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Having loved Absurd Person Singular and especially the fine playing of a company truly at home with his work, it came as a shock to dislike the new play Surprises quite so much. After a clunky and cliched first act the play certainly improved in the second, but was finally let down by the third. Much of the problem was with setting the pice in a future that was so poorly let down by a poor set. It looked like a child’s vision of the future from 1956, it was about as futuristic as The Jetsons, no, that was better. One has come to expect so much from Chichester in terms of production values and excellence of design and this co-production with the Stephen Joseph Theater simply does not cut it. All this said, credit must be given where due and Richard Stacey’s portrayal of the android Jan is superb and the rest of this multi role playing company do the best they can with a dull and somewhat contrived plot, if one can call it a plot. How I wanted to be back in 1970’s suburbia with Ayckbourn at his best.

Chichester Festival Minerva Theatre

!3 August

Andrew Kay 1 star

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A creative reawakening spurs on their new release and tour

The most well known of the recent spate of bluegrass/country-blues revivalists, Gillian Welch along with partner David Rawlings are however not purists; their mostly downbeat, melancholy music is distinct, is almost poppy in flavour and this has helped them to cross over to the mainstream while still holding on to their cult status. But things have been quiet on the Welch/Rawlings front since their last record, a long eight years ago…
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Making a splash

It’s an old cliché brought about from the days of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse dressed as Smashie and Nicie that celebrities ‘do a lot for charity but don’t like to talk about it’. All well and good, but if you don’t talk about it surely that means the charity in question is missing a trick by not enjoying the boost of publicity and awareness such talk might bring. Which is why The Big Celebrity Swim for Cancer Research is shouting loud and clear about the rack of famous, and non-famous, folk it has engaging in a crawl or a butterfly across the Irish Sea. Read the rest of this article »