How a British Sitcom Captured Soviet Hearts
Only Fools And Horses: The Musical. Plus: What's On Feb 25-28
I can’t say I’ve engaged much with the legendary British sitcom Only Fools And Horses. The relentlessly ugly South London setting reminded me too much of the years I lived there. They weren’t my happiest. I was just down from Oxford, lonely, overwhelmed and flapping around in the breeze doing dead-end jobs and getting mixed up with the wrong people.
Later, working in Leeds as project support in corporate BT, it was impossible not to notice that the Leeds-based and London-based engineering teams had different temperaments. It was like trying to mix oil and water. The Yorkshire teams worked methodically, so that by ‘go-live’ day they thought they had very little left to do. The London teams would prepare almost nothing, and then flood the zone with attention — creating a last-minute chaos that the Yorkshiremen felt they could do without. “‘Ave a jellied eel,” I remember one muttering furiously as he put down the phone after a conversation with his Southern counterpart. And, when things got really bad, “It wa’ London coppers broke t’ Strike.”
But then I read an article about why Only Fools And Horses was a huge hit inside the decaying Soviet Empire — especially in the busily fragmenting Balkans — and I saw the point. Soul-deadening Soviet-style architecture and the endless, semi-illegal ducking and diving needed to survive a system that claimed to have your best interests in mind but in reality thwarted your aspirations at every turn.
Only Fools And Horses: The Musical may not hit Olympian heights of originality but is distinguished by quotations from John Sullivan’s razor-sharp TV script. Fans will love it. Grand Theatre, Leeds to Mar 1, £35-£65.
Top Five Things
Like many people, I’ve spent more time than I should recently mesmerised by Elon Musk’s X feed. America is being taken to the vet’s, yowling like a cat in a basket. When I attempted the global challenge ‘List Five Things You Did Last Week’, it went:
Wrote a Substack about the implications of recent developments in artificial intelligence for theatre,
Attempted to upgrade my modem but got the cabling confused, couldn’t make the old one work again when I tried to put it back, and sobbed myself to sleep at around 1.30am. (It’s fine now.)
Spent an hour listening to a relative telling me “not to worry about Ukraine” when I wasn’t worried about Ukraine. Eventually it dawned on me that he was worried about Ukraine because his stepson (kind of) has just enlisted into one of the technical, support divisions of the British Army. Now I’m worried about Ukraine.
After that, it gets hazy — except I think I made a spicy lamb casserole. This is a wake-up call if ever I had one.
Top Shows This Week (To Jan 28)
I was tempted to skip this week’s selections. Days of exploring and puzzling out AI applications left me exhausted. But when I consider what I get done in a week, compared with what Elon gets done in a week, I’m shamed. And there are some good little shows happening over the next few days.
Tonight (Sorry)
Allison Davies’s Tiny Fragments Of Beautiful Light at theatre@41Monkgate, York, 7.30pm, Feb 25, £12 & £15, explores one woman’s experience of neurodiversity and wondering why she never fit in. As someone who, in middle age, realised that one of her lifelong friends is not just quietly eccentric but probably masking autism, this strikes a chord with me, as I’m sure it does with many other people.
Tomorrow (Wednesday)
Actor and playwright Matthew Bugg’s ‘A Kept Man’ at Harrogate Theatre, Feb 26, £14-£56, is a concert performance of a new musical destined for the West End. Set in Yorkshire, 1895, it tells an imaginative tale in which a gamekeeper’s life is changed forever when he finds himself embroiled in the Oscar Wilde scandal. The songs have been written in the form of North Country ballads. Performed script-in-hand, you’ll have loads of bragging rights if it does become a hit.
The wondrous Apphia Campbell turns up at York Theatre Royal with her one-woman show Black Is The Colour Of My Voice, telling the story of singer, composer and civil rights campaigner Nina Simone. Feb 26, £15-£31 (last few so hurry)
Thursday
Behold Ye Ramblers, Neil Gore’s musical play, tells of how British working people struggled to access the countryside. The centuries-long Enclosure movement left many Northerners gazing up at inaccessible grouse moors through the industrial smog of their cramped cities. The resulting political protests, championed by luminaries such as William Morris, resulted in the establishment of England’s first National Parks and other rights. Coliseum Centre, Whitby, Feb 27, £7.50-£10, Victoria Hall, Settle, Mar 1, £10.
On a similar theme, Julie Carter’s one-woman show The Dreamtime Fellrunner, directed by my old mate Dan Bye, does what it says on the tin. It’s a lyrical piece exploring the joys of fell-running. This Mindfell production in association with Keswick’s prestigious Theatre by the Lake, stops for breath at The Gate at Belle Isle TMO, Leeds, Feb 27, returns only, St. John's Parish Hall, Staincross, Mar 19, £5, and Queen's Mill, Castleford, Mar 20, £5. Tickets via Red Ladder.
Friday
And finally, the Leeds-based Northern School of Contemporary Dance’s graduate touring company is world-class. Verve25 sees internationally acclaimed choreographers, Luca Signoretti, Thanh-Tú ‘Sattva’ Nguyễn and Bosmat Nossan create three works for 16 highly trained young dancers from around the world. Riley Theatre, Leeds, Feb 28, Mar 1 £12 & £15, Harrogate Theatre, Mar 10, £13-£72, nationally and internationally (Teatro Kismet, Bari, Italy, Apr 29).
That’s it. Hopefully I should pop up again this coming Friday towards late afternoon. Don’t forget that clicking on the highlighted purple link takes you directly to the event’s booking page. Oodles of time and money saved by booking less obvious shows!
Liz x