Tag Archives: Derngate

Review – The Snow Maiden, The Russian State Ballet of Siberia, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 8th January 2019

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It’s always a pleasure to catch some classical ballet from time to time; and as neither Mrs Chrisparkle nor I had ever seen The Snow Maiden, this visit from the Russian State Ballet of Siberia seemed like a golden opportunity. I always say (stop me if you’ve heard it already) that dance done well is the finest thing you can see on a stage; and dance done badly is the opposite! Although we haven’t seen this dance company before, I had no doubt that they were going to do a good job; previous visits to the Royal and Derngate by the Moscow City Ballet were various kinds of exquisite. However, I do recall a time when Mrs C and I saw a production of Swan Lake in St Petersburg – ok, it wasn’t the Mariinsky, but we had high hopes – and it was just appalling. Bored dancers going through the motions with no thought of artistry so that Japanese tourists could take photos. So we’re always a little bit concerned about dipping our pointe shoes into the murky world of lesser known Russian ballet companies.

But there was no need to be worried about the Russian State Ballet of Siberia, or to give them their other name, the Krasnoyarsk State Ballet. They’ve visited the UK sixteen times since their first Christmas season in Cardiff in 2002, so I’m surprised I haven’t come across them before. For their current UK tour they have six full length ballets to tempt us with, three of which were performed during their brief three days at Northampton. They’re clearly a hard-working bunch, with only a few days off during their lengthy tour, details of which will follow at the end.

Production values are commendable. Their relatively simple but extremely effective and attractive sets, with gently moving images like snowfall or water ripples, actually made our Tuesday night audience gasp with appreciation when the curtain went up – you don’t get that with Rambert. Anatoliy Chepurmoy’s sizeable orchestra gave Tchaikovsky’s tunes plenty of attack; full, live music to accompany a ballet always seems to create a greater sense of occasion, for audience and performers alike.

One doesn’t tend to go to the ballet to witness an intricate tale; but, as far as story-telling goes, this company did a very good job. The Snow Maiden runs away from the snowy forest because she wants to live life with real people; doesn’t seem unreasonable. She chances on a village where she is invited to join the youngsters watch a young merchant, Mizgir, choose a bride from the single village girls. He chooses Kupava, and all seems well at first, until the Snow Maiden bursts on the scene and she completely steals his heart, much to Kupava’s distress. If he liked it, then he should have put a ring on it. She runs away (again) and meets her mother Spring (the beautiful and graceful Anastasiia Belonogova), who bestows on her the capacity to love. But Spring warns the Snow Maiden that she must stay out of sunlight. Mizgir finds her, falls in love with her all over again, but as soon as she is revealed in the sun’s rays, she melts away. And the moral of this tale is: never forget your Factor 50.

For our performance, the role of the Snow Maiden was danced by Anastasiia Osokina, who, according to the programme, isn’t a soloist but a member of the Corps de Ballet. If that’s the case, her career is definitely on the up. However, I think that might be a mistake in the programme as she appears to have been dancing with the company since 2003 with many notable roles to her name. Whatever, she’s an exquisite dancer with superb expression (something you can sometimes miss with Russian ballerinas) and a joy to watch. When she first meets Lel, the young shepherd danced by Daniil Kostylev, they shared one or two ever so slightly ropey balance moments which I can only put down to slight lack of rehearsal – unsurprising with their performance schedule – because separately, they were as sure-footed as mountain gazelles.

Where the ballet really came alive for me was the extensive pas de deux between Ivan Karnaukhov’s Mizgir and Elena Svinko’s Kupava; partly because that is the most luscious of Tchaikovsky’s tunes in this particular ballet (was it borrowed from another of his works, because I can’t locate it on any recordings!) and partly because Ms Svinko’s elegant displeasure at the Snow Maiden’s butting in and stealing her merchant was gripping! Both dancers filled the stage with their superb technical prowess, Mr Karnaukhov leaping from end to end, and Ms Svinko channelling her emotions in the sumptuous grace of her dance. Mr Karnaukhov was also fantastic in the second Act, where his athletic dancing movingly told the character’s mental agony at the Snow Maiden’s unexpected and puddly departure.

After all those high emotions, next came the appearance of the three clowns, led by Maxim Ikonostasov, who provided an amusing and thrilling interlude before the final scene. Looking at it from a dramatic point of view, it’s ironically amusing how quickly Kupava gets over her disappointment. There are a few disconsolate tableaux, and the inevitable graceful salutary waving of the Corps de Ballet on the sidelines, before Lel makes his mark and takes advantage of being Last Man Standing. Their final pas de deux together was typical of the usual classical Russian Wrap-up of a ballet, with some terrific leaps and pirouettes which really impressed and entertained.

British provincial audiences may not play along with the Russian practice of lengthy rounds of applause after each element of dance, which is why the show comes down earlier than you might expect. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t appreciate it; and the applause at curtain call was sustained and hearty! If you fancy a spot of classical Russian ballet without having to pay Covent Garden prices, I’d really recommend the Russian State Ballet of Siberia. Their UK tour continues until 16th March, taking in – deep breath – Norwich, High Wycombe, Bournemouth, Darlington, Swindon, Wimbledon, Southend, Brighton, Bristol, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Hull, Leicester, Basingstoke, Ipswich, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Halifax and Oxford. And then they get a day off!

Review – Upfront Comedy, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 4th November 2018

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Having basked in the glow of so many happy Screaming Blue Murder nights at the Royal and Derngate, it took us a surprisingly long time to dip our toes into the fun that is the Upfront Comedy shows, set in the perfect intimate atmosphere of the Victorian Royal theatre. Sadly we missed the last one, but we made up for it last Sunday night. The great thing about the Upfront Comedy nights is that you get such a range of audience members, all ages and all ethnicities, and it’s a wonderful melting pot that breaks down barriers by means of comedy.

Our host, as usual, was the warm and welcoming John Simmit, who put us at ease with tales of love and affection, Handsworth style. He had a brilliant story about the time when, dressed as Dipsy – for yes, indeed, he did play that particular Teletubby – in Paris, some Smart Alec thought it would be a good idea to give Dipsy a piece of his mind; a typical Rue de Remarques joke really. It sounds as though this gentilhomme was more than a bit surprised when he discovered quite how well Dipsy can take care of himself!

We hadn’t seen any of the evening’s featured acts before, which is always exciting on a comedy night. First up was Toju, who (apparently) was on Britain’s Got Talent a few years ago. He came out, all guns blazing, with a brilliantly arresting set that challenged everyone and everything! There seemed to be a few almost deliberately miserable people in the front few rows and he did everything he could to make them crack – some he managed, some he didn’t, but the fact that they sat there stony faced against his comedy barrage was hilarious in itself. Toju then turned his attention to the Swiss lady in the front row and to her son, who were very good sports. The row in front of us was completely filled with white people, but with one black guy right in the middle of them. “Blink if they’ve kidnapped you, brother” he exclaimed. Toju is enormous fun, with absolutely no inhibitions, and a perfect way to start an evening of comedy.

Next up was the only name in the line-up that I recognised, the effervescent Desiree Burch, all the way from LA via South London. She also has hilarity coursing through her veins. I loved her take on labels that might apply to her: she’s proud to be strong, she’s proud to be black, she’s proud to be a woman. But a strong black woman? That means one of two things: “You think you’re gonna get away with that?” or “You think you’re gonna get away with that?” (with menaces). She had lots of brilliant material about sex and fantasies, and a nice observation about how a tattoo can be a turn on – or not. Again, she could have gone on all night, and that would have been fine by us. Great stuff.

After the interval, our next act was John Ryan, of Irish extraction via Hackney. He created a great rapport with the audience, coming across like an Eastenders Mitchell brother but with a degree. A lot of his material came from a warm feeling of inclusivity, showing how we’ve all got much more that unites us than divides us. I really liked his style and he went down very well with the audience.

Our final act came from New York, Drew Fraser. He’s a true wisecracking dude, with plenty of ultra-fast patter and terrific confident delivery. I loved his observations about the trials and tribulations of wearing a Supersized condom, the best way of losing weight (which doesn’t involve the gym) and the considerable difference between vagina and pussy (penis and dick also applies). I’ve seen a few of Mr Fraser’s clips from American TV and I think he’s getting a pretty big reputation out there so it was great to have the chance to see him here in the UK. Oh – and a really charming touch for him to wait outside the theatre as we were all leaving, thanking us for coming – he’s clearly very well brought up.

A terrific night of comedy – and great value too – two and three quarter hours of it for 13 quid, can’t be bad! Looking forward to their next visit. You should come too!

Review – Rob Newman, Total Eclipse of Descartes, Royal and Derngate, 3rd November 2018

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We often think that “love” is a small word for something that encompasses such a range of emotions. “Humour” and “funny” are the same; they contain everything from slapstick to farce, to jokes, to clowning, to erudite after-dinner speeches and lots of other stuff in between. Good comedy should be challenging in the same way that good theatre is; and I love a bit of intelligent comedy that makes you think out of the box.

We’ve never seen Rob Newman before. I remember him, of course, from the days of Newman and Baddiel, when they packed a 12,000 seater arena; but Mr Newman is a different beast today. Wikipedia describes him as an author and political activist, and who am I to disagree? Over the past few years he has returned to performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, with shows like The Brain Show and New Theory of Evolution, which gives you a good indication of where his interests currently lie. And now he’s back with the brilliantly named Total Eclipse of Descartes, where he condenses 2,500 years of philosophy into a couple of hours and ponders on where we are today.

Dressed in two-parts grey three-piece suit and one-part brown-checked tweedy jacket, he looks like a classic young fogey; half boffin, half landowner. Your immediate thought might be (and I confess, it was mine) – oh no, this is actually going to be as boring as hell. But you’d be completely wrong. Yes, the whole thing does come across as a rather quirky university lecture; but, like the best university lectures, it informs you whilst making you laugh hysterically. Anyone who can quote a line like “I’m going to consider this problem philosophically – I’m not going to think about it” must know he’s on to a winner.

First, we’re asked to consider the whole theory of selective education, and he tells us all about Sir Cyril Burt, educational psychologist and big fan of hereditary IQ. The man was an utter scoundrel, yet we’ve based our entire school system on his faked statistics for decades. Amongst other notables from the realms of philosophy we learn how Mr Newman could never get to grips with the essence of Jean-Paul Sartre, until he discovered one fascinating fact about him. I shan’t tell you what it is, but once you know, everything else makes sense.

We hear about how Pythagoras helped the world of early wheel technology with a story that’s as nice as pi (geddit?) and, of course, René Descartes, who thought, and therefore was. All the while, Mr N brings in modern references to illuminate history, and vice versa; and he absolutely crams the material with callbacks, which work beautifully. And there’s a little nugget of an encore, where he revives a much-missed old comedian to deliver a final, relevant message.

I wasn’t aware that Mr N had a Radio 2 series of the same name, where, presumably, he investigates philosophy in more bite-size chunks. If you’re a fan of that show, then no doubt his live tour would be right up your Karl-Marx-Allee. Given that this is much more of a comedy lecture than a stand-up, the time absolutely flew by. A very different format from what we’re used to; but it’s erudite, educational, and above all, very funny. His UK tour continues until 8th December.

Review – Marcus Brigstocke, Devil May Care, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 31st October 2018

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What could be a better date to see Marcus Brigstocke’s latest show about The Devil than on Hallowe’en? Hats off, incidentally, to the Derngate staff for their choice of fancy dress at work, and even a few of the audience came dressed for the occasion. Rest assured, Mrs Chrisparkle and I maintained our dignity in our usual clerical grey and hessian sack.

I’d heard great things about Mr Brigstocke’s new show that was a hit in Edinburgh earlier this year, but I already knew he’d be touring to Northampton later in the year, so we decided to let him come to us rather than vice versa. We’ve seen him in musicals (Spamalot, Barnum) and doing stand-up, and he’s always a treat. He doesn’t shy away from political material, as we first realised when he created his own comedy cabinet in The Brig Society, but it was his Why The Long Face tour in 2016 for which I am truly grateful, because, four months after the EU referendum, he finally gave me the opportunity to laugh my head off about Brexit, which my brain and chuckle muscles sorely needed.

But I’m running before I can walk. Because Devil May Care is a slightly extended version of his one-hour Edinburgh show, Mr B first of all introduced us to his support act. Rob Rouse came on to a warm reception and instantly addressed the elephant in the room by asking who, if any of us, knew that there would be a support act on and that it wouldn’t be an evening of just Mr Brigstocke? Not one person owned up. So much for that vote of confidence for Mr Rouse. But neither he, nor we, needed to worry, because he’s a very funny and likeable guy who strikes up an instant rapport with the audience. He makes a good contrast with Mr Brigstocke, who tends to specialise in mental agility, whereas Mr Rouse is more at home with his physical comedy, such as when he’s imitating a lost vibrator, getting turned on by a tabard, or taking us through a long but hilarious account of his prostate exam. He got to know a few people in the audience, including the mother and daughter with matching kitten ears, and Mark the Mental Health Support worker who looked like God from the back (and apparently from the front too), which helped the whole show along. Sometimes twenty minutes of a support act can seem quite sufficient, but Mr Rouse gave us a full 45 minutes and left us wanting more. Great stuff.

After the interval, enter Mr Brigstocke, to darkened lights, a bewingéd jacket, red make-up and a couple of horns. I do hope he didn’t come in the train like that. Mind you, if he had, he could have successfully demanded treats all night with menaces. He took one look at God (Mark) in the front row and realised that he could, indeed, have met his maker. But this is The Devil, and he pulls no punches. In a brilliantly crafted, smartly scripted hour plus of truly hilarious material about the world today as the Devil sees it, we forget that it’s Mr Brigstocke on stage; apart from the occasional moments when he comes out of character – mainly to remind us how much better an audience we were than Lancaster.

In character he can challenge us. Hell is full, and he’s going to tell us why, and how he’s going to take back control of his borders. He’s also going to implore us not to go to Hell ourselves, as the criteria for entrance have recently changed; for example, being gay is fine, but teabag mismanagement is quite another matter. Along the way he asks us to suggest some famous people who should be in Hell, which led to some fascinating moments when he jiggles (mentally, that is) with the Jimmy Saviles and Rolf Harrises of this world; and though we all detest them, we couldn’t help but sing Two Little Boys all together. He got Andy the Thameslink train driver to make a very intimate revelation; we got inside knowledge on the true story of Adam and Eve. He considered the Hellish elements of the current political climate; and he even got us to confess that we all felt sorry for Theresa May. That’s devilish work.

The meshing together of great stand-up material with the persona of Lucifer himself works incredibly well; it’s a superbly satisfying structure for the show and made you see a whole range of subjects from a completely different angle. We absolutely loved it. One of the best stand-up performances we’ve ever seen. His tour continues throughout the rest of November. Unmissable.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 26th October 2018

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Hurrah for another Screaming Blue Murder, and another episode in the continuing mystery saga, Would Dan Evans Get There On Time? Answer: No. This time there was a crash on the M1 which put a 25 minute delay onto his journey. I’m beginning to think The Gods of Comedy have got it in for him. And perhaps they have. Every so often you get a really weird Screaming Blue Murder; something about the dynamic in the audience that just doesn’t gel. This was one of those weeks. Firstly, they’d changed the staging so that it looked really showbiz. Black curtains in front of a lit-up, shimmering red curtain, to create a very glamorous effect. Not the usual cellar where the bodies are kept look that we’re accustomed to. Dan did his usual let’s meet the front row routine, and got on well with the ladies from the Danes Camp gym, and then he moved on to another couple (no names)… and that’s where it all got a bit difficult.

It’s a bit bizarre to have to review the audience rather than the show, but to make sense of the evening, this particular Screaming Blue needs it. So, back to this couple; to be fair, he was fine. A cheery paper salesman whose answer to the problem of the diminishing need to buy paper because of the Internet was to “sell more paper”. Absolutely. She, however… I’m sure she’s a lovely person but she came across as a cross between Rosa Klebb and Lord Snooty. She sells people (her words) and lives in an “undisclosed location” and clearly looks down on Northampton. Normally the audience is quite happy to go along with the usual “What’s Northampton like?” “It’s sh*t” routine, but this time – no. “If you hate it, why don’t you leave then?” came an unexpected bellowing voice from behind. An audience silently quivered, not knowing where this was going. Dan continued with as much jollity as possible, but it wasn’t long before the voice came back with “Get her a lead”, which really was a bit much. If anyone had shouted that out about Mrs Chrisparkle, I would have stood up and demanded satisfaction with a duel in the car park. Instead, Dan turned to a couple of guys in the corner and tried to spark off them but they were as sullen as hell.

First up was Luke Toulson, who came on thanking Dan for putting us all at our ease and making his life easy! We’ve seen Mr Toulson twice before and he’s always good value. He’s done some of the material about collecting the kids from school before, but we loved his pretentious critiques of school plays, and the urge guys get to propose the higher from the ground they are. He ended with a great sequence about the one hour slot to deliver your sperm sample for testing and a great play on words about a medic’s wages. He was just what we needed to set the evening back on course.

Next was Caroline Mabey; we’ve also seen her before and, last time, frankly, she wasn’t very good. This time, well… she’s gutsy and has some good material but I still think she’s trying to be someone on stage that she isn’t. She reminded me very much of a younger Helen Lederer, with an act crammed full of self-deprecation; trouble is she doesn’t really get us on her side at the start of her act, so we end up just being onlookers rather than participators. I can see how it all would work perfectly on paper, but on stage it just doesn’t quite hold together. Mind you, the weird vibe of the evening certainly didn’t help.

What the night needed was for the last act to bounce out, stamp their authority on us, and not let up until the final joke – and that’s exactly what Michael Fabbri did. We’ve never seen Mr Fabbri before and it’s been our loss. He uses his material and sharp delivery to take control without ever being aggressive or too laddish like some comics. There’s a fantastic sequence about spending the night in someone else’s hotel room, but his set was full of sideways looks at life and what I can only describe as inventive moments of ridiculousness. He was great, we’d love to see him again.

There are two more Screaming Blue Murders this year – hopefully they’ll run a little more smoothly than this one did. Alas, we are unable to attend either of them, so I hope you’ll go on our behalf.

Review – Richard Alston Dance Company, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 16th October 2018

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It’s always a pleasure to see the Richard Alston Dance Company on their autumn tour – I’ve been a fan (there’s no point denying it) since I first saw the company in 1998, although I’ve enjoyed his choreography since I first saw Rambert perform Rainbow Ripples back in 1980. The word on the street is that this is his penultimate annual tour before the company closes in 2020 – dark days ahead for contemporary dance lovers; particularly as the current casting of the company has many new fresh-faced young dancers honing their skills, performing great dance and promising even greater things in the future.

Mr Alston introduced the evening with an explanation of the first two items on the menu. Like last year, we began with a curtain raiser featuring young local talent. We watched eight young dancers from Northampton School for Boys performing Lost Child, choreographed by their teacher, Alison Clinton, inspired by the story of Peter Pan. We were genuinely impressed with their commitment, skill and artistry. It was full of character and story-telling, and dotted with many moments of humour; and some terrific leaps too. Above all, you could tell that they really enjoyed it; and that sense of pleasure always communicates itself back on to the audience so that we loved it too. Congratulations team; we were happy to tell a couple of the guys during the first interval how much we enjoyed their performance – and they seemed happy to hear it.

Mr Alston also wanted to explain the thought process behind the next piece, Mid Century Modern. To celebrate his fifty years as a choreographer, this is like an Alston’s Greatest Hits sequence; six excerpts from dances he has choreographed over the years. They’re not in chronological order, they’re ordered to create a contrasting impact. It’s also an excellent way to introduce us to the company, as two of the pieces are solos, another is a duet, and the rest involve everyone.

We started with Fever (2001), a showcase for Elly Braund and Nicholas Shikkis, amongst the very finest dancers performing today. They commanded the stage with their immense control and fluidity; totally engrossed with the accompanying madrigal music. Nowhere Slowly (1970) is Mr Alston’s earliest extant piece of choreography, and features the excellent Jennifer Hayes encircling the stage in a deceptively simple action of dance drama. Blue Schubert Fragments (1972), set to a Schubert Adagio from Death and the Maiden, is a charming piece that suggests how peoples’ lives can be interwoven by the same activity. The excerpt from Rainbow Bandit (1977) was danced in total silence and shows how concentration itself can be beautiful – I would have loved to hear the “Rainbow Chuck Bandit” vocal soundtrack again though! The solo from Shimmer (2004) is a monument to elegance, and a perfect vehicle for new company rising star Joshua Harriette. Finally there was a sequence from Signal of a Shake (1999), one of those crowd-pleasing numbers where the story was told twice – the second time at top speed – to the stately sounds of Handel. The variety of styles and the superb execution made this an excellent opener to the Alston programme.

After the first interval we returned for Martin Lawrance’s new work, Detour. Seven dancers react to the highly percussive soundtrack from Michael Gordon’s Timber Remixed, which reminded me of the sound of helicopter wings revolving continually, more frenetically, until the sound was just an electronic blur. Very exciting and mesmerically beautiful, this demands a lot from its dancers, combining speed with elegance as it hurtles towards its final crescendo. The final coupling of Monique Jonas and Joshua Harriette was mind-blowing, with their almost circus-skill balancing act. We both absolutely loved it. Then it was time for Richard Alston’s 2006 work, Proverb, with its intriguing soundtrack of the repeated line “how small a thought it takes to fill a whole life”, embellished and enhanced so that it resembles some form of Gregorian Chant. I particularly appreciated Peter Todd’s costumes – coloured, textured dresses that had been invaded by black down one side, as though in perpetual half-mourning. The full company of dancers all worked together to create an image of interdependence and harmony; a heart-warming message in these rather fractious times.

After the second interval we returned for another new piece – Richard Alston’s Brahms Hungarian, a sequence of ten dances to the accompaniment of those famous Brahms’ Hungarian Dances but not, as they usually are, played by a full orchestra, but to the plaintive and delicate notes of Jason Ridgway on the piano. This was a fabulous way to end the evening. The traditional Gypsy rhythms inspired some very grand and formal, yet expressive, choreography; and I admired Fotini Dinou’s swirling floral dresses for the female dancers, matched by stark and smart angular jackets for the men. I think this is the closest I’ve seen Richard Alston choreograph something so closely akin to classical ballet, with the girls on tiptoe (they’d be en pointe if they were in the right shoes) and the men supporting the women in an (almost) traditional pas de deux. It was stunning.

With a number of changes in personnel in the company’s line-up (five dancers from last year’s show have moved on, five remained) I feared there might be some “gaps” in this year’s offering, but not a bit of it. The company is as strong as ever and gave us a truly superb night of dance. Congratulations to all!

Review – The Thirteenth Malcolm Arnold Festival Gala Concert – The Consummate Communicator; BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 14th October 2018

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The annual Gala Concert of the Malcolm Arnold Festival is always a thing of beauty and a delight to the ear. Northampton’s famous son turned his hand to so many different styles of music, that it’s great to cherish this festival. It’s inevitably a source of great fascination to hear some pieces you haven’t heard before, and to admire his mix of quirkiness and solemnity. For this concert by the BBC Concert Orchestra, our conductor was Keith Lockhart, a dapper chap with a spring in his step who let the music do the talking. He spent most of his time perched atop a rather battered wooden podium that looked as though it had just come out of a shed, which didn’t really suit the glamour of the rest of the evening. When Mr Lockhart becomes engrossed in his music, his left foot starts to twitch and bounces around in appreciation of the music. When he gets really carried away, he does a series of jumps. Performance clearly oozes through every pore of him.

Our first item was Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances – West Side Story, and, as far as I’m concerned, definitely the best way to hear these uplifting tunes. Somewhere, Maria and I Have a Love dominate these symphonic dances, and the percussion and harp demand to be heard in addition to the usual string and brass instruments. The BCO were clearly in the mood for a lively evening of energetic playing and this piece brought out their showbizzy side; the performance went down a treat with the audience.

Next, we met our soloist for the evening, the brilliant clarinettist, Julian Bliss. We’ve seen Mr Bliss perform at the Royal and Derngate three times before, once with the Royal Philharmonic, and twice with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra as part of the Malcolm Arnold Festival in 2013 and 2014. For this concert, once again he played us something different. First up was a Scherzetto for Clarinet and Orchestra by Arnold, taken from his film score for the 1953 movie You Know What Sailors Are. The film is probably best forgotten, but the scherzetto is a brilliant little musical joke; a tune that cocks its head to one side, pokes its tongue out and saucily lifts its leg up. Mr Bliss played it with all the panache you’d expect.

Then he played the more thoughtful and introspective Clarinet Concerto by Aaron Copland – appropriate for this concert because Copland and Arnold were great friends. Two movements are joined by a cadenza, which Mr Bliss attacked with gusto. How he remembers all the nuances of the music – let alone the notes – without any sheet music beats me. It’s an engrossing piece and sometimes you wonder how the clarinet part and the orchestra part mesh together, but they always manage it. A very moving and rewarding way to guide us to the interval.

After the interval, we had a short speech from Paul Harris, the Festival Director, giving us a little extra insight into the pieces and the reasons why they were chosen for this concert. After a brief hiatus where the leader of the orchestra forgot to tune his colleagues up until he got a nudge from the violins behind (I have to say, orchestra leaders are getting younger every year) we welcomed back Mr Lockhart and went straight into our final piece, Malcolm Arnold’s 4th Symphony. In 1958, Britain saw race riots which affected Arnold deeply; he was dismayed and upset that such a thing could happen. So when he was commissioned to write a symphony the following year, he decided to involve instruments and rhythms that would have been more associated with African and Caribbean music, but integrating them into the formality of a “western” symphony, to show how the two can happily co-exist.

The result is a lively and wide-ranging symphony, given additional depths by the African and Caribbean elements. Mr Harris told us to watch out for Puerto Rican influences too, which is why the West Side Story piece fitted into the evening’s entertainment. I must say, I couldn’t really discern much of a West Side Story vibe, but I’m sure that’s my ears not working properly. Of its four movements, I much preferred the second (vivace ma non troppo) and the fourth (con fuoco – a lot of fuoco in fact.) There was a disturbing calm about the second movement – expressed beautifully by the orchestra– which reminded me of one of Arnold’s English Dances, but as though it had been fragmented, and half the notes removed to leave a ghostly hint of the original. The fourth was full of power and amazingly lush arrangements on which the orchestra truly went to town.

As always, the Malcolm Arnold Festival Gala Concert was a complete treat, and an essential part of the Royal and Derngate’s classical offerings of the year.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 12th October 2018

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Another Friday night, another sold-out Screaming Blue Murder comedy club night. Last time, our genial host Dan Evans never made it to Northampton as his old jalopy gave up the ghost at Milton Keynes, and Meryl O’Rourke bravely stepped up to the mark. But lightning never strikes twice, etc, so surely he’d be there on time this week….surely…. But a 45-minute delay on the trains meant we were denied the pleasure of Dan’s company until the first interval. I dunno…. beginning to get a complex here.

Instead it fell to opening act and all-round political comedian par excellence, Joe Wells, to act as his own MC warm up before delivering his own 20-minute slot. With Mr Wells, you’re in a very safe pair of hands. We’ve seen him twice in Edinburgh, where you have to queue early to be sure of getting in, such is his word-of-mouth success. Us Northampton comedy crowds aren’t known for our fondness for political comedy, so I did wonder a little how well he would go down. I needn’t have worried. His brilliant political observations, as well as the other gems in his act were as well received as I have ever seen any Northampton audience respond to political comedy. What I love about his material, and his delivery, is the way he swipes the comedic rug from under your feet and sends you hurtling in directions you never foresaw. And hats off to Mr Wells for being complimentary about Northampton. Quite right too.

After the first interval Dan finally emerged out of the murkiness that is London Northwestern Railway to give us a slightly belated warm up. He had his hands full with front-row Angie, ebullient and no inhibitions, and they were a pretty good match for each other. There was also Architect Nick with his plans for a million-pound rugby club in Towcester. We weren’t impressed. But we were all aghast at Dan’s tale of the delay at Wolverton station being punctuated by the sight and sound of a guy opposite him in the train clipping his nails; not discreetly into a free newspaper but proudly on to the floor. We all retched.

Next up was someone we’ve also seen before a few times, Susan Murray – something of a Screaming Blue regular, this was the sixth time we’ve seen her here! She delivers a lot of great material based on accents – as she herself confesses, her Brummie voice isn’t an accent that goes skiing – and there’s a lot of mileage to be gained from her relationship with her strongly Glaswegian parents. She delivered a suitably savage put down to front-row Angie which hit home perfectly. Always very funny and quirky.

Our headline act was someone completely new to us – although he’s been on the circuit for yonks – Stefano Paolini. He truly does have a gift for accents and vocal gymnastics, and we loved his “foreign languages in British regional accents” section, as well as his reminiscences of his interview with the school careers adviser, which were every bit as useless as mine was all those years ago. And he beatboxes – but not just in a show-off way like every other beatboxer, but integrating it into comedy routines which works a treat. He brought the house down and I’d definitely look out for him in the future.

Next Screaming Blue in two weeks’ time. Two questions – will you be there? And will Dan?

Review – Touching the Void, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 9th October 2018

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This is, by necessity, so full of spoilers that I really should warn you before you read it!

As usual, I discover that Mrs Chrisparkle and I are one of the few people never to have read Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void, nor seen the film, nor even heard of it. For someone who likes to think they have their finger on the cultural pulse, I do sometimes wonder at my own ignorance. Anyway, you, gentle reader, will already know this is an extraordinary true-life account of mountaineer Joe’s very near-death experience as he survived in a glacier with a broken leg withneither food, water nor company for three days on the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. All I knew was that it was a book, written by and about the central character, inspired by his experience. I did not know that it was 100% factual; I thought perhaps it was part true-life, part fiction. So, when everyone else in the theatre knew that, somehow, at the end of the play, he would survive… I didn’t.

To take a book like this and recreate it on a stage takes true vision and bravery, and the whole creative team of writer David Greig, director Tom Morris, designer Ti Green, lighting designer Chris Davey, composer Jon Nicholls and movement director Sasha Milavic Davies have done an extraordinary job of bringing the story to life without actually having to take us to a perilous part of Peru. You very much get the impression of this being a stage representation of a Hollywood Adventure Blockbuster; characters helplessly half-suspended from a hostile snow-covered mountain, with the wind and the rain pounding against them, and, just like you would in the movies, you find yourself chewing your fingers with tension to see how they’re going to get out of this situation – if they can.

Much of what happens in the play takes place inside Joe Simpson’s head – even if we don’t realise it at the time – so the lines between reality and hallucination are thoroughly blurred. The use of humdrum day-to-day items to represent aspects of the mountain terrain – chairs, pub trays, a Gents sign, even a juke-box, help merge the ordinary with the extraordinary, to create a fascinating contrast. The staging and ideas are very inventive – for example, we both loved the use of peanuts as models! Tom Morris’ direction keeps us guessing on the finer details of the story right until the very end; and David Greig has found a way of staging a Scottish pub alongside a Peruvian mountain, with great delicacy and insight; he’s also fleshed out some fascinating characters, and given them some great lines.

Ti Green’s central masterpiece – her abstract impression of a mountain and glacier, constructed as a floating frame with white paper and material fixed to it – occupies your mind superbly as you wonder how on earth anyone could navigate through it. One truly thrilling effect is how they have repositioned gravity, so that if anything falls downwards, like a rope, or a man, it actually flies out through the back wall.This plays a marvellous visual trick with your brain and gives you an additional sense of the dangers risked by the mountaineers. Jon Nicholls’ haunting and luscious themes swell in to the action not unlike the dramatic background music in a David Attenborough programme – and Joe Simpson’s own Desert Island Discs choices also make themselves felt at odd moments during the play.

How often have you been to the theatre and said to yourself, well the second half was much better than the first…. It seems to me that basic dramatic structure requires for an escalation in tension, excitement, humour, farce, horror, whatever, to keep our attention and excitement… and as a result you expect a show to get better as it goes on. This was one of those rare occasions when the reverse is true. The sheer drama and theatrical electricity of the portrayal of Joe and Simon’s tackling the Siula Grande, with their death-defying climbing over the mountain and glacier is edge-of-your-seat stuff.Combined with Richard’s thrilling commentary of every step they took, where his microphone becomes more augmented and distorted and more terrifyingly unreal as it goes on, the first act culminates in a truly gripping scene that stays in your mind for ages afterwards. It certainly stopped Mrs C and I having a good night’s sleep that night! So you go into the interval literally speechless at the brilliance you have just witnessed.

Here comes the controversial bit. The downside to this, sadly, is that the second act, which mainly consists of Joe’s resilient attempts to stay alive when there is simply no hope, is quite static and repetitive in comparison, and – it grieves me to say this, because I feel really mean-spirited with such a visionary production – I got bored. So did Mrs C. The man next to me who was riveted in the first act, was fast asleep. I don’t think the extra-long interval helps, as the momentum that had been built up certainly weakens. The fact is, there are only so many times you can watch a man slowly crawl on the floor, screaming in agony and making unintelligible “muguhumptftuwumpf” sounds before you begin to drift off.I understand this is true to the book and to the film; and if the poor man did spend all that time on his own just surviving through sheer determination, then how else can you depict it on stage? But the truth remains that the huge adrenaline surge you get at the end of the first act just dissipates away during the second. So my reaction at the end of the play was simply “all that…. and he lived??” – which Mrs C said was probably one of the least gracious comments ever to be made about someone’s survival against all odds.

However, there are so many positive things about the extraordinary stagecraft of this production that I couldn’t possibly be grumpy about it. And all the performances are of suitably epic, or near-epic, proportions. Josh Williams gives a wonderfully optimistic and adventurous performance as Joe; you can just imagine that he would be the kind of charismatic guy who would talk you into an adventure where you risk your life just for the hell of it. He doesn’t hold back on expressing the pain and anguish of his injury and his plight. And how on earth does he get in and out of that Act Two sleeping bag without us noticing? Some pretty amazing stage magic there!

There’s also an excellent performance by Fiona Hampton as his sister Sarah; belligerently refusing to pander to the bland sympathies of Joe’s mountaineering mates, mockingly acting as the voice in Joe’s head encouraging him to find the strength to survive. Patrick McNamee’s Richard is a mild, well-meaning, unambitious dawdler who knows he’s at the bottom of the pecking order, happy to man base-camp if that’s what the alpha males want; and Edward Hayter’s Simon is also keen as mustard in the planning and mountaineering scenes,until it all goes horribly wrong, when he retreats into his shell. I did feel, however, that he underplayed the moral dilemma of the “cutting the rope” problem. It’s a fascinating question; you have a choice of both dying, or of saving yourself only – what do you do? If ever a play had a Big Issue, this is the one. But I felt that his remorse, such as it was, was no more than if he’d put the bins out late. I’m sure there should have been a lot of angst there that I just didn’t get.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I always prefer a brave failure to a lazy success. I wouldn’t by any means describe this as a failure because there is so much going for it – and its bravery is beyond question. You should definitely go and see it for yourself and make your own mind up. After it closes in Northampton on October 20th, the tour continues in 2019 to Edinburgh, Perth, Inverness and Hong Kong.

Review – Lads Lads Lads, Sara Pascoe, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 30th September 2018

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Here’s another comedian whom we really should have seen live on stage before now. So far I’ve only ever caught Sara Pascoe on TV game shows and occasionally on the sofa in The Last Leg. She always comes across as a jolly sort, with plenty of brains in there keeping the comedy coming fast and strong. But she also comes across as more than that; a really genuine person, not afraid to let you in to see the less confident and murkier parts of her personality. So I wondered if that’s how she would structure her live stage act.

Answer: on the whole, yes. She has a wonderfully fluid style, pacing her material perfectly, in quite a relaxed, friendly way. She’s not as self-deprecating as some (indeed, she has no reason to be) and in fact is quietly assertive. She says from the start that she’s not the kind of comedian who does lots of “crowd work”, so if you’re expecting it, sorry, but she won’t. In fact, she goes out of her way to say she won’t pick on anyone, she doesn’t mind if you get your phone out, she completely understands that this is just a show and real life goes on outside. I’d hazard to say that’s possibly a unique statement coming out of a comedian’s mouth.

She absolutely crams her act with call-backs, and they start falling into place from a very early stage. For example, she tells us that she’s had a number of relationships with men over the years, and afterwards, they all turn vegan. Interesting fact. And then she winds it back into the material several times over the course of the evening. She tells us about a horrendous wedding she went to recently, giving us the name of the bride and groom which I won’t mention here, obviously, and again, she returns to it from all sorts of odd angles several times during the show. Other enjoyable stories that receive serial referrals include the reaction to an Indian takeaway delivery and how she gets on with her personal trainer.

Why Lads Lads Lads? I’m genuinely not sure. OK, she tells us that she’s had quite a lot of them over the past few years, but that’s it, they don’t really play a part in the rest of her material, which is a series of very funny, nicely near-neurotic stories about how she’s managing as a singleton. There’s a lot of great stuff about her yoga retreat in Costa Rica (which isn’t in Spain, apparently), and some very truthful observations about the importance of men paying the bill on a first date – even with the most fervent feminist.

It’s not a long evening out – about 100 minutes including a decent interval. But that’s very comfortably paced and planned, and it is a very funny show with lots to discuss with your other half on the way home. Satisfyingly intelligent comedy but with warmth and plenty of human insights. Ms Pascoe’s UK tour continues until the end of November – catch her if you can.