Bleak Expectations - Altrincham Garrick


Dickens with a difference - Bleak Expectations.

THERE are some memorable performances to enjoy in this send up of all things Dickensian, with all the actors displaying an exemplary comedy timing and seemingly boundless energy.

While there are funny bits, genuine belly laughs are thin on the ground in Mark Evans’ script.

Certain visual gags are also repeated, make them lose their comic impact, with a string of characters falling on their backside.

This is a hugely talented cast and I would like to see just what they could have done with better material.

As Pip Bin, I suppose you could call him the hero of the piece, Luke O’Hara delivers a performance that is ideal for a professional stage and it’s impossible not to warm to Tim Cooper as Pip’s school friend Harry Biscuit.

There’s a natural camaraderie between Pip and his ally.

Watching this tale made me feel like I was watching a panto for grown ups at times, as the play gives a substantial nod to two iconic novels, Bleak House and Great Expectations.

When I say ‘adult pantomime’ I’m not using the phrase in the smutty sense but for me the funniest lines come courtesy of a character who can turn in her fertile imagination the most mundane of acts into something with more sensual overtones.

Fiona Primrose is perfectly cast as Pip’s sister Poppy - Evans loves word play - and Hugh Everett is outstanding as Thomas Bin.

Director Pete Brassington ensures his is a production with plenty of pace and both he and the cast have a natural aptitude for comedy, a genre needed as never before, in our troubled and tormented world.

Until October 4. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - ***

Photo by Martin Ogden.

A Chorus Line - Altrincham Garrick


Not to be missed - A Chorus Line.

IT’S hard to believe this show is 50 years old. Despite its age, its power to move, amuse, entertain and exhilarate remains as strong as ever thanks to a sumptuous score and a very stirring dance finale that raised the roof at the Garrick on opening night.

While some of the characters may appear a little too American for some, this musical has a huge heart and even Zach, the sergeant major of a musical director has a softer more caring side.

A Chorus Line lifts the lid on a group of dancers desperate to seize their moment in the spotlight and make their dreams of stardom a reality.

Joe Meighan’s production deserves to play to packed houses and yet a contact at the theatre told me on Monday night that not all the tickets have been sold which is a total mystery to me as this is one in a very long line of Meighan productions that re-defines amateur theatre.

The Garrick’s dynamic young artistic director even found time to treat us to a commanding performance as Zach and he’s more than ably supported by Mark Goggins who can add this production of A Chorus Line to a seemingly endless list of musical triumphs.

I also think even Victor Meldrew’s more miserable twin would be humming One Singular Sensation, the show’s most famous number for me, as they drift off into the night.

Then we have one of my favourites At The Ballet, which takes us on the most memorable journeys into the utopian world in the more traditional aspects of the much loved genre. Even a cynical old journalist like me was moved by the dream like quality of this particular scene.

But this isn’t just the Meighan and Goggins show. The entire cast totally immerse themselves in their respective roles and anyone expecting weak performance is sure to be disappointed.

Particularly memorable was Helen Swain as Sheila and Caitlyn Brady certainly earns the audience’s empathy as Zach’s old flame, Cassie. What is particularly exciting is the amount of young talent at the Garrick’s disposal which guarantees a very bright future for the company.

Unmissable, high quality entertainment.

Until September 14. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or you can book online at www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5.

Photo by Martin Ogden.

Shelagh Delaney's seminal classic to launch Garrick's season of Manc plays

IT beggars belief that Shelagh Delaney was just 19 - yes 19 - when she wrote A Taste of Honey.

As a play it remains profoundly affecting and warmly funny and an ideal choice with which to launch Altrincham Garrick’s season of plays with a Manchester connection.

A Taste of Honey is the ideal choice for the Garrick’s wonderful little Lauriston Studio and, at the time of writing, there were few tickets left for the opening night.

It run from September 23-28 and anyone interested in booking tickets should call 0161 928 1677 or you can book online at www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

The Addams Family Musical - The Lowry


IF you thought you’re family is odd, I suggest you spend an evening with this lot.

Also, spare a thought or two for Lucas, the quintessential all American boy, complete with baseball jacket, who harbours an ambition to marry into this ghoulish brood.

The love of his life just happens to be Wednesday who carries a crossbow for fun and has torturing her brother Pugsley on her list of her favourite pastimes.

But Pugsley actually enjoys his sister’s torment because this is all done for comedic effect and hates the possibility of his sister leaving the family home.

When Lucas and Wednesday decide to set up a meet the parents evening at the Addams’ rambling and spooky mansion the scene is set for some comedy gold because Mal and Alice are the complete opposite to their potential in laws.

Mal is staid and boring and Alice quietly aches for a bit more spice in what has become for her a soporific, trial of a marriage. Gomez and Morticia Addams, Wednesday’s mom and dad, are the complete opposite.

This is captured in a fabulous dance routine involving Ricardo Alfonso and Alexandra Burke who totally immerse themselves in their respective roles as experts in the art of comic timing.

Burke seizes on the opportunity to shine in act two, which contains the best songs.

The same is also true of Clive Rowe as Uncle Fester and Dickon Gough as the expressionless, zombie butler, Lurch.

As Alice though, Kara Lane exudes a terrific presence and for me, one of the finest singing voices in the entire cast.

It was also great to see some many children at the theatre with many girls in particular entering into the spirit of the show by dressing up as the most unlikely of heroines, Wednesday Addams. Youngsters are, let’s face it, the audiences of the future.

Then there were the big kids, too.

Great fun this, from start to finish.

Until August 16. The box office is on 0343 208 6000 and you can also book online at www.thelowry.com.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5.

Liberation - Royal Exchange Theatre


Not to be missed - Liberation at the Royal Exchange.

AS a teenager I can remember watching Boys from the Blackstuff on TV and being both shocked and angered by what I saw on the big screen because, having grown up in safe, suburban south Trafford I had no idea people lived like this.

It was deeply thought provoking and anger inducing and I felt exactly the same watching the world premiere of Liberation at the Royal Exchange.

The piece, which comes from the pen of Ntombizodwa Nyoni, takes us back to the Pan African Congress and the version of the event that took place in Manchester in 1945.

Delegates from all over the continent met to discuss how a brighter and more prosperous future could be secured for peoples still living with the appalling exploitation that was part and parcel of colonialism.

Nyoni’s script stirs up a variety of emotions while, at the same time, not seeming to play upon them and the most remarkable thing for me is that this, thematically, is a play of epicc proportions and yet, interval included, it’s just over two hours long.

I am not going to single out individual performances as this assumes there were bad ones which is simply not the case. The performances are beyond acting with each performer actually becoming the person they are playing, which is thanks to their considerable talent and the talent of director, Monique Touko.

In terms of my favourite characters it has to be the boxer Len Johnson, an athlete of mixed race whose mother has to endure the most appalling racist attacks at the hands of racist thugs.

I enjoyed this production immeasurably and I hope it attracts the audiences it undoubtedly deserves, more so than it did the day after press night, which I was unable to attend.

Brilliant, top quality theatre. Do not miss it.

Until July 26. Tickets are available from 0161 833 9833 or www.royalexchange.co.uk.

Star rating - *****

Vardy v Rooney The Wagatha Christie Trial - Altrincham Garrick


OF all the subjects I’ve ever studied, Law, an integral part of a journalist’s training, was by far the driest and most difficult.

The good news here is if the legal speak starts sapping the concentration, welcome relief comes courtesy of Robert Crumpton and Beverley Stuart-Cole as the football pundits passing an opinion or two on a court trial involving the wives of footballers Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy.

Crumpton plays a blinder - please forgive the pun - when he briefly plays Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy by conveying their unmistakable mannerisms while not remotely resembling either soccer star.

Neither of these portrayals are flattering. But both are hilarious.

Based on transcripts from the actual trial, we see Rebekah Vardy standing accused of leaking details of Coleen Rooney’s private life to the national press via social media.

While Parissa Zampanour and Lauren Brown are extremely watchable as Vardy and Rooney, the feuding wives, its impossible to really empathise with either of them as this is a play that transports us to an alien world, a world which will forever attract nothing more than a morbid curiosity from mere mortals like me.

John Keen is equally good as Hugh Tomlinson QC, convincing as the silver tongued barrister who spends most of act one analysing Rebekah Vardy’s testimony with the microscopic precision with which his character’s profession is inextricably linked.

But in an age in which social media is an important part of so many people’s lives, plays like this are very, very relevant.

Until June 7. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 3.5 out of 5.

Photo by Martin Ogden.

Of Mice and Men - Altrincham Garrick


LENNIE Small, one of modern literature’s most famous misfits, is a grown man with the hopes and fluffy dreams of a small child.

Unfortunately for him though, he’s also trapped in a country in the grip of the Great Depression, surrounded by fellow characters who are, by and large, unable or unwilling to make sense of behaviour they simply dismiss as crazy.

Luckily for Lennie he has George, his unofficially appointed parent and guardian to look after him, a man who frequently indulges his roses around the front door fantasy and his deep seated hopes of a happier future.

By rights, Joseph Meighan’s production should be re-named the Pete Brassington Show for he is perfect as Lennie in this stage version of Steinbeck’s classic novel.

Brassington’s performance makes you care deeply about the plight of him and George, played by Michael Gallagher, and if you’re coming to the story for the first time, you’ll be hoping for a happy ending.

Lennie finds a sort of kindred spirit in Crooks, forced to eat, sleep and fill his spare time in his own living quarters away from his fellow workers because he’s black. Garrick debutant Joseph Jacobs delivers a deeply affecting performance that’s sure to bring a flurry of future roles for a gifted actor.

Both he and Lennie are treated as outsiders.

I also liked Natalie Boyd as Curley’s sort of flirty wife, a woman dreaming of escaping the austere life on a ranch for the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

For me, Of Mice and Men works better a novel. But that said, this for an audience, is an absorbing, poignant and tragic watch.

Until May 18. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 3.5 out of 5.

Photo by Martin Ogden.

Little Gem - Lauriston Studio at Altrincham Garrick


A Little Gem of a play - photo by Martin Ogden.

WHEN the writing and the acting is as good as this, you simply don’t want plays like Little Gem to end.

Elaine Murphy writes from the heart and her script is at times deeply emotional while she doesn’t seem to overtly play on your emotions.

Particularly moving was Kay’s battle with grief as she struggles to come to terms with the death of her husband.

Murphy writes like a painter painting pictures to the extent that you’re there to share her anguish, thanks in no small part to a very fine piece of acting by Tracy Burns.

But Burns is hilarious when as Kay she embarks on a mission to spice up her life in the bedroom.

Watching this play you’re sure to experience the whole gamut of human emotions, like when Amber is forced to grow up fast while still seeking some sort of solace by cuddling the furry toys on her bedspread.

The role is perfect for Chloe Arrowsmith who really made me care about Amber and her uncertain future. Equally empathetic is Kathryn Worthington as Lorraine, struggling to come to terms with an ex husband riddled with problems.

The audience is sure to care deeply about all three women, hoping their strong family ties give them the will to survive.

Director Meg Brassington’s flawless production has left me keen to find more of Murphy’s work and this at times intense and warmly witty play is an ideal choice for the Garrick’s little Lauriston Studio.

As Trafford swelters, the good news is the Lauriston Studio’s air conditioning system is in full working order.

Yet another reason for audiences not to miss this Little Gem of a production.

Until May 4. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5.



The Worst Witch - Altrincham Garrick


OVER the years I’ve endured numerous shows and films dubbed as having a strong family appeal, only to be deeply disappointed by what turns out to be cringeworthy, forgettable dross.

The Worst Witch, the musical inspired by Jill Murphy’s hugely popular characters and a score with a hum along mass appeal, certainly breaks that mould and is sure to leave children in the audience spellbound.

No pun intended.

We’re in a school for wannabe witches and with its sprinkling of gasp inducing special effects and engaging and likeable student characters, The Worst Witch provide a welcome dose of theatrical escapism in our troubled world.

Director and choreographer Kathleen Valentine’s rehearsals must have been sessions of unmitigated and unbridled enjoyment, working as she did with actors as talented as Helen Horridge aka the school’s principal Miss Cackle.

For me though, the most memorable performances come from Megan Sorrel, Paige Cunliffe, Georgina Brame, Sasha Carillo, Izzy Stuart Cole and Jo Myers as her pupils who had so much fun not acting their own age. I had a great deal of fun watching them, especially when they conspire to counter a plot to take over their school.

Sarah Reilly is also a revelation as Miss Bat.

Until April 17. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Rating - 3.5 out of 5.

Photo by Martin Ogden.