Tag Archives: Northampton

Royal and Derngate Theatres Northampton – Happy 10th Anniversary!

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It’s been ten years since our spiritual home at the Royal and Derngate Theatres re-opened after their redevelopment, and the Derngate auditorium was born. In those dark days of 2006 we were strangers to Northampton, gentle reader, so I have no recall of the impact of the new complex at the time – although I bet it was major.

Yesterday they had a bit of a party to celebrate ten years of achievements – artistic, educational, community-based; and to look forward to the next five years with some special projects they’ve got up their sleeves – more of which shortly. But it was really enjoyable to wallow in the memories of some of those great Made in Northampton productions that Mrs Chrisparkle and I have been privileged to see over the last seven years that we’ve lived locally: the Ayckbourn season (before I started blogging); the brilliant early Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill plays Spring Storm and Beyond the Horizon; the Broadway-transferring End of the Rainbow; the haunting Duchess of Malfi; the hilarious Diary of a Nobody; the stunning Bacchae; the uproarious Mr Whatnot (so funny that we had to book to see it again the following day); the incredible impact of The Body of an American; the gripping King John; the challenging Brave New World; and dozens more besides. The associations with Spymonkey,the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Alston Dance Company. The annual Malcolm Arnold festival. Great musical productions like Oklahoma and Fiddler on the Roof. All the comedians. All the Screaming Blue Murders. The brash and colourful Derngate pantos and the enchanting Christmas plays in the Royal. On top of all this, there’s the creation of the Errol Flynn Filmhouse, No 1 in Northamptonshire’s Fun and Games choice on Trip Advisor. I could go on but it would be self-indulgent.

As you would expect, they’re not sitting on their laurels (although they’re continuing to accumulate them at quite a rate.) Plans for the next five years include creating a brand new cinema complex in Daventry – learning from the whole Errol Flynn experience (which is the most comfortable and grown-up cinema I’ve ever experienced; a new school for Northampton which places cultural and creative learning at its heart; and, (and this one excites me the most) being part of a consortium of greats to commission new music theatre, ranging from opera to musicals, to be presented in a festival format using a brand new portable venue called The Mix, which can seat between 200-400 and can pop up in situ in a matter of 48 hours. I’m very excited to see how that evolves. I’m reassured to know that they’re not losing sight of their core activity either and the new programme for next year’s Made in Northampton gems will be coming out in a few weeks – can’t wait.

To everyone who works at the Royal and Derngate, you play a part in creating the most welcoming and invigorating hub of artistic pursuits and pleasures. We moved into Northampton at the end of 2008 but I don’t think we’ll ever be able to move out – I just can’t imagine not having the R&D on my doorstep. You’ve spoiled us, Mr Ambassador! Royal and Derngate Theatres – so good they named it twice. Here’s to the next five years, ten years, and happy ever after.

Review – Richard Alston Dance Company, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 4th October 2016

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If it’s October, it must be Richard Alston! This marks the (wait for it) 14th time we’ve seen them tour, the first being back in 1998. When you follow a company like this over the years, you get the privilege of seeing the tentative first steps of the new recruits; how the best of them blossom into world class dancers; then the slightly older years, when their influence is more in their presence and experience than in their athleticism; with finally a move maybe into choreography or another part of the business. It’s like watching the new generations of an ever-developing family. Every time we see them it’s like a coming home party.

For the first night in Northampton, we had one very new, one quite new, one newly revised and one not-new-but-still-fresh dance making up the programme. The first piece was the only one we’d seen before, Rejoice in the Lamb, which the company brought here in 2014. It’s the strangely wacky story of the 18th century poet Christopher Smart, who had a tendency towards religious persecution mania, would accost strangers in the street into praying with him, was later confined to an asylum, and was taken seriously only by his cat Jeoffry. Britten’s music accentuates the religious and devotional aspects; Alston’s choreography is elegant and crisp and not without its comic highlights. There are several sequences when you forget to try to interpret what you see, but just get carried away by its beauty and flow. Just as when we saw it two years ago, there’s a truly authoritative central performance by Nicholas Bodych as the misguided poet. The company is just back from having performed this in New York and I think maybe its having experienced the metropolitan madness gave it just a little extra zing this time around. A beguiling start to the evening.

After a pause we had the brief but high impact Isthmus Remix, Richard Alston’s revision of a duet he made in 2013. Clad in multi-coloured tabards, giving the impression perhaps of being on rival school sports teams, the dancers move to the spiky rhythms of Jo Kondo’s Isthmus, weaving in and out of relationships with each other in a state of borderline aggression. The dancers’ arms are outstretched above and to the side to occupy the biggest space possible around their bodies, which for me created a sense of a classical position gone slightly skew-whiff. It’s a truly ensemble piece and it looked stunning.

Our next piece was as new as it’s possible to be without being a premiere – Martin Lawrance’s Tangent receiving only its second public performance. It’s inspired – at a distance – by the Argentine Tango but there’s nothing Strictly about this routine. The piano arrangement, played to tremendous effect by Jason Ridgway, lends a huge amount of elegance and refinement to the depiction of four couples’ relationships as seen through different seasons of the year. What I really loved here was the balance between power and control in both the actual physical dancing and also in the interactions between the individuals. Oihana Vesga Bujan and Liam Riddick in particular formed an astonishing partnership for their own duet and Nancy Nerantzi was simply stunning throughout. It was breathtaking to see how the dancers occupied the entire space of the Derngate stage for the Spring finale; how can anyone cover that much distance with such apparent ease? That, gentle reader, is why they are the dancers and I’m not. Also a word of appreciation for Jeffrey Rogador’s fantastic costumes; the colours of the dresses were just amazing – in particular Miss Nerantzi’s wow-factor Tequila Sunrise outfit; the hard-edged black semi-robotic costumes of the men made a brilliant contrast. For me that was the dance of the night.

The programme concluded with Richard Alston’s An Italian in Madrid, a two-act mini-masterpiece that tells the side by side story of Domenico Scarlatti’s tutelage of the young Princess Maria Barbara, who takes him to Spain, where he creates his sonatas with an Andalusian influence; and her encounter with Prince Ferdinand of the Asturias who seeks her hand in marriage under the distant eye and musical watch of the composer. It’s an absolutely beautiful dance simply to watch and admire, with effective, clear story-telling through the choreography, superbly atmospheric Baroque music and costume (I loved the accordion arrangements) and the chance for a few stand-out performers to give some crowd-pleasing solos. For this piece, the company has been joined by BBC Young Dancerfinalist from 2015, Vidya Patel. She is an expert in the art of Kathak, and her contributions to the piece so beautifully blend that traditional Indian style with western contemporary dance, giving her character in this piece a thoroughly exotic edge. She has outstanding stage presence, performs her solos for the Prince with verve and grace and is one of those dancers you can’t take your eyes off! So there would be no one more technically spot-on than Liam Riddick to dance the role of the Prince, with his fantastic show-off skills and thrills, to impress the Princess. It goes without saying that both their solos received rapturously appreciative applause. Exquisitely beautiful, tremendous artistry; we loved it.

The company has one more night in Northampton (tonight – 5th October, the town loves having you!) then the tour continues to Brighton, Snape Maltings, Glasgow, Dartford and Woking. The company are always a complete pleasure to watch and my admiration for their athleticism and grace knows no bounds. Top quality contemporary dance in a nutshell.

Review – Miles Jupp, Songs of Freedom, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 28th September 2016

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It wasn’t until I saw that Miles Jupp would be doing a stand-up tour this year that I actually appreciated that he was a comedian per se. I’d only known him from being in the wonderful Rev (still hoping for a fourth series) and from occasional appearances on Have I Got News For You. However, I am ashamed to discover that Mr Jupp is inter alia a seasoned stand-upper, having won both So You Think You’re Funny and a Perrier Award; this is, I believe, his fourth (possibly fifth?) solo show.

It’s clear that he has attracted a certain following, judging from the attendees in the Royal Theatre last night. Although all ages were represented, there were considerably more older people there than you would normally expect for a comedy gig. He confesses that research has been undertaken to discover the profile of the average Miles Jupp fan – they’re into shopping, driving, and watching TV; and their favourite song is Don McLean’s American Pie. Verily, they were the types of people surrounding us in the stalls last night. Mr Jupp has a very middle-class, respectable, conservative (with a small c) persona which stems from both his bearing and his Standard English accent; you expect him to deliver comic material with a clipped and refined character, with the wit of an Oscar Wilde and the edgy danger of a slice of Battenberg.

Part of his opening routine recollects a gig in Spalding where he overhears a man leaving the concert; his wife asks him what he thought of the show and he replies to the effect: what a nice man, but what unexpected content. This gives rise to some nice speculation that instead he could be vile and predictable. But I do know precisely where this man in Spalding is coming from (apart from, of course, Lincolnshire.) Mr Jupp comes across as inordinately nice (apart from when he’s riled by the vicissitudes of 21st century living) – and his material really is at odds with his personality. This is his great strength; he can surprise or even shock his audience with apparent ease just by combining his niceness with his language – his observations about meeting someone interested in both golf and Formula One being a case in point. But a side effect of this is that all those rather genteel elderly ladies who are laughing their twinsets off at classic lines like “I’ve died and gone to Waitrose”, reach for the smelling salts when he describes someone as a c*nt.

Mr Jupp’s style is largely relaxed and intimate. He walks about a bit to help things keep moving naturally, but he’s not one of these comics who cavort across all areas of the stage like a caged tiger. The show is essentially scripted to the nth degree; he did imply at the beginning that if we wanted to interact with him from the audience with any verbal duelling, he’d be up for it; but, charming elderly clientele like us were far too polite actually to take him up on it – possibly to our own detriment.

His material is always telling and recognisable; from how his children pick up on his observations and repeat them, four-letter words and all, to the horrendous moment when you have to go back to your wife to clarify where she said she’d left something; from the Prince of Wales and his Duchy foodstuffs to the reason why Joan of Arc wasn’t burnt in Wales. The whole show is paced perfectly, with a gradual introduction and gathering of growing threads, followed by a second half crescendo full of top stories and laugh out loud situations.

A rather smart and elegant approach to stand-up; don’t expect a manic couple of hours, more a measured, reflective, yet still gently neurotic experience which will have you laughing in recognition at so many of the things that irk us all. His tour continues throughout October, January and February and I’d definitely recommend it!

Review – The Same Faces at the Black Prince, Northampton, 24th September 2016

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If you are one of my more astute and faithful readers, you may remember that we saw the Oxford Imps at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer and that that was our first foray into the potentially dangerous world of improvised comedy. I’m not sure why improv had never really appealed much to us; I think it’s to do with the fact that whilst everyone was raving about Channel 4’s Whose Line Is It Anyway, Mrs Chrisparkle and I watched it once and found it a rather irritating and self-indulgent programme. I know – imagine our cheek. However, age must be softening our sharp edges, and, having thought that those little Imps were a lot of fun, for the second time this year we found ourselves in front of a team of comedy improvisers and with not a clue as to what to expect.

The Same Faces are based in Leicester but once a month venture down south to God’s Own County, where their regular stage is at the back of the Black Prince on Kettering Road in Northampton. It’s a very good venue – a friendly pub with a good range of drinks at reasonable prices – and the back room is absolutely perfect for the task. There was a good turn out last Saturday, with the number of people arriving exceeding the number of chairs. So that’s either a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on your point of view (particularly if you hoped to sit down!) It’s also only a fiver to get in if you book in advance (£7 if you don’t) so that’s incredible value for over 2 hours of entertainment.

The group’s line-up changes from show to show, but for last Saturday’s extravaganza we had Boss Man Tom Young, regular Dave Gotheridge, and semi-regulars Jen Kenny, Ryan Vernal and Jaz Cox. They each bring their different gifts to the performance; some are a bit more quick-thinking on their feet than others, some have a more natural authority than others, some are more eccentric than others – stir all that into one melting pot of talent and you’re going to get a totally different show every time. Especially as it is, of course, the audience who give the performers the subjects that they are going to be dealing with.

As I’ve only seen the one show, I don’t know to what extent the “games” that the group play change from month to month; I sense they don’t change that much, what changes is the line-up and the subjects. I’ll not be able to remember all the games from Saturday night – and me just spouting a list won’t be that interesting to you, gentle reader – but some of them leap to mind, for what will become obvious reasons as we go on…

Two of my favourite games in the first half were “Party Quirks”, where one member of the team was holding a party and the four guests all had some kind of quirk about them, which had been suggested by the audience whilst the party host was out of the room. When he returned and they enacted out the party, he had to guess which particular problem each of his guests had. Jen was given “God Complex”, which gave rise to some nicely patronising behaviour, and Dave had to channel his inner Russian because his quirk was that he was unable to say the word “the”. The other excellent game was where Jen was a barmaid and each of her customers had a particular problem that they had to sing to her about, and then she had to sing each of them in turn a solution for their problem. Who knew mice in the skirting board could be so melodious?

But it was in the second half where things got considerably more hysterical. I really enjoyed the game where Jen and Dave had to advertise a new album on a subject given by a member of the audience: this week, Firefighters. So they had to create some excellent ideas for the other team members to sing; perhaps most memorably, the ever charming and deeply emotional smash hit, Shiny Helmet. And there was a mannequin game where Tom chose two members of the audience to come on stage; each had to prompt one member of the group into movement by tapping them on whichever part of the body they wanted them to move. One of these two hapless members of the public was Mrs C. I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t following the instructions at all, and so once the game began she instantly started making a mess of it. Eventually she got the hang of it, but instructing others on which limbs to use doesn’t really count as one of her personal strengths. Absolutely hilarious.

The Same Faces perform at the Black Prince on the final Saturday of every month, so if you fancy supporting a new local comedy venture, I’d really recommend it! Unfortunately, I don’t think we can make any more this year, but we will certainly be back for more in a few months’ time!

Review – Dead Sheep, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 20th September 2016

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Wasn’t that one of the world’s best ever insults? Forget your Shakespearean cream faced loon and lily-liver’d boy; when Denis Healey described debating with Sir Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons as like “being savaged by a dead sheep”, it said so much about the nature of both men. But the most glorious aspect to that slur, which had been cast even before Howe had joined Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, was the way he turned it around to deliver possibly the most damning resignation speech the Commons has ever witnessed.

Ah, the 1970s and 1980s. Don’t they seem like innocent days in retrospect? Actually, no. Three day weeks, power cuts, the miners’ strike, Falklands War, and the close possibility of someone pressing that nuclear button meant these were times of tension. We all had a thoroughly miserable time apart from in music and fashion. We have political tension today too, led by ineptitude. But no matter your politics, you could never say that Thatcher was inept. Au contraire, she must have been one of the most ept people ever to have existed. Everything she did, she meant. Nothing she did created an accidental effect – it was all deliberate. And that is shown most beautifully in Jonathan Maitland’s play about the relationship between Thatcher and Howe – its rise and fall, her exquisite powerplay, his ultimate revenge.

If you were an adult during the 1980s, this play is a true nostalgia trip. As you enter the auditorium, the stage curtains are open to reveal a huge photograph of the Thatcher cabinet, and whilst you’re waiting for the play to begin, it’s impossible not to go through all the faces and tick off the ones you recognise and remember. It’s a really clever ruse to get you into the 80s mindset. I got just over half of them right. The second act opens with Brian Walden (a devilish impersonation by John Wark that brings the house down) interviewing Geoffrey Howe on Weekend World (Sundays at noon on LWT) and my toes curled with delight at the memories of watching that programme, mainly so that I could really lose myself in its theme music, Nantucket Sleighride. I confess, my air guitar did briefly come out in the stalls last night.

Given the play’s title, and the fact that it stars Steve Nallon, you might be fooled into thinking this is simply a riotous comedy. That’s far from the truth. Certainly, there’s a lot to laugh at in this play, and it’s distinguished by some fine performances. One of the funniest scenes, which gets its own round of applause, plays out the ludicrous telephone requests between Howe and Lawson to get Thatcher to agree to a meeting before the Madrid summit – performed by the male characters in the cast with a terrific sense of ensemble and at a cracking pace. But what particularly grabbed me about the play was how strongly it conveyed a rather claustrophobic sense of political intrigue – of plotting and revenge; of pitting a cynical, manipulative brain against a rather simple, honest one. Mrs Chrisparkle and I also wondered if the play had been revised at all for a post-Brexit audience, as there are a number of rather ironic lines about membership of the European Community which raise some embarrassed titters; plus the nice observation that not even the Labour Party would think of electing a leader with a beard.

Jonathan Maitland is obviously extremely at home with writing about real people at the centre of controversy. Just like his brilliant Audience with Jimmy Savile (which also premiered at the Park Theatre, and which also featured Graham Seed in the cast), the success of the production would rely very heavily on a convincing performance by the central character. For Jimmy Savile, Maitland had Alistair McGowan on blistering form; for Margaret Thatcher, he has Steve Nallon, permanently associated with providing Thatcher’s voice for Spitting Image. Simply no one can do Thatcher like he can. In the same breath, he can cajole and hector, patronise and flirt, reminding you of that voice with chilling accuracy.

And it’s not just the voice; he has perfected the steely glare that outwits Howe and Lawson in that awful meeting; he has her ungainly walk that veers between elegant lady and impatient streetsweeper; and he has her eyes that, during Howe’s resignation speech, start off smug but slowly lose focus and eventually turn desperate. It’s an amazing performance. Unlike Matt Tedford, the other Thatcher currently on the block with his wonderful Queen of Soho and Queen of Game Shows, Mr Nallon is a big, broad man. I never met Margaret Thatcher but I am sure that Mr Nallon is much bigger than she ever was. But his size lends that suggestion of dominance, of sheer force, the potential for cruelty; and it’s a combination that works brilliantly in this play. Bizarrely, you never look at the character of Thatcher on stage and think to yourself, “that’s a man in drag”; you just think that she has come back to life. The final scene takes us to a meeting between Howe and Thatcher in the House of Lords, where she’s beginning to tread the finest lines of early dementia. Mr Nallon was delicacy personified as his Thatcher tries to retain her old self but fails to make entirely proper sense – a fantastic injection of humanity that you take home with you.

Paul Bradley also gives a faultless performance as Sir Geoffrey, presenting him as a man of quiet dignity and unshakable commitment, fully aware of his personal shortcomings, and with a degree of altruism that is rare in a politian. He is – and I know this is an unlikely phrase to use – superbly bland amongst others with much greater charisma. His dress-down sweater is a masterstroke! John Wark, Graham Seed and Christopher Villiers assume all the other male roles as a wonderful modern take on a classic Greek chorus, keeping us informed as to what’s happening and who’s talking, acting as a perfect interface between the main characters and the audience, intimating at the heroic downfall that will take place. Christopher Villiers’ foul-mouthed Alan Clark (how pleasant it has been to have totally forgotten about him) and bluff, bigoted Bernard Ingham are a particular delight to watch. Carol Royle gives a classy performance as Elspeth, the power behind Geoffrey’s throne; subtly giving him support whilst also antagonising the PM with her worthy causes. Her scenes when she shows herself to be as adept at holding her own as Thatcher are a pure delight. Her reaction when she hears Thatcher say “rout” will long make me think twice about using that word!

A really rewarding and thought provoking play that follows the relationship between two firmly unwavering people. It’s always entertaining to see the underdog win! Beautifully written and superbly performed, its tour continues until the end of November, visiting Birmingham, Shrewsbury, Cardiff, Coventry, Exeter, Eastbourne, Malvern, Guildford and Bromley. Definitely one to catch!

Review – Café Society, Errol Flynn Filmhouse, Northampton, 19th September 2016

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Here’s the second of two movies in one week because I basically forgot to redeem my final two free visits to the Errol Flynn Filmhouse and I didn’t want to lose them before my “Friends” year ends. The first was The Shallows, not perhaps an obvious choice for us, but exciting to watch and it hugely exceeded our expectations. Again, I’m not sure if Café Society is a film I would have otherwise chosen to see, but it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve seen a Woody Allen film and so this was a good opportunity to put that right.

I was a big admirer of Mr Allen in my youth. As a way-ahead-of-my-time youngster in the 1960s, I loved the trendy glamour of What’s New Pussycat and the trendy slapstick of Casino Royale, which was one of the first films the late Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle took me to see at the cinema. I adored Annie Hall and was moved by Manhattan, enjoyed Zelig and took the young Miss Duncansby – before she became Mrs Chrisparkle – to see Hannah and her Sisters. But I don’t think the young Miss D was anything like as keen on Woody Allen as I was. And consequently I think that might have been the last time I saw one of his films!

It’s a relatively simple and agreeable tale of Bobby, a young Jewish guy, who leaves New York to try to find some kind of fame and fortune in Hollywood, spurred on by the fact that his uncle is a massively successful agent, on whose coat-tails he hopes to ride for a bit, to get some contacts and make a life for himself. The uncle’s secretary, Vonnie, is tasked with the job of showing Bobby around the town, and, being a Woody Allen film, Bobby falls in love with her. However – naturally – she has a boyfriend. Relationships come and go – the secretary falls in and out of love with both Bobby and her boyfriend, and, several years later, both Bobby and Vonnie are married – although not to each other – and an uncertain ending leaves you hanging as to how things might get resolved – or not.

It’s a very enjoyable film, although, despite the relationship difficulties depicted and the personal sadness experienced by some of the characters, not remotely challenging. I thought more could have been made of the difference between Bobby’s tough working class NYC home life and the glitzy glamour of his Californian Lifestyle, but I guess that wasn’t the film Woody Allen wanted to make. Cinematographically, it looks lush throughout, although a tendency to over-sepia-ise some of the scenes (presumably to help with setting the 1930s vibe) got on my nerves a bit once I had identified why everything was appearing so orangey. There’s a very classy jazz soundtrack – primarily, but not exclusively, piano – which really nails the vibe, even though it was a little repetitive for Mrs C’s taste.

It’s 1930s New York, so there has to be a gangster – and he comes in the form of Bobby’s brother Ben, ostensibly a decent family man but with a predilection for handing out summary executions with comedic brevity. Bobby’s background family are very credibly realised, with a fine pair of performances from Jeannie Berlin and Ken Stott as his rather downbeat parents – think Caroline Aherne’s The Royle Family set in the Bronx. And there’s a hilarious scene early on with a beautiful cameo performance by Anna Camp as the willing but rather unprofessional prostitute Candy, that gives you an excellent insight into both the irascible side of Bobby’s character and the shallowness of the Californian way of life.

But the film succeeds most in telling the general awkwardness of the ménage à trois that is Bobby, Vonnie and her boyfriend, “Doug”. (He’s not really Doug.) Kristen Stewart gives a really thoughtful performance as Vonnie, totally Torn Between Two Lovers as the old song goes, trapping her whirlwind of emotions beneath a calm façade that never takes anything for granted or even insists on being treated fairly. Steve Carell gives a good performance as the spoilt and over-successful agent Phil, flourishing under professional pressure but falling apart when it comes to personal relationships. And Jesse Eisenberg is excellent as the gently neurotic, sexually confident and eventually nightclub owning Bobby, in a role that – having missed out on seeing Woody Allen’s gradual development throughout the decades – I see as being precisely the same kind of role that Mr Allen would have written for himself back in the 70s. Talking of which, I only realised afterwards, when doing a little research before writing this post, that Woody Allen is the narrator of the film. I certainly didn’t recognise his voice. But he does a good job, with some nice levels of understatement and comic timing.

This isn’t a film that’s going to shake the world, but as a gentle and attractive snapshot of America in the 30s, it’s 96 minutes spent in the company of entertaining characters in a privileged environment that balances fantasy with reality – and comes down on the side of a comfy cushion somewhere between the two.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 16th September 2016

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Summer’s lease hath ended, gentle reader, which can only mean one thing – the return of the Screaming Blue Murder season to keep our spirits high through the oncoming months of mist and mellow fruitfulness. Our genial host, Dan Evans, was back in charge, and in greatform as he did his best to manage front-row Hayley (who’d had a few), the regular teachers, the newbies in the third row who did a flit after the second act and the rest of our packed house. Lots of excellent new material from Dan – which is most appreciated!

Our first act was a change to the advertised programme – Tom Goodliffe. He is a tall chap and clearly likes to discover if he’s the tallest chap in the room. He wasn’t. He has a nice nerdy friendly approach, and did a good job of keeping Hayley and her crew under control as she got progressively more worse for wear. He called out for any accountants to identify themselves – very disappointed that Mrs Chrisparkle kept her head low at that point. He did some nice double-entry material anyway. I also enjoyed his maths hip-hop songs and he’s the only comic I’ve seen who has taken advantage of the comedic effects of the different speeds of a tube escalator and its supporting handrail. Good fun and an excellent ice-breaker.

Our second act was Harriet Dyer, whom we were meant to see in Edinburgh but just ran out of puff for that particular show, so it’s good that we’ve finally seen her perform. To use the description quirky would be an understatement. I did find her funny but she’s the kind of performer that divides audiences – hence the departure of the newbies after her act. I really loved her material about getting hair removal product from Poundland – trust me, don’t do it! Mrs C confessed that if she’d seen her for a full hour in Edinburgh she might have had to rest up for the remainder of the day – she’s quite tiring to watch! But she went down well with the audience – on the whole.

Both the first two acts were new to us but, last on for the night was Steve Best, whom we had seen twice before. In a sense it was a shame that he and Harriet were on the same bill as they both have a very manic approach to their comedy. However, Steve is a sure-fire, super confident winning comic; littering his speech with throwaway meaningless lines that build up over the course of the act to overwhelm you with the utter silliness of it all – and it’s also very funny. He has a surprisingly fine aptitude for a spot of magic – which you’re definitely not expecting – and what he can do with a long balloon is nobody’s business. He completely nailed it – the evening, not the balloon.

There’s another Screaming Blue in two weeks’ time – unfortunately, we can’t go, but you can have our seats!

Review – The Shallows, Errol Flynn Filmhouse, Northampton, 15th September 2016

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One of the important aspects of taking out a loyalty membership at a theatre, or in this case cinema, gentle reader, is to make sure that you get your stake back in benefits, freebies, early bookings and what-have-yous. For some reason – maybe because I love live entertainment so much – it’s very easy for me to get out of the habit of going to the cinema. But I was aware it had been a while since our last visit to the Errol Flynn Filmhouse (a long while!) so I enquired when my membership was up. Two weeks’ time – and still two free films to go and see! I couldn’t let them go to waste, so I desperately scoured the listings to find a couple of films that a) were on at a convenient time and b) didn’t look too awful. And the first of those was The Shallows.

I didn’t know much about the film in advance to be honest. I knew it wasn’t a particularly long film, and that it featured beaches and the sea. Actually, I thought it was a French language film. I gathered there was to be some tension and suspense. Maybe someone would get murdered by personne or personnes unknown and get washed up on the beach. Wrong.

Here’s an idea about the plot – although I don’t want to give too much away if you haven’t seen it. Jaws meets Gravity. Let me explain: Nancy is a freewheeling sort of girl, with some slightly blurred backstory where she is finding her own way to grieve at the loss of her mother by taking a lone expedition to a beach in Mexico which is known to her family as “Mom’s beach” and to the rest of the world as… the beach with no name. In fact, whenever Nancy asks anyone the name of the beach they refuse to tell her, in a mysteriously doom-laden portentous manner. Honestly; she spends the early part of the film constantly on her smartphone, so why didn’t she just zoom in on Google Maps? I have to say that whole “what’s the name of the beach” element to the film really got on my wick.

However, once she’s there, she quickly nips out of her clothes and dons her surfing togs, because she’s nothing if not an adventure girl. There are a few lingering shots as she’s peeling off the layers and nestling into her surfboard that tread ever-so-slightly in the direction of gentle soft porn; but, to be fair, those sequences give you an impression of extreme closeness to the action (which is vital for the film to work). And, anyway, Blake Lively has a very nice bum. There’s a couple of lads out surfing as well; they suggest a threesome (not that kind of threesome) but our Nancy is more of the reflective, I Want To Be Alone, type, so she keeps her distance. And starts surfing. And I think that’s all I need to say about the plot without spoiling it for you. However, if you remember the most menacing character in Jaws and the nature of the story in Gravity – I’m sure you’ve already put two and two together and come up with a bloodstained wetsuit. The way Nancy’s plight is resolved is – shall we say – interesting; I guess that as she has been extremely unlucky with that last wave of the day, it’s only fair that she gets the jammiest, luckiest break at the end. Let’s just say that if insurers don’t pay out on Acts of God, the family of that shark are going to be financially bereft after the final credits.

It’s actually a really well put-together film. The tension starts very gradually at first; you sense something horrible is going to happen – but it doesn’t – so you allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Nancy’s reliance on her mobile phone is entertainingly and inventively captured by our seeing her phone screen just as clearly as she would see it; in fact, it monopolises one’s attention at first, just as mobiles tend to in real life. When Carlos tells her off for not looking at the beautiful scenery, it’s a reprimand to which we can all relate. Flavio Labiano’s cinematography is absolutely captivating; the action surfing scenes where the characters are caught right up in the waves are breathtakingly exciting and give you some insight into how exhilarating doing it for real must be (I’ve never surfed, nor am I ever likely to!) There are some slightly gory moments which make you cringe and look away from the screen; but a lesser film would have indulged much more in the blood and guts of the thing and less on the mental anguish of our heroine, which is a damn sight more interesting.

And Blake Lively is brilliant as Nancy; she’s hardly ever out of shot in the whole film and she really lives the role. You never for a second think of this as an acting performance; she’s there, experiencing and reacting to the whole terrifying scenario. If I were her, I’d never get in the water ever again.

Mrs Chrisparkle and I spent many of the film’s 86 minutes wincing at the screen through our fingers. As we were all leaving the cinema, the two girls to our right said they couldn’t wait to get home for a nice cuppa tea. Certainly much of the action is the stuff of nightmares, and to watch the film is physically exhausting; but when you look back you realise that it’s actually a tight and taut, well-paced thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat and desperate for a happy ending. All that and teach-yourself suturing!

Review – Market Boy, Actors Company, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 22nd July 2016

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Time for another production from the Royal and Derngate’s Actors Company, whom we have seen a few times now and have always carried off a good show – until now…. This time they gave us a sensationally good show! David Eldridge’s Market Boy, which was produced by the National Theatre in 2006, is a funny, thought-provoking, heart-warming and nostalgic play about growing up in and around Romford Market in the late 1980s, at a time when the impetus to work hard for yourself and be successful was at its Thatcherite height. I know – because even Mrs Chrisparkle and I briefly caught the bug.

The Market Boy himself, Brian, but known by everyone as “Boy”, starts life as a wet behind the ears 12-year-old, who gets taken under the (mainly) affectionate wing of shoe trader (known, you guessed it, as Trader), and his three laddish assistants, who show him how to become both a proper market trader with all the patter and how to chat up girls (with similar skills). Romford Market is a fairly rough-and-ready community, with plenty of aggression and rivalry as well as some (but not many) decent relationships and mutual respect. We see all these various lives intermingle as Boy finally gets round to going out with “Girl”. In the second act Boy gets too big for his boots, throwing his weight around, riding roughshod over those he cares about – as does Snooks, one of the assistants, who gives up the market work to work in the financial markets instead – and both come a-cropper as they fly too close to the sun. Their rise and fall is brought sharply into focus as it mimics that of their great inspiration, Margaret Thatcher, who looms over the market like a free-trade spectre, dispensing dogma and platitudes as she goes.

It’s a great choice of a play because there’s so much going on all the time and the text gives everyone a moment where they can shine. Jesse Jones’ cast grabs it all with relish and brings out both the humour and the dark side of market life and the individual subtleties of the characters who populate it. Meryl Couper’s simple but very effective design draws our eye to the centre of the stage where the Trader’s van (MKT 130Y, nice touch) occupies the centre of his stall. The stalls either side of the stage lurk together to give an impression of tight-knit closeness and everyone being in everybody else’s business, creating a nice illusion of compact claustrophobia.

It’s a wonderful production that uses the Royal auditorium at its best, with characters entering from within the auditorium, scenes being acted in front of the safety curtain, characters appearing in the boxes, and so on. It also has fantastic use of music, bringing a huge sense of nostalgia to the show; you just can’t go wrong when you’ve got Frankie Goes To Hollywood appearing as a leitmotif throughout the evening. Mrs C is always a bit iffy when it comes to watching an amateur production but as soon as Relax started up she was tapping her feet up and down to the rhythm; then the curtain opened to reveal twenty other pairs of feet all doing the same, and she beamed with delight at the shared experience. She said later (and I concur) that the beginning and end scenes featuring the entire cast en dansant were amongst the most entertaining moments of individual staging she’d ever seen.

could now write at length about everybody in the cast, because absolutely everyone gave an excellent performance and contributed some magic to the entire evening. However, that would probably end up being very repetitive and dull. So I’m just going to mention a few people who I thought made a particular difference to the success of the show as a whole. But, bear in mind, omission here does not mean it was not a fine performance – they all were!

At the heart of the show is a genuinely top class performance by Tom Cocker as Boy. With his early appearances showing his wide-eyed innocence, looking like a very young Daniel Radcliffe or Harry Enfield, he exuded that awful teenage uncertainty tempered with the desperate need to fit in. As the character grows in confidence, Mr Cocker acquires great “market flair”, thus becoming a half-and-half adult – with great self-belief in his ability to do well on the stall, but then shrinking down to be just a little boy when it comes to talking to the girl. Later on, when he oversteps the mark and becomes pig-headed and over-confident, you really want to give him a great big slap. He’s completely believable the whole way through – an excellent performance.

I also really liked Alice McCracken as his “Girl” – conveying all the hard-nosed exterior the character would need in order to survive in that environment, but with all the soft-centre that lurks not that far under the surface. I also thought that, technically, she gave the most perfect performance of the entire cast; every line delivered immaculately, every movement assertively achieved. I’d seen Adam Kozuch in a few productions before, including Town My Town and Our Country’s Good, but here, as Mouse, he performed with even more natural ease and comfort, and he really let us in to the more vulnerable side of the character.

I loved Will Adams’ Meat Man, a bit of a fuddy-duddy but obviously a decent sort; he plays a beautiful scene where he comes to Boy’s rescue when he needs advice about buying steak to impress Girl on their big date. The Land of Hope and Glory accompaniment was a touch of genius. The character’s eventual downfall was very movingly portrayed. I also loved Vicky Kelly as Fat Annie from the tea stall, luring with her gently lascivious tone as she tries to get into Boy’s good books (and pants). Zoe Smith’s Thatcher oozed superiority and detachment as she condescended her way across the stage; and Stewart Magrath’s Market Toby was a fantastically ogreish creation, bullying and fleecing his way around the market, terrifying the life out of the front row of the Stalls with his barking warnings. And I enjoyed the smartarse but moving performance of Ben Webb as Snooks, showing off as a shoe trader, arrogantly going off to work in the city full of Thatcherite zeal, returning some time later with his tail between his legs, genuinely broken.

Quite possibly the best amateur production we’ve ever seen – of anything. A shame it only entertained for three performances, but I’m sure if you saw it, you won’t forget it in a hurry! Oh, and if I’ve got anyone’s name wrong, apologies, but it’s difficult matching performers to names without a more detailed programme!

Review – The Last Night of the Derngate Proms, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 17th July 2016

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Mrs Chrisparkle and I have always enjoyed our visits to the Last Night of the Proms – Derngate style, that is – although we did once get to see the real thing in the Albert Hall which was indeed a privilege. As usual, I booked for this show as part of our subscription package with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Last Night is always a very entertaining – if essentially shallow – flick through some of Classic’s Greatest Hits in the lead up to the usual flag-waving extravaganza of Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory.

The Derngate Auditorium was packed to the rafters for this final concert in the RPO’s annual season. Our conductor was Gareth Hudson, new to us, and as Mr Hudson himself explained, he was new to Northampton. But I think both Mr Hudson and Northampton got on very well with each other. He’s a charming host, with a reassuring voice of honey, providing an entertaining and informative running commentary on all the pieces we were going to hear. As a conductor, he’s not one of those who over-exerts himself but manages to get the best from the orchestra whilst retaining a simple air of dignity and authority. In honour of the gala occasion, the word had gone out to the ladies of the RPO to wear strikingly coloured gowns, so the stage was awash with beautiful reds, greens, and blues. Mrs C pointed out that if I mentioned what the ladies were wearing, I should, for the sake of equality, also pass comment on the gentlemen’s appearance. They were in their stock penguin suits. They obviously didn’t get the same memo. However, if we are concentrating on appearances, I must congratulate harpist Mr Hugh Webb on his spectacular moustache. His harpistry was pretty spectacular too.

There were eighteen pieces to listen to. Eighteen! Seventeen in the programme and one encore. Given that the concert lasted about 2 hours and 20 minutes, and including 20 minutes for the interval and say 20 minutes for chat and applause, I estimate the average time per musical item to be about 5 and a half minutes. It’s not really long enough to get fully engrossed in any particular piece; but on the plus side, if you don’t like any particular item, it won’t be long before it’s over and the next one has started!

The programme began with the overture to Rossini’s Thieving Magpie – probably one of the longer pieces of the evening as it happens – lively, fun, and full of the joys of orchestration. The RPO were obviously going to be on great form. Then came the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, one of my favourite pieces of music, played with lush exquisiteness by the strings. When I was a kid I wanted to write an opera (I know, always had grand plans, me); I often used to think how chuffed Mascagni must have been to win that opera-writing competition, and what a brass neck he had to write the Intermezzo so that his two-act opera became a one-act opera, and therefore eligible for the prize. Clever chap.

So that was two Italians – now for a Czech: Dvořák’s Song to the Moon, from his opera Rusalka. We welcomed soprano Deborah Norman to the stage for the first of four appearances to sing this famous aria, although it’s not one with which I’m that attuned. Miss Norman certainly transported us to a lunar scenario, with her engaging interpretation and glittery voice. Then we had the famous Onedin Line theme from Khachaturian’s Spartacus suite – I know he didn’t strictly write it for the BBC but it’s what every one of my generation associates with it. I thought this was performed absolutely terrifically; incredibly stirring, a full tidal wave of emotion. Khachaturian was to be the first of two Russians – next was Tchaikovsky with the Sleeping Beauty Waltz, a timeless piece of sheer delight, again played beautifully by the orchestra.

Anyone who knows me, understands that I don’t do Gilbert and Sullivan. Yes, I know, it’s a failing on my part; and I have tried, believe me. But, as the old song in Liza of Lambeth goes, nothing is duller than Gilbert and Sullivan, in the British tradition they’re palpably rooted, the music is trivial and far from convivial, the words are appallingly convoluted. (Don’t worry, I won’t quote the whole song.) So I confess I wasn’t looking forward to Deborah Norman’s performance of The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze (even the title is so trite in its need to rhyme) by Sir Arthur Sullivan, an aria (if you can call it that) from The Mikado. But, guess what? I really enjoyed it! I think it was the first time I’ve ever enjoyed any one song from G&S. Don’t get me wrong – I’m never going to be a convert. But I was most surprised to hear its delicacy and sweetness.

After the atrocity in Nice on Friday, Gareth Hudson simply said in his introduction to the next piece that he would like to dedicate it to the people of France. André Caplet’s orchestral arrangement of Debussy’s Clair de Lune received a stunning performance from the orchestra and it was a very moving moment. The first half of the concert wound up with another blistering performance, this time of Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite, No 2: Farandole, a piece I can never remember until I hear it, which is when I instantly remember how much I love it.

It was after the interval that things just started to get a little weird. Not musically – by any means; the RPO continued to give a fantastic performance. Mrs C and I just got the sense that this year’s flag-waving jingoism had taken on a little more… shall we say, sinister aspect. It all started in the first piece after the interval, the splendid overture to the operetta Light Cavalry by Franz von Suppé. The orchestra really got into its military stride with this, creating a fantastic rhythm; but the elderly lady sitting further along the row from us got totally carried away and started to pretend that she was on a horse, bobbing up and down with the rhythm, swaying the reins, and basically giving us all the giddy-ups. That’s fine. Good music well performed can do this to a person.

We welcomed back Deborah Norman to give us a tender rendition of Je veux vivre, from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. This piece was new to me and I found it very touching and full of that youthful enthusiasm we would associate with the young tragic heroine. Then it was time for the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. We saw this performed in Bratislava a few years ago and absolutely loved it – but I regret I couldn’t particularly remember the Polonaise. The RPO gave it a full-on rumbustious run for its money and the audience responded really warmly to it. Then came – for me, at least – perhaps the most rewarding performance of the evening – Two Songs Without Words (Country Song and Marching Song) by Gustav Holst. As Mr Hudson mentioned in his introduction, Holst’s back catalogue became completely eclipsed (pardon the pun) by the success of his Planets Suite, reducing the rest of his output to virtual insignificance. So here were two earlier pieces that rarely get performed, and I thought they were sensational. This is the English Folk Music-inspired Holst, rather than the astronomically-inspired version, although I definitely heard a music prequel of Jupiter somewhere in there. A fantastic performance of (for me) an exciting find. This section of the concert wrapped up with (as the RPO often do) those few minutes of intense emotion that constitute Nimrod, from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Nimrod never does quite give you that same tingle when it’s played outside of the context of a full performance of the Variations, but nevertheless, it’s still a magnificent piece and gives you a few moments to cherish those you love and remember those you’ve lost.

It was Gareth Hudson’s introduction to the final sequence of patriotic numbers that encapsulated whatever it was that had been bothering us. He said (and I paraphrase) that no matter how we all voted in a certain referendum recently, we should take the opportunity to allow the evening’s music to unite us. Now forgive me, gentle reader, for going off piste here, and I know this may alienate many of you to bring politics into music, but Mrs C and I are still very much coming to terms with (what we feel is) the (disastrous) result of the referendum. The wounds have gone very deep; it’s going to be a long time before the healing takes place (indeed, if it ever does). Surrounded by an audience made up of almost entirely white, middle-aged to elderly, middle-class Northamptonians (our town voted 59-41 in favour of Brexit) we suddenly realised the extent to which we were in the minority in that room. The patriotism of our neighbours all waving the flags and standing, Nuremberg rally-like, to Land of Hope and Glory, felt very, very uncomfortable. I can’t help it – at the moment I’m not proud of our country, so I couldn’t permit myself to get up and join the others. I was happy to sing it, as I always am. But there was a swelling of nationalistic pride going on in that hall on Sunday night with which I really did not want to associate myself.

Back on piste. Our final sequence of music was as unchanging as the waning moon, starting with Tom Bowling and the Hornpipe from Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. Mr Hudson introduced lead cellist Tim Gill for the Tom Bowling and he was exceptional as usual, bringing out all that deep-seated sadness and searing emotion from its lamentation-like theme. The Hornpipe, of course, couldn’t be a greater juxtaposition, with Mr Hudson already encouraging us to clap along, even if, (of course), we all did it too loudly, too enthusiastically, and too early. Ms Norman returned for the final time (a little early in fact, as Mr Hudson was still humiliating us with My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, making us stand, then sit, each time a word beginning with a B comes along – think about it, it gets exhausting) for Rule, Britannia! And I really appreciate it when all three verses are sung in full. Jerusalem, which followed, has much claim to be my own personal favourite song of all time, and nothing’s going to stop me from bellowing each syllable as if I were still in Morning Assembly in 1973. And finally, a lively and fun performance of the Pomp and Circumstance March No 1, which got our Cavalry overture lady up on her feet at the first whiff of a land of Hope and Glory. All credit to her, when no one else got up so early she didn’t budge but held her ground. Classic rule – if you ovate and no one else does, it looks appalling if you sit down again. Have the courage of your convictions! Reservations (as per the previous paragraph) aside, it was a wonderful performance.

And it was also with great pleasure that I realised it wasn’t to be quite the final number of the night. As an encore, and once again with a respectful nod to France and maybe something to assuage the Bremainers, Mr Hudson returned to the podium to crack out a fun and frolicsome performance of Offenbach’s Infernal Galop from Orpheus in the Underworld – the Can Can. Now that did deserve an ovation.

No more Royal Philharmonic Orchestra here in Northampton until much later in the year – and unfortunately we can’t make that concert! Still we’ll look forward to re-acquainting ourselves with the RPO next February.