House of Ghosts - The Lowry


THEY’RE big shoes to fill, I heard a man in the audience say to his companion as I headed for an interval drink.

While it was very much the tail end of the conversation, he was referring to John Thaw, no doubt, the iconic actor who played Inspector Morse on our TV screens.

While, unlike many millions of fans, I never watched the series on the small screen. But Tom Chambers makes a hugely credible Morse, bringing out a more vulnerable side to the much loved character in a very watchable performance.

Accompanied as ever by his sidekick Lewis, played by an excellent Tachia Newall, the classical music and real ale loving cop finds himself investigating a mysterious death that takes place during a production of Hamlet.

While there’s no doubting the quality of Alma Cullen’s script, its essential the audience enters the Lowry prepared to listen and concentrate as this is a story with many twists and turns, giving theatregoers a flavour of how difficult a detective’s job must be.

The central character also provides a refreshing alternative to the way policemen are portrayed on the small and the big screen.

Inspector Morse, let’s face it, far more refined than Jack Regan, the cop role that made Thaw famous in The Sweeney.

The twists and turns aren’t the only surprises though. with Chambers and Newall retreatng us to a spectacular party piece post curtain call.

Lasting just a few seconds, it felt like the briefest of nods to Chambers’ Strictly Come Dancing days.

Until April 11, Tickets are available from 0343 208 6000 or www.thelowry,com.

Star rating - 3.5 out of 5.

Private Lives - Royal Exchange Theatre


Steve John Shepherd and Jill Halfpenny as Elyot and Amanda.

IMAGINE your horror when you go on your honeymoon only to discover your ex-partner, who you enjoyed a classic love/hate relationship with, has booked exactly the same romantic getaway.

So it is with Elyot and Amanda in Noel Coward’s still brilliant Private Lives, a Michelin star comedy that provides the perfect antidote to the gloomy times in which we currently live.

Both have made spectacularly wrong choices when it come to their partners, with Elyot having chosen to marry the incurably irritating Sibyl while Amanda has chosen Victor, a doting husband who also seems t have had some sort of charisma bypass.

Elyot and Amanda’s chance meeting is the catalyst for passionate rows and the most memorable physical fracas, which I have no intention of divulging here.

Steve John Shepherd and Jill Halfpenny make for the most appealing of double acts as Elyot and Amanda, displaying an exemplary comic timing matched by Daniel Millar and Shazia Nicholls as Victor and Sibyl.

From start to finish Blanche McIntyre’s production is a perfectly paced and pitched absolute hoot and its remarkable how fresh Private Lives still sounds.

This is shaping up to be the most memorable season for a very long time at a theatre that’s been entertaining us for the past half century.

Productions of this calibre deserve sell out runs. I for one, could quite willingly, watch it again.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5. Tickets are available from www.royalexchange.co.uk.

Photo - Johan Persson.

Allo Allo - Sale and Altrincham Musical Theatre


Wayne Holt as Rene by Derek Stuart Cole.

WHEN Allo Allo was on our TV screens it passed me by just how good the BBC sitcom actually was, with a script full of quick wit and the perfect amount of sauciness.

To me at a time when I was hooked on new comedy it struck me as old school and something you’re parents or even grandparents would enjoy.

After sitting through this flawless production by SAMT I’m more than happy to count myself as a convert.

Director Ed Prophet must have thought all his birthdays had come at once as the first rehearsal got under way with every cast member displaying a sense of comic timing that would certainly not be out of place on a professional stage.

It feels wrong to single out individual performances for critical praise for there simply aren’t any bad ones from a cast determined to make us laugh in these troubled timmes.

Wayne Holt is a natural Rene, the hen pecked cafe owner who dreams of a romantic getaway with his pouting and sexy waitress Yvette, played to perfection by Emma Rostaig. Together they make for the perfect double act.

The setting for the stage version revolves around an establishment run by Rene in France in Second World War and this establishment is equally as popular with German officers as it is with the locals and everyone gets into a right state when it appears Hitler himself is due to visit the area.

But the plot isn’t primarily why you should primarily by tickets for this perfectly paced comedy. Its to enjoy the exploits of the buttoned up Gestapo oficer Herr Flick played by Joe Farina and Private Helga Greenhart as they try to forge a romantic relationship with one another. The scene in which Helga tries to seduce him in some sexy underwear is particularly hilarious.

One of the characters who I do remember from the original TV show - apart from Rene and Yvette and Rene’s dragon of a wife - was Officer. Crabtree was an English spy undercover pretending he could speak French. It was a role tailor made for the very tall Joe Vincent.

The intimate auditorium of Altrincham Little Theatre is the ideal setting for Allo Allo and I was certainly struck by how I felt a part of the ensuing chaos unfolding on stage.

I do hope this production sells out its run. Make ‘em laugh, the old saying goes. This is definitely a case of mission accomplished by a company dripping with talent.

Top quality theatre on your doorstep. You lucky people.

Until March 29. Tickets are available from samtheatre.co.uk.

Star rating - 5 out of 5.

Pomona - Altrincham Garrick Studio


THE front page of the programme depicts the unsettling image of a figure of some sort who’s half alien, half human.

However, if you were shocked or disturbed by this grotesque image, just wait until you take the journey through dystopian Manchester, a world far away from the sleek modern image of a city with a skyline full of towering buildings and all encompassing trendiness.

The story follows Ollie, desperate to track down a twin sister who has gone missing. All the answers seem to lead to Pomona, a real life piece of derelict land near Cornbrook.

Ollie’s mission is dangerously horrendous and includes a harrowing spell in the sex industry, so well played by Natalie Leaper. She really makes the audience care about her and her experience making a blue movie that hits whole new depths of depravity.

I also really enjoyed Jay Wise-Martin as Charlie, aka the world’s world security guard if such a title existed. Wise-Martin’s sense of comic timing was exemplary as he brings to life a character who you could only describe as having a very unique view of the world around him.

Charlie is by far far the most interesting character for me.

I’ve seen numerous musicals directed by Mark Goggins and productions of this quality remind me of just how multi-talented he is. Pomona is so darkly affecting its sure to spark a conversation or two either on your drive home or in the theatre bar enjoying a post performance drink.

Strong language doesn’t really bother me in plays or TV dramas. However, the references to bodily functions is irritating and unecessary.

If you’re looking for a night out Pomona is definitely for you even if its not a night of cosy, flowery entertainment.

Until March 29. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 3.5 out of 5.

Photo - Martin Ogden.


New Dawn Fades - The Lowry


WHEN Joy Division released their debut album I was something of a square when it came to my own tastes in music.

It would be a further three years before I found myself appreciating their importance, having also been oblivious to the punk era that preceded them and the much needed kick up the backside it gave to the industry.

Joy Division carried on the ethos championed by the likes of the Sex Pistols and were rqually determined to prove Manchester could stand on its own two feet and no longer had to rely on what had previously been a London centric business.

The work of Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Steve Morris is celebrated in New Dawn Fades, which also gives us a brief history lesson as to how Manchester was born.

The afore mentioned history lesson is a little protracted in the first act which is nowhere near as impactful as act two, when we remember the battles Curtis had, from his epilepsy and depression to a failing marriage and an all consuming obsession with musical success.

Josh Lonsdale gives a complete performance as Curtis, a musician who seemed far more cerebral than others in the industry. Although the short life of this creative genius ended far too soon, Lonsdale resists the opportunity to play the late Ian Curtis as an object of pity.

For different reasons, Gaz Hayden and Kivan Dene are equally enjoyable as Hooky, bassist in the band and manager Rob Gretton, who turn mouthing off into an art form. And while he isn’t a dead ringer physically for Anthony H Wilson, Brian Gorman captures perfectly the mannerisms of Anthony H Wilson, including his penchant for wearing a pair of glasses on the tip of his nose.

Its fair to say you’ll probably enjoy New Dawn Fades more if you like Joy Division, the group who became New Order or the Manchester music scene. But I’m forever drawn to musicians like Ian Curtis and they way they defy stereotype and write songs with profoundly affecting lyrics and sound just as good more than 40 years on from the original release.

Until March 4, when there will also be a performance at 2pm. Tickets are available from 0343 208 6000 or www.thelowry.com.

Star rating - ****

The Mirror Crack'd - Altrincham Garrick


FEW of us can resist the temptation to play detective, safe in the knowledge that whatever we decide won’t impact the real world.

And so it is in The Mirror Crack’d, originally from the pen of the queen of suspense, Agatha Christie and adapted for the stage so effectively by Rachel Wagstaff.

When a suspicious death graduates to becoming a murder, Chief Inspector Dermot Craddock travels to St Mary Mead, a sleepy village where his aunt, who just happens to be the iconic amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple, lives.

He does this in a bid to tap into her powers of deduction as the investigation he’s leading has ground to a halt.

Jonathan Black and Sarah Kirk are perfect for both roles and make a convincing sort of double act its good fun to see Craddock become increasingly irritated as she upstages him as he tries to solve the crime.

For me, this is Kirk’s best performance at this theatre and she plays Miss M with just the right amount of prim and properness.

While The Mirror Crack’d takes us back in time, the story touches on one or two seropus issues and the characters also feel very real and represent a refreshing antidote to the cardboard cut outs who clutter this particular genre.

Steph Niland exudes quite a presence as the movie star Marina Gregg, shooting a movie in a place that’s every inch middle England and Ros Greenwood is equally good as the epitomy of old school English snobbery, Dolly Bantry. She is horrendous.

Mike Shaw has been running the wardrobe team here for nearly 40 years. However, he’s also a fine and confident director who has ensured the Garrick has a sure fire hit on its hands.

Enjoy.

Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrincham garrick.co.uk.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5.

Photo - Martin Ogden.

Road - Royal Exchange Theatre


Johnny Vegas as Scullery - photo by Ros Kavanagh.

CAN comedian Johnny Vegas act?

That question was well and truly on my mind as I made my way to the RET, on a chilly night in February.

After only ever seen Vegas making people laugh I can say a resounding yes to that particular question, for the role of Scullery, the narrator in Jim Cartwright’s northern masterpiece could have been written just for him.

Even if Scullery, our unofficial tour guide along a grim northern street, is, thanks to an angry, affecting and at times uncompromising script, isn’t always a barrel of laughs.

The inhabitants of the Road in question live in a dystopian world in which drink, drugs and meaningless sexual flings are their only means of escape, their flirting with pleasure giving them nothing more than a temporary reprievre.

Sir Tom Courtenay puts in a memorable performance through a short film in which his Jerry, looking jaded and fed up with life, laments the passing of the ability for his generation to flit from one job to the next and also mourns the passing of chivalry.

The performance of Lucy Beaumont and Lesley Joseph, who, like the rest of the cast play a variety of different roles are also very watchable. Birds of a Feather star Joseph is just as much t home in this northern dystopia as she is in the cossetted world of sitcom.

For me, the most moving part of the play comes courtesy of Jake Dunn as Joey, who has taken to his bed Lennon like.

But rest assured, this isn’t an unrelenting evening of doom and gloom and one of the funniest scenes comes courtesy of the attempted seduction of a soldier so sozzled he can’t stand up unaided.

Director Selina Cartmell, designer Leslie Travers and the rest of the creatives have combined to create one of the most immersive theatrical experiences I’ve ever seen.

I’ve never been a spoiler of surprises and have no intention of starting now.

Now here’s the bad news. this production is sold out and tickets are by returns only. Anyone lucky enough to have them are certain to enjoy this Road trip.

Until March 14. Tickets, returns only, are available from 0161 833 9833 or online at www.royalexchange.co.uk.

Star rating - 4.5 out of 5.

Quiz - Altrincham Garrick


AH yes, good old audience participation.

The good news is fans of it don’t have to attend a panto or an evening of stand up comedy to take part in it.

Quiz is inspired by the true story of Major Charles Ingram, convicted of duping Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, aling with his accomplices, of the jackpot prize of a million pounds.

Charles and his wife Diana epitomise the phrase middle England and in real life they were given suspended sentences for their part in the fraud.

But in James Graham’s witty and at times poignant play - even I was initially taken in by their veneer of respectability - the audience via some sort of easy to work gadget ultimately get to decide whether they were innocent or guilty.

Tom Broughton and Melanie Beswick are very convincing as the Major and his wife and Ben Walsh makes for a very watchable Chris Tarrant, even managing to capture the TV presenter’s unmistakable laugh with uncanny authenticity.

Quiz is a play of two halves it has too be said, with an over sized chunk of act one remembering old game shows like Bullseye when the prizes were unbelievably naff compared to today’s programmes like Millionaire where its possible to win a life changing sum of money.

Forgive me, who could really get excited by the prospect of walking away with a new vacuum cleaner?

Daniel Ellis is great fun as the warm up man and he enjoys am instant rapport with the audience. Ellis is a natural and he teaches us when to express our emotions, how to whoop and gasp in all the right places.

Director Joe Meighan can add Quiz to a long list of theatrical triumphs at the Garrick, taking the company into new territory and so attracting a new amd younger audience.

Long make it continue.

Star rating - 3.5 our of 5.

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

Photo by Martin Ogden.