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.

Akram Khan's Gisele at London Coliseum

This was another show that crept under my radar, even though I subscribe to a vast number of arts emails (the volume may be part of the problem1), and it was a late decision to go, prompted by good reviews.

I was lucky with returns and got seat Upper Circle: A5 for a no-brainer £67.

I had seen Giselle many years before as a traditional ballet but this version promised "mesmerising choreography blends ballet with classical Indian dance kathak and contemporary movement, harnessing groups of dancers to dial up the intensity in every scene" which sounded very interesting, and I like interesting.

This version of Gisele combined so many things that I love including industrial music, low lighting, large groups of dancers, a simple set and unusual movements. The mix of dancing styles was obvious and worked very well.

My lasting image of the performance is the workers moving synchronously to the dark repetitive music as they did their task, which is why I chose the image above from the several available.

There was a story in there too but frankly I cared little for it and made no attempt to follow it, this was a dance of moods and movement and those did not need a narrative to justify them,

There were only a few performances at London Coliseum but a show this good must reappear somewhere before too long and I will gladly travel to anywhere (sensible) in the country to see it again.

Akram Khan's Gisele at London Coliseum was the best dance show I have ever seen.