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

Posted on July 10, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

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 11^th to 24^th 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 – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 7th June 2025

Posted on June 8, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

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

Posted on June 5, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

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!

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Comedy Crate at the Charles Bradlaugh, Northampton, 8th May 2025

Posted on May 9, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

Thursday saw another bumper package of comedy at the Charles Bradlaugh, Northampton, courtesy of the Comedy Crate, including a last minute change of cast which propelled natural headliner Matt Richardson into the role of MC, and what a brilliant host he was. Perfectly mixing the usual duties of getting to know the crowd with delivering excellent original material, he kept the comedic bar very high throughout the evening.

So not only did we get to meet investment fraud investigator Samantha – who turned Matt’s tax bill material back on him to blistering effect – we also discovered eighteen year old twins Tighe (?) and Felix, who accepted all the teasing that deserved like the well brought-up good sports they clearly are. Matt also told us stories of life in his rural Oxfordshire village, with his pushy GP friend and the posh geezers who hang around the Sainsburys Local. Brilliant and very believable observations of wannabe tough lads who can’t help the fact that they’re called Julian and go skiing twice a year. Fantastic stuff!

Either by gifted booking or hilarious chance, to celebrate VE night we had comics from all over the world. All three acts were new to us, which always makes for an exciting line up. First off was Hubert Mayr, a 39 year old Austrian stuck in a London which he can’t afford – he should come to Northampton, things are much cheaper here. Much of his material is based on how he came to the UK in the first place, and how he is planning to return to Austria soon. He has an engagingly nervous energy which belies his Schwarzeneggar style voice but works very well with his observations as an outsider on life in the UK. Extremely funny material that gently harks back to the war, but with some modern gems too, such as how to deal with noisy neighbours. Very entertaining!

Next up was Blank Peng, from a quiet, rural area of China that only has about 40 million inhabitants. Great attacking delivery with excellent material that compares life in the UK with China and particularly grapples with those elements of her homeland that make the Brits uncomfortable – child labour, TikTok data-harvesting, and nuclear war for starters. Despite a strong accent which I must confess meant I didn’t catch everything she said at first, she has adopted beautiful idiomatic use of the English language which makes her material even more hard-hitting and relatable. Some surprising engagement with the audience too!

Our headliner was Mike Rice from Ireland, who creates an instant rapport with his very matey persona – he’s definitely the kind of performer you can imagine sharing a pint with. On the day that a new (American) Pope was proclaimed, he had some terrific material about what that means for the Catholic Church. Leading his funny stories on to where angels fear to tread, he had me in hysterics with his vision of Donald Trump being taken from behind in jail by a tiny Mexican, and he has atruly hilarious sequence about a threesome and the special support that his pal was able to lend during the process. Effortlessly funny, and absolutely first class!

As we head into the summer, the Comedy Crate goes into Edinburgh Preparation mode, with many Fringe Previews lined up all over town (and indeed the county), with the highlight being the Comedy Crate Weekender on 12^th – 13^th July. Not to be missed!

Review – Murder She Didn’t Write, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 14th April 2025

Posted on April 15, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

Degrees of Error have been developing their Murder She Didn’t Write improvisation show for over 13 years now, and as well as their regular stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, are currently touring the UK – with a four night residence at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate. A team of fifteen or so actors mix and match their appearances, so if you see the show more than once, not only will it be a completely different story, it could well be a very different cast.

And if you’re an aficionado of the Art of Improv, you might well want to see it again because they’re true experts in the field. Company co-developer and co-founder Lizzy Skrzypiec introduces the show in her guise as Detective Agatha Crusty – of all the assets this show has, intellectual subtlety perhaps isn’t its raison d’être – and explains that a murder will be committed on stage and that it’s up to us to choose the occasion on which it will happen and identify a central clue vital to solving the case. The merry audience at the Royal chose a Cushion Conference – something everyone knows something about (not) – and a Pet Rock. Detective Crusty also sought an “event” that would be involved, and someone piped up with the word “dentist”, which is more of a profession than an event, but they ran with it.

Thus ensued The Case of the Pointy Pet Rock, where William, the pet rock belonging to suspect Vernon Blue (Stephen Clements), was found stuffed in the mouth of the very dead victim Graham Green (Peter Baker), thereby suffocating them; but was it a rock plant to incriminate Blue? Might it have been Violet Blue (Sylvia Bishop), or newlyweds Roger and Bernadette Red (Douglas Walker and Rachael Procter-Lane) who were to blame? All would be revealed by the end of the show. Both Mrs Chrisparkle and I thought it was Violet. She looked shifty from the start and wasn’t convincing anyone with her predilection for recreational dentistry. Added to the fact that this all took place at the Kettering Cushion Conference Centre, her alibi was looking weak.

I’m not a natural Improv-goer; sometimes I find it descends too much into silliness and repetitiveness. However, Murder She Didn’t Write ticks all the boxes for a very funny night of unpredictable mayhem. The training and practice required by the cast to keep their minds fresh and inventive to cope with whatever the audience – and more likely, other cast members – throw at them must be immense. There were some extremely funny scenes – I loved Ms Procter-Lane in convulsions of pleasure exploring the cushioning of the chaise longue – and the way in which they show how each of the suspects had a motive for killing poor Graham is extremely inventive and entertaining. And huge plaudits to Peter Baker for their tremendous physical comedy as a dead body sliding off a chair into a mini heap on the floor.

Enormous fun, incredibly skilful and hugely creative, this touring version of the show runs to two hours including an interval, whilst the Edinburgh Fringe version lasts 70 minutes. No two shows will be the same and it’s perfect for anyone who likes a combination of whodunit, comedy and hilarious campy nonsense. Running at the Royal and Derngate until Thursday, but then off on its travels again, including a full four weeks in Edinburgh at the Assembly George Square. Irresistible!

Production photos by Pamela Raith

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Tambo and Bones, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 11th March 2025

Posted on March 12, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

Dave Harris’ Tambo and Bones takes us, in three scenes, on a five hundred year adventure from an American Minstrel show, to a hip-hop gig in the present, then onto a futuristic lecture, examining black identity and the black experience in creative art. Ambitious, or what?! One hand it feels very innovative and experimental; on the other it also borrows from the Theatre of the Absurd, and there are a several nods to other productions that attempted similar stylistic presentations. Either way, it’s undoubtedly a subversive piece of theatre which provokes a variety of reactions and will leave you either exhilarated or exasperated – or quite possibly both.

In the same way that Harlequin and Columbine were set characters in Commedia dell’Arte, Tambo and Bones were roles in nineteenth-century minstrel shows; Tambo played the tambourine, and Bones played the bones (obvs) – a kind of castanet. The shows were performed by white actors in blackface; it seems bizarre and offensive now, but my parents’ generation adored TV’s Black and White Minstrel Show which continued until 1978, with a stage production touring until 1987. As a child I just found it freaky.

The first scene shows Tambo and Bones (sans either tambo or bones) exchanging ideas, challenges, interacting with the audience, against a fake, surrealistic landscape including two (movable) trees. This shouted Waiting for Godot to me all the way through; two tramp-like characters who apparently have no other existence apart from in each other’s lives, without much happening. Trees play a part in Godot too; and Beckett’s Pozzo and Lucky, a ruthless autocrat with a mistreated servant who interrupt proceedings, are here replaced by the playwright (a puppet) upon whom they deliver vengeful violence. Two Characters in Search of an Author, perhaps?

The second scene takes us to a gig where Tambo and Bones are high-achieving, influential hip hop musicians, presenting us with the two elements of creative drive: wanting to change the world with your art, and wanting to make lots of money out of it. Shakespeare wouldn’t disagree. But their fame and fortune gets out of hand as they start – unwittingly or otherwise – to cause the overthrow of the world political status quo.

Four hundred years in the future, our actors, Daniel Ward and Clifford Samuel, come out of character and present as themselves, reflecting on how the first half of the show exhausted them with all that rap, and delivering a history of how Tambo and Bones became the religious icons/cult heroes/political philosophers that have led us to our current, blissful state. Throughout the play there are additional nuances of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Hamilton and even The Book of Mormon, in its clever portrayal of how an ordinary person can end up being a semi-God.

The language is deliberately divisive, with endless repetitions of the N word; individual audience members will react to that however they see fit. The play asks many questions about race and identity, and what’s fake and what’s real, as well as the responsibilities of a performing artist, and how an audience responds to what it sees on stage. It doesn’t offer answers to these questions – they have to be provided by you.

The ending is especially subversive, but perhaps not unique; I was reminded of DV8’s Bound to Please, where a cast member rounded on the audience for photographing the show, and Peter Handke’s Offending the Audience, where taped cheering forces the audience out of the auditorium at the end of the play without their having the chance to have their reaction heard. Neither of those happen here, but it’s an equally disturbing and unsettling ending.

Clifford Samuel and Daniel Ward give hugely committed performances that show off their terrific versatility, with great clowning and musical skills as well as being superb actors. Incredibly likeable, their enthusiasm spreads all around the auditorium, galvanising the audience into frequently responding to them; this is perhaps not a show for shrinking violets. Hats off also to Jaron Lammens and Dru Cripps as the X-Bots in the final scene; Mr Cripps’ ability to sit on an invisible chair leaves you speechless.

Each scene culminates in acts of violence. It’s a personal thing, but violence is always turn-off for me, even against a puppet, or a masked DJ, or a cartoon President, or a robot that protests it’s a real person. For me, Tambo and Bones is an essentially pessimistic play, despite the upbeat air that permeates all its scenes; if violence is always the outcome, the future for the world is bleak. There’s a very significant event that happens between the second and third scenes which I won’t mention, but is an act of violence that not even Hitler achieved.

The fact that the audience just drifts off at the end of the play, as and when they’re ready, is a theatrical not with a bang but a whimper moment, leaving you dissatisfied with the conclusion. But that’s not the only reason that, despite all its extraordinary qualities, I can’t find myself enamoured with this play. If you don’t “get” Godot style interaction, you’ll find the first scene dull (Mrs Chrisparkle nodded off). I found the final scene dull too – in fact, I stopped listening to the narrative because the actions of the X-Bots was much more interesting. And for all its bold decisions and quirky structure, I couldn’t stop thinking about how, deep down, nothing is new. Perhaps I’m just insufficiently connected to American culture.

Nevertheless, if you haven’t seen anything like this before, this will be a shock to the system, and if you like to be challenged in the theatre, this is definitely for you. After it leaves Northampton, the tour continues to Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry, back to its spiritual home in Stratford East, and finally to Leeds in May.

Production photos by Jane Hobson

Three-sy Does It!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 27th February 2025

Posted on February 28, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

Constant as the Northern Star, it was time for another Screaming Blue Murder at the Royal and Derngate – scheduled to be the last in the old Royal theatre before moving back to its proper home in the freshly de-RAAC’d Underground in April. Also, as firmly identified with Screaming Blue as Heinz with Baked Beans, was our regular host and MC Dan Evans, suffering from the sniffles, but there’s a lot of it about. Fortunately a kind lady to my left was able to offer him the occasional tissue. I could have given him a whole packet, but didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

Dan set about mingling his way through the crowd, which seemed largely made up of escapees from tough and dangerous East Side Northampton – NN3 to the cognoscenti. We also met Ginny, the English student who doesn’t attend uni – a somewhat complicated arrangement – and Ryan, the crime lecturer who didn’t return for the final act and, thereby, as is always a risk if you do that, missed the best bit. We also met Roger from Northern Ireland, whose unexpected mime for the reason he’s now in Northampton left Dan appropriately speechless.

Showing how our cup ranneth over with talent in this line up, our first act, normally a headliner, was Roger Monkhouse, someone we’ve admired and enjoyed many times over the years. Celebrating his 60^th birthday apparently, his young fogey persona is now distinctly becoming at least middle-aged; I can’t say he’s now an old fogey, because he’s still younger than me. He delivers his material as almost a stream of consciousness, that fools you into thinking he’s making it up on the spur of the moment; but in fact it’s meticulously crafted to give that effect. His material centres on that recognisable confusion of living in the modern world as a no-longer modern bloke, with some lovely relatable observations on how we all just manage to plod on despite our brains and bodies letting us down. Always a delight.

Our next act, and new to us, was Dee Allum, who introduces herself from the start as a trans woman, and whose material centres on her life and the problems she faces, but also you can see the joy her new identity brings her. She has a relatively quiet style, occasionally feeling a little tentative until she gets the vibe of the audience but then grows in confidence as her set progresses. There’s a lot of refreshingly new and innovative material here; I loved her deliberately long and immaculately phrased story involving Kurdish and Yorkshire, and there are some terrific insights into managing a relationship when you come out as trans during the relationship. She ends her routine with a brilliant tale of sperm donation. I’m tempted to say we’ve all been there, but of course we haven’t; but if you have, you really get it. Definitely One To Watch.

After two gently delivering wordsmiths, our headliner was Phil Nichol who gave the evening a hugely energetic kick up the backside. Buzzing with excitement, he exploded around the stage with his uniquely unrestrained hilarity; a bit like the most endearing spoilt kid you ever met. He radiates a strange blend of danger and affability, mixed with oodles of cool, and a quick comedy brain that seizes any opportunity. Armed with his guitar, he gave us some excellent rock parodies, and fixated on poor second row Luke, upon whom he (literally) thrust his faux-sexual advances. Luke proved his worth later when he joined Phil on stage and showed what a good sport he was. Extremely funny throughout and a great way to end the night.

Review – Eshaan Akbar, I Can’t Get No Satisfakshaan, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 21st February 2025

Posted on February 24, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

It’s been a surprisingly long time – six years – since we last saw Eshaan Akbar live, but he’s still very much the same, urbane, civilised chap as before. He cuts a very relaxed figure on the stage. Unhurried, unfazed, taking everything in his stride; you know you’re in very safe hands with his intelligent content and friendly delivery, even though there’s a sting in the tail to many of his stories.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as, after a brief getting-to-know-you session at the beginning of the show, including talking to an audience member whose sister insisted she came and thus made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up watching EastEnders, Eshaan introduced us to his support act, the excellent Alexandra Haddow, whom we’ve seen many times before and is always very entertaining. This was the perfect gig for her to recollect her Corby upbringing, and the exciting occasion on when a railway line finally reached the town; she also told us about her boyfriend-geezer and his simple North London ways. I loved her material about relationship “launches” on Instagram, and the pitfalls of being too honest about other people’s ex’s. Confident, smart, and very funny, it was an excellent start to the evening.

After the interval, we welcomed Mr Akbar back, for an hour’s worth of material reflecting his own national identity, as a brown man, born to Pakistani/Bangladeshi parents in Whitechapel, who completely identifies as English – although he doesn’t pass the old Norman Tebbit cricket test. A private education introduced him to the Best of British Banter, as evidenced by his so-called friend Ben, who gave him a deceptive nickname that took years for the penny to drop. Now aged 40, he’s unexpectedly back on the dating scene – including the Muslim version of Tinder – and he sees the world, or at least the country, through the eyes of experience of travelling up and down the land and meeting all kinds of people.

It takes a bold comedian to mine humour from racism (not his own, I should add) and he frequently doesn’t play safe with his material, much to his credit. Thoughtful and intelligent comedy that points out the differences and the similarities between races; and whilst it never truly soars to the heights of hysterically funny, is always entertaining, thought-provoking and full of relatable experiences and observations. Very enjoyable! His tour continues throughout the UK and Ireland into April.

Review – (the) Woman, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 14th February 2025

Posted on February 18, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

New Perspectives brought their touring production of Jane Upton’s new play (the) Woman to the Royal and Derngate, Northampton for three preview performances before officially opening in Oxford on 18^th February. The inspiration for the play came from Jane Upton’s own experience when, as a new mother, her brother told her that a guy she went out with at school had seen her in the street with her buggy and told him that he expected more of her than just bringing up kids in the same area she grew up.

Understandably annoyed, she decided to arrange a zoom meeting with the guy; unsure whether it was just to talk it out with him or simply to impress him with what he’d missed. Either way, it didn’t happen – the guy chickened out; end of. From that experience, this semi-autobiographical play started to take shape, centring on her main character’s experience of trying to raise a family at the same time as working as a writer, with many a pitfall en route.

The structure of the play – that M is trying to write a play for a demanding production team and that this play (i. e. (the) Woman) contains many of the same scenes that the producers are looking for – is clever on paper, but in practice created a play that had Mrs Chrisparkle and me completely baffled. Lighting effects occasionally flash that indicate – I think – that we’ve switched from reality to imagination, from the play that is being written to the play that is being performed; and it’s taken me the best part of four days for it to start to gel in my head.

Of course, the last thing anyone wants in respect of a heartfelt and anxiety-ridden play written by a woman from personal experience is to have a 64 year old straight, cis, white male reviewer mansplaining the whole thing. Indeed, the online programme includes a fictional one star review from some pompous and obviously neanderthal bloke called Jonathan Darcy pointing out how awful the play is; thereby batting away in an advance pre-emptive strike any anticipated complaints from men who simply don’t and can’t get it.

However, I must be honest; I don’t actually think I do get it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a parent. Maybe it’s because I’m not a woman. Maybe I’m just plain thick; but there is something about this production that sets up a barrier of communication between what we see on stage and what the audience understands. There is no doubt an intentional blurring of the edges between fact and fiction, but rather than illuminating the issues discussed, or even just entertaining the audience, I simply find it frustrating that it isn’t easier to understand. And if you don’t get it, it comes across as a negative piece with unlikeable characters, which makes it all the harder to appreciate.

Early in the play is a fictional version of the event that inspired Ms Upton to write the play in the first place. This is our introduction to M (she doesn’t have a real name), and in a scene with a lot of profane language from both characters, we see her challenging this scummy lowlife geezer over his misogynist remarks but then agreeing to impromptu “filthy sex” (her words) in the back of his van. Mixed messages, indeed; and that inconsistency of characterisation led me never to truly take to M as someone with whom I could connect as the play progresses. But maybe it isn’t an inconsistency of characterisation. Maybe one part of the story was real, and the other was part of “writing the play”. Frankly, don’t ask me.

Either way, it’s a very heavy piece; very intense and dark, full of misery and tragedy. There are trigger warnings (contains strong language, references of a sexual nature and references to baby loss) – take them seriously because this play deals with a lot of disturbing issues. Possibly too many; the difficulties of being both a mother and trying to work, of holding down a relationship when you’re no longer interested in your partner, of being surrounded by men who always know best, of dealing with both physical and mental illness whilst being let down by the NHS – I could go on. At 100 minutes with no interval, there’s very little light and shade, and even though there are some good comedy lines, the overwhelming sense of sadness made it hard for me to laugh at them.

The appearance of a nightmare demon baby with luminous eyes haunting M, which I think is meant as a kind of comedy callback, is both ridiculous and crudely done; and the Brechtian projection of spoken words from each scene seems at first to do little to illuminate our understanding. However, I suspect those words are meant to represent the writer at work, typing out a few relevant lines from each scene. If you don’t realise that at the time, as we didn’t, then they seem meaningless. Again, it’s taken me four days for the penny to drop.

There are some aspects to the story that I found very hard to believe. When M emerges from the back of a van after a shag with the lowlife and discovers the baby is missing – she reacts with all the concern and alarm of a mislaid set of keys; and when she talks to the only guy with a kid at the nursery, she tells him that she assumes they will soon be having sex, much to his embarrassment. People don’t really do that kind of thing. But maybe that’s because they didn’t actually do that kind of thing. Really, the structure does make it difficult to comprehend the play as a whole.

There are some very well written and performed scenes. Lizzy Watts gives a strong and committed performance as M, never off stage, which is a remarkable feat of both memory and endurance. André Squire and Cian Barry make the most of their largely unremarkable male roles, as either ciphers, bullies or plain arrogant; but lifting the production immensely is a superb performance by Jamie-Rose Monk as all the other female roles. Funny, tragic, bossy, she makes you sit up and pay attention whenever she’s on stage.

Deliberately confusing, and certainly it feels too long; more light and shade, and shaving half an hour off it would help. If you get the play and its structure from the start, I can see that it would be much more appealing than we found it; for us, it was just a frustrating watch! After Oxford, the tour continues to Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham, Worthing and Twickenham.

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Three-sy Does It!

Review – Valentine’s Gala with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 15th February 2025

Posted on February 17, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Valentine’s gift to the people of Northampton this year was a delightful gala programme of romantic music from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. There was a buzz of excitement in the very full Derngate auditorium as we awaited the arrival of our conductor for this concert, Richard Balcombe, a very smart gentleman who reminded me a little of the late great Bob Holness. Whilst he might not give us a P, I’m sure he could be relied on for an excellent Middle C; just a small joke there for people of my age. He has a relaxed style of conducting – no baton, very inclusive, and giving the audience a few introductions to the various pieces to be performed during the concert.

Opening salvos were fired with the first item of the night, Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Waltz, an instantly captivating tune delivered with true gusto by the full orchestra, under its usual leadership of Duncan Riddell. Then we welcomed our guest soloist for the concert, Irene Duval, to play Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1. Ms Duval delivered those fantastic romantic themes with sensitivity and energy with her Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin; no wonder listeners to Classic FM named it as their number one piece in the Classic FM Hall of Fame. The first half of the concert ended with Khachaturian’s Adagio from Spartacus, which of course was the theme to BBCTV’s nautical drama The Onedin Line in the 1970s, even though it was originally a dance from Khachaturian’s 1954 ballet. But when you hear that superbly timed crashing symbol, you’ve no other mental image other than a massive wave breaking on a rocky shore.

After the interval, we started with the second of our three Tchaikovsky pieces, the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, another rousing and emotional number that opens Act III of the opera. Then came Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, gloriously played to release maximum emotion, and I always think, a sense of tragedy. It’s a piece I’ve known since I was a wee lad – the story of how Mascagni wrote the intermezzo so that his two act opera could be entered in a one-act opera competition – which he then won – always made me feel strangely happy for him!

Then came Bizet’s Carmen Suite No 1, six of classical music’s best tunes all wrapped into a fifteen minute musical sensation. Standout moments included the fantastic percussion in the Aragonaise, the beautiful flute playing in the Intermezzo, the mysterious atmosphere of Les dragons d’Alcala and the immense energy and enthusiasm of Les Toréadors. We resolved to go home and dig out the CD instantly! Two modern pieces followed, Maurice Jarre’s Lara’s Theme from Doctor Zhivago, arranged by Christopher Palmer, and the John Dunbar Theme from John Barry’s music for Dances with Wolves. And the evening ended with our final piece of Tchaikovsky, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture that always leaves you wondering where it’s going until it establishes that rich, unforgettable tune.

A brilliant night out which got a massive reception from the enthusiastic audience. The Royal Philharmonic return to the Royal and Derngate on May 31^st for Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony – can’t wait!