Company - Sale and Altrincham Musical Theatre at Altrincham Little Theatre


Company - Sondheim’s masterpiece.

STANDING on Piccadilly tram stop a few weeks ago there was a poster for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which seems to have been touring the country since time immemorial, along with other shows that have an instant box office appeal.

All these musicals have their place of course and they’re a great way of introducing children to the theatre by showing them entertainment doesn’t have to be screen shaped.

But in nearly 40 years as a reviewer I’ve only ever seen one production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, at the old and much loved Library Theatre in Manchester.

Sondheim uses his wit and genius to remind us the course of true love never ran smooth and relationships are built on compromise and accepting your partner, warts and all.

After seeing SAMT’s production, I fell in love with this brilliant show all over again with a talented company largely rising to the vocal challenges posed by an at times vocally taxing score.

It’s Robert’s birthday and apart from their presents his small army of friends have decided to club together to find him a partner and hopefully a future wife.

All of them are involved in a relationship of some kind and they feel Robert, or Bobby as he’s affectionately known, is missing out.

Tim Wood is quietly charismatic and engagingly likeable as the lone bachelor in question and I also really enjoyed Adam Garnett and Victoria Lewis whose good humoured sniping takes an equally harmless physical turn.

Eilidh Pollard is in show stealing form as Amy and I thought her character’s pre wedding nerves were so intense they would lead to spontaneous combustion during one of my favourite songs in the show, Getting Married Today.

Vikki Bullar seizes the opportunity to vocally shine when Joanne sings The Ladies Who Lunch, a number fused with perfectly targeted spite,

This is all a major achievement for director Edward Prophet and a company that has consistently proven there’s no such thing as forbidden musical territory for them.

While Sondheim’s scores are intricate and clever and demand audience’s attention, there’s nothing elitist about them and SAMT’s production is so good you’ll leave the theatre wanting more.

Anyone interested in booking tickets should visit samtheatre.co.uk or visit facebook.com/SAMTheatre.

Star rating - ****

Photo by Derek Stuart Cole.

A Man of No Importance - Lauriston Studio


IT’S not often you meet an Alfie Byrne, a man on a mission to share his deep seated love of culture with the passengers on his bus, allowing him to enjoy a sort of cult status as he takes the ‘r’ out of routine.

Alfie is a conductor on a well used route into 60’s Dublin. I can remember a driver who used to treat my journey as if he was piloting a plane to far flung, sun kissed shores.

But Alfie, the leading character in this moving, life affirming musical is far more than a culture junkie, as he battles draconian church leaders to bring a production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome to the amateur stage.

Our vulnerable hero is living a lie in far less enlightened times and the performance of Conor Collins, one of the best I’ve seen in 30 plus years of reviewing productions at Altrincham Garrick, ensures we the audience warm to him and are desperate he achieves his hopes and dreams.

Collins and his fellow cast members also make full use of a script which is written from the heart and avoids the predictable cliches and the cringeworthy.

I really liked Tom Broughton as Alfie’s ally in chief, Robbie Fay and Madeleine Healey who appears out of nowhere to spur Alfie’s theatrical dream. Will Teller also has quite a presence as Carney.

With no persuasion needed I would willingly watch this again thanks in no small part to director Barry Purves, equally accomplished at directing as he is to design.

In my previous life as a reviewer for the Messenger I was reluctant to give productions five stars too often because it can rener such adulation meaningless, but it would be churlish not to do so here.

I reviewed my first production here in 1987 - for me this is the best season yet.

Until March 30. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - *****

Photo - Martin Ogden.

Company preview - Sale and Altrincham Musical Theatre


I STARTED reviewing as a freelance nearly 40 years ago and I have only ever seen one production of Company, at the much loved Library Theatre in Manchester.

That was in the mid 90’s.

It’s a mystery that baffles me to this day. Certain shows do the rounds year after year without fail.

Although my affection is deep seated for the creations of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber et al, Company, for me, has a unique appeal that sets it apart from many other musicals.

The characters feel like real people its easy to engage with, including the show’s central character, Robert, a seemingly incurable bachelor whose friends make it their mission to find him that perfect match. His friends, on the other hand, are all involved in relationships.

Edward Prophet, the production’s director, said:

“SAMT has always been committed to bringing high quality and thought provoking theatre to our audiences and Company is no exception.

“Sondheim’s masterpiece is a witty, poignant and deeply insightful exploration of love, relationships and self-discovery.

“Our cast and our creative team have poured our hearts into this production and we can’t wait to share it with audiences.”

Sale and Altrincham Musical Theatre presents Company at Altrincham Little Theatre from March 26-29. Anyone interested in booking tickets should visit samtheatre.co.uk or facebook.com/SAMTheatre.

Oppenheimer - Altrincham Garrick


SOMETIMES its easy forget iconic figures are real people with all the strengths and weaknesses being a member of the human race brings with it.

So it is with the man they call the father of the atomic bomb, J Robert Oppenheimer, who led the project that led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These momentous events took place in the final throes of the Second World War and changed our world forever.

We are given a sense of what life would have been like for the man dubbed the father of the atom bomb in a play that is frank and yet non judgemental. Oppie, as he was known among his friends and colleagues, isn’t on trial here despite the devastating after effects of the project he ran.

Jonathan Higgs has quite a presence as Oppenheimer and I’m not just referring to his character’s sartorial strengths, with the enormously talented Higgs ensuring we hang on his every word of an outstanding and cleverly crafted script.

Other noteworthy performances Scarlet Newton as the troubled Jean, David Glover as Oppenheimer’s younger brother David and Mark Jephcott sounds every inch the military man as Leslie Groves.

The high standard of the acting is certainly a tribute to the hard work and dedication of director John Cunningham and co-director Carole Carr and I urge the Garrick to bring these two together again on future productions. Such a prospect is a mouth-watering one.

You could easily describe them as a dream team when it comes to the directing as they allow us audiences members to immerse ourselves in a remarkable and ambitious piece of writing without much effort on our part.

It seems wrong to single out individual performances for praise as there aren’t any bad ones here. The Garrick is the place to be at the moment with the theatre continues to re-define theatre which due to its consistent quality makes it impossible and insulting to describe it as amateur.

Oppenheimer is three hours long. But it didn’t feel like it and the time is sure to fly by, thanks to Tom Morton Smith’s script and some fine performances.

One reason why I like plays about important figures from the past is they have a certain mystique about them, living in those pre social media days.

Enjoy.

Until March 1. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating – *****

Photo by Martin Ogden


What If Only.

TWENTY fours on I am still racking my brains as to the reason or reasons behind Mrs Jarrett’s obsession with a dystopian world in Caryl Churchill’s play, Escaped Alone.

Her vision of gloom and hopelessness and inhumanity was, to put it mildly, the stuff of nightmares, and then some.

Maybe Churchill wanted her rantings an antidote to the refined and stereotypically English setting, as a group if friends sit in a sun lit back garden in suburbia somewhere, drinking tea and sharing their views on life and other things.

The setting made me feel like I was watching a sitcom - of sorts. Mrs Jarett, on the other hand, reminded me of the stereotypical mad woman.

But a far more disturbing revelation comes courtesy of one of the play’s other protagonists and the suspicious death of her husband.

Performances under Sarah Frankom’s direction are natural, unforced and authentic, giving the audience the feeling we’re sharing a sun kissed afternoon with Vi, Mrs Jarrett, Lena and Sally, with Annette Badland, Maureen Beattie, Souad Farress and Margot Leicester bringing their respective characters so engagingly and believably to life.

While I’m not the sort of reviewer who likes to be spoon fed information about characters in plays I left the RET feeling I had more questions than answers.

What If Only, which formed part two of the Churchill double bill, is just plain bizarre. A character called Someone struggles to find answers as she tries to live with all consuming grief.

The play gets off to a moving start with Someone, so well acted by Danielle Henry, rants at an empty chair in a bomb site of a living room, seeking answers to reasons behind her loss.

Henry is terrific is terrific and in a strong Manchester accent gives the second best performance of the evening, with Maureen Beattie winning first prize as the menacing Mrs Jarett in Escaped Alone.

Then What If Only becomes obsessed with a recurrent theme, the theme of futures and the futures Someone craves in a life tainted by grief she just can’t escape.

When it comes to the work of Caryl Churchill I count myself as one of the unconverted even if she uses dialogue to paint some deeply arresting images.

But there’s no getting away from the quality of the acting here which is without doubt first rate.

That’s especially so in Escaped Alone the actresses sounding like real friends.

Until March 8. Tickets are available from 0161 833 9833 or www.royalexchange.co.uk.

Star rating - 2.5 out of 5.

Photo by Johan Persson

The Shark is Broken - The Lowry


The Shark is Broken

THE theme of this iconic movie still sends a shiver down my spine more than half a century after it was made.

In terms of its central characters they are a perfect blend of different personalities and by far the most interesting is the shark hunter Quint, played by British actor Robert Shaw.

Before seeing this play I had no idea Shaw was in fact a Brit and had appeared on stage at Stratford in plays by one William Shakespeare.

The film may be branded a classic these days, but its making was severely delayed for several months by a host of technical problems, stemming from the fact the fake shark used wouldn’t work properly. Apparently a real one would have been out of the question due to the volatile temperament of these sinister, creepy creatures.

Co-written by Shaw’s son Ian, The Shark is Broken gives us as an illuminating and at times hilarious insight into what have been like for Shaw senior and the flick’s other co-stars, Roy Schneider and Richard Dreyfuss as they struggle to cope with months of relentless boredom as the film crew work tirelessly to make the shark work properly.

Robert Shaw is by far the most interesting character who delights in putting down Dreyfuss who he evidently regards as the irritating itch he would love to scratch. While the conversations that took place on the good ship/prison ship Orca exist only in the imagination of Shaw and co-writer Joseph Nixon, the script also makes references to real events, like Robert Shaw’s battle with alcoholism and his father’s suicide which took place when he was just 12 years old.

Ian Shaw, Dan Fredenburgh and Ashley Margolis bearing an uncanny resemblance to the original three stars and there’s an aura of the big screen which is sure to make you feel like you’re watching a film about people struggling to make a film. In fact I guarantee you’ll be doing a double take when they first appear on stage, at least when Shaw and Fredenburgh, wearing Chief Brody’s sensible specs.

While it helps if you’ve seen Jaws its not essential. One reason why enjoyed The Shark is Broken is it whisks us back to an age when celebrities had a certain mystique about them. Imagine, if you can, a world with social media.

Until February 8. Tickets are available from 0343 208 6000 and you can also book online at www.thelowry.com.

Star rating - ****

Photo by Manuel Harlan.

The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time - Altrincham Garrick


JUST imagine what it must feel like to live in a world that seems scary and confusing, everyday situations are an ordeal, including managing your emotions and understanding the actions of others around you.

So it is with Christopher, the central character in a play that is as moving as it is funny and as heart rending as it is heart warming.

Christopher is autistic and stands accused of killing his neighbour’s pet dog. If this 15 year old doesn’t have enough to contend with, his parents marriage has broken up and he’s being brought up by an ultimately loving dad trying hard to raise a son with a challenging condition.

This production is being staged by the Garrick Ensemble, a group of hugely talented 18-30 year old actors who left me feeling without doubt this theatre’s future is very bright indeed.

Charlie Gallagher as Christopher gives his best performance to date for me, delivering a performance that is of a professional standard.

He ensures we ache for a happy ending for his character without seeming to play on the audience’s emotions and there’s an authentic and engaging bond between him and Loui Quelcutti and Rachel Jacquest as his estranged mum and dad, Ed and Judy.

Christopher also just happens to be a Maths genius and his dream is to sit the A level exam despite his tender teenage years.

I am sure director Joe Meighan - or is it Joseph these days? - never wanted the rehearsals to end because of the rich vein of talent at his disposal which he uses to treat theatregoers to a production that’s far better and far more uplifting than the one I saw a few years ago in Manchester.

The partial standing ovation was richly deserved as was the storm of applause that swept through the auditorium and came seriously close to lifting the theatre’s roof off at the end.

A high water mark this, for Altrincham Garrick and amateur theatre in general.

Until February 9. Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - *****

Photo - Martin Ogden,

Jack and the Beanstalk - Altrincham Garrick


WHEN actor Martin Deighton-Brown was suddenly taken ill, director Joe Meighan stepped in at the last minute to give a show stealing performance as the Dame in the Garrick’s always popular panto.

He enjoyed an instant rapport with the audience, with the children needing little coaxing to shout and scream in all the right bits.

Meighan’s rapport was also evident in the rest of the cast, with Daniel Ellis great fun from the start as the daft as a brush Silly Simon and Bev Stuart Cole a suitably heroic Mother Nature.

The one thing I took away from this production is the comforting feeling you don’t need a screen to entertain the kids with all of them, with one or two exceptions, captivated by this larger than life tale.

Or to put it another way, kids can still be kids.

The script combines child friendly jokes about things like breaking wind and a sprinkling of innuendo that is sure to go above the heads of the little ones while keeping the adults entertained..

Personally, as someone with a sense of humour that has an immature streak, I enjoyed both.

Now I’ve going to break with tradition and praise the production’s lighting designer who has created effects of a professional standard. The lighting was spectacular on occasions and of a professional standard on more than one occasion. Take a bow, James Merrington.

If I have a criticism, Jack and the Beanstalk is a few minutes too long. But hey, it’s Christmas and when as a child can you not stay up late once or twice?

The only exception being Christmas Eve, when Father Christmas comes calling.

Until January 5.

Tickets are selling fast and anyone interested in booking them should call 0161 928 1677 or you can book online at www.altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Star rating - ***

Photo - Martin Ogden.


Come From Away - The Lowry


Fabulous - Come From Away at The Lowry.

GANDER, a small and sleepy town in Newfoundland, was swamped when 7,000 air passengers were stranded there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

But the new arrivals were warmly welcomed by its inhabitants and were able to overcome the anxiety and uncertainty that ultimately enabled them to get through a traumatic, uncertain five days.

The end result is a musical telling of this remarkable true story and it certain is one of the most inspiring and affecting shows I’ve seen for a very long time. It is certainly the best of 2024 for me and its easy to see why Come From Away is a multi award winner.

The performances feel very natural, the songs are stirring without resorting to cliches and the choreography is sure to take your breath away. Don’t be fooled there isn’t much of a story here, with all the characters lifting the lid on their lives and loves,

It offers the audience a microcosm of what the world could be, a celebration of community and a call to care for each other. We were also greeted by a guest appearance by several of the real people who figure in the show on press night including the town’s Mayor who gave us a moving speech about the importance of caring for others.

Singling out individual performances feels wrong here as there simply aren’t any weak ones under the direction of Christopher Ashley who has created along with others a piece of theatre that’s sure to live long in the memories of those who see it.

The end of press night was greeted by a spontaneous standing ovation which was so richly deserved. It was pleasing to see and I for one could easily see this twice.

Come From Away is life affirming and then some, with a perfect finale. Even if you never set foot in a theatre for the whole of 2025 make sure you see this unforgettable and uplifting and brilliant show.

Until January 5. The box office is on 0343 208 6000 or you can book online at www.thelowry.com.

Star rating - *****