Skip to main content

Review of Bert's House at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Bert's House
is a true Northampton homegrown production from On The Shore Productions, this piece has been written, cast, produced and opened on stage for a short tour at the beautiful Royal Theatre at the centre of Northampton, and while here for two nights it found a loving local audience to set it off on its adventures.

Bert's House tells the tale of kindly guest house owner Bert and his trials and tribulations within his slightly ramshackle Dunedin Guest House residence in what appears to be an equally ramshackle seaside resort. The house, it seems, is also, a draw for the most quirky of visitors, and equally wacky staff. However, it seems, that a few of both the residents and staff have nefarious reasons for being there.

Bert's House is an extremely quirky affair, floating in a surreal world, which both follows its own paths as well as paying endless tributes to British comedy through the years, including many nods to sitcoms of yesteryear. The script, from standup comedian Lou Chawner, who also stars as Bert, veers from the hysterical to the awkward on many occasions, and while it does have a plot, of sorts, it is, very predictable, so much so that it doesn't even hide any potential twists.

There is also an all too regular habit of it feeling very much a standup work as structurally it is less successful as a play, but more that of a standup routine, come sketch show. If that is what you are expecting, it is great entertainment perhaps, and allows you to forgive the misses in the jokes. Those looking for a straight comedy play might feel slightly short-changed perhaps though. It is extremely funny at times, however, and especially much stronger in the second half as the characters bed down. Without a doubt, there are some genuinely brilliant moments. Bert's ukelele tribute to Emily for instance and bellybutton antics. Be warned though, while this isn't an overly sweary show, there are some extremely rude jokes peppered across the evening.

The cast has a mixture of success. Chawner is likeable as Bert and knows very much his Northampton audience very well, but how this works away from town will depend as he has a mostly unknown audience to play to. Lisa Ronaghan's Emily does feel overplayed for wackiness, with very little shade in her performance. Elsewhere Taresh Solanki suffers dramatically from the weakest character of Michael Robinson, who, when hen-pecked by his wife, is given rather a lot of simply excruciating material to perform. As his wife, Mrs Robinson however, Gemma Boaden very quickly improves into the second act from a very rocky first impression.

The strongest performances, and indeed characters are, however, the simply brilliant Mr Stevens, played by Scott Bradley. It's a magical character responsible for the bulk of the humour in the show whenever he appears in a variety of garish, nightmare-inducing costumes and situations. Finally, there is a superb, centred performance from Isla Fleury as Jane, without question the strongest in the show, getting the balance of making her character comic but totally believable. Excellent!

Bert's House is directed with pace by Dan McGarry, allowing us to get away from those moments that miss the mark as quickly as possible and it has to be said that the set from Deborah Mingham, while, very simple, is actually rather delightful and fits the show extremely well.

Summing up, Bert's House is a success, but, there is at times a little too much rough material, and does have a feeling that it isn't quite finished. Perhaps, the whole thing will gel as it progresses through its tour, and I really hope, as a truly bold effort to get a show like this on stage, coupled with touring, it gets the success it deserves.

Slightly rough around the edges, but Bert's House still has much to offer.


Performance reviewed: Friday 1st April 2024 at the Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton.

Bert's House was performed at Royal & Derngate on Thursday 29th February and Friday 1st March 2024 only but is on tour.

Tour details can be found at https://linktr.ee/ontheshore

For further details about the Royal & Derngate and to book tickets see their website at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk

Photos: Rebecca Cockcroft


Popular posts from this blog

Review of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

This tour of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical has become sadly a double-tribute as it tours throughout the UK into 2023 and the love of its creator Jim Steinman, and the man who made his work world-famous, Meat Loaf, both lost in the last year, runs through the cast in this impressive version of the show. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell takes the Peter Pan idea and warps it into a dystopian world of a group of youth known as The Lost trapped forever at 18 years of age. The centre of this group is Strat, who, after a chance encounter, becomes under the spell of Raven. Of course, into this mix must come a megalomaniac, as all dystopian worlds really need. This is the father of Raven, Falco, who, with his wife Sloane, battle The Lost, Raven’s relationship with Strat, and indeed their own very bizarre relationship, to the backdrop of Steinman’s music. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t start particularly well, be it the performance or a show issue, for the first twenty minutes there is a lack of clarit...

Review of Hacktivists by Ben Ockrent performed by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

The National Theatres Connections series of plays had been one of my highlights of my trips to R&D during 2014. Their short and snappy single act style kept them all interesting and never overstaying their welcome. So I was more than ready for my first encounter with one of this years Connections plays ahead of the main week of performances at R&D later in the year. Hacktivists is written by Ben Ockrent, whose slightly wacky but socially relevant play Breeders I had seen at St James Theatre last year. Hacktivists is less surreal, but does have a fair selection of what some people would call odd. Myself of the other hand would very much be home with them. So we are presented with thirteen nerdy "friends" who meet to hack, very much in what is termed the white hat variety. This being for good, as we join them they appear to have done very little more than hacked and created some LED light device. Crashing in to spoil the party however comes Beth (Emma-Ann Cranston)...

Review of Cinderella, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at Maidwell Hall (Avenue Campus), Northampton

So, this is a bit different, the third year actors (my fifth group of them!) do panto, Cinderella to be precise. Pantomime is my perennial favourite bit of theatre. Oh no, it isn't! However, I have long acknowledged that for an actor, the form is both incredibly important, because if you can entertain kids, you can probably do anything, it also provides a large opening for a regular gig each year as they are so abundant. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the intelligent bods teaching these students have come to the decision to create a little panto action of their own. This first of three (and the other two are very different beasts, as you will learn from the next reviews) is the ever so traditional one. Formed partly from the work of Looking Glass Theatre and director James Smith, I first saw much of this piece in January 2015, and although I didn't remember a great deal of it after this time, the cheese song managed to flash back to me, perhaps, sadly. So, ...