrance of Comte de Guiche – I could see him pointedly waiting for me to get on my feet – three members of the audience are then required to vacate their seats, clutching coats, trying not to spill drinks or drop programmes, to reposition themselves at the side of the auditorium whilst the Comte’s party move into their prime position; only for the party to move out again and have the audience members return again – a frustratingly annoying sequence that constantly obstructed my view with people standing, heads bobbing, and all that shenanigans.

Overall, however, it’s a very satisfying modern reworking of the text; delightfully playful even in its darkest moments. There’s an ingenious updating of the acrostic fight scene between Cyrano and Valvert, although given the importance of words in the play, the occasional flinging around of the F word comes across as simply inappropriate or a cheap laugh at best. Still, cheap laughs are enjoyable.

Cyrano tells a running account that he meets death every so often, bows graciously to him, and then tells him to go away, which he obligingly does – until the end. Simon Evans has characterised this presence of death into a small boy, dressed as Cyrano and with his same magisterial nose, quietly observing him on the sidelines at pivotal moments. He’s a creepy presence, and the device works well, although I couldn’t quite understand why your death would be symbolised by you as a child.

Grace Smart and Joshie Harriette have worked together to create a sumptuous set with evocative lighting. When you enter the auditorium, you’re struck by the stagey red curtains and beautifully varnished floorboards, all bathed in darkly golden half-light. Later the curtains give way to present a floral courtyard, a battle scene, and eventually a rather overgrown garden of heavenly delights. In another unexpected joy, Cyrano, very amusingly, has his own house band who follow him wherever he goes. Like an ageing television personality keeping up his fading presence, it’s a brilliant idea, beautifully executed and with great incidental compositions by Alex Baranowski.

Most impressive about the entire production are the performances of all members of the cast, not one of whom puts a foot wrong or mis-stresses a syllable. Even the minor characters have their moments of brilliance, like Sunny Chung’s wordplay between rain and pain when Sister Claire is trying to comfort Roxane, or Caolan McCarthy’s Arnauld shouting out I’m a Christian! or Daniel Norford’s Louis’ confession that his shooting aim is useless. Chris Nayak gives a scene-stealing performance as the outrageously hammy actor Monfleury, and Greer Dale-Foulkes is superb as Abigail, constantly surprising everyone by her immediate attraction to handsome men and her extraordinary sexual history. Christian Patterson is excellent as cook/innkeeper Ragueneau, and there’s great support from Philip Cumbus as Le Bret and David Mildon as Carbon.

Scott Handy is a delightfully vain and aloof de Guiche, strutting arrogantly until real life and the levelling of war bring him down to earth. Levi Brown is very convincing as the fresh-faced but hopelessly inexpressive Christian, using his Brummie accent to perfection. Susannah Fielding gives a magnificent performance as Roxane, girlishly excited, full of daring, petulant when Christian cannot find the words she wants to hear and genuinely moving in the final scene.

Adrian Lester is fantastic as Cyrano, always maintaining a presence of nobility and eloquence, nimbly cavorting around in his stage combat scenes (the swordplay is stunning throughout), hugely vulnerable when he cannot open his heart; a truly dynamic and captivating performance of the highest quality. His imitating Christian’s Brummie accent to fool the listening Roxane is one of the funniest things I’ve seen and heard in ages.

It’s not a perfect production; the overlong first scene has some messy staging, and the battle scenes are difficult to follow. But they are very much compensated for by the performances, the emotions and the comedy highlights. The RSC are on to a winner here!

Production photos by Marc Brenner

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The Comedy Crate presents British Comedian of the Year Northampton Heat, Cheyne Walk Club, Northampton, 18th September 2025

Posted on September 19, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

The British Comedian of the Year contest is always an exciting event and it’s a privilege that one of the heats is held in Northampton, courtesy of those nice people at The Comedy Crate. This year in the hallowed chambers of the Cheyne Walk Club, nine hopefuls girded their loins with the prospect of being one of two acts chosen by the audience to progress to the next round.

Introduced by the upbeat and ebullient Ian Hayes, the nine acts were broken into chunks of three, with an interval between acts three and four, and between six and seven. After the final act had performed there was an online vote (oooh) and everyone could choose their two favourites.

First off was Sam Coade, who hit the ground running with some excellent routines and some quite off-beat and daring material. It’s impressive how he can carry a silence without concern – something many comedians rarely risk trying – and it worked well to build an understanding of his material. I loved the ambulance driver routine, and his throwaway icebreaker with the audience member on stage was audaciously hilarious.

Rob Coleman followed; we’d seen him once before at the Leicester Comedy Festival in 2018, and his material is still very much in the same vein – using his older looks, grumpy disposition and mad professor hair as a vehicle for convincing us he’s a sex symbol. It’s the comedy of irony, and you either like it or you don’t.

Before the first interval came Benny Shakes; and I’m sure that’s not his real surname. An imposing stage presence, he uses the fact that he has cerebral palsy to excellent comic effect, with an effective delivery, strong punchlines and some very nice callbacks. Very likeable and funny, he brought the first section of the night to a very happy conclusion.

Act number four was Dudley’s own Danny Clives, an unassuming, self-effacing stage presence and someone who uses a “one of life’s losers” persona, which is always risky but Danny nails it, with excellent timing and some clever material. He went down very well with the audience.

Next was Ryan Kenny, with probably the most surreal act of the night. Comic, poet and an element of clown thrown in, his set is very well crafted and executed, and very original, where he basically performs his material twice because he wasn’t happy with it the first time. There’s a lot of talent here; in my opinion, he just needs to make it funnier somehow. But it’s very inventive and entertaining, nonetheless.

Sarah Johnson came next, with some delightfully ribald material and some very funny observations about family life. I felt that she never quite hit her stride, but her description of menopausal symptoms and side effects gave rise to probably the best line of the night.

Our final cluster started with Norwegian Henning Nilsen, with some good material on what it’s like to be a Scandi abroad, why Norway is better than Sweden, and what would have happened if the Vikings had won. He has a solid delivery and confident style, and I think in time he will become a force to be reckoned with.

Our penultimate act, and someone we’ve seen a couple of times, was Peter Brush, another exponent of the “life loser” persona, but with expert, controlled delivery, and material that always ends with a powerful and very funny punchline. Perhaps his stories take a little too long to get to those punchlines, but they’re always worth the wait.

And finishing us off, so to speak, was Rik Goodman, who cuts a rather mysterious and aloof figure on stage, and who quietly builds his material up over the course of the act. Very nicely and subtly self-deprecating, and with very confident delivery, his content did seem rather fixated on penis size, which I think is something most of us can only take so far. Rather like with Mr Coleman earlier, this is something that either works for you or doesn’t.

Then came the voting! An easy to operate app simply asked for the audience’s top two acts – you didn’t have to nominate them in first or second place. And the results came through very quickly. In third place was Benny Shakes, and there was a tie for first place between Sam Coade and Danny Clives. Personally, I only voted for one of those three, but I feel it’s a very fair result; and good luck to Sam and Danny when they go on to fight again in the later stages of the competition!

Review – Breaking the Code, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 16th September 2025

Posted on September 17, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

The debt that we owe Alan Turing cannot be underestimated. Not only for his vital and secret work in cracking the Enigma code, which fundamentally changed the course of the Second World War, but also his understanding of the potential that computers can contribute to the world. The young, idealistic, fresh-faced Turing would dream of an electronic machine that could, with encouragement from Man, think for itself. A pipe dream, surely? But one look at how AI is already encroaching on everything we see on our smartphones is enough to realise that Turing’s vision has come true.

But Turing was much more than just a brilliant brain, as Hugh Whitemore’s gripping and heartbreaking Breaking the Code makes crystal clear. Whilst at Sherborne school he became emotionally, and possibly sexually, attached to young Christopher Morcom, a fellow student who tragically died of tuberculosis at the age of 18; such an event would devastate anyone. The true nature of their friendship remains the subject of speculation, but it was Turing’s homosexuality, at a time when sex between men was illegal, and considered a matter of gross indecency, that would dominate his private life and lead to his eventual downfall.

Originally produced in 1986, Breaking the Code has truly stood the test of time and today feels more relevant than ever. This new production is co-produced by the Royal and Derngate with Landmark Theatres and the Oxford Playhouse, in association with the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and HOME, Manchester, and will tour after completing its run in Northampton. Whitemore chose a complex structure – would you expect anything else from Turing? – that plays with time, starting with his initial meeting with detective Mick Ross, reporting a somewhat vague and unlikely burglary, then following Turing’s journey from school to Bletchley Park, interspersed with his friendships with chief cryptographer Dilly Knox and co-worker Pat Green, his continued association with Sherborne, his involvement with the duplicitous Ron Miller, and the increasing suspicions of the police. Drawing the various influences in his life together in this non-sequential manner increases our sense of the overall patchwork which combined to form the man, and Jesse Jones’ clear direction removes any complications so that the story is easy to follow.

An epilogue scene has been added by Neil Bartlett which brings Turing’s legacy into the present day, and emphasises how, over the intervening years, Turing has been fully recognised as a hero and pardoned for his “crime”. It ends the play on a high note of positivity and optimism, but it also brings into sharp focus the fact that those hard-fought rights for equality we take for granted remain perilously close to being lost with no more than an ill-advised X on a ballot paper.

Jonathan Fensom’s simple set works hand-in-hand with Johanna Town’s evocative lighting, with just occasional changes of props and furniture, to suggest all the locations of the story. One very clever trick, just to light the top windows of the set, instantly places us in Turing’s prison cell. Fensom’s costumes also accurately convey the middle-class, educated world of Bletchley Park and Sherborne, with a decent contrast in the epilogue where the sixth former enjoys a relaxed uniform and the modern staff watching him include a recognisably modern PE teacher.

At the heart of the production is a verbally demanding, robust performance by Mark Edel-Hunt, powerfully conveying Turing’s mental dexterity and his outward reserve that conceals an emotional turmoil within. His ability to make complicated ideas sound comprehensible means that when he gets overcome with the excitement of his work, he loses his stammer and becomes an effortless communicator. Rarely off stage, Mr Edel-Hunt convinces you that he is the real Turing, with a fully rounded portrayal of both man and brain.

Engaging in a polite but firm battle of wits with him is Niall Costigan’s detective Mick Ross, suspicious from the start, bearing no ill will but just doing his job. Peter Hamilton Dyer gives a scene-stealing performance as the aging, eccentric, but incisive Dillwyn Knox, and Susie Trayling is superb as both Turing’s formal mother Sara, emotionally distant yet full of surprises, and the wryly intimidating Intelligence Officer Smith. The always reliable Joe Usher is brilliant as Ron, eyeing up Turing as a vehicle for cash; and there’s great support from both Joseph Edwards as Morcom and the Sixth Former, and Carla Harrison-Hodge as Pat.

Two memorable scenes stand out: the riveting moment where Ross interviews both Turing and Miller separately, but it appears that all three are crowded around the table at the same time, in a fantastic piece of direction from Jones. There’s another great scene where Pat and Turing are having a picnic meet-up and he tells her of his oestrogen treatment; he laughs at it, but the archaism and cruelty of the punishment make the laughter ring hollow today. He then goes on to say he should have married Pat without an ounce of self-awareness and Ms Harrison-Hodge’s facial reaction is a treat!

A play that’s both hard-hitting drama but also filled with rewarding comedy, given a clear and timely revival full of immaculate performances. After Northampton, the tour starts in Barnstaple, then goes on to Oxford, Peterborough, Liverpool and Manchester. Highly recommended!

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Hamlet, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 8th September 2025

Posted on September 16, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

I can never resist a production of Hamlet, arguably the best play in the English language, and I was intrigued to see what that splendid actor Giles Terera would make of the titular role. Unfortunately, the only date that suited us was an early preview of the production, in fact only the second public performance, so I am fully expecting much of what we saw to have been subject to change before the press night.

Director Justin Audibert’s stated aim with this production is to emphasise the atmosphere of spying and paranoia that dominates the text. Spying? Yes indeed. Examples include Polonius spying on Hamlet behind the arras, and Claudius sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him and report back. Paranoia, however, is the erroneous suspicion that people are out to get you; and in Hamlet, such suspicion is perfectly justified, not erroneous. So I don’t think that Audibert’s production succeeds in conveying a sense of paranoia.

What it does, very successfully, is suggest a very dark society; gloomy, anxious, in literal need of illumination. Ryan Day’s lighting is subdued and subtle until he turns the bright lights on when it becomes brash and overwhelming. Jonathan Girling’s intriguing and tuneful musical compositions link the scenes quietly but compellingly. Lily Arnold’s stark wasteland of a set suggests dusty, infertile earth – something could easily be rotten in that state – with an upstairs stage box from where Claudius and Gertrude can watch the Players at work, doubling up as Gertrude’s bed chamber; safely detached and away from the sordid machinations of the hoi polloi. Another enclosed balcony to the side looks like an Elsinore version of a lean-to and only allows a small degree of visibility to the audience, but it’s a perfect position from which to spy.

Elsewhere, there are a couple of odd directorial choices; why is it Gertrude who crowns King Claudius? And (spoiler alert) in Ophelia’s final appearance the audience is left in no doubt from her dress that she has recently suffered a miscarriage; clearly that’s the interpretation that Audibert deduces from Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship, yet earlier in the play there has been very little suggestion of any intimacy between the two at all. In fact, one of the most notable aspects to this production is how clinical and cold the emotions are. Hamlet’s reflections on Alas poor Yorick, often an opportunity for a note of genuine sadness and regret, come across as very half-hearted and tentative. Even at the moment when Claudius realises Gertrude has drunk the poison, he conveys all the emotion of that brief moment of annoyance when you can’t remember why you’ve gone into the bedroom.

At three hours and thirty minutes, it is a long production; and whilst the first act rips by, the second act slows to a laboured pace. The climax chosen on which to end Act One (the moment Hamlet steals up behind the praying Claudius and is ready to strike him dead) doesn’t work, because there’s no real dramatic lead-up to this moment and the audience knows full well he’s not going to kill him at this point. It feels false. Elsewhere, well acted though it is, the gravediggers’ scene seems immensely too long and could do with some extensive pruning; and they’ve extended the role of Osric to cover two other minor roles, which detracts from the character’s final scene foppish impact.

There are, however, plenty of good characterisations and scenes. Geoff Aymer’s ghost is an ethereal, gasping presence who really would terrify you if he appeared on your battlements at night. Sam Swann’s Horatio is a warm and supportive friend to Hamlet, and Tim Preston and Jay Saighal’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are much more than the vacuous ciphers that they’re often portrayed. Sara Powell is a very credible Gertrude, with no hidden agenda and no suspicious side to her character, just a kindly mother and wife who wants to do her best under the circumstances. Keir Charles is a superb Polonius, again very believable and realistic, sharing his suspicions and concerns about Hamlet in a series of delightful interactions with the audience; pompous and self-serving, but not in an alienating way, so that he becomes the audience’s favourite. Eve Ponsonby gives us a powerful, hysterical Ophelia who has completely lost control of her senses. And, if you enjoy stage combat like me, the swordfight at the end is genuinely exciting to watch.

I have some uncertainty about two of the main performances but hope that they will have become more rounded by the time press night comes around. Ryan Hutton’s Laertes is fine in his opening scenes but on his return after the death of Polonius, he tends to shout and stab at his lines, rushing through them without much meaning. And Ariyon Bakare’s Claudius is the opposite, giving us a rather quiet and underplayed performance, repressing the character’s sentiments rather than releasing them. But hopefully these performances will have borne fruit by now.

I always think it’s important to establish just how mad or otherwise the character of Hamlet is; and Giles Terera convinces me all along as being 100% sane, with his hawks and handsaws clearly demarcated for all to see. Comfortable with those he trusts and very suspicious of those he doesn’t, his soliloquies are for the most part well-paced and clear, and his storytelling is convincing. Like the rest of the production, his emotions seem sometimes oppressed; but it’s a believable and honest performance that holds the production together well.

It’s atmospheric and easy to follow (you can’t always say that about Hamlet), although perhaps it lacks a little theatrical magic. I was surprised at the number of people (maybe 10% of a sold-out audience) who did not return after the interval, as it’s a perfectly solid production, gimmick-free and respectful of the text. Hopefully time has ironed out any problems it faced during previews, which would probably merit an extra star!

Three-sy Does It!

Review – The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, 30th August 2025

Posted on September 1, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

The Two Gentlemen of Verona never seems much of an attraction for theatre makers. In my fifty-five plus years of theatregoing, I’ve only seen it performed once before, in a 2011 highly modernised version where Valentine and Proteus were rock guitarists, and the director couldn’t decide whether to reveal the unseemly aspects of the play or just do it for laughs. Fast forward fourteen years to Joanna Bowman’s production of the play for the RSC, in another highly modernised version where all the actors are musicians and they deal with the unseemly aspects of the play by removing them completely.

That’s possibly just as well, as this (now closed) production was very much aimed at introducing young people to Shakespeare, with musical numbers, broad comedy and a real live dog. Already one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, the cuts to the text brought the show in at just around an hour and half with no interval. On the face of it, it sounds like a decent experiment in modernising, shortening and adjusting the emphasis of the play to make it meaningful and entertaining to a family audience.

However, regrettably there was so much that was wrong with this production that it failed to spark any interest in the plot, and those 90 minutes or so felt interminably long. Basics first: the staging. The Other Place is a marvellous acting space that can be configured differently every time it’s used. For this production, it wasn’t so much performed in the round as in the square, and there were too many sequences where the actors simply had their backs to half the audience, and did not move around sufficiently to keep themselves properly visible to the whole auditorium. In addition, there was a huge metal walkway suspended over the acting space, linking two opposite corners, which allowed for actors to walk from one end to the other or indeed to suspend in the middle. This walkway was directly in front of the upstairs seats, so any actors who were performing at the far end of the stage were obscured; to be honest, it looked like they had their heads cut off. Not a great experience for the upstairs audience.

The main purpose of a theatre production must be to tell its story as clearly as possible. Sadly, I found this production very difficult to follow, certainly due in part to the machete that they’d taken to the original text. For example, it wasn’t until the final scene where the Duke pardons the outlaws that it was obvious that they were outlaws because he had banished them. There also seemed to be no explanation as to why Julia became Sebastian – it just sort of happened. The musical numbers came across as noisy and unclear – a very muddy reverberating sound that made the words difficult to hear, individual instruments doing solos could not be distinguished above the general noise; and two of the lead actors seemed to me to be overacting alarmingly. I don’t know if this was an attempt to make their words clearer to younger ears, but I’m afraid I found it rather hard to take them seriously.

They do say, never work with children or animals; nevertheless, here we had Lossi the lurcher, playing the role of Crab, Launce’s dog. I’m sure he’s a good dog and a lovely chap, but he added very little to the proceedings – there were a couple of instances where I think he was meant to do some kind of trick or endearing action, but he just sat there and looked bored. Maybe he took his cue from the audience, because sadly I found this a very dull production, with very little to entertain.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. The scene where the Duke (Darrell Brockis) catches Valentine (Jonny Khan) hiding the rope ladder in order to rescue and escape with Silvia was very amusingly done, and the production gave us a fairly good understanding of the character of Proteus (Lance West) and his far from gentlemanly ways. But unfortunately, the good aspects weren’t enough to redeem this disappointing production.

Production photos by Helen Murray

Two Disappointing for More!

Review – Fat Ham, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 30th August 2025

Posted on August 31, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

We’ve all been there. You know the problem: your uncle murders your dad and then marries your mum, and just as the wedding celebrations are getting underway, the ghost of your dad arrives to confirm your suspicions and instructs you to avenge his death. That may be just another day in Elsinore, but it’s not quite so common in 21^st century North Carolina. This isn’t Hamlet, but the story of Juicy, the black, queer son of Pap and Tedra, studying online for a University of Phoenix degree in Human Resources. OK, it’s not exactly Wittenberg, but nor does he have a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern studying with him. What do you think this is, Stoppard?

There’s no doubt that Hamlet continues to inspire modern writers to tell fresh stories of betrayal, revenge, honour and liberation. James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham is a welcome addition to the canon, a true explosion of joy on the Swan Theatre stage, written with rhythm and panache, creating memorable characters and, in Sideeq Heard’s fabulous production, boasting some tremendous performances. Recognising how it harks back to its source material is a constant delight, with the audience enjoying Ijames’ own equivalents of a “play within a play”, Yorick, and mentions of “laying in your lap” and “ay, there’s the rub”.

Despite the hilariously funny script and its comic creations, Juicy’s dilemma is real. How can he maintain a relationship with his mother now that she’s married a wicked murderer who picks on him and shames him in public, and who is as diametrically opposite to Juicy in character as it’s possible to be? How can he hold his own when his world is falling apart? The problems he faces are as real as the problems Hamlet faces; can he survive where Hamlet didn’t?

It’s full of delightful coups-de-theatre, from the whizzing tablecloths in the opening moments, to the revelations of the characters’ secrets, the disappearance of a dead body, and the spectacular surprise finale. Despite Juicy’s realisation that the Hamlet story can only end in tragedy for all (spoiler alert: in Shakespeare’s play, nearly everyone dies), Fat Ham ends in a triumph of positivity, with everyone having discovered or revealed something new about themselves. It takes Polonius’ advice of to thine own self be true and cranks it up to full blast. I shall say no more, because the surprises are a huge part of the fun.

Maruti Evans’ set reveals a comfortable suburban back garden, all planned for a sunny barbecue party, with suggestions of the rooms of the house seen through the windows and patio doors; it’s all very Pleasant Valley Sunday. It undergoes a dramatic change at the end, which works perfectly for the finale – I’ll say no more. Dominique Fawn Hill has a great time creating eye-catching costumes for Andi Osho’s flighty Tedra and Sandra Marvin’s churchy Rabby, as well as Opal’s delightfully unsuitable dress, the immaculate military uniform for Corey Montague-Sholay’s Larry, and Sule Rimi’s classy white suit emitting a smoky aurora as the Ghost. Kieran Taylor-Ford’s Tio wears a relaxed party/beach outfit, and Olisa Odele’s Juicy – as Hamlet – wears the traditional mourning black, with just the occasional splash of colour.

Central to the story, and hardly ever off stage, is Olisa Odele as Juicy; decent, reserved, eloquent, always attuned to his own thoughts and concerns. Unwavering in his attempts to do the right thing by his mom, and even when she disappoints him with her behaviour, he always stands by her like a good son. It’s a fantastic portrayal, because, despite any temptation to loosen up and relax, he always maintains an aloofness, observing from the sidelines, keeping a perfect connection to Hamlet himself. Sule Rimi is also terrific in his portrayals of Juicy’s appalling uncle and new stepfather Rev, a homophobic bully and archetypal competitive dad, grotesque in his old-fashioned “man of the house” role; and as Pap’s ghost, a plain-talking brute who continues his demands beyond the grave.

Andi Osho gives us a hilarious, fun-loving, flirtatious, slightly vacuous Tedra, all façade and knowingly doing wrong because she’s afraid of Rev, but lovable all the same; and the ever-reliable Sandra Marvin is wonderful as Rabby, casting silent glances of disapproval that speak a thousand words, breaking into unrestrained gospel accompaniments at the drop of a hat, and always with that impish twinkle in her eye. Jasmine Elcock’s marvellously sulky and obstructive Opal reveals with her every stomp that she doesn’t want to be anywhere near her oppressive mother. Corey Montague-Sholay gives us a beautifully underplayed and elegant Larry, and Kieran Taylor-Ford is warm and funny as Juicy’s best friend Tio, who comes to appreciate Gingerbread men in an unexpected way.

Clever, endlessly surprising, and tremendously funny; everything about it warms your heart and is irresistably adorable. This got an instant standing ovation at a Saturday matinee, which was fully deserved.

Production photos by Ali Wright

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 – It’s a Wrap!

Posted on August 27, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

And that’s another Fringe done and dusted! We arrived on 29^th July and we left on the 26^th August. During that time we saw 154 shows, which was four fewer than last year, with just one cancellation due to ill health on the part of the performer, and one sneaky extra booking when a slot became free – which turned out to be a 5 star show!

Here’s a quick reminder of the 4 and 5 star shows we saw, by star rating and in date order of when we saw them:

5 STARS:

Vagabond Skies

Do You Accept These Charges?

Virtuoso

Dead Air

Robin Grainger: People Pleaser

Don’t Tell Dad About Diana

Odds Are

Max Fulham: Full of Ham

Ah-Ma

Cody and Beau

Miss Brexit

Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence

Accordion Ryan’s Pop Bangers

Clean Slate

FLUSH

Matt Forde: Defying Calamity

#CHARLOTTESVILLE

Girlz

Mr Jones

Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares

Don Toberman: Ping Pong Champ

In The Black

Inlet

Arthur Hull’s FLOP

Sam Lake: You’re Joking, Not Another One!

Tom Stade: Naughty by Nature

Liam Withnail: Big Strong Boy

Refuse

The Insider

Hot Mess

4 STARS:

Lovett

Falling: A Disabled Love Story

Falling in Love with Mr Dellamort

MARIUPOL

Kate Owens: Cooking with Kathryn

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd: Howling at the Moon

Call Me Crazy

Chloe Petts: Big Naturals

Bloody Influencers

The Naked Neds

How to Win 5 Grand on the Internet

The City for Incurable Women

Courier

Will Owen: Looking Fab at 50

Three Can Keep a Secret

Homo (Sapien)

Brainsluts

Big Little Sister

Sauna Boy

Trust Me, I’m From Essex

Rachel Morton-Young: Dutch Courage

Some Masterchef Sh*t

Nick it for Munich

The Birthday Party: A Theatrical Catastrophe

LEI – LDN

A Small Town Northern Tale

Alright Sunshine

Supermarket 86

NIUISA

God is Dead and I Killed Him

I Was a German

Motorhome Marilyn

Kieran Hodgson: Voice of America

Going

It’s Gonna Blow!

Ali Woods: Basher

Will You Be Praying the Entire Flight?

Cabin Fever

Windrush Secret

Saaniya Abbas: Hellarious

Ruaridh Miller: It’s Pronounced Ruaridh

Bury The Hatchet

Paul Savage: Hopes Under the Hammer

Help Me!

Stuart McPherson: Crisps and a Lie Down

Derby Day

VOTE: The Musical

Pauline Eyre: Anyone For Tennis

Down to the Felt

Alex Farrow: New Order

An Adequate Abridgement of Boarding School Life as a Homo

The Leeds Tealights: Never Not Forever

The Essence of Audrey

Aaron Wood: More to Life

Saria Callas

Looking for Laughs

The Truman Capote Talk Show

Managed Approach

Centre of the Universe

Paldem

Our Brothers in Cloth

Seating Plan

Amanda Hursy: Carted

Congratulations to all these great shows. Just as a cheeky comparison, I’ve awarded 4 stars to 17 fewer shows than last year – but there are also 3 more 5 star shows than last year. I did sadly have to award two 1 star shows, which is never something I do lightly, but I have to be honest. And as to working out which of them are the absolute best – you’ll have to wait until the Chrisparkle Awards for 2025 are announced in January!

Remember – reviews are only what one person thinks, they’re purely a personal reaction. And star ratings are even more unreliable!

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 Reviews – Our Brothers in Cloth, Well Behaved Women, Seating Plan and Amanda Hursy: Carted

Posted on August 25, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

Our Brothers in Cloth, Assembly George Square Studios.When their drunken father walked out on the family, Alan saw it as his role to look after his younger brother Chris. In their tight-knit traditional community in Bunderr, County Wexford, the parish priest always plays a predominant role; and weren’t they excited when the new Father Mulvaney joined the parish! But so much can change over just nine years, and when Alan’s friend Mark briefly arrives from London, he tells him about something he once saw – which changes the lives of everyone involved. Poke the Bear’s production of Our Brothers in Cloth reveals the secrets that remain buried and examines how hard it is to believe that a respected member of the community could possibly have done unspeakable things. Smartly written by Ronan Colfer and based on a true story, the play keeps many twists up its sleeve and is constantly engrossing and believable. An excellent ensemble includes strong performances from Jake Douglas as Alan and Rosalind Stockwell as his mother Martina. Unsettling and disturbing, it exposes an uncomfortable truth that should never be forgotten. 4 stars.

Well Behaved Women, Gilded Balloon Patter House.Victorian England wasn’t a place for women to be taken seriously in any walk of life. However, brother and sister Fred and Hattie seem to share the responsibilities in their household, with a lady’s maid, Marianne, and a music teacher, Emma, ever present, making up the unconventional set-up. Hattie has an on-off relationship with another woman, and Marianne is trying to break into the world of journalism and cannot believe her luck when the Sunday Telegraph offer her a byline on article about salacious gossip and scandals. When cousin Chester comes to call, they are required to entertain him, and sensing there might be scandal here, they decide to hold a séance to find out if he killed his wife. However, the medium has the audacity to die at the last minute, so how can they go ahead with the séance? It’s an ambitious and original idea for a play, and writer Amy Yeo and director Hannah Rogerson have chosen to stage it as a very fast and frenetic farce. Unfortunately, despite a few interesting character insights, neither the writing nor the acting matches the plot, with too much shouting, unnecessary pratfalls, and lines delivered so rapidly that they remind you of the speed of the terms and conditions in a radio advert. With some calm and order injected into the production, the play could be developed into something more substantial and successful, but as it stands, this production was not for me. 2 stars.

Seating Plan, Gilded Balloon Patter House. David and Mavis find themselves sitting next to each other at Will and Em’s 25th birthday party – as far away from the main table as they could have been placed. David seems an amenable type of chap, but Mavis is a proper nightmare, hurling out conversational challenges, spitting out wine across the table, and being a right nuisance. At the next party a year later, they’re still seated together, only this time David is as drunk as a lord and proves to be a total embarrassment. Are they destined to continually meet each other year in year out at their friends’ parties, and will anything develop between them, or will they keep up their sequence of constant lies? Izzy Radford’s Seating Plan benefits from an unpredictable, quirky structure and features two tremendous performances by George Airey as David (including a superb drunk act) and Izzy herself as Mavis. Personally, I found the character of Mavis in the opening scene so awful as to be unbelievable, and I found it hard to warm to her as the play developed. However, there’s a great feeling for humour in both the writing and the exceptional performances, and that’s what drives the play towards its winning conclusion. 4 stars.

Amanda Hursy: Carted, Gilded Balloon Patter House. Over the years Amanda Hursy has become big pals with the police. It seems they’re always there whenever the slightest thing goes wrong! In Carted, she tells us of her Glasgow upbringing, her family life, her problematic dad behind bars, her degree in Politics, and her aptitude for getting sacked just at the wrong moment. This is her first solo Edinburgh Fringe show and it’s packed with hilarious original material about all the scrapes she gets into, told with working class Glaswegian good humour. She keeps the pace up perfectly and there’s never a lull in the flow, which is something few comedians can maintain over an hour. A terrific new voice in the comedy circuit! 4 stars.

The Real Chrisparkle

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