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Banter at a canter in odds-on winner

LADIES’ DAY, Oldham Coliseum, to May 25
AMANDA Whittington’s plays often seem to set off at an enjoyable canter then go off the pace about the half way stage; it takes a strong director to keep them on course.

The analogy is more than appropriate for this play — a not-always-comic, fish-out-of-water story of fish factory girls and their glammed-up day at the races.

To celebrate her not-quite-retirement, Pearl (Annie Sawle — one of the two members of cast from

Date published: 17/05/2013

Electric return to form

OMD, Manchester Academy

IT’S been 34 years since OMD released their first single, but on the evidence of this concert, they haven’t aged a day.

The electro-pop pioneers — still in their original line-up — have returned with their best new album since their early Eighties heyday.

This event was so joyous, so uplifting, at times it resembled a...

Date published: 14/05/2013

Jumbo soars to new heights

A DOLL’S HOUSE, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to June 1

OLIVIER award-nominated actress Cush Jumbo is here united for the third time with Royal Exchange director Greg Hersov, and again the result is remarkably engaging.

As with their previous collaborations on “Pygmalion” and “As You Like It” the combination of Hersov’s years...

Date published: 10/05/2013

A blast to relive the past

The Big Reunion, MEN Arena

The MEN Arena was packed with nostalgia and childhood memories on Saturday night as thousands relived their youth.

The Big Reunion TV series has reawakened a love of cheesy Nineties pop - mine included - and the show was everything it promised to be: fun, flirty and a flashback.

The six bands – 5ive (or is it 4our these days?), 911,...

Date published: 07/05/2013

Teenage parties can be bad for you

ABIGAIL’S PARTY, Lowry, Salford

IT makes you wonder what Mike Leigh’s comedy would have been like if Sue, mother of the 15-year-old, never-seen party hostess Abigail, had just told her daughter no and stayed at home for the night.

For it is the presence of the middle-class divorced architect’s wife (Emily Raymond), slumming it with neighbours Beverly...

Date published: 30/04/2013

Little Voice has such a big heart

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Manchester Opera House

THE difficulty with staging “Little Voice” is attempting to eclipse the iconic performances that made the 1998 film version a hit.

Who better to take the helm of that task than the Olivier Award-winning play’s creator Jim Cartwright, who has stepped into the shoes of director to bring the...

Date published: 30/04/2013

All the right notes, in the right order

Halle Orchestra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.
A MESMERIC performance by a top pianist was the main treat at Saturday’s penultimate concert in the Halle Orchestra’s 2012-13 Pops Concert programme.

The outstanding Tom Poster, three times a BBC Proms performer, took centre stage to play the Grieg Piano Concerto and carried off the entire performance with panache....

Date published: 30/04/2013

Memorable Mozart a joy

OLDHAM Choral Society’s performance of Mozart’s Requiem and Gounod’s Messe Solennelle de Sainte-Cecile at the Royal Northern College of Music was an outstanding triumph.

The seldom-heard Gounod Mass attracted listeners from as far as Coventry and was well worth the journey.

Under conductor Nigel P Wilkinson, Oldham Choral Society and the East...

Date published: 26/04/2013

It’s the cats’ meow

CATS, George Lawton Hall, Mossley
THIS Lloyd-Webber show is over 30 years old, which you can tell by the many pairs of legwarmers on show, and sufficient Lycra onesies to have kept a reasonably-sized theatrical outfitter in business for another year.

And of course the deeper you go into this most mysteriously successful of plotless, whimsical, mumbo-jumbo musicals, the...

Date published: 23/04/2013

Family at war saved by strong cast

Rutherford and Son, Lowry, Salford
WHEN this was a major hit, in 1912, it was something of a triumph for irony: the entirely male national press praised the early feminist storyline in ways that made it clear none of them at first thought a woman could have written it.

But Githa Sowerby’s drama, partly based on her own family and now one of the National...

Date published: 19/04/2013

Plater’s war-time tale scores a direct hit

BLONDE BOMBSHELLS OF 1943, Coliseum, Oldham
THE world is a slightly sadder place without Alan Plater in it. The late playwright entertained us for years with gentle, humorous, quirky and often musical stories — of which this is a prime example.

Adapted from one of his dozens of TV dramas, “Bombshells” hit the stage in 2006 and has played to packed...

Date published: 19/04/2013

More than just comedy strippers

The Full Monty, Lowey, Salford
SIMON Beaufoy rewrites his movie of the famous steelworkers-turned-strippers story for the stage and the result, surprisingly, isn’t so much raucous and rude as something you might think of as “Calendar Boys”.

The show — not a musical, but with between-scenes Eighties pop — has the same feelgood, warm-hearted...

Date published: 16/04/2013

Cast propels comic success

Twelfth Night, Lowry
OVER recent years the all-male Propeller company’s founder, Edward Hall, has shown himself to be not only a fine director of Shakespeare in general, but a master of Shakespeare’s comedies in particular.

His 2011 “Comedy of Errors” remains one of the most enjoyably daft 400-year-old plays yet seen.

Here the humour is more...

Date published: 12/04/2013

Cannibals not such a tasty treat

CANNIBALS, Royal Exchange, Manchester
THE Exchange has gone from its record-breaking run of “To Kill a Mockingbird” to this rather different beastly entertainment.

And perhaps wisely, this one is 1hr 50min without an interval: not that it plays better that way, but it doesn’t give people much chance to leave at an interval.

It’s not that...

Date published: 09/04/2013

Comic rapper is a delight

DOC BROWN
The Lowry, Salford

WHEN this rapper reached his thirties clearly he did not foresee he would be making hundreds chuckle with his music.

The Londoner is at a crossroads in his career and can still appear embarrassed to be making audiences laugh with his material.

Once a rising rap artist, Doc Brown, aka Ben Smith, collaborated with the likes of Mark...

Date published: 09/04/2013

Curtain up on the Coliseum’s summer season

OLDHAM Coliseum has a spring in its step as the company launches its new summer season.

There will be a trip to the races with Amanda Whittington’s comedy “Ladies’ Day” directed by Gareth Tudor Price.

Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” is next in line, bringing a weekend in the country filled with cocktails, country houses, chaos and...

Date published: 19/03/2013

Mary’s magical tribute to stage legends

Beyond the Rainbow, Bridgewater Hall
JUDY Garland and Liza Minnelli are two of the hardest-ever acts to follow.

But Mary Carewe certainly gave them a run for their money when she wowed her audience on Saturday with a spectacular musical tribute to the mother and daughter superstars.

Saturday’s show was the latest in the Halle’s pops season — and was...

Date published: 19/03/2013

Sweet on Sugar Daddies

SUGAR DADDIES, Oldham Coliseum
ALAN Ayckbourn’s dark comedy has waited around almost a decade since its early productions, but who better to revive it than one-time Ayckbourn collaborator Robin Herford, back at the Coliseum for his annual, welcome visit.

Ayckbourn has always dealt in heightened and exaggerated reality, and so it is here with a story that borders on...

Date published: 15/03/2013

Musical Marmite

MACK AND MABEL, Ashton Operatic Society at Oldham Coliseum
TRY as I might to like this Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart musical, the composers make it quite difficult.

Written in 1974, it is old-fashioned enough in style to have come from the Fifties but has distinctly Seventies subject-matter — namely the long, on-off affair between silent comedy producer Mack Sennett...

Date published: 01/03/2013

A Brecht of fresh air from translator

MOTHER COURAGE, Library Company, Lowry Quays
IT’S not just me, is it? Bertolt Brecht really is the only playwright who can make a play about the 17th century Thirty Years War seem longer than the war, isn’t he?

Brecht’s influence was simple: he was to stuffy European theatre between the wars what Osborne was to stuffy British theatre in the Fifties...

Date published: 27/02/2013

Strong cast in a simple triumph

To Kill a Mockingbird, Royal Exchange, Manchester

PERHAPS because it has been a set text for years, or perhaps simply because the story about childhood, justice and the harsh world of adulthood are a potent package, Harper Lee’s famous tale rarely fails to be a major draw.

And so it is with this fine Royal Exchange production by guest director Max Webster....

Date published: 26/02/2013

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