The theatre adaptation of the groundbreaking cult classic movie The Full Monty has thrusted its way onto the stage in Manchester, making us both laugh and cry… sometimes at the same time.
On opening night, the Manchester Opera House is quite the experience, the foyer awash with excited northern women – your Nanny Pats to your Auntie Jeans and just about everything in between. There’s a hungry twinkle in all of their eyes as they practically clamber over each other to get through the doors and into their seats.
For anyone who may not have seen the 1997 classic (or you just hadn’t been born yet), the show is set in Thatcher-era Sheffield, where many of the steelworks were being closed down.
It follows Gaz (Danny Hatchard) and his best friend Dave (Neil Hurst) who, along with other members of the cast, have been let go from their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet.
Gaz’s antics have got him in trouble and he risks losing access to his son unless he can pull together the child maintenance cash.
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The local Working Men’s club is visited by the sexy male strippers The Chippendales, inspiring him to pull together a group of out of work pals to strip for cash.
The film was ahead of its time, featuring a storyline of openly gay characters (Guy, played by Jake Quickenden and Lomper, played by Nicholas Prasad) which was relatively unheard of with section 28 and the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ being prohibited at the time. This theme is carefully and comically handled within the show, although some ‘of the time’ vernacular is used early on.
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The Full Monty is currently at Manchester Opera House. Credit: Ellie KurttzThe Full Monty is currently at Manchester Opera House. Credit: Ellie Kurttz
The set on stage is based around the steelworks, with everything having an industrial feel – you are immediately taken back to the 90s terraced streets of Sheffield.
The cast are all lively. You can tell they’re excited for their first night. It was, however, a bit of a slow start in my opinion. Possibly down to me slowly being reacquainted with the storyline which I hadn’t clued myself back up on, or maybe it was the slightly dated jokes, but it took me a little while to warm up.
Whilst Neil Hurst (Dave), Bill Ward (Gerald) and Ben Onwukwe (Horse) all gave particularly stand out performances throughout the show, all of the cast performed brilliantly and were a big hit with the audience.
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We’re definitely outliers with some of the jokes, as the rest of the audience are absolutely howling practically the whole way through.
The Full Monty. Credit: Ellie Kurttz
We’re practically deafened upon the arrival of Jake Quickenden – the mums, the huns and all the grans can hardly contain themselves. One woman is even asked to calm down as she was disturbing other audience members.
As the story continues, the lads recruit their former boss and Conservative party supporter Gerald (Bill Ward) to teach them to dance. An unlikely friendship is formed, showing how hard times can cross party lines.
The final performance is something to behold – a fantastic display of body positivity, where there is literally a body for everyone. The women in the audience are losing. their. minds. One has to be asked to ‘sit down’ three times by Opera House staff.
All in all it’s a light, funny and heartwarming performance that is well worth having a ladies’ night out to watch. The show is on a short run, closing on Saturday 17 Feb, so get your tickets while you can.
Jersey Boys at Palace Theatre, Manchester – Oh, what a night
Amy Williams
20 years, 65 major awards (including Tonys, a Grammy, and an Olivier), and seen by over 27 million people worldwide – it could only be Jersey Boys, and now it’s back at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.
This is one of those shows where you realise just how many songs you know and love by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, but may not know the story behind the band themselves. How they started, how big they became, how they fell apart, and how they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
It follows the four boys from Jersey (who each narrate their parts of the story), how it started as just Tommy and Nick and a range of different guys along the way, until they found the one who has a voice like an angel, Frankie Valli, and this started to change the direction of their success.
But they were missing a key part, a good song writer – enter Bob Gaudio, and the creation of The Four Lovers, who then became The Four Seasons.
Mixed with issues of debt, loan sharks, prison time and more, it wasn’t the smoothest of sailing for them, and as they said themselves, they didn’t create a movement like the Beatles. But The Four Seasons were for the factory workers, the dads, the working class people who could relate to them.
One thing we need to talk about, is just how INCREDIBLE the vocal performances are in this tour of Jersey Boys, staring Luke Baker as Frankie Valli, Carlo Boumouglbay as Tommy Devito, Lewis Kennedy as Nick Massi, and Toby Miles as Bob Gaudio.
Jersey Boys is back in Manchester, for a run at the Palace Theatre
A special mention for Luke Baker, because as iconic as Frankie Valli’s voice is, he very perfectly matched it.
The musical features some of their biggest hits including Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Beggin’, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Walk Like A Man, and of course, December 1963 (Oh, What A Night) which had everyone up on their feet dancing at the end.
This show is incredible from beginning to end, and would recommend everyone go to see this.
Jersey Boys is running at the Palace Theatre in Manchester until Saturday 19 September, and you can grab your tickets HERE.
High School Musical at Lowry, Salford – a night spent reliving our childhood | Review
Amy Williams
What a night spent reliving our childhood.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate or seem biased, considering this is one of my favourite film trilogies of all time, but this could be the best stage show I’ve seen in a long while.
We all know how High School Musical goes, right? Set at East High, we follow Troy and Gabriella (the star basketball player, and the geeky new girl) who meet over New Year, and then become ‘star-crossed lovers’ when back at school as they’re part of two different ‘cliques’.
The duo mess with the ‘Status Quo’ when they audition for the school musical. But will they stick to what they know? Or become stars of the stage? I’m sure you know the ending.
High School Musical is currently on stage at Lowry, Salford / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
From the costumes and the characters, to the memorable songs (there’s actually 52 songs in this production, including a mega mix at the end), they’ve kept right to the script of the films – and that’s exactly what we wanted to see.
Of course, the biggest throwback of them all is Kaycee Stroh – who originally featured as Martha Cox in the film trilogy – taking the role as Ms Darbus, and she was just as incredible as we expected her to be. And to see her do the iconic dance in the finale was unbelievable, 13-year-old Amy was screaming.
Also featuring Jason Donovan as Coach Bolton, Tobias Turley as Troy, Leonor Correia as Gabriella, Caitlin Tipping Sharpay, and Luke Bayer as Ryan, it was a proper impressive cast all round.
It’s a night to properly relive your mid-00s childhood / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
There was crowd interaction right from the off, as they taught the crowd a cheerleading routine to be included later in the show, plus for the finale, they had the lyrics on the big screen too so everyone could sing-along.
If we could go and see this show every single night, we would – it is absolutely brilliant.
Kristen MacGregor-Houlston -
16th February 2024 
