Private lives on show in real Bedroom Farce!

Four couples sharing their beds on stage gives scope for something for everyone in this gentle comedy about our private lives.

I say our private lives because what Alan Ayckbourn wrote when he put pen to paper for this one really does reflect what we get up to in the privacy of our own homes.

Of course, the stakes are ratcheted right up the scale when other people invade that space - and that's what happens in Bedroom Farce.

Three of the couples end up sharing their bedrooms with someone outside the family circle. No, it's NOT like that - but hints and nods to what they're trying to say bring sniggers of recognition from the audience as well as some glaring home truths.

So we have Juliet Mills, married to Bruce Montague. A mature couple, shall we say, with gentle Bruce still full of affection for his dear wife, and her reflecting (perhaps) on what their bedroom life might have been.

Their son Trevor (Oliver Boot) is suffering martial strife, especially when his wife Susannah (Natasha Alderslade) confesses she's started to see women in a new - maybe attractive - light.

The plot sparks into life at a party hosted by Kate and Malcolm (Julia Mallam and Ayden Callaghan) and as the dust settles, daft Trevor plants a kiss on his not too unwilling ex, Jan, played by Claire Wilkie, whose husband (Maxwell Caulfield) is at home (in bed, of course) with a bad back.

Juliet Mills gets all the best lines - patting the bed gently with one hand, enquiring "this old trouble, is it?" to her confidante.

And she brought the house down with her line that began "When S. E. X. rears its ugly head".

Her tiny figure on the stage was brought to life in her characterisation, in contrast to Montague, whose seasoned bumbling created the perfect foil for her all-knowing asides.

Bruce was the flirtatious Leonard on TV, playing opposite Wendy Craig, and at times the short monologues here mirrored a Carla Lane speech, reminiscent of the voice within from Butterflies or even the Liver Birds.

With Bedroom Farce being written in the early 70s, perhaps that's hardly surprising. Not a rip-roarer this one, but plenty of food for thought.

And you might just recognise yourself on stage...!


Maxwell Caulfield and Claire Wilkie

Three young actors steal the laughs from Charley's Aunt

When two Oxford students require a chaperone at short notice so they can lunch with their sweethearts, the non-arrival of a millionaire aunt sets a trail of mayhem in motion.

The nearest they can get to a stand-in is a (male) student friend, so he togs up in ladies’ garb and the deception begins …

Nick Waring as Lord Fancourt Babberley is reluctantly called upon to be the imposter aunt by the two would-be suitors Charles Wykeham and Jack Chesney, played by Henry Gilbert and Tim Samuels.

The three young actors in Charley’s Aunt at Lincoln’s Theatre Royal excelled – and carried most of the laughs between them.

They supported the more famous faces among the senior cast, which included Duty Free’s Neil Stacy as Jack’s hard-up father, Ben Roberts from The Bill, Sabina Franklyn (the real millionaire widowed aunt) and Glyn Grain.

The humour started right from the off, with some visual gags and slapstick humour from the three young men.

While the students pursue their own loves, Jack’s impoverished father sets his sights on Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez who sadly is, in his/her own words, “no ordinary woman”.

Spurned (quite reasonably) by what he thinks is the real Victorian widow, he predictably finds love with a new arrival into the plot.

The cross-dressing Babberley then attracts another suitor and must keep the deception running long enough to secure evil uncle Stephen Spettigue’s permission for his niece and his ward – Eloise Irving as Amy Spettigue and Isla Carter as Kitty Verdun – to marry the student pals.

Bearing in mind the play was written way back in the 1890s, the humour transferred instantly to the modern audience.

Cliché it might be, with bashful lovers, an evil uncle, broke dad and a mystery missing aunt – but that is the stuff of a good farce and this one is a comedy classic which continues to impress.

Pop Idol Darius becomes big band hero

As we catch up with Darius Campbell, star of stage and small screen, we find him trapped slap bang in between interviews.

He’s busy promoting a musical tour which he’s producing himself, The History of the Big Bands, which visits Lincoln next month.

My slot was scheduled for 5.30pm, then tomorrow, than 4pm, 3pm, 2.30pm and 2.15pm, after he’d done a live broadcast. We settled for 3pm.

It sounds as though the likeable musical polymath is going through it a bit. But he confides that he really is living the dream.

Darius, who used to be Darius Danesh, said: “When I was 12 years old I was part of Scottish Opera in a children’s chorus and performed in the original production of The Trojans.

“Then I was a child actor in Carmen, which went to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

“When I was backstage I always remember what was behind the backdrop curtain.

“There was a space five times the size of the onstage area, and twice the size of a football pitch. It was filled with the stage props and staging from all the great operas – it was a bit like stepping into the other side of the wardrobe into Narnia for me.

“I remember feeling that I wanted to be part of all that.”

But Darius gave up a promising operatic career to study English literature at university, before exploding back onto the scene via Pop Idol and Popstar to Operastar.

His career has now come full circle with the chance to once again beguile the theatre audience.

“I always wanted to be involved in telling a great story. Whether that’s in a love song, acting in Shakespeare or in a West End musical, whatever it might be. It’s the spectacle.”

Having recently performed as Escamillo in Raymond Gubby’s vast production of Carmen at the O2 Arena, this is now Darius’s own chance to run the show.

He said: “I’m experiencing the challenge of producing a tour, which is really exciting.

“I want to transport the audience back to a different era.

“I’ll be reliving the big bands through the eyes of band leaders like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and taking the audience on a journey through the work of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. I am supported by big band performers who are among the best musicians in Europe. It’s not just a gig – it’s a show.”

Fans of Darius will know his range. He was Billy Flynn in Chicago, Sky Masterson in the Olivier Award-winning Guys and Dolls and Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind, all in the West End.

He wrote Colourblind, which went straight to No 1 after Pop Idol, then had a platinum album, five further top 10 singles, and a Sunday Times No6 best-selling book Sink Or Swim.

He has a particular soft spot for swing, and the crooning style that goes with it.

He said: “I love what Amy Winehouse did in reinventing 60s soul. The idea of crooning is something I like. I’m lucky that my training has allowed me to explore the range of my voice.

“The only other singer that’s doing that at the moment is Michael Buble. There’s only six or so specialists.”

So which is his favourite track from the show? After all it takes in music from Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman and Buddy Rich.

Of course, he’s non committal, but offers this as a tempting tit-bit: “I’m a big fan of everything that Not King Cole did.

“Big band was something that lent itself well to his deep velvety voice.”

There’s good news then, for Darius fans – he’s also putting together a tour album to go with the show, so you can hear his own deep, velvety voice whenever you want to...

Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Remember them?

Perhaps best known for Scooby Snacks in 1996, they’re well and truly back, with a series of concerts and a new single We, The Three.

After some tricky times in recent years the boys are all friends and all happily settled and at one with the world.

And they’ve all relocated to this country, despite their New York connections.

Their album Classic Fantastic is testament to their new verve and joie de vivre. It features their trademark eclectic mix of sound and is a work to be proud of, according to Leicester-born drummer Frank Benbini.

“We’re like brothers from other mothers,” he says. “We argue, go on tour around the world together and still look after each other.

“We still create music and still have magical shows all over the world.

“It’s what we always do. The three of us love music of all kinds. The album has hip hop, blues, rock, funk, latin and reggae. You put all the styles in a pot and what comes out is FLC music. It’s eclectic.

“It’s a bit more upbeat because the last ones were clouded by the bad times.”

So what of these bad times the band suffered? It seems they were out of commission for almost seven years. That’s apparently been down to bad money and bad blood.

“There had been major problems with the band members and it got to the stage where we didn’t know if we were carrying on,” Frank says. “That period started from the time the World Trade Centre was hit.

“Then we had people taking money from accounts they shouldn’t have done, we lost our management and we’ve been in a law suit for the past four or five years.

“It wasn’t the best of times for us to be creative, but once we got back and Classic Fantastic came out this year we knew things had worked out.

“And all good US bands at the end of the day need a good UK drummer.”

And what of the move from America? The two from New York started the band back in 1993.

Frank himself was a Brooklyn boy for quite some time, but made the break to come back home.

“We’re all based in this country now,” he says. “We had a period when I was based in Brooklyn, New York, for five or six years.

“The others were there, too. But now we have all moved over here.

“All three of us have moved now and they have married English girls, so this is our base.”

The first leg of their tour was in March to kick-start the promotion of it and they are now back on the road for the tour proper.

And it’s tough work, almost a gig a night throughout September, covering the whole of the UK and then nipping over into Europe to begin the third leg.

Frank says: “We have always been a live band. That’s the greatest thing about FLC. We have always had a good show and always taken it seriously – it’s good to be back out there doing shows.

“It’s been going down great with the fans. They know every word and that’s good for when we forget them. It’s been getting good reviews.

“The pace isn’t too bad. A run of five days and then a day off. It’s more cost-effective too.”

Cheer up, because those big, black clouds of summer have a silver lining

The national press has been full of some good news about how this wonderful, dry summer has revealed the best showing of aerial photos of archaeology for years.

Pardon? The last time I looked out of the window there were big black clouds and it was on the verge of tipping it down.

It seems to have been like that since the first week of July – when, incidentally, I got back from a fortnight in Cornwall feeling very pleased with myself for getting it right again. It was hot and sunny for 13 of our 14 days by the sea.

Then, as usual, the school summer holidays were blighted by cool, damp weather. There's not been much playing out in the garden for our two kids.

Sometimes I wonder if the swing set, climbing frame and see-saw could go back on eBay, where I got them from.

Yet, we've had a few days away and have been lucky. Mid-week trips to the south-west and north-west came up trumps.

Somehow, it seems as though we haven't had a summer, except for the one way back in the springtime.

We were all getting into work after a bad night's sleep because it was so hot. I remember having windows open and the bed covers off.

Yet, according to the papers, the weather conditions since early summer have allowed experts to take aerial photos of dozens of so-called crop mark sites.

They reveal a Roman camp in Dorset, a fortress in North Yorkshire, more sites in the West Midlands, Cumbria, the Yorkshire Wolds and Vale of York. Sixty new sites, mainly prehistoric, were found in just one day over the East Riding.

I'm a big fan of archaeology – I've even got a qualification in it – so this is fantastic news for enthusiasts.

And even the Met Office agrees with me about the weather: "July saw more than twice the normal rainfall in a swathe from west Wales through north-west England, southern and eastern Scotland to Shetland.

"It was also wetter than normal across most of the rest of Scotland and Wales and in Northern Ireland."

So what's all this about a great summer?

Oh, hang on – there's a "but": "In sharp contrast," it says, "much of the Midlands, eastern and southern England were very dry, with less than half the normal amount of rain in counties from Cambridgeshire to Sussex. Overall, it was duller than average, especially in many western areas."

So, there we have it. It's not been a wet summer on the whole, even for August, apparently. Just dull. And, with more of the past being revealed than at any point since the great drought of 1976, that's hardly dull, is it?

Words by Patrick Astill, first published, and copyright Derby Telegraph