Sparks at Bournemouth International Centre

Seeing every possible Sparks gig in London was not enough to I went to see them in Bournemouth as well. The timing worked well with my sister's birthday and we dragged her along too as part of a celebratory weekend.

But first we had to get to Bournemouth and while the trains worked well (Richmond to Clapham to Bournemouth) the station is just outside of the town and we had to walk the mile and a bit in. For that I used GoJauntly to find a pretty route and that worked well.

We had to eat somewhere and failing to find anything along the way we went to Elevate Brassier and Bar within BIC which was excellent with good food, great service and superb value. If I ever make it back to BIC I will eat there again.

 

I had not been to BIC before so the seating arrangement was a surprise. We were in row E (£75.25) which was a level area; normally that would worry me but the stage was high enough for the tall people not to worry me.

The photo, taken during Ron and Russell's duet in Let's Get Funky, shows how good my view was.

While this was a seated area people kept getting up to dance and after a few false starts we all were. The video my sister supposedly took of me dancing is fake.

The setlist was the same as it was a few days earlier in Chelsea, as expected, and it was just as good musically this time round and the better seat made it a better show.

Stand-out songs were the usual singalongs When Do I Get to Sing "My Way", The Number One Song in Heaven and the closer All That. Of course they played  This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us which went down a storm but, oddly, it is not one of my top favourites of theirs. It was also good to see the very political and (still) very topical  (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country from 2006.

Sparks always entertain mightily and I hope they live up to their promise of touring again soon.

Sparks at Royal Hospital Chelsea

Another year brings another Sparks tour and that meant going to their London date. There are rules.

Once again it was another eclectic venue, the Royal Hospital Chelsea (home of the Chelsea Flower Show) where they were appearing as part of the Live at Chelsea series of summer concerts.

I bought tickets the instant they went on general sale and bought the three best seats then available,, Block A Row G 14-16 for a shade under £300.  The view was good enough from there and the sound quality was excellent so no complaints.

The support act (!) was Chelsea Pensioner Singers who filled their time admirably, especially as they opened with It's a Sparks Show, a song which Sparks used to open their shows with until it was replaced by So May We Start from the film Annette.

The joining instructions did say "People are likely to choose to stand and dance within the seated area, particularly during upbeat numbers." which in practice meant that everyone in the front area, including us, stood up immediately Sparks came on stage.

For the next hour and a half or so it was non-stop dancing to a succession of great songs with a few newer less familiar ones scattered amongst the many familiar hits like This Town, No 1 Song and My Way. It was relentlessly excellent and even the brief power cut did nothing to dampen the mood.

And it is  only a week or so until I do it again in Bournemouth!

It Walks Around The House At Night at Southwark Playhouse

I do not get to Southwark Playhouse as often as I whould but that is London's fault for having so many theatres. This production sounded interesting enough to get me back there and the clincher was the production company ThickSkin, who I first encountered with much delight in 2012.

Being over a decade later meant that I now qualified for the Old Gits discount and my seat in the front row was a modest £22.5, about the price of three pints.

Though not my core passion, I have seen several ghost plays over the years, mostly touring shows like 2:22 and The Woman in Black at Richmond Theatre. This was nothing like those. It was far far better.

The story was unexpected and the storytelling exceptional. It was narrated in the first person with George Naylor telling us the story of jobbing actor Joe who took on an unusual commission to walk around a house at night. Iy was a more-or-less solo show and George Naylor led us skilfully through a turbulent experience of lust, fear, laughter and friendship.

There was a lot going on around the main story including a reference to Simon Armitage's poem Those Bastards in their Mansions and an different use of the term "spell checker". Those are just two small examples of the many rich nuggets in Tim Foley's script.

The set and direction were exemplary too with lots of darkness, appropriate loud noises, some projection on the back of the stage and a wire allowing George Naylor to adopt otherwise impossible poses.As with the script, there was a lot going on and it was all good.

It Walks Around The House At Night was exceptional theatre.

The Rat Trap at Park Theatre

I need few excuses to go to Park Theatre and none to see a Noel Coward play so the only question was when to see The Rat Trap and I settled for a Saturday matinee just to be in Finsbury in daylight.

The show was selling very well and so I experimented with the small balcony area for the first time. It was bit of a risk as while some balconied work well, e.g. Young Vic, others do not, e.g. Orange Tree.

That in mind, I went for Park 200 E30 at £39.

The picture below taken from my seat shows that everything was okay and I would sit up there again.

Being a matinee meant I had to find somewhere to have lunch and my memory served me well and I went back to Frame, which I had discovered in November 24, and helped myself to a good sized and very tasty vegetarian breakfast.

I knew nothing of The Rat Trap and was relying on my general knowledge of Noel Coward, including a recent visit to see Private Lives (again). That worked.

The heart of the story was a recently married couple, both writers, trying to find space for each other and also their work. Under this pressure something broke.

This made it a darker play that others of his but the tension was lightened at times by the small group of people around them.

It was all deeply engrossing and I was shocked when the lights went down for the interval and an hour had somehow passed. Time for an ice cream.

The second half continued nicely towards its dramatic ending.

Everything about the performance neatly done, as it had been for the same company's The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2 in the same theatre in 2024 which also used a great cast and an almost empty stage to tell a compelling story.

This was a superb afternoon at the theatre and even a horrendous journey home, I gave up trying to catch a train at Vauxhall because there weren't any, did nothing to spoil it.

All My Sons at Wyndham's Theatre

Initially I avoided All My Sons at Wyndham's Theatre for several reasons: I had seen twice before in recent memory (2016 and 2019) and I generally avoid the big star productions in the West End because of the high prices.

What changed my mind was very good reviews, a willingness to splash out on a major event  close to my birthday, and the appearance to two seats in an otherwise sold out production.

And so I paid £103.5 for seat Row A26 in the Royal Circle (the uppermost level). From there I could see almost all of the stage.

The set was nice and simple. The house was represented by a plain board across the back of the stage with a simple door and a round window above it; there were no other decorations or features. The only object in the garden was a fallen tree, which we saw fall at the very start of the show. This tree was were people sat. I like simple sets and this was a good one.

The story was what it was with lots of dialogue and little action. Plays like that have to be written well to work and clearly Arthur Miller knew what he was doing. I had remembered the gist of the story but there was a lot of detail that had slipped my mind and which I was glad to hear again.

Bryan Cranston had the star billing and played the patriarch superbly but the rest of the cast was so strong that his performance did not standout. All of the acting was superb.

The only part of the production that I am unsure about is the background music. I am not sure why it was there, it did nothing to enhance my enjoyment of the play but at least it was quiet enough to ignore most of the time.

This was a great play with a great cast and a pleasingly simple set. It was a perfect birthday treat.