Skip to main content

Northampton Theatre Preview - October 2016

As the nights have started to draw in and the click of thermostats reactivate the central heating across the town, October is perhaps never a better time to get reacquainted with your local theatres. Therefore let us dig deep and see what thrills there are out there.

Still time to catch
As we move into October, there are still a few more opportunities to see the magical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang take to the sky at Royal & Derngate. This blockbuster show with a starry cast has been thrilling audiences not only in Northampton, but all over the country this year and you have until Sunday to catch her before she takes flight.

Free fun
Also opening the month of October with a bang at the Royal & Derngate is the annual Fun Palaces event. This is a weekend of totally free events for all the family with both bookable and drop-in features. Try your hand at puppetry, storytelling, singing, drawing, and much more in a relaxed and always fun environment over the weekend of 1st and 2nd from 10am

Highlight
My top pick for October though has to be this years Derngate show from the Northampton Musical Theatre Company. Always going beyond the standards of most amateur shows and packing them into the venue, this year their production of Grease is sure to be of the same standard. It runs from Tuesday 25th through to Saturday 29th, with a matinee on the final day as well.

Music
There is a bounty of music events during the month with 10CC coming to the Derngate on the 12th. Little Jimmy Osmond will be at the same venue on the 10th bringing his tribute to Andy Williams with his show Moon River and Me.
Other events include Sixties Gold on the 6th, a tribute to Prince on the 21st with Purple Rain. Finally the weekend of the 15th/16th sees the annual Malcolm Arnold Festival take place at Royal & Derngate.

Amateur Theatre
The Masque Theatre have the adult and absorbing thriller Mindgame from Anthony Horowitz on stage at The Playhouse Theatre from Tuesday 18th. This looks like being a cracking treat to chill your bones.
More frivilous antics from the amateur groups of the town come courtesy of Moulton Theatre's Not Now, Darling. This classic British comedy from John Chapman and Ray Cooney is sure to be a riotous affair. Catch it from Monday 10th and throughout the week.

Cricket
There are two cricketing themed shows to get your plus fours on for in October as Hardingstone Players present the comedy Par For The Course from Wednesday 26th.
While at the Royal & Derngate, spinner Graeme Swann and guest Henry Blofeld bring some sure fire comic anecdotes from their history with the game.

Strictly Come Dancing
If you are looking for some extra Strictly Come Dancing themed action with the show back on our screens, The Deco Theatre has two events just for you. On the 8th there is a charity evening for ZimWomen Association titled Strictly For Africa where you will get a touch of the continent on the stage. Then later in the month on Friday 21st, ex-Strictly professionals Ian Waite and Camilla Dallerup bring their wonderful skills to town.

Bizarre
For those after some surreal thrills this month, the Royal & Derngate is sure to provide. On the 7th there is the weird and wonderful Puppetry Of The Penis, which pretty much provides exactly what it says in the title. Equally as bizarre but with less nudity (but not free from it), there is another chance to catch Spymonkey bring every Shakespeare death to the stage, with the equally clearly titled The Complete Deaths from Monday 17th.

Creepy thrills
There is a chance for some early Halloween thrills on Friday 28th as at Abington Park Museum as a dramatic and chilling reading of Dracula takes place.
Also from Tuesday 25th, Looking Glass Theatre bring their yearly Ghost Walks to tell you ghostly and historic tales of the town.

... and Beyond Northampton
Finally beyond Northampton I have a couple of picks for the month. The first is a wonderful charity event as Earls Barton Parish Hall plays host to the play Cheshire Cats performed by Under The Tower Drama. This is an event supporting local breast cancer charity Crazy Hats and runs with evening performances between Thursday 27th and Saturday 29th.
For the second beyond Northampton pick is the rather special Danny Hero at The Corby Cube. This looks destined to be something really exceptional as the community come together to bring a wonderfully uplifting musical from Made In Corby and Perfect Pitch. There are certain to be both tears and laughs. Catch it between Wednesday 26th and Saturday 29th (matinee Saturday).


Diary of events:

Saturday 1st: Sunday 2nd: Fun Palaces at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 1st: James Acaster at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 1st - Sunday 2nd: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Royal & Derngate
Tuesday 4th - Wednesday 5th: Richard Alston Dance Company at the Royal & Derngate
Wednesday 5th: Feast Of Fools - Shonaleigh at NN Cafe
Thursday 6th: Sixties Gold at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 7th: Puppetry Of The Penis at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 8th: Killer Queen at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 8th: Strictly For Africa at the The Deco Theatre
Sunday 9th: The Greatest Love Of All at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 10th: Jimmy Osmond at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 10th - Saturday 15th: The Woman In Black at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 10th - Saturday 15th: Not Now, Darling at Moulton Theatre
Wednesday 12th: 10CC at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 14th: Brian Cox at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 15th - Sunday 16th: The Malcolm Arnold Festival Weekend at the Royal & Derngate
Sunday 16th: Graeme Swann's Great British Spin Off at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 17th: Ministry Of Science Live! at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 17th - Wednesday 19th: Spymonkey's The Complete Deaths at the Royal & Derngate
Tuesday 18th: Jimmy Carr at the Royal & Derngate
Tuesday 18th - Saturday 22nd: Masque Theatre present Mindgame at The Playhouse Theatre
Thursday 20th: The Solid Gold Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Royal & Derngate
Thursday 20th: Marcus Brigstocke at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 21st: Steve Backshall's Wild World at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 21st: Purple Rain at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 21st: Screaming Blue Murder at the Royal & Derngate
Friday 21st: An Evening With Ian Waite and Camilla Dallerup at The Deco Theatre
Saturday 22nd: Oktoberfest at the Royal & Derngate
Sunday 23rd: Autumn Comedy Slam at the Royal & Derngate
Monday 24th - Saturday 29th: The Gruffalo's Child at the Royal & Derngate
Tuesday 25th - Saturday 29th: Northampton Musical Theatre Company - Grease at the Royal & Derngate
Tuesday 25th - Monday 31st: Looking Glass Theatre - Ghost Walks 2016 at St Peter's Church
Wednesday 26th - Friday 28th: Hardingstone Players - Par For The Course at Hardingstone Village Hall
Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th: Under The Tower Drama - Cheshire Cats at Earls Barton Parish Church Hall
Friday 28th: Dracula - A dramatic reading - Abington Park Museum
Friday 28th: Pro Am presents Lockdown Fright Night at The Deco
Friday 28th: Rich Hall at the Royal & Derngate
Saturday 29th: The Same Faces at The Black Prince
Monday 31st - Saturday 5th November: Dirty Dancing at the Royal & Derngate

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Here & Now at Milton Keynes Theatre

During the late 90s and early 2000s, the dance-pop group Steps was a mighty presence in the British charts. They accumulated two number-one albums in the UK and 14 consecutive UK top-5 singles, including two number ones. They were juggernauts of lightweight pop. It is perhaps a surprise that it took until 2024 for a musical to be based on their hits. Now, writer Shaun Kitchener brings enough campness to keep Alan Carr and Julian Clary in work for decades. Here & Now , the show everyone was waiting for, is at Milton Keynes Theatre as part of a UK tour. So, the question is: has it been worth the wait? Here & Now is, fundamentally, a ridiculous concept that should not work. Set in a supermarket, yes, a supermarket, our eclectic cast of characters go through the typical dramas of many a musical as love and drama unfold against a backdrop of jukebox music. It should never work, but it does, extremely well in fact. A huge amount of the success here has to go to writer Shaun Kitchene...
Read more

Review of Blood Brothers at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

A theatre in the east midlands, a thousand people stand applauding and cheering towards a stage where fourteen people stand. There on the stage, they bow, and bow, an inordinate number of times. They depart after a time and the lights come up over the capacity audience. So did you hear the story of the Blood Brothers show, how people flocked and came to see them play? Did you never hear about how we came to be, standing applauding the brightly lit stage this November day? Come judge for yourselves how this night did come to be. Blood Brothers was a significant show for me back in 2014, being the first musical that I saw live. Hiding up in the upper circle of the Derngate back then, not really sure what to expect, it was it turned out perhaps the perfect show to graduate me from play to musical that I could choose as Willy Russell's gritty and solid story is as confident as a straight play that perhaps any musical is. So strong is the story of the Johnstone's twins, tha...
Read more

Review of National Theatre Connections 2017 (16 Shows) at Royal & Derngate (Royal & Underground), Northampton

Alongside the University of Northampton BA Actors Flash Festival, the Connections festival at Royal & Derngate is now my joint favourite week of theatre each year. This is my fourth year at the festival and each time I have tried my very best (and succeeded) in seeing more and more of those on offer (four in 2014, ten in 2015 and twelve last year). This year I cracked sixteen shows, including the most interesting, a chance to see two of the plays by three different groups. I was able to see nine of this year's ten plays (a single nagging one, Musical Differences by Robin French was missing from the R&D line-up), and most I either enjoyed or finally understood their merits or reasons for inclusion. The writing of sixteen reviews is a little bit of an daunting prospect, however, I will do my best to review each of the plays and those I saw more than once, and pick around the comparisons. Extremism by Anders Lustgarten Performed by Bedford College Extremism was perfo...
Read more