Tag Archives: Royal

Review – Rory Bremner and Friends, Royal, Derngate, Northampton, 29th June 2011

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I was really surprised when it was announced that Rory Bremner would be appearing at the Royal. Firstly because I thought he was strictly a TV and radio performer, and secondly because it was the Royal and not the Derngate. If you don’t know, the Royal is a charming small Victorian theatre, that seats somewhere around 300 people and the Derngate is a much larger modern auditorium that seats around 1300, and that’s where the majority of big stand-up acts perform. So I got my tickets booked and bought good and early because I thought there would be a big demand for the seats.

And as the weeks went on, I was looking at the seating plan online and realising that not many seats had been sold at all. Is this an indication that Mr Bremner is past his best? Isn’t there much demand for a satirical impressionist anymore? I was getting a little worried. No need for alarm. I’m pleased to say that the comedy lovers of Northampton are late bookers, because last night there were hardly any seats left, and in fact it was the most packed I’ve ever seen the Royal auditorium.

It’s a very relaxed and enjoyable evening. Rory Bremner introduces the show with about a ten minute slot followed by Ian Shaw on the piano for about fifteen minutes, then Hattie Hayridge has a longer slot, and then Rory Bremner wraps up the first half. After the interval, Ian Shaw returns for some more music and then Rory Bremner does his main session. It’s very satisfyingly structured, just like you would have seen on a traditional variety show on television about thirty years ago.

So what of his friends? Ian Shaw is a jazz singer but here he spends his time doing some comedy numbers and a couple of unexpected songs that involved the audience. He has a very warm and entertaining personality and a very good rapport with the audience. To be honest, the words “jazz singer” would normally fill me with dread but he was a breath of fresh air, and the time he spent onstage went very quickly.

Unfortunately not quite the same could be said about Hattie Hayridge. Whilst her material was very funny, for some reason she didn’t establish a rapport with the audience whose reaction to her was rather embarrassingly quiet. She has a very dry and self-deprecating style, which will always tickle the laughter out of some people, it then depends if this laughter is catching or not. Last night, it wasn’t really. Sure, some were laughing hysterically, but it wasn’t the majority. If she had been performing in the Screaming Blue Murder club, I think she would have been heckled. I didn’t “get” her character, and I’m afraid that when her act was over I was a bit relieved.

However, Rory Bremner was on top form. He has great material, a natural charm, full of charisma, and is a great communicator. His impressions are still top notch – although I found his Winston Churchill a bit too like Tony Benn – and he has plenty of topical characters too, like Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. The satire can be biting, but it’s always a delight too. And the intimacy of the Royal was just perfect for his adult, intelligent humour. So, all in all, a most enjoyable night’s entertainment.

Martin Bell was in the audience! Yes, the reporter turned Independent MP. I’m sure it was him. It looked like him and he was wearing his trademark white jacket. Celebrity audiences invade Northampton! You heard it here first.

Review – Eden End, Royal, Northampton, 16th June 2011

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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a J B Priestley play. I think the last one was Stephen Daldry’s Inspector Calls which Mrs C and I saw in London sometime in the 1990s, but we were stuck at the back of the Garrick Theatre in London with the actors so distant they might just as well have been in Cardiff for all that I could connect with them. We saw a production of “I Have Been Here Before” at the Wycombe Swan also in the 90s with Mr Rumbold from Are You Being Served as the mysterious German Doktor. Before then it was just a production of An Inspector Calls at the Shaw Theatre in London in 1978 and a TV adaptation of Dangerous Corner around the same time.

So it was good to have some renewed exposure to this 20th century British stalwart. “Eden End” is not so often performed – perhaps because it doesn’t have the beguiling “time tricks” of Inspector Calls and Dangerous Corner. And maybe it is easy to see why it could have fallen out of favour in this modern age – what could a play from 1934 set in 1912, that doesn’t really have a very strong storyline, have that is relevant to today?

Well you just have to see it to answer that question. Laurie Sansom’s production of Eden End takes a simple tale and makes it riveting. As usual he has brought together a cast that works wonders as an ensemble. You get the feeling that in every performance the actors get a new truth out of the material, so fresh is their connection with the audience. On one level the play is about the return of an actress daughter to the family home after eight years’ absence, and the emotional ripples it creates through those left behind. On another, it reveals the reality of “the other man’s grass is always greener”; how people cope with the knowledge that life could be better somewhere else. And are they right? Very Chekhovian, Laurie Sansom refers to its similarities with “The Cherry Orchard” in the programme; there’s also a lot of “Three Sisters” in there too, as everyone has their own private Moscow.

Fantasy and reality are blurred with the brilliant set – ostensibly a traditional drawing room, but with a stylised stage curtain as the back wall and stage footlights around the edge. The fantasy suggests a glittering stage career elsewhere, but does the reality agree with that? If you saw the recent production of “Love Love Love” by Mike Bartlett, it features a daughter character who is bitter at her failed music career because no one told her when she was young that she simply wasn’t good enough. The returning actress Stella also implies that the fantasy of a brilliant acting career was a much more comforting place than the reality of being barely adequate at it.

Stella is played by Charlotte Emmerson, fab when last seen here at the Royal as the Duchess of Malfi. It’s a beautiful performance – combining the apparent starry glamour of her profession with vulnerability in the uncertainty of whom she loves, and the worry of whether she can sustain a career. At one stage, for a little while fantasy reigns as she meets up again with long lost love Farrant; then reality returns in the form of her ex-husband. Charlotte Emmerson wonderfully portrays this movement into the light and then back into darkness.

Farrant, played by Jonathan Firth, is also a winning creation. What could easily be just another stock Edwardian stiff-upper-lip chappy with a gammy leg, becomes a real person who overcomes the reservations of the era to tell Stella how he feels. Overflowing with decency, his sense of correctness and his openness are very genuinely acted and I enjoyed his performance very much. There’s an excellent moment when he encounters Charles Appleby. His reactions are simple, but perfectly executed.

Stella’s sister, Lilian, played by Daisy Douglas, comes across as deeply repressed and embittered, left behind to look after Father, sacrificing her own happiness for the perceived selfishness of her sister. There’s a great scene between the two of them where they challenge each other’s motives for how life turned out. Gripping stuff. You felt some sympathy for her – but also appreciated that she’s a bit cunning. Daisy Douglas puts over the shades of grey with the character very effectively.

Her brother Wilfred – looking like how you would imagine a 24 year old Gordon Brown to look but don’t let that put you off – is played by Nick Hendrix. Dashing and ineffectual, still patronised by the family retainer Sarah, sniffing (largely metaphorically) at the skirt of a barmaid, wasting his days at home in idleness, it’s a great study of youthful underachievement. It was very rewarding to see that even in 1934 young people couldn’t get the jokes in those old Punch cartoons! His build-up routines to ringing the girlfriend were very nicely done too. According to the programme, Nick Hendrix is fresh out of RADA and this is his first professional engagement. Well we thought he was absolutely first class, and are sure he’s going to have a great career.

Daniel Betts plays Charles Appleby, Stella’s estranged husband, a bit of a jack-the-lad actor, dressed like you would imagine Max Miller would if he had an office job. Cheeky and charismatic, you could see why Stella might have fallen for him – and after his night out with Wilfred, you could also see why she would have gone right off him. I have to commend Daniel Betts on his brilliant drunk act. Completely credible, nothing farcical or over the top about it; really well observed and very very funny. Mrs C and I were not entirely sure about Charles and Wilfred’s music-hall song and dance act between Acts Two and Three; they did it very well and I can see how it continues the theme of blur between fantasy and reality; but on the whole, we didn’t “get it”. I note that it’s not in the original text.

William Chubb’s Dr Kirby was very convincing as the elderly GP father with a care for his community and a gentle cynicism about life as a whole. Sarah was played by Carol Macready and was a subtle reading of the role of the old retainer, both cantankerous and kindly; occasionally wanting to keep hold of her old niche as authoritative nurse with the children, but knowing her power is gone. When, at the end, she is left behind in a very Chekhovian moment, and she realises Stella has gone without the parcel – I confess it brought a tear to my eye.

This is also a production really suitable for congratulating the usually unsung heroes. I’ve already mentioned the imaginative set of Sara Perks, suggesting a balance between reality and fantasy, stability and instability (the traditional room but set on a jaunty angle) and openness and secrecy (the back room that lights up to reveal Lilian desperately alone). I also thought the music by Jon Nicholls accompanied the mood perfectly, never monopolising a scene, gently suggesting more than it explained – lovely quiet sounds of an orchestra tuning up, for instance; so much more subtle than other sound effects we’ve been subjected to recently.

The sad feeling I had at the end of the play reflected how, throughout the whole play, the emotions were strong but beautifully understated. This gave the whole production a surprising additional energy. It’s a quiet gem, and I’m glad it’s going to be touring after its Northampton run. I recommend it highly.

Review – Love Love Love, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 26th May 2011

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I can remember as a teenager poring over my Plays and Players magazine and reading about this new dynamic company Paines Plough, who were doing tough new right-on plays that were changing the world. It’s only taken me 36 years finally to see one’s of their productions! Mike Bartlett’s Love Love Love has been touring since March and has two more weeks to go in Cambridge and Oxford.

The play traces the fortunes of a couple from their meeting in 1967, through their tempestuous marriage in 1990 to their coping with their grown-up children today. It pulls no punches where it comes to exposing the relationships bare and there are uncomfortable moments where the desperate needs of some individuals get annihilated by stronger characters.

Although it’s a play of three acts, it’s also a “play of two halves” to use footballing parlance, as both Mrs Chrisparkle and I found the first act somewhat underwhelming but the second and third acts riveting. Actually Mrs C described the first act as “a right turn-off”. This shows how Kenneth and Sandra got together, him downright pinching her from under his brother’s nose, and her being a willing pinchee. I thought Lisa Jackson as Sandra was particularly good in this scene, playing a most convincing posh 60s pothead. Looking like a young Tracey Emin, she strongly suggested all the freedom offered by the trendy lifestyle, and oozed a coy promiscuity by her body language and behaviour whilst also depicting the selfishness of the privileged young. The act certainly brightened up when she arrived on stage.

This scene also includes an excellent performance by Simon Darwen as Henry, Kenneth’s older brother who is hoping to score with Sandra but clearly hasn’t got a hope. Preferring classical music and disapproving of drugs because they’re “not legal”, I identified with some of the more staid aspects of his character and I felt he captured the doomed expectation that his brother would steal the girl away from him extremely well.

But here’s the first act problem for me – well two problems. Firstly, it’s slow and seems to get unnecessarily bogged down with trivia in comparison with the tight, not-a-word-wasted speeches of the other acts. It’s almost as though there were two writers. The relative quietness of the first five minutes is a stark contrast with the overwhelming sense of confrontation that pervades every aspect of the rest of the play. The other problem is that, unfortunately, I didn’t really believe in the portrayal of the young Kenneth by Ben Addis. I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the actor or the writer, but I just could not see this slob, lounging around in a decadent dressing gown like a Slumdog Noel Coward, as having the magnetism required to “get the girl”. When I was a student I knew a guy who would always attempt to sleep with other guys’ girlfriends simply because he knew he could, and normally he did. But this young Kenneth really didn’t have that impact. However, as Kenneth in 1990 and 2011, Ben Addis was completely believable and gave a really top performance; although it’s stretching the imagination that by 2011 Kenneth was still playing his old record-player and hadn’t have gone out and bought all his favourite 60s music on CD, indeed if not having it all mp3’d wirelessly throughout his luxury pad.

Without giving away the rest of the story, Kenneth and Sandra get married, work hard, have two kids, and the rest of the play shows the journey (Yes! The “J” word!) that their self-obsessed relationship takes and the effect it has on their children, both as teenagers and adults. I commend the great performances from Rosie Wyatt as Rose and James Barrett as Jamie. Possibly the 1990 Rose was a little too like Catherine Tate’s Lauren for that age, but then I’ve never had a 16 year old daughter, so what do I know. Her 2011 parental demands pull everyone up sharp but are totally within character. There’s also a great little scene between father and 14 year old son where they smoke together and find a mutual ground in admiring one another. Throughout the play smoking is a common theme – it seems to be that if you’re smoking together, you’re on the same wavelength.

At the second interval, Mrs C and I decided that, given their upbringing and parenting, we thought the children in 2011 would have done pretty well for themselves and would be able to meet head-on the demands of daily life. You’ll have to see the play yourself to judge how accurate we were. Suffice to say the change of character in Jamie in particular was stunning to watch.

The whole question of coping with one’s parents or one’s children will always be one of life’s major themes. Some people manage it well, others don’t. The dilemma facing Kenneth and Sandra on the one hand, and Rose on the other is really well conceived and written. At times I agreed with one side, then I agreed with the other. I still don’t quite know who was right and who was wrong. It’s a play that keeps you thinking long past curtain down. I’m currently siding with the parents but I’m aware it makes me look like a heartless bastard.

I’ve read a comment online today from someone who attended the same performance and who described it as being “one of the worst things I have seen” at the Royal. Personally I think that’s way off the mark. It’s a challenging play and largely extremely well performed. The slow start is definitely to its detriment but it improves no end afterwards. No matter what, it’s great that Paines Plough continue to tour with innovative new work. Not everyone’s a Chekhov, but there’s still plenty here to get your teeth into.

Review – Hamlet the Musical, Royal, Northampton, 19th May 2011

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Elsinore, 1600. The battlements of the castle. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears. And sings!

You know a show’s a winner when you sit through it in joy, walk home afterwards in joy, go to bed in joy, get up in joy and laugh about it all through breakfast. I had a preconceived idea of what “Hamlet! The Musical” would be like, having seen an introduction to it at the season launch and having read a couple of reviews. But actually the show exceeds expectations on all levels. It’s not merely a Shakespearian spoof. The songs are delightfully catchy and tuneful; the lyrics are extremely witty and cleverly thought out; and the cast work their socks off with huge zest to fill the Royal auditorium with laughter and affection.

Shakespeare plays of course do lend themselves to being “musicalised” in different ways. You can take the basic play and put music to it, like Trevor Nunn’s Comedy of Errors in the 1970s; you can attach a musical to the side of it, like Kiss Me Kate; you can use it to inspire a completely new work, like West Side Story; or you can keep the characters and a few words from the original script and tell basically the same plot tongue firmly in cheek like Hamlet the Musical. And it works really well.

Among the songs, it has a big number, “To Be or Not To Be” that strongly reminds me of Sweden’s 1999 Eurovision winner “Take me to your heaven”. The two could nicely interchange! I liked the use of the Danish song sheet and pluckily attempted it in the original tongue. There’s another song which is all about what the bloody bloody hell do we bloody do now, which had me in hysterics. A song that relies heavily on inadequate swear words contrasts so entertainingly with the work of the English language’s greatest wordsmith. To pick just two songs to remember is to do an injustice to the rest of it though; every song works in its own way.

Usually a moody misfit, Hamlet here is presented as part Everyman and part dingbat; his incongruous “ordinary bloke” appearance is so not what you would expect of the eponymous Prince that it really maximises his comic potential. He’s endearingly hopeless, really – needing a decent question, he can only get as far as “to be or…” I thought Jack Shalloo’s performance was a real knockout. It’s the combination of his apparent ordinariness, his slightly “fish out of water” characterisation, and his unexpected ability to sing and dance way beyond what you would expect from looking at him! One cheeky glance and he takes you into his confidence so that his plight is your plight. But then rather than build up a tragic Shakespearian crescendo, instead he’ll play the fool or play up to the girls just like anyone of us would. I loved the portrayal of his England tour – suddenly becoming a popstar, chatting up the talent in the audience and getting the lady cellist to ring him. He’s like a chip off the old block as the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father has that certain Vegas quality too!

Ophelia is sweetness and light but becomes the girlfriend from hell that Hamlet needs to ditch in order to avenge his father’s murder. The staging of her descent into madness is one of sheer hilarity. Jess Robinson is great in this role but also in the several other roles she takes, perhaps best as the irrepressibly cheery Rosencrantz, a wholesomely squeaky college dude who would irritate the pants off you on Wittenberg Campus.The other half of this ingeniously presented duo is Gabriel Vick’s Guildenstern, equally nauseating for all the right reasons. He is terrific as Laertes, the kind of guy who comes back from foreign lands having acquired the accent – and much more. I don’t recall Laertes going to Spain, but this one obviously did. He may be all protective of his sister and trying to macho up against Hamlet but deep down you get the feeling he just likes dressing up. I think this is the third time we’ve seen Gabriel Vick – we also caught him in Avenue Q a while back and he was marvellous as the son in the Menier’s Little Night Music (later, Henrik, much later…)

Virge Gilchrist’s Gertrude is a fantastic incarnation of weary lustiness, regretting the fact that her son has “issues”, but being won over by hunky Claudius’ gold codpiece, and her breaking the news of Polonius’ death to Laertes is a stroke of genius!Mark Inscoe’s Claudius is villainy personified and gets nicely uncomfortable watching the play within the play, brilliantly presented as snatches from opera. As Gertrude says, he clearly prefers Ayckbourn. He has a marvellously mealy-mouthed song about his capacity for doing good from which he wrings every nuance.David Burt revels in numerous other roles, including Polonius, nicely hidden behind the arras (not), a gravedigger with a cheeky tombstone bearing an ALW epitaph, and a Fortinbras who suffers from Premature Interjection. It all ends with everyone dead of course, killed with authentic Danish weaponry, and you just love the way they milk the death spasms.

It’s pure escapist entertainment from start to finish. Take an extra tenner with you as you’ll definitely want to buy the CD. It’s on next week in Richmond, and hopefully somewhere else after that. ‘Tis no tragedy, it’s a wonderful two hours that will suit lovers and detractors of Shakespeare alike!

Review – In Praise of Love, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, April 7th 2011

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I’m really pleased to see Terence Rattigan receiving deserved attention in his centenary year. If there’d not been any Rattigan, there wouldn’t have been any Osborne to rebel against him. I can imagine a late 1950s dramatists’ tug of war competition – Osborne, Wesker, Pinter, Beckett, Delaney pulling hard on one side with Coward and Rattigan on the other, looking for a bit of support from The Mousetrap and Salad Days. The outcome of the struggle was inevitable.

But class will out, and it’s great to see his current reinstatement on our stages. When I was 16, I took myself down to London one evening to see a revival of “Separate Tables”. It had a fantastic cast, lead by John Mills and Jill Bennett; masterclasses in stiff-upper-lipness and emotional devastation respectively. The following year I saw the original production of “Cause Celebre”, with Glynis Johns and Kenneth Griffith. I remember the play being heavily criticised for “not being as good as the plays he wrote in the 1940s.” I felt that was unfair – it was a good story, well acted, lots of suspense; and I can look back now and feel that I was privileged to see an original Rattigan production.

Enough reminiscing. As part of their “Made in Northampton” season the Royal and Derngate now have a new production of “In Praise of Love”, one of Rattigan’s less well known plays originally produced in 1973. To outline the story is to spoil it for you, so I won’t. Suffice to say it involves a long marriage, sickness, secrecy and hidden motives.

The use of a black curtain slowly rising at the beginning of both acts and slowly descending at the end of the acts makes a surprising visual impact. You very slowly begin to take focus on the set (an amazing recreation of a book-lined flat by Naomi Dawson) and the couple living in it; slowly you appreciate the situation in which they find themselves; and at the end, slowly it dawns on you what the future will hold.

At the centre of this play is Lydia, an Estonian refugee whose homeland no longer exists (remember this is 1973). Rootless, she clings on to her love for husband no matter what life (and he) subjects her to. He drives her to anger, to love, to impatience, to tolerance, and much more besides. She loves her son non-judgementally, but like any mother is willing to manipulate him well outside his comfort zone. And she loves their family friend – to what extent, I think that’s for you to decide. Geraldine Alexander plays Lydia with gutsy fragility. In the nicest possible way, she looks like someone who has had to put up with a lot in life, and her slow descent into drunkenness is spot on. At times girlishly sprightly, at times careworn and depressed, she accurately depicts all the aspects of the character. Mrs Chrisparkle and I are friends with a couple of Finnish ladies of a certain age, and Finnish and Estonian traits being pretty similar, I can tell you this is a very realistic interpretation of the highs and lows of a Baltic lady!

Her husband Sebastian is a self-confessed “shit”, and his selfish cantankerousness is very credibly written and played; useless domestically, demanding socially, begrudging with praise and kindness. We all know the kind of bloke who takes his wife for granted and acts boorishly; some of us even may be him. Jay Villiers shows beyond all doubt that it is not a pretty sight. The character development in the second act is equally well done. It’s a very fine performance.

Sean Power as the old family friend turns his hand deftly to supporting all three of the other characters in their hours of need, without ever giving you the sense that he is talking out of place or being disloyal to the others. His character is in a tricky situation and you completely believe in the “only way out” that he can live with.

Gethin Anthony as the son Joey is a calming influence on his feisty mother but a source of irritation to his father, with his different political views (quite a nice twist on the norm of the day where Rattigan’s traditional characters would have been old fashioned Tories disgusted by the leftist attitudes of the “younger generation” – here an old Marxist is disappointed by his son being liberal). Gethin Anthony’s younger behaviour revealingly contrasts him from the older characters. Here you see the polite young man who greets the family friend, the optimistic person at the start of a hopefully promising career, and also someone who looks forward to a better political future. He’s also not above a childish stomp upstairs in a huff when things go wrong – mind you, nor’s his father. It’s a very likeable performance, the easiest character in the play to identify with; combining the occasional insolence of youth with the anxiety of being out of one’s depth with the future.

However, despite all this, we do have a slight problem, Houston. The set is great; the acting is great. If you take any sequence of conversation within the play, it’s elegantly written and may well make you laugh, shock you, surprise you, sadden you. There is a clever coup de theatre in the story that turns the world on its head. But somehow, when you put it all together, it just comes across as being a bit underwhelming. Despite tackling important subjects and plumbing the depths of deep emotion, it all feels a bit small. A lot of the first act comes across as very “scene-setting” – Mrs Chrisparkle actually used the word “clunky”. The second act is written much more fluidly and the story progresses without interruption to its climax. But, as the curtain fell, I was expecting something more to happen. Does it end there? I can see why Rattigan chose that moment to close the scene, and the visual expressions of the two characters on stage at the end were very telling of their plight. But I still wanted one more thing to happen. One more twist; one more revelation. Rattigan, you let me down!

On our way home Mrs Chrisparkle said she couldn’t imagine a better production of this play. And if that is half-praise, I think that sums up my thoughts too. If you’re interested in Rattigan, you’ll want to see it out of a sense of completeness. You’ll also get to see some really good acting and a play that’s perfectly suited to its surroundings in the Royal.

Review – Diary of a Nobody, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, March 10th 2011

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Confession time. When I attended the Royal and Derngate’s Subscription Season launch in January, this was one of two productions that I wasn’t certain I was going to enjoy. I’m not familiar with the original book and I feared that it might be a little dated, a little stilted; a lot of Victorian pomposity and bluster and no substance.

Hah! How wrong I was! This is a truly super show. It’s laugh out loud funny from start to finish and each of its four performers is a star turn.

Mr Pooter is at the heart of it, a traditional Victorian man in many respects but with an interest in modern fads, like these wonderful new enamel paints (cue all the furniture turning red). The troubles that beset him are the same we have today – pesky builders who create more work than they repair; bankers who abuse the system to make money for themselves; obstructive pub bouncers; there’s a lot of similarities. And Mr Pooter’s honesty nearly always works against him, hence he doesn’t get into the pub, he unwittingly offends his wife so she goes off and stays with her friend, and he complies with his Godlike boss’s demand that he changes his holiday week so he misses out on the best view of Broadstairs beach.

Again, without having read the original, so I may be wide of the mark here, where I think this play could have gone wrong would be to accentuate the downside of Mr Pooter. He could be played as a pompous, tedious, self-deluded, self-aggrandising know-it-all. However, instead, this Mr Pooter is just so immensely likeable! Robert Daws plays him with an air of total joy. From the first few moments you are captured by his humanity and you want to be his friend. He is so pleased to be centre stage and delighted to say “Good evening” to everyone that you know you’re going to love him. When he comes up with his awful jokes you still laugh along with him, whereas if anyone else said them you’d run a mile. You identify with him throughout the evening because you are on his side and he is essentially one of the nicest people you could possibly know. Robert Daws’ performance is stand-out smashing. He connects instantly with the audience and we stand by his side the whole time. By the end of the show if anyone said anything unpleasant to him you’d have to get up and say “disrespect Mr Pooter and you disrespect me” and that might lead to some regrettable unfortunateness.

Supporting Mr Pooter are his three thespian acquaintances who play all the other characters in his life. They’re all great. Peter Forbes probably stands out because he plays (inter alia) Mr Pooter’s wife, Carrie, and his instant transformation into that character is amazing. A caring, loving look; a deft manoeuvre of the fingers to suggest sewing; the little girl transported in wonder at the Lord Mayor’s reception. Then in the flick of a heel he becomes Pooter’s blustery old Bicycling friend Cumming, and a host of others.

Steven Blakeley’s roles include Pooter’s gangly son Lupin, a sort of nineteenth century ne’er-do-well finance trader who turns from respectable to drunk to lovelorn youth with total ease as well as finding time to be the maid too. And I also loved the performance of William Oxborrow, providing the music and sound effectsbut also playing some of the roles including that of Lupin’s prospective playfully useless brother-in-law, which put me in mind of the late great Derek Royle if you were ever lucky enough to see him on stage. On top of all that, the performances of Daisy Mutlar and her friend Murray Posh have to be seen to be believed, and as for the cat….!

It’s directed by Gary Sefton who gave us Travels with My Aunt last year and you can see the influences. I really enjoyed that production but here he has developed that interaction between four actors taking on many roles and made it slicker, faster, more direct to the audience – basically funnier. Hugh Osborne’s writing delightfully theatricalises the novel format and mines the comic situations to great effect whilst credibly delivering the emotional moments too. Although being Victorians, the love moments are suitably stiff upper-lip.

The run is scheduled to end on 19th March but it would be a travesty if this production did not have a life beyond. It received one of the warmest responses I’ve seen in the Royal auditorium and I wholeheartedly recommend it! (In fact I am quite tempted to book for “Does Your Mother Come from Kettering?”)

Review – The Years Between, Royal, Northampton, 10th February

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The Years Between is a rather long-forgotten play by Daphne du Maurier, that takes place during the Second World War and originally produced in 1944. Thus it’s a new experience for everyone who will see it so it feels rather like going to see a brand new play. However, the serenely beautiful set welcomes us to a world of comfortable writing desks, sky high bookcases, elegant French windows and a reassuringly crunchy gravel drive outside. All it needs is a nanny and a well behaved nine year old boy and the picture is complete. We are definitely in 1942 not 2011.

But there are many similarities between that era and our own. Admittedly we don’t have to scrap the railings for salvage, send our favourite books for pulp or knit balaclavas to help the war effort, but we do send our loved ones overseas to fight in wars and sometimes we don’t see them come home.

Diana Wentworth is at the centre of this comfortable home, with loving son, devoted nanny, reliably solid cousin at the farm, and (presumably) loving husband overseas. So when he is lost at sea she faces the crisis of what-to-do; and she chooses action. She replaces her husband as the sitting MP; she immerses herself in progressive politics, playing a part in improving education and housing; she falls in love with the cousin. Then she discovers she is not a widow after all. I’m not going to tell you any more of the plot, for obvious reasons. But what a dilemma! And it could easily happen today.

Indeed it is a really engrossing story. At the interval Mrs Chrisparkle was positively intrigued at the realisation that she had absolutely no idea how Diana’s tale was going to end. It’s an excellent piece of story-telling with many relevant themes for today. Is it reasonable for someone who has been away for a long time to expect nothing has changed? How do you reconcile a couple with politically reactionary ideas and progressive ideas? Which is greater – the love for your country of the love for your partner? And do you regret the way you spent The Years Between?

At the heart of the production is Marianne Oldham’s performance as Diana. You can instantly see on her first appearance that she makes a lively juxtaposition to the careworn nanny, the anxious son and the reliably dull cousin. She is a go-getter. No nonsense, but caring with it. She wants to do the best for everyone, including herself. Marianne Oldham expresses Diana’s personality perfectly – you really feel that you get under her skin and know what she is thinking even before she has said anything. It’s a lively, entertaining but also sensitive performance.

And the perfect foil for that is Gerald Kyd as Michael, a scarred and embittered character as a result of his war experience (although you get the feeling he was always a hard man to like); by turn petulant, reasonable, selfish, kindly. He’s totally convincing and also conveys the character into the auditorium with authority and understanding.

The supporting cast is also extremely effective; I particularly enjoyed David Verrey as Sir Ernest Foster, the cabinet minister and family friend, who strikes just the right tone of wealthy arrogant self-indulgence without ever becoming a caricature.The substantial role of Robin, the son, was performed on the night we saw it by Luke Nunn and he took it with gusto – confident, amusing, clearly fully integrated with the rest of the cast as an equal.

A very satisfying evening, full of insight and provocative themes. Catch it while you can.

PS Mrs Chrisparkle and I normally have a glass of wine on arrival and another in the interval. We really appreciated the idea of the barman who suggested we buy a bottle, had a glass each beforehand, and in the interval the remainder of the bottle was waiting for us in a nice big ice bucket with two glasses. It really felt quite glamorous and celebratory!

Royal and Derngate Northampton Subscription Season Launch

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So we had the launch party for the Royal and Derngate’s Subscription Season in the Royal theatre last Thursday evening. Great to whet your appetite for what the Royal’s got coming up for the year. Artistic Director Laurie Sansom introduced various directors and performers who will be on stage during the year ahead and it was a tantalising concoction.

The first thing they’ve got planned is The Years Between by Daphne du Maurier which sounds like it will be a meaty experience; Kate Saxon the director and two members of the cast spoke enthusiastically about their rehearsal process and it certainly made me look forward to the play, as it isn’t one with which I am familiar at all.

Diary of a Nobody was next, and Robert Daws read an amusing extract from the play. It’s being directed by the same guy who directed Travels with my Aunt last year and that was a very inventive and lively production, so this should be good too. I miss Aunt Augusta’s tweets. She was a bit of a girl, really.

In Praise of Love is a 1970s Rattigan play with which I am not familiar, but it sounds like it will be very promising. I enjoyed seeing his last play Cause Celebre in 1977 so I’m well aware he’s not just a 1930s/40s kind of guy, although those early plays are very entertaining too. “Il a des idées au-dessus de sa gare”. I’m all for more Rattigan. Bring it on.

I’m very much looking forward to Hamlet the Musical; we had a song from Hamlet himself, and if it is anything to go by, this should be a complete hoot. I’m not concerned about being a Shakespeare purist, I’m sure the original tragedy will survive this show. I met Hamlet afterwards, he didn’t entirely blend in with the rest of the crowd wearing his Comedy Dane outfit but I thought he was a thoroughly decent chap going by the name of Jack Shalloo and I’m sure he will deliver a palpable hit.

Eden End is the next show, a J B Priestley play, again one I’ve not seen, and I don’t think I would normally jump at the chance to see it, but I am confident that it will be ace as it is directed by Northampton’s very own Laurie Sansom. I’ve had a quick flick through my copy of the play and it seems fine on first sight. My favourite Priestley play is Dangerous Corner and I learned at this launch that Mr S has directed that play previously too, so that’s good enough credentials for me.

It’s a long season isn’t it. We’re now looking ahead to autumn. Two Gentlemen of Verona being performed by RashDash, a physical theatre company. They weren’t there on the night but we saw a video of them at work and it looks fascinating. I couldn’t quite see yet how their style would suit the Two Gentlemen but I like the idea of its being staged in modern Milan with models and catwalks. We’ll have to see.

The last of the series is The Go-Between; one of my favourite films. This is now conceived as a musical which made me slightly nervous, because the only music that I associate with it is Michel Legrand’s haunting film soundtrack. However, one actor whose name I regret I didn’t catch, came forward and sang a song from it, and it wouldn’t have been out of place in Sondheim’s Company – intricate and delicate. I have high hopes.

So I’m predicting (and indeed hoping for) a year of more ups than downs.

I was trying to think of what I would like to see in a “fantasy” Royal subscription season. I’d like to see Laurie Sansom do some Pinter as he is so good at getting the best out of a complete ensemble. The Birthday Party would be a treat. I thought some Orton would also be good. I can imagine a farcical and daring production of What the Butler Saw on the Royal stage. Actors from 2009’s Ayckbourn season would be great doing that. I’d never seen any Eugene O’Neill until 2009’s Beyond the Horizon but I read all his plays when I was a teenager and I’d love to see a production of Mourning Becomes Electra. I’m sure the R&D could do it. I’d also love to see a revival of Peter Nichols’ Poppy but the Royal is probably a bit small for that. Lots more ideas bubbling under the surface of my brain, but I’ll stop boring you now.

Review – Admission One Shilling, Royal, Northampton, 15th January

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When Patricia Routledge was young she saw one of Myra Hess’ famous wartime piano concerts, usually held at the National Gallery; and this charming entertainment involves Miss Routledge seated comfortably at a table whilst pianist Piers Lane enhances the tale of Myra Hess and her concerts with delicately played piano interspersions.

I knew nothing about Myra Hess. In fact, I think I thought with a surname like that she was related to Rudolf and was probably a spy or something. Quite the contrary. Using Myra Hess’ own words compiled by her great-nephew, Patricia Routledge conveys her spirit with superb enunciation in a classically British style. Amongst a number of anecdotes, one particularly comes to mind: Myra Hess tells of the expert performer of German Lieder, who wanted to cancel her concert as she believed no one would have wanted to hear the German language during the war. Myra Hess convinced her to go ahead with the concert and on the day the performer was greeted with the warmest of standing ovations. A simple story, but one that is delicately heartwarming.

Patricia Routledge is, as you would expect, crystal clear of voice, allowing Myra Hess’ very proper and gentle humour to surface 70 years on, commanding the stage even though she is seated to one side throughout. Piers Lane plays the music splendidly, but unobtrusively – it is always Miss Routledge who is in control.

At just an hour without an interval it doesn’t make a complete evening’s entertainment, but it is nevertheless most enjoyable and educational.