Beauty and the Beast panto, Theatre Royal Nottingham

It’s only the second time since 1867 that Beauty and the Beast has been performed here. 

Yet with a hint of fairy tale magic, some sizzling special effects, colourful costumes and loads of belly laughs thrown in, it will surely be back before another 100 years is up.

As always, the comedy moments proved the biggest hits, with cheeky Ben Nickless – back for his fourth panto at the Theatre Royal – perfectly nailing a routine where his Apple watch filled in his missing words. Then later on his DVD collection provided some rather apt (if not altogether safe-for-work) commentary on  panto dame Andrew Ryan’s night out with some poor fella in the front row of the stalls. 

A personal highlight was the traditional staple “If I Were Not Upon This Stage”. You can’t really beat the tried and tested routines, and this one left tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks well into the curtain call. Another set-piece, the pleasant pheasant pluckers, had the cast in stitches too – along with most of the adults watching, though thankfully this one went over the heads of all those kids in the crowd. 

The lovely Sherrie Hewson, a local lass of course, provided the glue between the scenes as Mrs Potts-Temple-Savage, with some traditional audience interaction to help the fairy story along, although in truth there was already a fair pace to the action and a good mix of fairy tale, comedy and song. 

Benidorm’s Sherrie, previously a star of Coronation Street, sometimes looked a little alone on stage when she was chatting with the audience – it would only have taken a couple of dancers as her escorts to leave her looking less lonely on what is a very big stage.

We loved the baddie, Trent Bridge, played by Danny Bayne, already a veteran of musical theatre and TV entertainment news. Perfectly over-the-top, he took to the stage with just the right amount of fun to hit the mark as Deadly Nightshade’s henchman. Deadly herself (Natalie Spriggs) should really have attracted more boos from the auditorium but had so many lines the audience really needed to listen to keep up! 

Naomi Slights was a ringer for Disney’s Belle, helped along by some wonderful wardrobe. Her beau, Ben Richards from Footballers’ Wives and Hollyoaks, perfectly captured the torment of being the beast. And while the classic dining room scene came alive thanks to some nifty dance work from the young Theatre Royal Babes ensemble, my favourites were the dancing jammie dodgers. 

If you’ve got some very young children you might need to hold their hand towards the end of Act One, when Beast slays the kraken – but not before an amazing piece of stagecraft brings it terrifyingly to life within inches of the audience’s noses. 

The in the second act, it’s time to slip the 3D glasses for the haunted Forest, complete with all its creepy crawlies to give the I’m A Celebrity critters a run for their money.

Phil Collins ‘Not Yet Dead’ Tour - Nottingham Motorpoint Arena

He’s definitely not dead yet – we could see that by the way he hobbled centre stage to take a nice comfy seat in front of an adoring audience... and that’s more or less where he stayed for two hours packed with classics.

To be fair, apart from a debilitating back operation and bad legs, the 80s superstar hasn’t changed much since he was last in the limelight.

That’s one advantage of looking old when you’re young. And I guess the past 30 years haven’t been all that kind to many of us, have they?

Yet the one thing that shone through was that voice. Still higher pitched, a bit of echo mic and a lot of the Phil Collins we all remember. The sound quality was superb. If you’ve still got a copy of No Jacket Required or Just Seriously in the loft then dust it down and compare it to what you heard at the Arena. His body may be crocked but the tools of his trade are still functioning perfectly.

Some of the old videos played out during Follow You Follow Me only served to accentuate his current plight. He was featured as the cheeky chappie, sporting an impressive mullet and bouncing around for the cameras. (His son Nic is on the drums for this tour, perhaps taking over what his dad can’t manage these days).

From the start with Against All Odds followed by Another Day in Paradise, it all seemed a little sedate up on stage to start with but rattling through One More Night and Separate Lives, the music soon took over.

Something on the Way to Heaven was the track that got people to their feet at the start of the second set, followed by a string of hits In the Air Tonight and You Can’t Hurry Love (let’s face it, hands up who DIDN’T don a pair of sunglasses and do all those action at the school disco back in the day?)

Invisible Tough, Easy Lover and Sussudio worked the crowd into a mature kind of frenzy to finish off – and as Mr Collins closed on Take Me Home, we’re pleased he got another tour under his belt in the nick of time...

SET LIST

•     Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
•     Another Day in Paradise
•     One More Night
•     Wake Up Call
•     Follow You Follow Me
•     Can't Turn Back the Years
•     I Missed Again
•     Hang in Long Enough
•     Separate Lives
•     Only You Know and I Know
•     I Don't Care Anymore
•     Something Happened on the Way to Heaven
•     You Know What I Mean
•     In the Air Tonight
•     You Can't Hurry Love
•     Dance Into the Light
•     Invisible Touch
•     Easy Lover
•     Sussudio
•     Take Me Home

Awful Auntie, Theatre Royal, Nottingham

Have you read Awful Auntie?

I have – and this play is very close to the book, with so much to fit into the 1hr 45mins that the action moves really quickly.

The plot isn’t rushed, though. It was still easy to follow and the youngsters in the audience had a great time laughing along with – and at – the characters from David Walliams’ famous book.

There wasn’t a lot of scenery but it was cleverly rotated around the stage to suit indoors, outdoors, upstairs and the cellar. They also ended up on the roof, which was surprisingly easy to believe!

Sly Awful Auntie Alberta is played by Timothy Speyer, who was true to the book in making his character a manly woman (less a pantomime dame and more a tweed-clad dragon).

Without giving too much away, she’s the baddie and tries to reclaim the family stately home she believes should be hers.

In her way is poor orphaned Stella Saxby, the only child of parents who died in a suspicious car crash. The talented Georgina Leonidas is easily believable as a 13-year-old girl. You may have spotted her as Harry Potter’s fellow quidditch player in The Half-Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows. She is the main character and on stage for nearly all the show. She keeps interest up by constantly revealing new details of the story, leading us all to wonder what will happen next.

Her new friend Soot (Ashley Cousins) is a great comedy character who helps Stella piece together the truth about the car crash and who (and what) he really is.

Watch out for doddery butler Gibbon (Richard James), who gets funnier and funnier as the play goes on and for the cleverly created Wagner, an owl whose puppeteer Roberta Bellekom stays well in the background.

Ten out of ten for a show that’s true to plot and spirit of the book – although this play is so much funnier.

Review by Louis Astill (12)

Out of Order, Theatre Royal, Nottingham

A little trouser-dropping is never really out of place on stage, and with a falling towel or two and a beautiful young secretary running around in her skimpies, it’s clear there’s a Ray Cooney farce under way.

Suspend your disbelief at what unfolds because, like the actors, you’ll have a whale of a time. It’s over 35 years old now but this summer-season trouser-dropping show IS still funny.

Jeffrey Harmer is a Tory MP hoping for some extra marital fun with a minion from the opposition side of the House (Susie Amy from Footballers’ Wives) until he discovers a body in his hotel room which puts a stop to any thoughts of romance.

Soon there are doors (and the window) opening and closing, people popping in and out, here, there and everywhere as the plot not only thickens, but gets hopelessly tangled.

Sean Williamson, (EastEnders’ Barry Evans) as the beleaguered personal private secretary, shows mastery of a range of emotions – taking the audience along for the ride through his bewilderment, agony, anguish, desperation, mania and what can only be described as an unknowing smouldering sexual prowess.

Arthur Bostrom (from ‘Allo ‘Allo) appears as a hotel manager who continually walks in on people in compromising positions. And there’s Sue Holderness (Only Fools) and Cooney regular David Warwick in the mix too.

As always, the contrived jigsaw slots nicely together after all the big set-ups in the first act, as the second sees events spiral out of control only to be neatly – and satisfactorily – dispatched as the play hurtles towards its close.

There’s not much imagination required to see the bare cheek (!) of it all. In fact some of what you don’t see gets the biggest reaction. That, and the actors shrugging off a jammed door with aplomb.

This is an updated version of the original 1990 play and while there are certainly some  (now) rarely heard “phwoars” which set it back in time, up-to-date references to UKIP, Brexit, our current prime minister and the leader of the opposition firmly place it in the present day. 

Of course, all of the to-ing and fro-ing would never happen now because of the mobile phone – but who’d consign a fun evening like this to history?

The Addams Family, Theatre Royal, Nottingham

A real orchestra, a proper musical – and from the spine-tingling overture as the lights go down, the energy from The Addams Family crackles right to the end.

Believe the hype on this one. Whoops and hollers at the end, plus a standing ovation showed exactly why this musical comedy has enjoyed sell-out dates across the UK since springtime.

You may have seen the cast performing When You’re An Addams on TV recently; it’s the perfect introduction to this morbid family from the 60s sitcom. But then again, who’s to say what’s normal?

The eagle-eyed among the audience may have spotted high billing for internet sensation Carrie Hope Fletcher as Wednesday and it soon becomes clear why.

Not only does the strong story revolve around Wednesday and her intended love, but she tackles the vocals on her numbers with confidence, verve and feeling.

That’s not to say the others miss out. Sam Womack as Morticia shines in her big number Just Around The Corner and is clearly having fun in a set-piece that echoes the best of Mel Brooks.

Good old Les Dennis as uncle Fester sweetly croons his love of the object of his desire in The Moon and Me, getting the mood spot on for a character of “indeterminate sexuality” before he jets off to get a little closer to his love.

What seems like perfect casting brings us Cameron Blakely as the romantic Gomez, dashing around the stage, sword fighting, joking, and being a wonderful husband and father.

And that’s the nub of this new story. Little Wednesday is a young lady now – so grown up she’ll soon be Thursday, apparently.

But she’s brought lovely Lucas (Oliver Ormson) home with the news the pair plan to wed, but he’s just a normal boy from a normal family – and Gomez has to keep the news under his hat until exactly the right moment to share it with his wife. Unfortunately, he’s never kept a secret from Morticia, so thing start to unravel from there.

Will the two families get on? Will young Pugsley Addams (Grant McIntyre) lose his best friend Wednesday if she goes off and gets married? Will Morticia and Gomez be reconciled? And will the butler, Lurch (Dickon Gough), ever speak?

There’s a great chorus of ghostly spirits of the family’s ancestors, carefully crafted caricatures who are released from the crypt at the outset. 

And the supporting cast of Grandma (Valda Aviks), with Lucas’s parents Alice and Mal Beineke (Charlotte Page and Dale Rapley) all get their moment in the spotlight. Great music from Andrew Hilton’s team along with spooky kooky scenery complete the picture.

There a lot of knowing fun surrounding the (ahem) healthy relationship between Morticia and Gomez, so the management recommend the show’s suitable for kids aged seven and above.

Ruby Wax; Frazzled. Nottingham Playhouse

So what did YOU get up to last night?

We spent an evening exercising our mindfulness muscle in the company of campaigner and comedienne Ruby Wax.

Still on anti-depressants after 20-odd years, she freely admits which one is her favourite but still urges her sell-out audience to practise mindfulness... and switch off the news.

Although that’s not altogether fair. On the topic of mental health she frequently advises that not everything works for everyone.

And the second half of the show, a frighteningly honest Q&A with audience members on mental illness as covered in her best-selling book Frazzled, reveals the many guises such illness can take.

Anyone who’s ever loved Ruby – and let’s face it, she’s everyone’s favourite funny-girl-turned-mental-health-campaigner – will also love this tour.

With a familiar comic undercurrent, she opens up on her own childhood, her early years with her immigrant parents in America, her husband, her family and how she feels herself channelling her own mother as she relates to her own offspring.

Is mental illness stress? Is stress down to the lives we lead? Turns out it’s probably down to how we deal with the lives we lead. Ruby reminds us how technology was supposed to give us free time, so we could go out chasing butterflies, dreaming or composing poetry. Yet we now seems to be slaves to the computers, which are themselves having the time of their lives.

She has a Master’s degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University.
It’s something she is probably more proud of than she would be prepared to admit. But it’s helped launch this second half of her career where she speaks with authority, knowledge and experience on this tricky and often hidden topic.

The telling stat is that one in four suffer. Among the 700-plus at this sell-out lecture it was probably more like three in four, such was the ferocity of interest and empathy with her words.

And perhaps there will be a legacy beyond the comedy (which incidentally was by no means in short supply last night - she’s still got it, has Ruby). She’s also opening Frazzled Cafes in partnership with M&S, where small groups meet every two weeks to just talk honestly and meet within their own community. There’s more at: frazzlecafes.org

Strictly Come Dancing - The Live Tour 2017, Nottingham Arena

It's slick, it's sparkly - and it's back on the road! 

Sequins and abs were on show in equal measure when the professionals and celebs in Strictly LIVE hit the Arena last night.

The tenth anniversary show has lost none of its wonderful showbiz glamour, skill - and fun - over the years.

A new line-up each time guarantees it's as fresh as the day it set foot on the dancefloor.

With tickets at £50 upwards it's guaranteed to be the breathtaking night on the tiles everyone's hoping for.

Who'd have thought we'd get to see singers, models, actors - and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer - all performing under one roof for the delirious crowds?

From the tantalising teasers at the start to the “a-maze-ing” West Side Story finale, it was a must-see all-star show – easily topping previous years for thrills, skills and expertise.

It's so much more than a chance to relive some of the magical moments from the Strictly Come Dancing you see on the television. Even dear old Ed Balls nailed THAT lift from the on-screen contest!

Putting on his dancing shoes, Danny Mac is paired with the shapely Oti Mabuse, while fans' favourite, the ever-tearful Ore Oduba was with partner Karen Clifton.

Louise Redknapp and Kevin Clifton did their stuff and Ed Balls was with Katya Jones. Daisy Lowe, who has great assets for the dancing world, partnered Aljaž Skorjanec, while Birds of a Feather's Lesley Joseph lined up with Gorka Marquez.

So was it a ten from Len? It would be unfair to reveal how the dancers fared on the first of their three sparkling Nottingham shows.

But it's no surprise to see Ed Balls still managed to get the lowest scores from the judges, but who cares? He's a former Nottingham High School lad and in the Labour heartland of Nottingham city has almost certainly lapped up the applause on heady nights in the past - even if it wasn't for his (now) trademark – and iconic – Gangnam style moves leaving the crowd in hysterics! He even challenged Craig to perform a copycat routine, which to everyone’s glee he also perfected. Must have been practising.

We were treated to Ore’s show dance from the final – remember those drums? And Len described it as “possibly the best ever show dance on Strictly”. There was something for the ladies too, with Danny’s samba complete with bare chest and swivelling hips.

The show was hosted by the recent series competitor Anita Rani, who stood in for the role for Mel Giedroyc last year.

On the panel are head judge Len Goodman, alongside Craig Revel Horwood and guest judge Karen Hardy.

So is Strictly Live a competition, dance-off or panto? It depends who you're watching and it's horses for courses as every member of the audience is guaranteed a little of what they came for.