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metromagazine
7/ 4/2006

BB King

MEN Arena

COULD it be that the thrill has gone? It was certainly billed as BB King's farewell tour, and the 80-year-old spent much of the night joshing about his age, his diabetes, his bad back and the dodgy knees, which mean he must now perform sitting down.

When he sang that most famous of his songs, The Thrill Is Gone, there must have been more than the odd moist eye in the house.

As an evening's entertainment, this was a testament to the enduring power of the blues, from BB, the one-time sharecropper from Mississippi, down to Gary Moore, the white Belfast boy (he's only 53, after all) first enthused to play this music by another white boy from Surrey, Eric Clapton.

If Moore showed how blues can be a dour martial art - a scarifying, combative display of fretboard pyrotechnics - BB showed how it can also be showbiz, indulging in corny banter with his tuxedo-clad brassy ensemble.

But there were also reminders a-plenty of BB's part in the primal power of the blues: the bleak betrayal of All Over Again, the sublimely sexy Rock Me Baby, the pining courtship of Guess Who and the darkly comic verse which runs "Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could jivin' me, too".

BB may have left the building now, but the thrill hasn't gone quite yet.

A Day In The Life Of Joe Egg

Library Theatre, until April 29

ALWAYS a challenging combination of heart-breaking tragedy and stand-up comedy, Peter Nichols' Sixties shocker has lost little of its considerable impact in this rather splendid revival.

Bri and Sheila cope with their everyday tragedy of having a severely handicapped daughter by feeding each other laugh lines in a surreal comedy double act.

Bri, a teacher at the local secondary modern, is however beginning to crack. While Sheila still hopes their helpless daughter will one day improve. With its huge lurches of mood, it's a difficult piece to pull off but director Roger Haines and his quite superb cast hit it right on the button.

Terrific performance from Jason Thorpe as Bri, partnered by the excellent Judy Flynn as Sheila, and backed by three scene-stealing cameos from Christopher Brand, Race Davies and Tina Gray, as two friends and Bri's mother, plus a finely-judged contribution from Lucy Smith, as Joe.

The Cut

The Lowry, until Saturday

MARK Ravenhill's first play Shopping and F***ing created a real stir when it was premiered ten years ago.

His latest might not be quite so immediately striking as that ground-breaking debut but it is a powerful and provocative political allegory that boasts a performance of great authority and breadth from its star, Ian McKellen.

The veteran, whose latest roles include the Lord Of The Rings as well as a well-received cameo in Coronation Street and a recent stage role as Widow Twankey, is here on stage throughout the crisp 90-minute running time as Paul, a discontented bureaucrat in a totalitarian state where he administers a process known as The Cut.

The precise nature of this operation is never clarified, but so powerful is the state's propaganda machine that some citizens, such as John (Jimmy Akingbola), who comes to Paul's grim utilitarian office in the play's emotionally-exhausting opening scene, actually crave the procedure.

Others, such as Paul's marvellously manipulative wife Susan (Deborah Findley) and his high-minded student son Stephen (Tom Burke), despise its barbarism.

Paul himself is suicidally tormented, not only by what he does but also, in a grimly comic touch, by a mountain of paperwork.

Although the play's essential elusiveness might frustrate some, Ravenhill's writing can be as elegant as it is often foul-mouthed. McKellen's bravura turn makes his character as intriguing and terrifying as pathetic, while Michael Grandage's direction is compelling and Paul Wills' set design effective.