Tag Archives: Northampton

Review – The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 25th April 2018

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This intriguing title – The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk – reflects the lives and love of Marc and Bella Chagall; he the famous artist, she the less famous writer. He was a penniless art student when they met; she was the daughter of a wealthy jeweller. They lived in Vitebsk (I’d never heard of it, I’m afraid) which today is the fourth largest city in Belarus. They married in 1915, had a daughter, Ida; they lived in St Petersburg, Moscow, Paris and New York, as his renown and artistry grew. She died in 1944 of a sudden virus infection, easily curable if there hadn’t been a shortage of penicillin due to the war. He went on to marry again and lived till the ripe old age of 97, finally shuffling off this mortal coil in 1985.

The bare bones of a life can look stark, but Emma Rice’s production for Kneehigh brings Marc and Bella to life with such vivacity, colour, warmth, humour and a sense of sheer love that the mere dates and facts of a relationship become meaningless. Even through the hard times they never lost the ability to be playful together, and to delight in the simple things of life – like clocks, and colours, confetti and funny hats. Like all relationships, in the words of Meera Syal, it wasn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee. There were times when he didn’t provide the emotional support that she needed. Despite his clownish demeanour, Chagall took his painting extremely seriously, frequently to the detriment of his family life.His baby daughter was four days old before he finally took time to meet her. He tears out a page from the book Bella is writing to make a paper butterfly for Ida. He isn’t remotely interested in the news that the Nazis have overrun Bella’s parents’ jewellery shop. He mocks her attempts to write because she doesn’t let it rule her life. Yet she loves him unconditionally, and always bounces back with a smile, a song and a game. We even discover how forgiving she is after her death. It’s an amazing portrayal of the resilience of the human spirit; if you’re fuelled with love, somehow your tank never runs empty.

The playfulness of their relationship and the fantasy element of Marc’s paintings are beautifully realised by the staging; a wonky platform and frame, off which suspend a surreal clock, phone receiver, buckets and handles – all you need to reflect an unorthodox existence. Other characters in their life are represented by a balloon, or a disembodied voice, while Marc dons an old black lace shawl to provide a hilarious cameo of Bella’s mother. There are two other members of the cast; James Gow and Ian Ross provide the stunningly gorgeous music with their piano, cello and other instruments.Some of Mr Ross’ compositions evoke traditional Jewish folk music with superb energy. The choreography, by Emma Rice and New Adventures’ Etta Murfitt, is slinky, funny, expressive and highly theatrical for such a confined space. Malcolm Rippeth’s exciting lighting design brings to life the Chagalls’ love for colour and vitality; and Simon Baker’s crisp and accurate sound design creates a web of magic with various effects including a distant telephone hum, and the nagging drip of water in a bucket, a strong juxtaposition of the sound of reality against the vision of fantasy.

And at the heart of the show are two sensational performances from Marc Antolin and Daisy Maywood. I didn’t realise these two terrific actors were in this show until I glanced at the programme just before we went in. We’d seen Mr Antolin in the superb Taken at Midnight in Chichester a few years ago, and Ms Maywood was probably the best Bebe in A Chorus Line I’ve ever seen (and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of them!)I already guessed we were going to be in for a treat, but I underestimated how much. Having done a little research on the Chagalls in order to write this review, I’m staggered by how accurately they portrayed their actual physical appearance – a technical masterpiece of hair and makeup, that’s for sure. They also have a fantastic chemistry together on stage that really enhances the love bond between the characters, which made some of the scenes truly emotional – there were plenty of instances of the old wetness in the eye during this show.

Mr Antolin absolutely wowed me with his brilliant clowning skills, with perfect facial expressions, deft fancy footwork, and a fabulous pratfall. Ms Maywood is of course a brilliant singer and dancer, and invested the character with so much love and emotion; not only simply her overwhelming love for her husband but all the torments of those inner repressions when her needs are ignored, or when the evil world out there comes one step closer to threaten her.

One of the achievements of this production was that it made me want to find out so much more about the Chagalls and their work; it really piqued my interest in a character that I knew little about – and that’s got to be a good thing. Primarily, though, it’s an elegant, quirky, loving portrayal of two people in a hostile world, finding a way to make the best life together. Absolutely brilliant. It’s near the end of its tour now, with just Cheltenham for the first week in May and the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina from 24 May to 10 June. Highly recommended!

Review – Eight Pounds Sixty, TaBoo Productions, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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Depression, mental illness, suicide. We see the words every day and, fortunately, for most of us that’s as close as we get to understanding them. But as more and more people are becoming diagnosed with mental illnesses, and the consumption of drugs like citalopram are steadily on the rise, TaBoo Productions’ Eight Pounds Sixty is a timely reminder of what it can be like to suffer with depression and have suicidal thoughts. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in this country; it’s thought to affect men more than women because women find it easier to talk, although other studies suggest that women are more successful (if that’s the right word) at committing suicide than men – men have more failed suicide attempts. Such statistics are gruesome.

This short play introduces us to two characters, 23-year-old Annie, doing well, with her own two-bedroomed flat in the best part of Buckinghamshire; and 17-year-old Rosie, a garrulous, excitable young lady with the world at her feet, or so you’d think. But Annie’s messy floordrobe is a symptom of her messed up mind, and as for Rosie – well we’ll come to her in a short while. Annie presents well. She’s happy at work (relatively – we all have idiot colleagues from time to time, but her recollections of their coffee orders are very amusing); she’s having counselling but she likes her counsellor, and citalopram gets her through the day – the Eight Pounds Sixty of the title, by the way, is the cost of a prescription. She bemoans the idiotic questions that she is required to answer for the well-meaning but overstretched NHS. But then there was the day she had to ring 111, and we hear the conversation between her and switchboard, and it’s clear she’s in trouble.

Naomi Ell gives a stunning solo performance, winning us over instantly with her quirky observations about her daily routines, the nicely impertinent asides about her colleagues, and her chatty reflections on her medical treatment. So it comes as a tremendous shock when the painful truth of Annie’s condition can no longer be hidden, and the tears begin to fall – not only from Ms Ell’s eyes but from the majority of the audience.

She deftly changes into a summer dress to become Rosie, cheekily exchanging niceties with a chap in the front row; 17 years old, but still attached to her pets. And just when you think all’s well, she opens a piece of paper simply entitled Mum and Dad, and she reads out loud what she has written. And that’s the starting point for fresh tears, a liberally opened packet of paracetamol, and the inevitable result of too much teenage pressure.

It’s an incredibly moving piece, performed as an absolute tour de force. If you’ve been affected by thoughts of suicide, either by yourself or loved ones, you may want to think twice about seeing this play because it pulls no punches. It’s so beautifully done, but with some truly hard moments. At just over 20 minutes, this must be one of the shortest plays around, but quality beats quantity and its impact surely outweighs the time spent watching it. Unforgettable.

Review – The Last Ship, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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Sometime in the late 1950s, obscure East German writer Günther Kähne published the short story Rekord an der Drahtstraße (I know this because I had to study it for German A level), a bizarre tale about a heroic factory worker who put in extra shifts and barely slept in order to achieve the personal highest output of any of his fellow wire-manufacturing colleagues. He did it all purely for the noble cause of working for the communal good of the nation. No thought of pay; no concern about how it affected his health or his family life; it was all to glorify the magnificence of Communist dogma. Well, it was East Germany after all.

Forward a couple of decades and observe life in Britain under Thatcher. The country she inherited was in a state; eleven years later she left it in a state, but a somewhat different one. Out went all the manufacturing industries that had been the bedrock of the nation’s economy; one of them was shipbuilding. The programme (and indeed the show) references Nicholas Ridley’s vision of denationalisation and promotion of the free market, which was just another dogma. Countless jobs and the living standards of millions were sacrificed to achieve this aim. Ridley, you’ll remember, was the man who defended the Poll Tax with the words “the squire pays the same as his gamekeeper, what could be fairer than that?” (or was it the Duke and the Dustman? Either way his vision is clear). People were angry – very, very angry.

Sting grew up in Wallsend, home of shipbuilding; saw the devastation of the decline of the industry and, as part of his fantastic career, wrote an album, The Soul Cages, in 1991, following the death of his father. I don’t know the album, but it’s inspired by the local traditions of going to sea and shipbuilding. Many years later it itself has become the basis and inspiration for his musical The Last Ship, which is finally coming in to dock in the UK on its current tour. (Nautical references… more of those later.)

There’s not a lot of story. On what appears to be no more than a whim, Gideon Fletcher ups and leaves town on a ship at the age of 17 leaving behind girlfriend Meg; he invited her to come too, but she declined. 17 years later he returns to find the local shipbuilding company has nearly finished building the Utopia, but they can’t find a buyer because it’s too expensive. The only solution to keep some jobs in the local economy is for the shipworkers to break it up and sell it as scrap. Offended by this prospect, not only because of the loss of jobs but primarily because they have built a beautiful thing that they can’t bear to see go to waste, the workers go on strike. I know from my own experience in the 1980s that strikes never had a positive outcome under that government, they just let you starve. In the meantime, Gideon discovers he’s a father to a resentful daughter he didn’t know about and a resentful ex-girlfriend who never told him he was a father. Eventually the shipbuilders decide to take matters into their own hands and complete the work on the Utopia for no payment – just so that it can “get launched”. Are you beginning to see the link with the Communist short story I mentioned earlier?!

There’s a lot of good in this production. But, for me, there was also a lot that I found hammy and unsubtle, which, in the final balance, considerably outweighed the good. But let’s concentrate on the good. Overall, visually, it’s an amazing spectacle. 59 Productions have created a glorious set that can recreate a ship, a dockyard, a church, and many other indoor locations. Odd thing #1: Projections onto screens turn a blank canvas into a room, a pub, a nightclub; but why were those projections deliberately fuzzy? The indistinct wallpaper in the White’s front room made me feel positively queasy. It also means that some of the actors sometimes had wallpaper patterns on their face. That’s not right, surely?

Even more majestic; the music. There’s a terrific, compact little band that ooze the folk traditions of the region. Fantastic to hear a melodeon being played; there’s no instrument like it, and I could have just listened to that all night. Odd thing #2: They’re playing at far stage left, nicely incorporated into the action without getting in the way. So what’s with the huge orchestra pit, sitting there empty, that’s been provided, and that required the removal of the front five rows of the stalls? Someone clearly didn’t get the memo. And the singing voices of the cast. Impeccable. The harmonies are extraordinary. They fill your heart with emotion and joy and carry you away. By the time I was about a quarter of the way in, I had already promised myself that I must buy the cast recording.

But there were other elements that really dogged me. It wasn’t helped that it took me at least fifteen to twenty minutes to get accustomed to the accents. It was fine in the speaking parts, but during much of the singing they could have been reciting la la la for all I could make out. My ears, my bad. I was also very bemused by the way Meg reacted to the return of Gideon. He’s clearly more sinned against than sinning, constantly getting the blame for ignoring the daughter he didn’t know he had. That’s kinda tough. Personally, I thought Meg was rather an unpleasant character, although I think we’re meant to warm to her… so that part of the story didn’t work for me.

But my big bugbear was the lyrics. Fair enough, this is a show about the shipbuilding industry in a shipbuilding town, and they’re building a ship. There is no end to the ship analogies, nautical allusions, harbour references, water clichés… No one finishes a plan, they reach their harbour. No one has a success, their ship comes in. No one finds a solution, they cry land ahoy. Are you getting my nautical drift? By the time they were wallowing in it in the second half I was feeling distinctly seasick. WE GET THE IDEA! Other metaphors are available!

It was also very preachy. The battle between the bad guys (the shipbuilding company owner and the pompous Baroness from the House of Lords – two excellent performances by Sean Kearns and Penelope Woodman) versus the good guys (everyone else) was seen in very black and white terms. It romanticised the Communist ideals of the workforce and their glorious effort in finishing the Utopia (that name’s not accidental) for free; fair enough, I guess, but, in a direct address to the audience, virtually out of character, the message was spread deeper and wider and I found myself resenting the cast telling me what I should feel about the NHS for example, or other areas of strife in the world. This felt less like a show and more like a rally. I’m a naturally left-wing slanted person, but this preachiness actually made me sympathise with the ruling classes, which isn’t something I’m used to. I hope I’m not turning into Quentin Letts.

Both the start of the show, and the start of the second half, begin with cast members wandering onto the stage, waving at the audience, chatting to people about their dress sense, etc. I’m sure it was meant to suggest equality between the cast and the audience, but it felt a bit patronising, a bit smug. There was never any question that we would be required to support the shipbuilders in this story; they assumed right from the start that we would be on their side. What does assume do? It makes an ass out of u and me. Correct.

The performances were all very good, even if some of the characters were rather irritating. Mrs Chrisparkle didn’t follow one word that Kevin Wathen’s drunken and belligerent Davey uttered all evening. He has the kind of voice that the late Sir Terry Wogan would have described as gargling with razor blades; he seemed almost to be a parody of a hard-nosed, hard-drinking Tynesider. Charlie Richmond gave a good performance as Adrian, but the character was immensely tedious, because every statement he made started with a quotation from literature. Rather like the seaside metaphors throughout, this was another unsubtle element.

Richard Fleeshman was very strong in the role of Gideon, and if his acting career ever goes wayward, he can always get a job fronting a Police Tribute Act. Is his singing voice naturally almost identical to Sting’s? Incredible if so. Otherwise it’s two and a half hours of very well-learned impersonation. There are also excellent performances by Charlie Hardwick as Peggy White (superb voice) and Joe McGann (surprisingly good voice) as Jackie White, both Labour-to-the-core old-timers.

Shiver me timbers, we never thought the second half was going to stop; talk about dragging the arse out of it. With beautiful melodies, amazing vocals, stunning musical arrangements and a set to die for, they created a both dogmatic and didactic blancmange of romanticised political hoo-ha. Earlier, I’d read a review that likened The Last Ship to Howard Goodall’s Hired Man. Mr Goodall should sue.

P. S. I decided against buying the cast album.

Review – Deciding What to do with Dad, Blue Shift Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Castle Hill, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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Dementia is an issue which always merits dramatic examination because, let’s face it, we’re all getting older, it’s getting bigger, and it’s probably going to see most of us off if we’re lucky enough to live that long. Having witnessed the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous vascular dementia over a period of nine years, and her brother before her, I know this is a very personal and very tricky problem – and there’s really no right or wrong way to deal with it apart from ensuring they get the best possible care you can offer. But parents can be very difficult, can’t they? No matter the good times you shared, how they looked after you, how they even risked their lives for you, they can become a nuisance at times. Danny DeVito’s bright idea was to Throw Momma From The Train, but Mommas have a habit of bouncing back.

Blue Shift Theatre’s Deciding What to do with Dad considers the plight of three brothers whose father has succumbed to dementia. But if you’re expecting a po-faced, searing exploration of the nature of dementia, or even worse, looking for advice as to how to help look after a parent with dementia, you’ve come to the wrong place. This brilliant, subversive, fast-paced surreal comedy breaks all the rules with its proposed solution to the brothers’ problem, whilst still twinging at the heartstrings in its emotional moments; I confess, when the brothers were reading aloud their father’s wishes that he had written when he was still compos mentis, I experienced that strange wetness in the eye that can sometimes take you by surprise.

The three brothers are beautifully characterised. Charlie, the youngest and most sensible, takes a practical approach; Ryan, the returning prodigal, takes a traditional approach; Archie, the weird one, takes a weird approach. The structure of the show enables the cast to break the fourth wall on an almost continuous basis, which gives it both flexibility and a dangerous edge; it creates a delicious bond with the audience, so we know we’re not only watching three awkwardly matched brothers taking the rise out of each other (as brothers do), but also three likeable young actors creating some theatrical magic apparently on the hoof (although I’m sure it’s very well prepared).

It would be invidious to pick out the individual performance of any one of Jac Burbidge, Jake Statham or Hal Gallagher because they gelled together so well to create a really convincing ensemble. But I did like Mr Burbidge’s song, which starts with quirky humour but ends with true pathos; Mr Statham’s energy and enthusiasm in the flashbacks, whilst keeping one foot in the door of reality; and Mr Gallagher’s dour, self-pitying daft sod of a clown – I really loved his phone call with an 8 year old client.

It reminded me a little of Peter Nichols’ Day in the Death of Joe Egg, where the parents of a severely disabled child manage to survive everyday life by turning their whole existence into pastiche and pantomime. Creating subversive, ridiculous humour as a way of coming to terms with dementia strikes me as a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Having seen a few Flash Festival plays over the last three years I’m definitely of the opinion that it’s much harder successfully to carry off comedy in this format than it is tragedy; but these guys made it look easy. I loved this production – I’m only sorry I won’t have time to see it again. Congratulations guys, you did an amazing job. You could take this play, give it a little tightening here and there, add a couple more ideas plus say ten more minutes, and it would be a smash at Edinburgh.

Review – Lay Me Bare, Athena Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd April 2018

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Athena Theatre’s Flash Festival play, Lay Me Bare, is a three-hander that tells the stories of three different women and their experiences of domestic abuse at the hands of three unseen but violent partners. At the beginning of the play they all nurse black eyes as they stare sadly into their mirrors, trying to come to terms with the violence that has been inflicted on them. Applying makeup might make the visual evidence temporarily go away, but there’s no hiding the damage done beneath. Monica is a student, totally under the spell of TJ, in and out of prison; how will he react when he finds out she’s pregnant? Fola is a devout Christian, whose only wish is to be able to conceive a child with her husband; how will he react when he finds out she’s not pregnant? Elsie is a hairdresser, struggling to pay the bills, working hard while her Phil stays out late getting drunk, turning violent when she complains at him over his reckless behaviour. “It won’t happen again” avows his disembodied voice; does he keep his promise?

Here we have three strong characterisations of the three abused women; three similar problems, but with three very different outcomes. I really enjoyed Xara Chisano’s portrayal of Monica, a very quiet, reserved, self-punishing character who has endless excuses for her boyfriend’s terrible behaviour. It’s as though he has taken away her ability to express herself and have her own identity, and you really feel the struggle as Ms Chisano tries to reassert herself and finally pluck up courage to tell TJ about the pregnancy. I have to confess I did sense a little bit of water in the eye as she portrayed his vicious reaction. Very strong stuff – but with Monica there is a small sense of hope in the final scene, which gives the play a (relatively) bright and optimistic ending.

Maddy Ogedengbe gives an emotionally charged performance as Fola; you can really feel her pain by looking at her anguished face. When she meets the doctor who confirms the blood test results, her fear and alarm is palpable. Perhaps it was a little strange that the doctor doesn’t seem to be that sensitive to her position; on the other hand, perhaps it’s no surprise, given how overworked our medical staff are. Her cries of torment are really harrowing. It was another really strong performance.

Farrah Dark is a spiky, hard-working Elsie who gives as good as she gets when arguing with her wretched drunken partner. I didn’t feel as though the role was quite as full or emotionally written as the other two, but her anguish was strongly portrayed and her representation of being the victim of a physical attack was very vivid and tough to watch. I also really liked Ms Dark as Monica’s friend Stacey, an ebullient and funny characterisation that lightened the otherwise tense and oppressive mood.

All three women suffer at the hands of truly objectionable and vicious men: a drunkard, a recidivist, and maybe a religious zealot? We don’t know that much about the men, and the play allows us to fill those gaps ourselves, which appeals to my sense of making the audience work a little to get the most out of the play.

There was one rather unusual aspect to how this play is presented to the audience, and that’s the manner of conducting telephone conversations. On a couple of occasions, the victim and the abuser are on a phone call together and what we the audience hear is both sides of the conversation talking, pre-recorded. Would it not have felt more natural for the victim character to speak live on stage with either pre-recorded responses or indeed, the responses being delivered live, but from off-stage? With the actor just passively listening to both sides of the conversation, stylistically it just looked and felt a bit odd.

Anyway, this is just nit-picking. The play gives us three very strong stories, eloquently told, and powerfully conveyed. Congratulations to all on a memorable production!

Review – Screw You, Sonder Ensemble, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd April 2018

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It only seems a few months ago that I enjoyed (and I really did!) the 2017 Flash Festival but, here it is again, all bright and shiny and ready to entertain for another year. There are twelve shows on offer for 2018, and, with any luck, Mr Smallmind and I will get to see all of them. I’m expecting keyboard arthritis by the end of the week.

First up was Screw You, performed by the Sonder Ensemble in an intimate little studio upstairs at Hazelrigg House. Inspired by last year’s upsetting reports of epidemic sexual harassment in the entertainment industry that centred on the Harvey Weinstein revelations, Ceara Coveney, Gemma Leigh and Katie Lawson have assembled a fascinating, emotional and disturbing piece that takes verbatim accounts from some of the victims and weaves together an exposé of institutionalised harassment.

It’s largely a collection of accounts by women and men approached by sexual predators who can get them just the right job opportunity if they play along with their sordid game. For a time last year we were all reading these accounts in the papers and online every day, and after a while the regularity and frequency of these appalling stories lessened their impact and unfortunately made the subject almost mundane. But the shock of hearing these accounts is far greater when someone is standing in front of you and relating these intimidating and terrifying ordeals in person.

The three actors have created a superb ensemble piece bringing these stories to life through a range of characters. You see how some people cope with these experiences through humour; others are simply so broken by the devastation of what’s happened to them that they can barely string a sentence together. The effect of watching and hearing these accounts at close hand is very powerful.

Technically it was a great performance; all three actors have superbly clear enunciation, so it was a joy to listen to, and I also admired how they created a physically intriguing show from what could otherwise be quite static material. Whilst one person is telling their story the other two might be acting out public reactions, or performing some intimate mime, giving an indication of the physical harassment involved. With the help of some newspaper cuttings on the backdrop, and using only three stools, they gave depth to their shallow stage area and formed creative spatial relationships, which really helped to convey the material to the audience. All three also showed off an excellent command of accents, with some very effective North American and Antipodean voices in there.

At just 25 minutes long it fully endorses the old phrase that brevity is the soul of wit. Punchy, painful and poignant, this drove home the horrors of sexual harassment in both the entertainment industry and also out there in real life. A clear and angry voice in support of the #metoo victims. Great work!

Review – Lucy Porter, Choose Your Battles, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 20th April 2018

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This was another of our “we’ve seen them on telly, let’s see what they’re like in real life” punts. To say that Lucy Porter has been around for ages doesn’t sound like a very gentlemanly comment to make but she did intimate during the course of the show that she’s chalking up the years a little, so it was about time we saw her in the flesh. Choose Your Battles is the show she took to Edinburgh last year and jolly well received it was too.

The title comes from the age-old advice not to fight those battles you can’t win (if only the late Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle could have done that she would have been so much happier) but it also points to the fact that Lucy Porter doesn’t like battles. In fact, she’s the least battlish person you’d ever come across. If you drew a Venn Diagram with her in one circle and, say, renowned battleaxe Christine Hamilton in another, not only would they not intersect, they wouldn’t even appear on the same piece of paper.

Much of the show is given over to examples of how conflict-averse our comic heroine is. She gives us an entertaining insight into how she doesn’t like to engage in conflict with the children, so they run amok in posh restaurants whilst she and her husband discuss the niceties of that day’s Guardian opinion piece. She tells us how difficult it was when her mother came to live with them in her old age, because she found it impossible to challenge her on her passive-aggressive note-leaving. She explains how she and her husband never come to blows on anything, but just quietly seethe in voiceless anger because she can never clear the air on anything disharmonious in the relationship. We re-enact with her an unpleasant experience where a driver almost ran over her and her kids on a zebra crossing because he was on his phone – yet he still made her feel it was his fault. Take a bow, Ed from Peterborough, you did a grand job.

This is a beautifully constructed show, packed with material and incident, with some gentle, totally unforced callbacks that create a satisfying climax, if you’ll pardon the expression. Ms Porter has a very genial air about her onstage – delightfully unthreatening, respectful and polite, and you’d never run the risk of humiliation, unless you really, really asked for it. She engages the audience and draws us in to her life and experiences, so that you get the feeling you’re chatting with an old pal rather than watching a fully scripted stand-up gig. Included in the material are a few opportunities to take surveys of the audience to see how conflict-averse we are too, particularly in relation to social media and dealing with trolls. I was surprised to find that I’m not as conflict-averse as most of my co-audience members. So you can even learn a bit about yourself too. You’ll also find out how much it costs to get a new set of keys for a Volvo.

It’s not earth-shatteringly challenging, but nor is it in any way bland or vanilla. Two hours of fully recognisable and quite possibly shared emotions and observations. Very enjoyable, and enormously self-assured. Ms Porter may have chalked up a few years, but experience tells!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 13th April 2018

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Yet another packed house for the latest Screaming Blue Murder at the Royal and Derngate, with host Dan Evans on tip-top form again as he brought out the best of us rabble in the audience. Amongst the paying guests whose intimate back-stories he delved into were the assistant psychologist from St Crispin’s whose dementia tests he passed with flying colours;two rival soil experts in a relationship; and some noisy crisp eaters seated behind us. When one of the audience confessed to coming from Wellingborough, someone at the back shouted “it’s a sh*thole”, to which Dan observed that the mayor was in.

We’d seen all three of the acts before but that did not diminish from the fun of the night – because this was a truly top class night of comedy. First up was Diane Spencer, whom we last saw at the Leicester Comedy Festival in February, but who has also graced us with her presence at Screaming Blues in 2011 and 2015. Ms Spencer has a brilliantly funny stage presence – a delightful mixture of posh and obscene which can really take you by surprise when you’re not expecting it. Amongst her memorable moments on Friday night were re-enacting a rather squeaky, unlubricated pole dance and its unfortunate physical repercussions, what happens when you try to get “Russian slim” and the diplomacy required to rename stepchildren. She was hilarious as always, but what really impressed us was the fact that this was all completely different material from her Leicester appearance. She just oozes natural funniness. A fantastic start to the evening.

Next up, and in a change from the advertised programme, we had Andrew Watts, a wonderfully dry gentleman who specialises in unladdish behaviour and cricketing analogies but is deceptively streetwise at the same time. We’d seen him here twice before, and he gave us his regular material and indeed memorable punchlines – a couple of which I use myself whenever out clothes shopping with Mrs Chrisparkle – you’ll know the ones if you’ve seen his act. He pitched his material absolutely spot on, and I loved the necrophilia sequence (no, honestly) and the fielding positions set up for the medical team delivering his wife’s baby. He also has this brilliant idea of being the perfect partner for a woman looking for a mediocre night of lovemaking; he’s there to step up to the mark. It may be time for Mr Watts to gather a few more ideas together to enhance his act but, there’s no question about it, he was absolutely hilarious and everyone loved it.

For our final act, we welcomed the return of Jonny Awsum, who just seems to get more awesome every time we see him. Fresh from his appearance on Britain’s Got Talent last year, he attacks the stage with such winning gusto, getting everyone to join in his comedy songs right from the very beginning. He has some fantastic musical parodies; his Take That’s Back for Good is just brilliant, and his Sexy Noises cocks a knowing snoop at the Osmonds’ Crazy Horses. His enthusiasm is such that you cannot help but throw yourself into it. We were howling with laughter. A perfect way to end the night.

That was a fantastic Screaming Blue Murder – and there’s another one coming in two weeks’ time! Dan won’t be hosting this one, so I wonder who we’ll get to accompany us for the night. A show with an already built-in added surprise; you should come!

Review – Alan Buribayev Conducts Chopin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Derngate, Northampton, 8th April 2018

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Once again we welcome back the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to one of their satellite venues around the UK here at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton, for an exciting programme of Czech, Polish and Finnish music. Our conductor was the ebullient and hard-working Alan Buribayev, whom we saw here two years ago in a fantastic concert that was the winner of the 2016 Annual Chrisparkle Award for Best Classical Concert. So we knew we were going to be in for a treat. This was also our first chance to see Alexandra Wood as First Violinist for the orchestra.

We started with the overture to Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, his 1866 opera that remains one of his best-known works. The overture was written separately, before the rest of the opera, which possibly explains why it’s such an arresting stand-alone piece of music. The strings of the Royal Philharmonic could not resist the opportunity to launch into a full-scale attack on Smetana’s buzzy, vibrant, compelling arrangement, which gripped the audience instantly like a hundred angry bumble bees and did not let go for six brilliant minutes. A great way to start the concert.

Then it was time for the orchestra to disperse whilst the heavy mob brought in the Grand Steinway for our soloist for the afternoon, Alexander Romanovsky, a (fairly) last minute replacement for the original billing of Mark Bebbington, so we’d hoped he’d had long enough to practice Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2 in F Minor, Op 21. We needn’t have worried. Mr Romanovsky takes to the stage like a snazzy younger version of Will Self, serious and controlled, seated business-like at the piano awaiting his cues. Whilst he’s not playing he simply looks straight ahead, relaxed but unemotional, almost like a non-participatory observer – but looks clearly can be deceptive.

If he gives off an unemotional air, that doesn’t translate to his playing. He has the most exquisite lightness of touch, delicately coaxing the fullest and most resounding note from each deliberately pressed piano key. He’s the perfect exponent for Chopin at his most fluttery, his fingers going nineteen-to-the-dozen up and down the keyboard whilst his expression remains one of swan-like calm. It was an incredible performance; and really drew out all Chopin’s superb melodies that are packed into this vivacious concerto, especially the final movement, which I found particularly exciting. When it was all over, Mr Romanovsky allowed himself to crack a smile, so I guess he was pleased at the result. He certainly should have been.

After the interval we returned for a performance of Sibelius’ Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 43. I’d not heard this symphony before and, I must confess gentle reader, I found it a real challenge. Whilst some of Sibelius’ music has an instant appeal, there’s also quite a lot that sounds to me rather murky and hard to appreciate on first hearing. The excellent programme notes discuss how the first movement of this piece is like a mosaic, with small fragments of music appearing disparately at first but finally coming together to create a whole. Well, I have to confess I found that rather obscure whole hard to recognise! Of course, the RPO were on great form, and individual moments sounded terrific. But I couldn’t grasp it somehow.

The second movement felt easier: tempo andante, ma rubato – so, at a moderate pace but not rigidly; flexible, to bring out the emotion, and I thought the orchestra (and Mr Buribayev) achieved this brilliantly. The third and fourth movements seemed so crammed with all sorts of musical ideas, that it came across as a difficult and challenging piece to listen to, exhausting even; but also incredibly rewarding. There were some truly superb passages that really sang out, and I think I need to give the symphony another listen before long to try to appreciate what I missed!

Another superb performance by the Royal Philharmonic; when the audience’s sustained applause brought Mr Buribayev back to the podium for a fourth time, no one was in any doubt the extent to which the whole programme had been appreciated. This was another matinee performance by the RPO; it’s great if that encourages a wider age range of concertgoers, although I still, personally, prefer my classical concerts in the evening. I look forward to their evening of Ballet music coming up in June!

Review – The Selfish Giant, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 7th April 2018

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The Selfish Giant is one of a series of short stories written by Oscar Wilde and published in the volume The Happy Prince and Other Stories in 1888. I’ve never been especially familiar with it, although I did have to read a few pages from The Remarkable Rocket (that’s one of the Other Stories) for an elocution competition at the Chiltern Festival, Chesham, in 1973. You missed it? Damn, I was brilliant.

It’s a reasonably simple tale; a giant owns a great garden where the local children play. He’s been spending time with his ogre friend in Cornwall for seven years, but when he comes back he’s aghast at the childish trespassers who’ve been treating the place as their own. So he builds a Trump-like wall to keep the kids out; but then a strange thing happens… Spring never comes. But kids will be kids and they find a way into the garden, which causes Spring to return; and that’s when the giant eventually twigs that it’s his selfishness that has caused perpetual winter. The wall comes down, the children come back and the garden is once again filled with colour. All except for one corner, a tree bedecked with white blossoms, where a little boy, whom the giant had earlier helped to climb a tree, is stuck… and appears to bear the wounds of the stigmata…. Yes, if you’re not expecting the Christian element of the story it comes as something of a surprise.

This new version has been conceived as a folk opera by Guy Chambers, best known for his collaborations with Robbie Williams; he’s the co-writer of Rock DJ, Angels, Millennium, Let Me Entertain You and many more. However, don’t expect much in the way of Take That-like elements to the music in this show. He has written a delicate, charming, fragile and reflective score that reminds me in parts of some lesser-known Genesis album, or maybe there’s a hint of Howard Goodall’s Hired Man in there somewhere. There are no spoken sections, the whole show is sung through, but with a running time of only a little over an hour the time flies by. Some of the lyrics are taken directly from Wilde’s own text, others are Mr Chambers’ own invention, but unless you’re very au fait with your Wilde, you won’t see the join.

Simon Kenny’s design is simple and inventive, with lidded cardboard boxes (you know the office papers archive type of thing) creating the wall, stepladders suggesting trees and proud upright balloons representing the colourful flowers. White sheets and balloons create the perpetual winter, enhanced by James Smith’s deliberately cold lighting. A starry night is evoked by cast and audience alike holding aloft tiny torches, a symbol of hope in the darkness. Guy Chambers himself heads up the nine-strong band that produces a sophisticated level of orchestration way beyond expectations. The gentle combination of music, lighting and design create a compellingly beautiful portrayal of the contrast between childish innocence and the harsh reality of a life without love and kindness.

Presenting this story is a wonderful ensemble of young actors and singers, full of fresh enthusiasm and superb voices that create some fantastic harmonies. I loved Rose Shalloo’s ultra-innocent portrayal of the lost little boy, Olly Dobson’s slick-smart Hail, Laura Sillett’s fun-loving Girl/Narrator and Laila Zaidi’s stunning vocals as Charlie. But the whole team give an overall superb performance as the gang of children, each with their own individual characterisations, and with no weak spots anywhere. Dominating proceedings, both basso profondo and statuesque, Jeff Nicholson’s Giant is more aloof than terrifying until he sees the error of his ways.

This brief run at the Royal and Derngate precedes the show’s appearance at the Vaudeville Theatre as part of that venue’s Oscar Wilde season which has – I believe – already had some great productions. The Selfish Giant is an eloquent, reflective and incredibly satisfying piece of theatre that lingers on in the mind long after the last balloon has been popped. It’s only on in London until 14th April so catch it while you can.