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Review – The Winter’s Tale, RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 22nd July 2025

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A moon – or is it a planet? – stares down at us; huge, nebulous, ominous, as we enter the auditorium for Yaël Farber’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. It reminds us that we are tiny people minimised by this great celestial influence; and wherever we go or whatever we do, we can’t escape it. It’s as old as Time – one of the play’s main themes – and it sets the tone for a certain otherworldliness for this production, which seems to put most of its theatrically inventive eggs in one basket – Act Four – leaving the rest of the play to fend for itself.

Time/AutolycusI always worry when an RSC production announces that Time will be one of its central themes – yes, I’m looking at you Macbeth – because it can overwhelm all the other aspects of the play. However, here, the emphasis on Time is neatly and appropriately placed, wrapping the Chorus and the character of Autolycus into one character. The Winter’s Tale features one of Shakespeare’s most curious structures for a play. Three Acts of tragedy, then a sixteen-year pause followed by two Acts of comedy; four Acts in the Sicilian court, one Act playing pastoral in Bohemia. This production makes a point of highlighting these contrasts, which not only makes for a visual spectacle, but deliberately unsettles the audience trying to bring both parts of the play into balance.

StatuesqueIt’s among Shakespeare’s least cosy comedies, with destructive jealousy, a wife turned into a statue, an amiable son killed, and the frequent appearance of Time, reminding us to enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think. Indeed, the production does take a few liberties which might annoy the purist. Not only that aforementioned popular song from the 1940s, but they’ve inserted a little Brecht, and there’s an exchange between Autolycus and the Clown that includes the insults bellend and wanker. It’s mildly amusing; fortunately, the play is big and strong enough to survive the occasional meddling.

CamilloBut the production is at its most effective when it leaves the work to Shakespeare. The chilling story of Leontes’ idiotic suspicions that his wife Hermione has been unfaithful with his brother Polixenes and that his brother is the father of Hermione’s unborn child is told with quiet, dignified clarity. After the interval we leave Sicilia for the ritualistic fire and dance fiesta that is Perdita hosting the sheep-shearing solstice festival; the programme notes tell us that the production explores Perdita’s connection to the myth of Persephone/Proserpina. Hold that thought. When we return to Sicilia for the final resolution, all is sedate again.

FiestaIt’s very clever dramaturgy, and there’s no doubting the visual and indeed musical impact of the solstice scene; but it’s such a contrast to what went before that, more than standing out like a sore thumb, it actually feels unintegrated with the rest of the play. After the lean, business-like atmosphere of the first act, this just feels like so much padding. Whilst watching it I could only question how this portrayal of the union of Perdita and Florizel, and the subsequent disapproval by Polixenes, in any way helps our understanding of the plot. I don’t think it does. Fortunately, the final “statue” scene is presented and acted immaculately, and that’s what you remember when you go home.

AntigonusThere is little in the way of set – and that works to the production’s advantage. All the changes of mood and setting are suggested by Tim Lutkin’s lighting design and Reuben Cohen and Oli Quintrell’s video projections. The incidental music composed by Max Perryment is hugely evocative and contributes enormously to the atmosphere and storytelling; there’s suspense in every chord.

Polixenes and LeontesA strong cast brings class and gravitas to the main roles. Bertie Carvel is excellent as Leontes – seemingly affable, flipping into viciously jealous in an instant. With his reputation at stake, this Leontes shuts himself off from all reason, delivering indiscriminate cruelty in all directions. Like a divine version of BBC Verify, when the words of the Oracle deliver their verdict on the innocence of Hermione and Polixenes, and the tyranny of Leontes, his fragile world simply falls apart. In these times of fake news and AI deception, it would be very useful to have a reliable Oracle like that come in every so often to make us see the truth.

HermioneMadeline Appiah is superb as Hermione; gracious, kindly, the perfect hostess, who gathers magnificent internal resolve in the face of her husband’s stupidity and vindictiveness. And she makes a fantastic statue; every eye in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre concentrates on her to see if she makes a tiny move and there isn’t an iota of a blink. There’s a very touching scene at the end when Hermione and Perdita are reunited, Ms Appiah’s joy at seeing her long lost daughter almost brought a tear to the eye – as did the excellent Amelda Brown as her “foster” shepherdess parent, knowing she must give back the daughter who was always only ever “on loan”.

PaulinaAïcha Kossoko brings power and a no-nonsense grimness to the role of Paulina, stepping in to protect her friend Hermione’s reputation and whatever future might be ahead. Great performances too from John Light as the wronged Polixenes and Raphael Sowole’s delicately spoken and faithful Camillo. Trevor Fox brings out all the mischief and cheerful lawlessness of his chain-smoking Autolycus, and there’s nice support from Leah Haile’s Perdita and Matthew Flynn’s Antigonus.

Perdita and FlorizelIt’s a moody, atmospheric production that tells its story clearly, apart from a total flight of fantasy in Act Four which just left me wondering why. But if you ever wanted a clear account of the characters of Leontes and Hermione so that you fully understand their story, this is the production for you.

P. S. Not so much exit pursued by a bear, more exit, listlessly observed by an indolent bear. But it’s very hard to act out that stage direction credibly.

Production photos by Marc Brenner

3-starsThree-sy Does It!

Review Marie and Rosetta, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 18th July 2025

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Who said theatre isn’t educational? I don’t know how I got to [insert old age here] years old and had never heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight. Rosetta was born in 1915 into a family of cotton pickers driven by music and started singing at the age of six in her mother’s evangelical touring troupe. Marie was born in 1920 (although she later decided 1925 sounded better) into a Pentecostal family in New Jersey and sang with evangelist Frances Robinson and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Rosetta recorded Decca’s first ever gospel songs and became an overnight sensation, but both were extraordinarily gifted performers. And in 1946 the two met and started performing together.

Playwright George Brant decided that Rosetta led such a full and incident-packed life that it would be impossible to tell her story in one play. He has chosen to concentrate on that one period in her life, when she and Marie started working together; thus Marie and Rosetta is a reimagined staging of what it must have been like to observe their initial rehearsals before their opening shows.

It’s clear that Rosetta is the star, with a successful recording contract and live appearances with the likes of Cab Calloway at venues like the Cotton Club and Carnegie Hall. Not for nothing was she called the Godmother of Rock ‘n’ Roll! She’s rich with life experience too, with failed marriages and living the harsh realities of the racial segregation laws. By contrast, Marie has come to prominence through the Church, has married a preacher and is clearly more motivated by her religious beliefs than Rosetta.

It’s this considerable difference between the individuals’ backgrounds that creates an artistic tension that the two characters explore, most clearly seen in Marie’s insistence on Sing whereas Rosetta naturally opts for Swing. Rosetta knows that, despite her admiration and appreciation of Marie’s talent, they wouldn’t be able to work together if Marie was to look down on Rosetta because of some religious superiority. So does Sing beat Swing or does Swing become too much of a temptation for Sing? If you don’t already know, you’ll have to watch the play to find out!

What appears to be a straightforwardly constructed play reveals something of a twist towards the end, which is handled very deftly and satisfyingly. Unfortunately Mr Brant slightly rushes the ending, trying to fit in as much extra information about the two singers as possible, which, though interesting and relevant, feels like too much to take on board so late in the play.

Simply, but not unattractively, staged, our two singers find themselves in a funeral home for their first rehearsal, but with shimmering showbiz curtains around them, two of which conceal live musicians: guitarist and musical director Shirley Tetteh stage left and pianist Mia Odeleye stage right. It’s distinctly a play with music rather than a musical, but there’s no doubt that the performances of the music are the highlight of this show. A few of the songs were familiar to me, but the vast majority were not, and it was a blissful discovery of a genre of music of which I know little – so that’s a second educational aspect to the show!

And what vocal performances! Beverley Knight, originally a hugely successful recording artist and now a doyenne of the musical stage, plays Rosetta with heart, pizzazz, cheek, and plenty of vulnerability; she truly brings the character to life. And as soon as she starts singing her amazing clear tones resound around the Minerva with both guts and warmth. As an aside, the Minerva is a smaller venue and therefore singers like Ms Knight need little amplification and the musical sound is all the better for it.

And she is matched by Ntombizodwa Ndlovu as Marie; portraying her initially as a starstruck young woman who can’t believe her luck to be performing with someone of the stature of Rosetta and then visibly growing in confidence and determined to make her own artistic decisions. Ms Ndlovu is a terrific find with a superb voice, a lovely feel for comedy and a truly likeable stage presence.

Marie and Rosetta has already visited the Rose Theatre Kingston and the Wolverhampton Grand and continues its run at the Minerva in Chichester until 26th July.

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

 

Review – Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 16th July 2025

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Based on the novels of Patrick Hamilton, Matthew Bourne’s Midnight Bell started life as the country was coming out of the Covid pandemic and now has the chance to be seen more widely on a UK tour. Set in the 1930s, the Midnight Bell in question is a London pub, frequented by a range of ordinary people whose lives have their own individual adventures, relationships, power struggles and catastrophes; and Bourne’s choreography draws our attention to each of them separately as they weave their way through various London locations, overlapping with each other or going their separate ways.

It is deliberately not an adaptation of any one of Hamilton’s works but is instead inspired by them all to create an atmosphere and suggestions of stories partly observed, partly obscured. And if there is a problem with the show, that’s just it; there isn’t one story that’s fully told or fully explained. In most cases you’re left to infer what happens, and for me that felt frustrating. Bourne is a brilliant storyteller through dance; and whereas the narrative in the first Act is easy to follow – even though we’re introduced to so many characters at breakneck speed – the storytelling is hard to follow in the second Act.

The usual New Adventures creative team are out in force. Lez Brotherton’s set immaculately recreates that 1930s London gloom and faded glamour, and his costume choices reflect the characters perfectly; Paule Constable’s lighting is evocative and intriguing, and Terry Davies’ original music gives you that 30s feel without ever being a pastiche and still feeling modern and creative, driving the dance forwards. However, I felt the decision for the dancers to lipsynch the words of the recorded songs added nothing to our understanding of the characters, and, if anything, detracted from their dancing. Nevertheless, Bourne’s choreography for the show is full of his usual trademarks and is always assertive and dynamic, creating some excellent duets for his characters, whether they be intimate, comic, shy or brash.

As always in a New Adventures production, the cast dance superbly throughout and give great performances. The dancers mix and match roles on different days, so I can only tell you about the performance on 16th July. The Act Two park bench scene with Dominic North as Bob and Hannah Kremer as Jenny is a true highlight, clearly bringing out each character’s personalities as well as giving us a truly entertaining dance. Cordelia Braithwaite’s Miss Roach is also superb, a terrific combination of the frustrated, the determined and the downtrodden, matched with Edwin Ray’s mischievously deceptive cad Gorse.

Also outstanding are Andy Monaghan and Glenn Graham as Frank and Albert, tentatively then wholeheartedly finding love, only for one of them to reveal a secret later. There’s a nicely observed on-off relationship between barmaid Ella and tedious customer Mr Eccles, danced by Bryony Pennington and Danny Reubens, and a disastrous relationship between the fickle actress Netta and the disturbed George, danced by Daisy May Kemp and Alan Vincent.

Despite all these excellent ingredients, the overall result still feels light on emotion and not especially memorable. Comparisons are odious, but when you know the kind of passion and agony that Bourne’s best dance can stir in your heart, that passion feels notably lacking here. It all feels just a little safe, a bit mild, a tad bland. If this was a half-hour dance in a mixed programme of three, and all the narrative was told much more quickly, I can see how this could feel very satisfying. But as a series of threads without a strong definitive central narrative, there’s just not enough here to sustain an entire evening.

3-starsThree-sy Does It!

 

Review – 4.48 Psychosis, Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, 15th July 2025

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Sarah Kane’s final play is a challenge to any director or cast. How do you treat this poetic but agonising piece of writing, which leaves few clues as to how it should be staged, with the dignity and respect that it deserves, without simply creating a gloomfest? It cries out for its voice to be heard and demands that you at least try to understand the mental torture of its writer. But, when all’s said and done, it’s not a lecture or TED talk, it’s a play and decisions have to be made as to how to present it.

CastIn what must be an almost unique venture, the entire original creative team have reunited 25 years later in this co-production with the Royal Court Theatre, at whose Jerwood Theatre Upstairs the play was first produced. Not only the same cast and the same director, James Macdonald; it’s the same team of designer, lighting and sound. So, even without seeing the original, I feared this might be an exercise in preserving something in aspic rather than an attempt to find new things in the text that were not obvious 25 years ago.

MirrorIt is, however, a brand new production, and James Macdonald and designer Jeremy Herbert have come up with a masterstroke; a huge mirror, the same dimensions as the stage, slanting at a daunting angle, reflecting the on-stage activity as a backdrop, and even capturing the first few rows of the audience to add to its theatricality. Nigel Edwards’ inspired lighting design highlights the two chairs and table in the mirror to create some truly impressive effects, and Ben Walden’s projection adds to the magic by turning the table surface into a window on the world, or blasting the entire stage with white noise, offering an insight into the clarity of vision and thought (or lack thereof) experienced by our protagonist.

Daniel EvansEach of the three actors takes on many guises over the 70 minutes; not only someone suffering from severe depression, but doctors, friends, colleagues and all the other voices who do their best to offer support or lend reason to the central character. And it’s in those side characterisations that Kane gives the cast an occasional opportunity to lighten the weight of the text. There’s a truly laugh out loud moment when Daniel Evans, portraying a doctor who’s clearly had a long hard day, bursts out with I fucking hate this job and I need my friends to be sane – only to realise that it was a Did I say that out loud moment and then have to apologise profusely.

Madeleine PotterMacdonald places his actors in all sorts of unusual positions for several of their speeches – resting flat on the ground in a crucifixion or savasana pose, or on top of the table with their head tilted over the edge, talking directly to the mirror, or furiously writhing on the table, all of which create fascinating images in the mirror, helping us to see them, literally, from a different perspective. It sounds gimmicky, but it works. The actors write backwards on the table top – medical prescriptions, or simply their thoughts – so that we can see the writing in the mirror; a clever touch.

Jo McInnesThe ensemble of Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter dovetail their speeches and actions immaculately, with superb vocal clarity throughout. One of the most powerful moments comes when Jo McInnes struggles violently on top of the table, so that in the mirror she appears trapped within a tiny box, a true metaphor for the state of her mind. The whole play is performed with devastating sincerity but emotionally controlled, peppered with daringly long pauses where the characters find neither the words, the impetus, nor the need, to speak.

White NoiseSarah Kane submitted her text to the Royal Court in 1999 and within a few days had taken her own life. It’s impossible to separate the personal tragedy from the theatrical product, but it’s clear that this is a lucid, deliberate, structured piece of work. The title, it is said, comes from the fact that she would wake at 4.48 due to her mental anguish. As her text states: At 4.48 when sanity visits for one hour and twelve minutes I am in my right mind. When it has passed I shall be gone again. One hour and twelve minutes is almost exactly how long it takes to perform the play; is this as an affirmation that the piece is written in those brief times of sanity surrounded by mental torture?

RSVP ASAPA very intense piece of writing given a great performance with an inspired setting. This isn’t the kind of play one enjoys; rather it’s an opportunity to bear witness to a state of mind that one hopes one never encounters personally but which is very real and prevalent all around us. And it is the sad swansong of a huge talent taken too young.

Production photos by Marc Brenner

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The Comedy Crate Weekender at the Charles Bradlaugh, The Black Prince and The Lamplighter, Northampton, 12th and 13th July 2025

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It’s July again, which means another annual Comedy Crate Weekender with two days of comedic mayhem, split over three venues in Northampton town centre. Only £40 for two days which means you can see ten class acts for a mere £4 a session; so cheap it ought to be illegal. A very hot weekend was both a help and a hindrance, in that it makes for a generally happy bunch of people all enjoying interval drinkies in the sunshine, and fortunately the aircon in the Bradlaugh is super effective. But even being reduced to a sweaty mess in the other venues (multiple electric fans notwithstanding) was not enough to reduce the spirits of a fully sold out event, which took place without a hitch. Or if there were any hitches, the Comedy Craters kept them a secret, so well done to them.

The idea of the Weekender is that there are 25 acts, out of whom you can see a maximum of 10, all sharpening up their Works in Progress in preparation for either the Edinburgh Fringe, or a national tour, or just generally working up new material. As such you might see a show that’s already pretty darn perfect, or you could see something where the audience are guineapigs for the comics to find out what’s funny and what’s not. Mind you, they’re all ace at their game, so even material that only just fails to meet their exacting standards can still be pretty funny to the rest of us.

Everyone will have had a different experience at the Weekender, depending on which shows they chose to see, so I can only tell you about what we saw. And of course, dealing with 25 acts is potentially a nightmare of its own. If you went to see a show with a cast of 25 you wouldn’t be remotely surprised to have one or two understudies if someone is not feeling well.

And that’s exactly how our Weekender started, with the unexpected attendance of President Obonjo standing in at very last minute for Helen Bauer for the first show at the Lamplighter. Only three or so hours before he was on stage, he was enjoying tea and toast over a leisurely breakfast in his Presidential Palace; but fortunately His Excellency was able to step in and save the day. He’s not taking a show to Edinburgh but just fleshing out some new material, so of all the acts over the weekend his was perhaps the one most in flying by the seat of his pants mode.

Nevertheless, the President is such a joyously inventive comic creation, that it’s always a pleasure to have an audience with him. And his new material comes from a fascinating place; at the risk of sounding like a pensioner so much is wrong with the world today, and so much of that is because you can’t tell fact from fiction – the lies spouted by politicians and influencers, and social media claptrap and all that. Thousands of Tiktokers believe Obonjo is a real president of a real republic somewhere in Africa. And he’s moulding that fact into a rather surreal show that balances the rubbish people are led to believe against what is genuinely the truth. It’s an idea with legs, and I’m sure the President will turn it into a great show.

From one level of preparation to the extreme opposite; our next show was Thor Stenhaug with a preview of his Edinburgh show One Night Stand Baby, and this one is all packaged up and ready to rock. Thor Stenhaug is a new name to us, and, on the strength of this performance, it’s one of those delightful occasions when you can happily announce, a star is born. A hugely affable and friendly presence on stage, Thor explains how he moved to London from Norway, how he got into comedy, and all about his big relationship with Daisy. But it was when Daisy’s parents asked about Thor’s parents, that he had to confess he is the product of a one-night stand; and he’s not the only one in his family who is! Honestly, those Norwegians! His routine is packed with original material, fluidly and confidently delivered, with some wonderful appreciation for English turn of phrase, effortless callbacks, and some surprising use of accents – his Scouse is incredible! I can only predict great things for this young man. One Night Stand Baby is on at the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh from 30 July to 24 August and will be a must-see this Fringe.

Next up for us was Toussaint Douglass, with a preview of his Edinburgh show, Accessible Pigeon Material. We’ve seen Mr Douglass a couple of times now and he is very personable and warm character on stage who builds a great rapport with the audience. His new show is very work in progress and has more surreal material than I’ve seen him use before. I must confess, I didn’t really get the pigeon-based stuff; but he has an excellent routine – that still needs work but will get there – where he uses a member of the audience and a boxing glove puppet to express how difficult it can be to get your father to tell you he loves you. Hoping it all shapes up in time for the Fringe, but he’s a great comic so I’m sure it will. Accessible Pigeon Material will be on at the Pleasance Courtyard from 30 July to 24 August.

Next was someone I’ve wanted to see for a long time, and he didn’t let me down. Charlie Baker, an irrepressibly cheeky chappie, is working up material for a new show next year. He’s one of these innately funny people who could make you laugh just by reading a shopping list. And the basis of his new show is very simple; people he hates. Not named individuals, that would be ridiculous; but categories like Retired People at the Supermarket at Weekends, or People from Surrey. You instantly get it. He fills out each of his categories with wickedly funny material, not only verbal but often physical – he’s terrific at physical comedy, even incorporating a bit of dance and singing into the routines. He has some brilliant ideas – the Devon Rat Pack for example, or my favourite, the Millwall Magician, where he basically intimidates you into agreeing that, yes, that was your card, otherwise you’d get A Visit from the Boys. Not a huge amount of material yet, but what there is, he spins into comedy gold. Fantastically funny.

Our last show of the first day was Tom Rosenthal, with a preview of his Edinburgh show, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am. I’ve only seen Mr Rosenthal once before, and that was earlier this year in Chichester’s production of The Government Inspector. I confess I haven’t seen him in Friday Night Dinner or Plebs, because I’m more of a live entertainment kinda guy than a TV watcher. However, unfortunately, quite a lot of the material in his show is based on references to those TV shows, and because I didn’t get the references, I missed out on the laughs. He’s obviously a very quick witted and intelligent fellow, and his delivery is slick and sure-footed. The set was curiously all about him, and I don’t mean that unkindly. Where many comedians take their own experiences and make them relatable so that we can all recognise our own experiences within them, Mr R’s experiences are purely about himself, without inviting us to see how we might be able to share in them. It’s as though he sets up a barrier and all we can do is observe him without feeling what he feels. I’m sure that if I had seen his shows I would have enjoyed it more, and I sense that if you are a Friday Night Dinner fan you’ll love it. Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am is on at the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh from 30 July to 24 August.

Sunday started with a preview of Glenn Moore’s new Edinburgh show, Please Sir, Glenn I Have Some Moore? and is another work in progress where pretty much all the progress has already been made. Glenn Moore has one of the fastest brains in comedy and this is another of his intricately plotted, extraordinarily creative and extremely funny hours of stand-up. His premise here is to explore why he’s not the most assertive or people, illustrated by comparing himself to his go-getting cousins, Benji the stripper and silent Ursula. The centrepiece of the show is a car journey driving to Death Valley which gets more and more panicky as it progresses, but en route Mr Moore brings in so many side jokes, some of which have a delicate subtlety that fill you with pleasure when they finally make sense. A total master of the art of callback, neither a word nor a gesture is wasted in this show and it’s a joy from start to finish. Please Sir, Glenn I Have Some Moore? is on at the Pleasance Courtyard from 30 July to 24 August.

Next up, and someone we haven’t seen in ten years, was Tiff Stevenson, with a preview of her new Edinburgh show Post-Coital. This was another work in progress performance and consisted of a sequence of only lightly connected observations, some of which were very funny, and some of which weren’t – no criticism, that’s what a WIP is all about, after all. The basis of this show is the relationship between sexism and class and where feminism falls in the balance. She has some excellent material about umarells – a term I hadn’t come across before – which describes old retired Italian men lurking at building sites and offering unwanted advice to the workers. Niche, do you think? Maybe, but also very recognisable and funny. Of all the Edinburgh previews we saw, I think this needs the most work to be done, but Tiff Stevenson is a very safe pair of hands and I’m sure it will all come together in time. Post-Coital is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive) from 30 July to 24 August.

Our next act was Hal Cruttenden, with a preview of his new Edinburgh show, Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It, and is, as he freely admits, the second show he’s created out of the ashes of his divorce. But whereas his previous show It’s Best You Hear It From Me was clearly a mix of comedy and therapy, you sense now he’s truly moved on and is mining genuine comedy nuggets from how he’s been coping as a singleton. He has such an engaging and natural style on stage that you cling onto his every word – which is fortunate, because every word is hilarious. He assesses the audience for possible future divorces, and honed in on me as being the token old man in the audience having fun because you might as well because you haven’t got long. He does offer some serious observations about the way the world is going in this Trumpian era, and he’s darn right with them all. Exceptionally funny and quick to react to everything the audience might choose to throw at him, the show ends with a lovely speech by the Prime Minister that so cleverly assembles a plethora of callbacks. The only thing left for him to “get right” before Edinburgh is choosing which bits to omit, but it’s all tip-top quality. Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It is on at the Pleasance Courtyard from 30 July to 24 August.

We chose to stay in the same location for the rest of the day, so our next act was Matt Richardson, with a work in progress of a new show, Brash, that will tour the UK this autumn. We’d seen Mr Richardson quite recently, so that much of his material was not new to us but it is still incredibly funny. It’s an informal and relaxed hour of observations of village and domestic life, gang activity in an Oxfordshire village, how growing up doesn’t necessarily mean you can decide on your own bedtime and a frantically funny routine about massage that turns into what I can only describe as a wankfest. Mr R sets up a terrific rapport with the audience, tells his stories with an engaging cheekiness, and the show is filled with loads of laugh out loud sequences. A very funny chap. Brash continues with a few more WIP performances around the country and the tour starts in earnest in Glasgow on 22nd September through to Milton Keynes on 26th November.

Last show of the day, but certainly not the least, was Rosie Jones, with a preview of her work in progress Edinburgh show, I Can’t Tell What She’s Saying. As she says at the beginning of her show, if you don’t know who she is, she feels sorry for you, because you obviously can’t afford a television. Rosie gives us the lowdown on her life so far, starting off as a seven-year-old pervert – her words, not mine – and taking us through all the benefits of being both gay and disabled. She knows the importance of a perfectly constructed and worded sentence and uses her unique delivery style to accentuate the well-placed pause for maximum comic effect, and it works very well. Supremely confident and effortlessly cheeky, it’s a fun hour that will only improve with more preparation, and that is, of course, what it’s all about. I Can’t Tell What She’s Saying enjoys a week’s worth of WIPs at the Pleasance Courtyard from 11th to 17th August.

A great Weekender completed, thanks to all the comedians and the Comedy Crate maestros who keep the thing moving so well. Recommendations for Edinburgh must be for Thor Stenhaug, Glenn Moore and Hal Cruttenden, and both Charlie Baker and Matt Richardson will be must-sees on tour. In the meantime, there are still a few more Comedy Crate preview shows on sale before Edinburgh starts in a couple of weeks’ time. Snap them up before they sell out!

Review – The Comedy Crate Edinburgh Previews – Josh Pugh and Jessica Fostekew, The Lamplighter, Northampton, 7th July 2025

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It’s exciting that July has come around again so we enter the world of Edinburgh Previews at the Comedy Crate! Monday night saw a terrific full house welcome two comedians getting their comedic ducks in a row so that they can quack with confidence when the time comes.

First up was Jessica Fostekew, whom we haven’t seen for a criminally long time, with a work-in-progress set in preparation for her Edinburgh show, Iconic Breath; an unusual title that stems from the fact that her son hasn’t quite mastered the niceties of the English language yet. Jessica Fostekew cuts an engaging, confiding persona on stage; she starts off trying to work out whether we’re her kind of people – a few subtle assessments confirms we are, to much relief on all sides.

Ms F takes us on an enjoyable amble through her family experiences. Her son is growing up to be King of the Lads, despite her best efforts to encourage his sensitive side; fortunately, he has yet to learn the finer art of swearing and exactly what makes a hand gesture offensive. She gives us some brilliant general observations about family life, such as how marriage is managing always to stand exactly where your other half wants to stand (so true!) And who appreciated the power of a bum to efficiently regulate the administration of a WhatsApp group? There’s also a hilarious impersonation of a ghastly nasal American podcast woman, and an extraordinary account of a security incident at Zurich Airport that very nearly had an untoward consequence.

All the way through, she keeps up a wonderfully wry performance, constantly shifting the pace and tone of her delivery which keeps it very lively and unpredictable. Extremely funny, and almost the finished product which will be great by the time the Edinburgh Fringe starts. Jessica Fostekew’s Iconic Breath will be on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (3) in Blair Street every day from 11th to 24th August.

Headlining the evening was the irrepressible Josh Pugh, who doesn’t have an Edinburgh show this year but is nevertheless honing new material into shape for future use. Josh Pugh loves to take recognisable, simple ideas and twist them so that you look at them from a new direction. As he says, stand-up is an odd profession. You think you’ve got something funny to say but instead of sharing it with your nearest and dearest, or joking with the lads down the pub, you hire a mic and a room and invite a ton of strangers; what could possibly go wrong?

Josh’s new material is rooted in his experience of marriage and having young kids, and the ridiculousness of modern life. He has terrific material about what happens when you have two completely separate friendship groups of people from very different backgrounds and interests, and what happens when they collide; and the usefulness or otherwise of using an airfryer as part of a suicide attempt. But it’s family life that most concerns him at the moment, including how spending the day with a three year old isn’t bonding but boring; how the childbirth was so relaxed that they were able to take in an Amazon delivery at the same time – cue a fantastic wordplay callback moment – and what happened when he couldn’t find the squeezable comb designed to distract his wife’s attention from the pain of childbirth.

An hour in Mr P’s company is a guarantee of constantly new and refreshing material, delivered at a fast and intense pace, extremely funny and, you sense, also extremely honest. And whatever you do, don’t mention Twycross Zoo to him. A great night of comedy, much appreciated by all. And now it’s only a day or two before the Big Comedy Crate Weekender, which will be a hoot – or in fact, ten hoots, as that’s the number of shows we intend to see!

Review – Evita, London Palladium, 3rd July 2025

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This is our first Jamie Lloyd production for a few years – we last saw his work directing some of those Pinters at the Pinter in 2018/19, and jolly good they were too. He has always had an eye for the showier aspects of a text, but I think it’s fair to say he’s come a long way since then. I’m sure we missed a treat with his Sunset Boulevard, but as it’s one of the few shows that Mrs Chrisparkle detests, it never reached the diary. So I was very keen to see what Mr Lloyd would do to a show that was a formative influence in my teenage years. This is the fourth production of Evita I’ve seen and, to be honest, I’m not sure it’s ever truly been staged as well as its material deserves – the illustrious Ms Elaine Paige notwithstanding.

Here’s some honest advice if you’re going to see this production as an Evita virgin, if I can put it like that. Do a bit of research about her life and run your eyes over the libretto online. It will all make much more sense. Whilst the best of Tim Rice’s lyrics in the show are immaculately chosen words that truly get under the skin of the characters, without an additional book to link the songs together, you need to pay very close attention to the lyrics, and, with the best will in the world, they’re not always crystal clear.

Additionally, Soutra Gilmour’s set and costumes, whilst completely perfect for this vision of the show, don’t offer much in the way of visual clues as to where we are or who’s talking, which also doesn’t help the narrative. All we see is a series of terraces leading up to the top of the stage where hangs a huge, illuminated EVITA sign. And whilst the basic black rock concert outfits of most of the ensemble is great for suggesting the masses, other costume variation is minimal, with various shades of grey for everyone else except a few splashes of muted colour for Magaldi, gold for the middle classes, and radiant white for when Eva is “on show”.

That said, this is an Evita unlike any other and sets a standard for the future that I think will be hard to replicate. There is a dynamism, a power, a thrill bursting through every scene and every song, performed by an exquisitely well cast company who boldly go where no dictator, first lady, mistress or everyman have ever gone before. For example, Lloyd has Peron’s ex-mistress – Bella Brown taking every advantage offered with this fantastic song – lamenting her lot in Another Suitcase, Another Hall on the steps as though she’s just been chucked out of a mansion, whilst Eva and Peron toast each other with self-congratulatory champers at the top. In past productions, this has been staged to highlight the isolation of the mistress, facing a lonely and hopeless future. But here, when the song is over, she is comforted by a group of similarly dressed exes, and we realise that she is just one of a sequence of girls who clearly have a support system in place. There is also a beautiful callback towards the end of the show where Peron goes up and snogs another similarly dressed girl whilst Eva is singing through her dying breaths. She won’t be the last. A brilliant insight.

Previous productions of Evita, I have always thought, have played down the ruthlessness of the Peronist regime, turning the marching men into smartly dressed clockwork toy soldiers, like fashionable automata. Inherent in that has been the presentation of Peron himself as a much older, hardnosed, experienced autocrat who will brook neither nonsense nor disobedience. Here he is played by James Olivas, a much younger actor than usual, whose Peron exudes that arrogance of youth that makes him an even more terrifying prospect – you feel this Peron has a lifetime of evil and corruption ahead of him. It’s much easier to imagine why this charismatic Peron would have had success at the election.

Another transformed characterisation is Aaron Lee Lambert’s Magaldi, who’s normally seen just as a cipher, the first step on Eva’s ladder to success. Here the character is filled out with real emotion and personality, and his flourishing rendition of On This Night of a Thousand Stars, a pure pastiche of a dated, hackneyed showtune, turns it into a real song and a star vehicle. And there’s a delightful change to Santa Evita where we no longer have adorable innocent children looking to Eva for support but a junior cynical Eva, dressed like the first lady, extorting cash in the manner of her heroine – a fantastically knowing turn from young Ffion Rosalie Williams at our performance.

The whole show is backed by the most versatile and hard-working ensemble of singers and dancers who perform Fabian Aloise’s gripping choreography with maximum effort; this is unquestionably one very fit group of people. Their movements almost blur with the speed of delivery and create waves of engaging patterns across the stage, but if you settle your eye on any one individual and follow them for any length of time you realise both how demanding the choreography is, and how it’s performed with pinpoint precision.

Che – the everyman narrator of the show who, despite his name doesn’t have to be associated with the famous freedom fighter/terrorist (you choose) – is given a tremendous performance by Diego Andres Rodriguez; vocally superb, amusingly cynical, and thoroughly dramatic. He spends the last half an hour or so of the show covered in blue, white and red paint, which I assume symbolises his (and the people’s) death at the hands of the Argentine flag; a visually stunning effect, although it doesn’t quite explain his continued ability to revive himself sufficiently to sing along with the final broadcast, montage and lament.

Rachel Zegler gives a monumental performance as Eva. She has a glorious singing voice, full of personality and expression, and can create all the extraordinary moods that the character embodies. Much has been made about the staging of Don’t Cry for me Argentina on the balcony overlooking Argyle Street; before the show I was cynical about the effectiveness of that decision, especially as it must inevitably deprive the paying audience of the privilege of seeing it. But no; it’s a brilliant innovation. The camera work is outstanding – as is the audio relay – so the audience loses none of the clarity and beauty of the performance; but the sights of the crowds outside, the crying onlookers, Eva berating the cameraman, the subtle looks and private moments, all come together to make it a much more dramatic and insightful scene. Yes, it is perhaps odd that Eva should be singing to a bunch of people outside a branch of Pret, but you can forgive that. As Che himself says at one point, “as a mere observer of this tasteless phenomenon, you have to admire the stage management”, whilst Eva retreats to the sumptuous upper lounges of the Palladium cosseting a well-deserved champagne. And the use of video continues, to observing Eva in her dressing room, removing her wig, briefly breaking down whilst she comes to terms with what she has done, then resolving herself to return to the stage; which is all done so seamlessly and with technical wizardry. It’s a masterstroke.

Number after number enraptures the audience: Buenos Aires, Goodnight and Thank You, A New Argentina, Rainbow High, Rainbow Tour, And the Money Kept Rolling In… the show is packed with great songs, and this production serves them all terrifically. A New Argentina sends us into the interval covered with more streamers and confetti than I’ve ever seen. As one wag was heard to remark on the way out at the end, I hope they’ve got a Shark. Perhaps the brashness of the production reveals the show’s weakest spot – which is that, much as Eva’s health did, it rather dwindles out at the end. But it’s a landmark production and truly invigorating – a 100% instant standing ovation at the Palladium is a thrill for everyone.

Five Alive Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – The Constant Wife, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1st July 2025

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Are we seeing a resurgence in the influence of Somerset Maugham? After Theatre Royal Bath’s blissful revival of The Circle last year, now comes Laura Wade’s invigorating version of The Constant Wife, his 1926 sparkler about infidelity and how to handle it. Give me a revival of the 1976 musical Liza of Lambeth next and I’ll be very happy. Maugham’s original play tells the story of the relationship between John, a Harley Street doctor married to Constance, and Marie-Louise, a spoilt and vacuous pretty little thing, married to Mortimer. Both Constance’s mother and sister are fully aware of the affair and differ as to whether she should be told about it. But Constance has known about it all along and has been biding her time to work it to her best advantage.

ConstanceWhere Maugham tells the story as a simple, linear narrative, Laura Wade’s deft re-ordering puts the affair out in the open right from the start and then goes back in time so that we can see how Constance discovered the affair a year earlier. There’s nothing Laura Wade likes more than to play with time as she did very effectively in both The Watsons and Home I’m Darling – and The Constant Wife is no exception. Both HID and TCW feature a strong central female backed by a purposefully resilient mother, but where Judy in HID revels in the lifestyle of a meek 50s housewife, much to her mother’s consternation, Constance embodies feminism by knowing precisely what she wants and how to get it, while her mother is the type who feels that if a man plays away from home it’s entirely the woman’s fault. One of the best lines of the play is when Constance tells her mother why she always knew that Bernard wasn’t the man for her: “he was a trifle too much inclined to lie down on the floor and let me walk over him”. It’s a line that gives you an instant insight into her character.

John and Marie-LouiseThey say that knowledge is power; by concealing the fact that she knew about the affair, Constance starts to create a new financially independent life for herself hidden in plain sight. If this were an episode of The Traitors it would be like winning a shield and not telling anyone. However, neither Maugham’s Constance nor Wade’s updated version ever puts a foot out of character, retaining her dignity and total faithfulness to her class and her status. Indeed, the whole production’s adherence to its original 1920s setting and atmosphere is one of its greatest virtues; the occasional – and extremely funny – double entendre notwithstanding.

CastMy only quibble here is that Jamie Cullum’s jazz-oriented incidental music, whilst doubtless of the age, feels a little out of balance with the rest of the production. There’s no sense of the Jazz Age in the text or the characterisations – Marie-Louise could easily have been portrayed as a flapper but she decidedly isn’t – so the music didn’t work for me. That aside, the other creative aspects are excellent. Ryan Day’s subtle lighting suggests the world outside the Harley Street drawing room, Anna Fleischle and Cat Fuller’s costumes reflect the characterisations perfectly; even the fabrics and objets d’art that Martha sells in her shop are spot-on – that “lovely” lamp is hideous by the way, but that’s all part of the fun.

Bernard and JohnAs well as reshaping the sequences of the plotline, Laura Wade’s script takes all the best Maugham scenes and many of his brilliant killer lines and smartly updates the scenario with the removal of an unnecessary character (Barbara), enhancement of the character of Bentley, the butler, and some lovely meta moments, currently very en vogue. I particularly liked the whole notion of the play that Constance and Bernard are going to see and how sometimes you need a refresher after the interval. Tamara Harvey’s direction is clear and delightfully lacking in gimmickry, although there were a few scenes where our view from Row F of the Ground (stalls) was blocked – four actors positioned in a diagonal line across the stage so that only the nearest could be seen; I know from ecstatic laughter around me that we missed some obvious gems of physical comedy, which is a shame.

Constance and Mrs CulverThe cast are uniformly superb, each giving terrific performances. Raj Bajaj is brilliant as Bernard, perpetually uncomfortable with himself and on the brink of exploding with love for Constance. Amy Morgan brings out all the comedy of sibling exasperation as sister Martha, and Luke Norris as John gives an intelligent portrayal of a husband caught out but not prepared to take all the blame. Emma McDonald’s Marie-Louise wheedles her way out of an awkward situation beautifully, cleverly showing us how unclever her character really is.

ConstanceKate Burton is pitch-perfect as Mrs Culver, Constance’s mother, delivering her fantastic lines with knowing authority and impish fun; and there’s great support from Daniel Millar’s perplexed and easily fooled Mortimer and Mark Meadows as the super-reliable Bentley. But it is Rose Leslie who takes centre stage throughout with a thoroughly believable, smart and witty portrayal of Constance, handling all her inner circle with various degrees of manipulativeness, apart from her only truly honest relationship, with Bentley, Bentleywhere she can completely be herself.

An excellent production of a timeless play, brought smartly to life by a neat adaptation. Don’t underestimate Maugham – he’s better than you think he is.

 

Production photos by Johan Persson

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 7th June 2025

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It’s been two years since we last saw a Screaming Blue Murder in its natural home – Underground at the Derngate – as that blessed RAAC issue meant the theatre had to close and then slowly reopen bit by bit; the Underground being the last to emerge into the post-apocalyptic daylight. Since then, Screaming Blue has been in the Royal (where it worked pretty well), Lola’s Bar (which was small but not bad) and the deathly hallows of Filmhouse Screen 2 which just kills live comedy stone dead. However, last night’s show was the second to be held in the newly refreshed Underground (and they’ve done a good job of that) and with a very full audience! I can officially confirm that Northampton’s Screaming Blue Murder is back back back and it’s great news.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Screaming Blue without the cheeky delivery and shiny head of our genial host, Dan Evans, finding out all about the more prominent audience members. There was the Trade Union official from the GMB, which sadly has few boilermakers amongst its membership anymore, taciturn David from Glasgow, Alex the Ping Pong king who supplies both Bangkok and the Olympics – all aspects of its usage covered – and the party who met through the Simon de Senlis school. What a knight. Great work from Dan, and I trust he had a sound sleep at the Dunstable Travelodge.

First up, and in a change from the advertised programme, was the manic unpredictability of Paul Pirie, someone who’s graced the Screaming Blue stage many times before. In a comparison that’s both complimentary and alarming, he does remind me of the late Robin Williams, not only in appearance, but also in his tendency to go off on weird tangents peppered with sound effects. He also has Williams’ ability to be both ecstatically funny and perilously teetering on the edge of a mental crisis. He didn’t limit himself to the stage either, at one point wandering all around the audience. His material does occasionally veer close to where angels fear to tread, but for the most part it worked well!

Our next act was the excellent Wendy Wason, who delivers recognisable Mum material straight from the heart, with some hilarious domestic observations resulting from having three kids. There were painful memories of home schooling during the pandemic, and reflections on how sobriety wasn’t big in those days; I loved the idea that rosé is a “driving wine”. She also has some excellent material about her rather caring son finding out about periods. Always terrifically entertaining.

Our headliner was Matt Green, who always comes across as someone inherently polite, charming and thoughtful but with a naughty sting to his tail. He regaled us with stories of family life, including the dangers of subscribing to TikTok; but he was particularly good with his assessment of Trump as a toddler, and how brilliantly Keir Starmer played him in that terrifying Oval Office scenario. After the high energy of the two previous acts, Mr Green has a much more measured and conversational approach, but it fits well with his material and appearance, and he ended the evening on a high for everyone.

That was the last Screaming Blue of the Spring season – hopefully now it’s back in the Underground it will go from strength to strength when it returns in the autumn!

Review – Viggo Venn: British Comedian, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 4th June 2025

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Delayed by a few months due to his broken foot – and with all that malarkey scampering around the theatre no wonder he broke it – Viggo Venn finally hits the stage running at the Royal and Derngate with his touring show British Comedian – a beautifully apt title as he’s neither British nor – if truth be told – a comedian. Unlike most of the other Viggistas in the audience, I didn’t see his Britain’s Got Talent appearances, but I have happy memories of being assaulted by him on a couple of Edinburgh Fringe stages over the past ten years and was excited to discover what perilously anarchical fun he had in store for us.

In many respects this was a theatre experience unlike others. First and foremost, the audience all seemed to be in on all the gags throughout the entire show – I felt like I was one of a handful of people who hadn’t read the script. Audience members of all ages constantly called out from the stalls (yes, no, shut up, go away, do it, don’t do it, and of course One More Time, etc). And it wasn’t like panto or stand-up, where there’s always a certain embarrassment at being picked on; here, if Viggo approached you, you leapt up and down and joined in as if you were being saved by Billy Graham. Very amusing indeed – but also fairly peculiar!

Viggo Venn is a master clown; of that there is no question. This is a totally anarchic, high energy performance of outrageous inventiveness and brilliant interaction with the audience. And Mr Venn cuts a truly engaging persona, with a most mischievous and expressive face topped off with hair that looks like he’s pushed his finger in the electric socket. A true Scandinavian, he only uses language when it is absolutely necessary; most of his comedy comes simply from his physical presence. Running around the stage whirling off Hi-Vis jackets to the tune of Daft Punk’s One More Time like there’s no tomorrow, tumbling off into the audience and insisting people at the front catch him next time (his pratfalls are extraordinary); constantly getting poor front row Paul to help him back onto the stage, which didn’t do Paul’s personal dignity any good. There really is no limit to what he might do.

During the course of the show – a little under an hour and a half without a break – Viggo becomes part of a wedding ceremony for two members of the audience, he helps save a drowning audience member on stage, he imitates audience members’ cars and his finale act is to blow up an enormous balloon and then get inside it. Nor is he alone; he is irregularly joined by a Vampire who revels in all things spooky (Steffen Hånes on deliciously stupid form) including becoming the least convincing bat in the history of stage puppetry (don’t look at me, look at the bat), because, well, why not?

For me the most enjoyable sequence was his homage to Eminem’s My Name Is… where members of the crowd speak their name into a microphone and Viggo gives a running commentary on that person’s character and behaviour. Doesn’t sound like much, but it works incredibly well.

If you don’t get this kind of humour, you simply don’t get it – and that’s that. I saw a few stony faced people in the audience, and I get where they’re coming from. The nature of the show means it’s very – and I mean very – repetitive, and my personal view is that I probably admire his act more than I enjoy it. But the vast majority of the audience were ecstatic, and my guess is that, from the length of the queue at the end to buy a Hi-Vis jacket and have him sign it, he’s doing exactly what his fan base want (and hopefully making a fortune from the merch.) There are just a few more dates in this delayed part of his UK tour, but I very much doubt Viggo Venn is going away any time soon!

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!