Feminism is a tricky subject for me. While there is no denying that I definitely am a woman (I’ve got the paperwork!), I sometimes find feminists shouty, angry and a little bit scary. However, give me Caitlin Moran or Bridget Christie and I’m back on board. So to find relatable feminism in a play written in 1879 by (get this!) a man was quite the pleasant surprise.

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is about Nora, who has been dutifully married to Torvald for eight years, and given him three children. Earlier in their relationship, Nora took Torvald to Italy for a year, as he was in poor health. Nora led Torvald to believe she had paid for the trip with money left to her by her father, when is reality she borrowed the money from the dubious Krogstad. When Krogstad’s job at the company where Torvald works as a Director is compromised, he sees this as opportunity to blackmail Nora. As Nora begins to crumble with worry, so does her relationship with Torvald.

The script is a new adaptation by Bryony Lavery, writer of the brilliant play Frozen. There is no doubt that this play is about Nora’s journey and liberation. Nora is by no means a perfect character, but her naivety and childishness in the first act make her final scenes even more rewarding. I was all but cheering when she discussed her dissatisfaction with her marriage with Torvald.

And of course, this is largely due to Cush Jumbo’s amazing performance as Nora. I was fortunate enough to see her at the Royal Exchange two years ago in As You Like It, and it was clear then that I was watching a very exciting young performer. She is absolutely perfect as Nora, with a mix of grace, coquettishness, and eventually great strength. There is no denying Jumbo is completely enigmatic, but it definitely helps that she is portraying such a powerful character.

The supporting cast is in Jumbo’s shadow a little, but still give some commendable performances. David Sturzaker gave a very convincing performance as Torvald. At one point he was so condescending to Nora I wanted to shout obscenities at him from the gallery. I’m taking that as a sign of a believable bad guy. Jack Tarlton was great as creepy and desperate Krogstad, and Kelly Hotten was very warm as Nora’s compassionate mother figure Mrs Linde.

As always, the lush set and costumes were extremely impressive. Both Jumbo and Hotten looked fantastic in corseted waists and flowing skirts. The action never went further than Nora’s living room, decked out with gorgeous furniture. There was a real feeling of opulence throughout the play.

Even though A Doll’s House is over 100 years old, it is still extremely relevant and important. Young women can still relate to Nora’s struggle, and this production keeps the story engaging. Cush Jumbo further proves that she is one of the best young stage actors in this country, and Bryony Lavery’s adaptation is paced brilliantly. Another hit for the Royal Exchange.

A Doll’s House is playing at the Royal Exchange until 1st June 2013. For more information, click here.

With the exception of betting on the Grand National every year (always on the same number, I may add), horse-racing and gambling has never really been something I’ve taken much interest in. Luckily, this didn’t detract from me enjoying Ladies’ Day which is currently showing at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre.

Penned by award-winning playwright Amanda Whittington, Ladies’ Day tells the story of four fish factory workers who decide to visit York Racecourse to attend the Ladies’ Day event at Royal Ascot.

In a bid to escape the humdrum of day-to-day life in Hull and to celebrate Pearl’s (Annie Sawle) forthcoming retirement, the down-to-earth northern lasses swap their hairnets and overalls for high heels and fascinators in the hopes of winning big in what is a fresh-faced and cheerful comedy.

With each female showcasing completely authentic Yorkshire accents, the main characters are completely recognisable, though perhaps a little too caricatured, from Shelley (Amy Walsh) – the wannabe WAG who dreams of escaping a dead-end job and mounting debts – to devoted single mother Jan (Sue McCormick). The only member of the quartet whose backstory I felt was not developed as well as it should have been was Linda (Laura Aramayo). While that didn’t distract from the actor’s portrayal of the kind-hearted, innocent factory worker, I didn’t feel like I connected with her as much as the other three.

Special praise, meanwhile, should be reserved for Tom Bevan who plays every single male character in the play – from Joe, the factory supervisor who is an object of desire for one of the ladies) to the slightly creepy racing TV presenter. Although he was very convincing in all his roles, I don’t think it would have hurt if there would have been an additional male actor just to help freshen things up a little and also give Bevan a brief break from what must have been a constant series of costume changes.

While the girls’ day out is meant to be fun and frivolous as they pin their hopes on scooping a big win, some fascinating revelations about each character emerges. All of these give an extra layer of depth to the characters, I think Pearl’s storyline was a touch on the schmaltzy side and wasn’t quite as captivating as some of the others.

I must also point out that if, like me, you aren’t into racing there’s no need to be worried that you don’t know how odds work. A lot of racing terminology is explained in an easy-to-understand manner and many of the laughs come from the characters’ attempts to fit in with the glitz and glamour of the horseracing world.

Overall, Ladies’ Day is unlikely to have the deepest plot of any play you see this year and while it isn’t without its faults – much like watching a horse you’ve backed in action – it is an utterly enjoyable experience.

Ladies’ Day is at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre until May 25th 2013. For more information or to book tickets, please go to www.coliseum.org.uk.

Hello Blanche. Thanks for taking the time to talk to The Good Review. Congratulations on your production of The Seagull. It’s been really well received everywhere it’s played.

Thank you. I’m hugely proud of it. It makes me very happy that it’s done so well.

Did you have a clear vision from the beginning of how you wanted the play?

Yes I had a strong idea of the things I thought were true of the play, that hadn’t necessarily been covered in productions that I’d seen before. I thought it was very much about doing something more theatrically interesting than people normally associate with Chekhov and I had a couple of ideas about how to go about that. A lot of stuff generated out of rehearsal – I knew where I wanted to go but not how I was going to get there.

How did you go about developing your ideas from that initial concept?

You have to develop them along with the actors really because they’re the ones that are going to go on and ultimately create it. I have a big map in my head but I don’t necessarily know the details and I like to let the actors find everything. We sort of evolve the shape of it and the nature of it together, so it grows out of what everyone is bringing to rehearsal, not just me.

The Seagull has some very strong characters but it is ultimately an ensemble piece. How did you explore the relationships and the interplay between the characters?

We discovered very quickly that rehearsing Chekhov is not like rehearsing virtually any other play because you have to get to know the characters like you get to know people that you meet. Normally when I start rehearsing, I know how these people operate with each other – who they are and what they want – which shows how you can stage it. With this one, it was absolutely obvious from the word ‘go’ how to stage it but we didn’t know who the characters were. Finding out what they thought of each other and how they related to each other was incredibly interesting because it could have gone so many different ways. We had to get to know who these people were and what they thought of each other, starting from a point of almost total ignorance.

Subtext is very important in Chekhov’s work, does that make rehearsals even more interesting?

I think that’s right and I think if you imagine the sort of conversation that you have with anyone that you know, it’s not that you’re playing the subtext, the subtext is just there. Every line that you choose, that you say, is influenced by everything that has happened until now. You don’t think about it but it is there in the back: So I think a lot of what we had to do was getting to the point where that stuff was all there to be called on.

The Seagull was a failure when it was first produced in 1896 but it was made into a success by Stanislavski a couple of years later and billed as a new development in the history of drama. Why do you think that was?

I think people didn’t know how to take it the first time round. It was a very extraordinary, radical thing to do to have people talk and act like real people who are imaginary; entirely two dimensional people to the extent that you don’t necessarily get to see inside their heads. They walk about on stage and turn and talk to the audience and say “I quite like that play” or whatever it is; and at the same time you only know as much about them as about someone you might meet on the street. That had never been done before – it was utterly unprecedented – and I think people just didn’t know what to do with it. When Stanislavski took it on the second time the audience were ready for it. This was partly because he took many more weeks to do it and it was a more polished performance; but also because people had got used to the idea of this new type of thing happening. It had become an exciting and interesting piece of work rather than a baffling one and got a much better reception.

Has Stanislavski been an influence on your work?

He is a great man of the theatre and a great artist of the theatre. No one can ever quite get away from the idea that one should have a psychological element in one’s work – he’s completely changed the landscape. He himself was evolving his ideas as he went through his career, so what we would now say is a “Stanislavski approach”, is something very much from his earlier stage career. I don’t know if he’s necessarily very sensible or very useful in all plays; and the thing that always makes me smile is that Chekhov thought that Stanislavski hadn’t done a great job. He (Chekhov) turned to him at one point and said “you do know there isn’t a fourth wall?” He thought it was much too slow, too naturalistic and too soggy. He thought it should have been much funnier, much more absurd – less full of corn crakes chirping and heavy dusk lighting and the rest of it. I think you have to know him as a master but you don’t necessarily have to take him as a great authority.

That’s really interesting!

Oh yeah I know. There’s a book by Bulgatov called Black Snow, which just takes him apart. It’s absolutely stunning. Since I read it, I’ve not been quite able to look at Stanislavski in the same non critical way as a lot of people do – because that was a man who worked with him. Bulgatov had a play destroyed by him actually and he just takes such an accurate, satirical eye to his message. Once you’ve read that book, whatever you use as his method is a choice – it’s a choice in the knowledge that it’s not the only route you can take.

The Guardian (when reviewing The Seagull) said that we’ve entered an era of strong, radical Chekhov productions. Do you think there’s a particular reason for that?

That’s a very good question. I think people have suddenly started to realise that there is more than one way to do Chekhov. I think that Three Sisters, which Benedict Andrew’s did at the Young Vic last year, opened a lot of people’s minds to the idea that you could do Chekhov like this. Of course the Russians have been doing it like that for years. I remember seeing a production of Uncle Vanya a few years ago where there was a completely bare stage and three haystacks hanging above it, which lowered themselves for the last scene onto the stage. The idea that you can be rough with it, you can be absurd with it and that you can stage it in a lot of different ways is a very common one in Russia. I think it’s probably on the back of Russian touring theatre coming over there was an awareness in the industry that there were other ways of doing it; and what is lovely is that it’s got so much more interesting.

You’re directing Pinter’s The Birthday Party at The Royal Exchange next. It’s another classic but very different to The Seagull. Do you find you have quite a different approach?

Yes, we’re just in rehearsal at the moment. My approach changes depending on what the play is and what it seems to need. It’s very different – it’s almost radically opposite. The thing about Pinter is he knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it done. The way that he’s written it, if you depart from that it messes up the whole thing; whereas with Chekhov there are 20,000 different ways, any one of which might be right for the actor at that second.

Brilliant. Well thank you very much for talking to me. It’s been lovely.

Not at all, total pleasure. It’s been lovely to talk to you and I hope you enjoy the show.

Moon On A Stick productions was formed with the stated aim of creating “inspiring, thought provoking and visually engaging theatre with the help of beautiful puppets”.

The evidence of this show suggests the company is succeeding.

The story is inspired by a Cornish folk tale in which a young man is enticed into the sea by a mermaid and is never seen again.

In this stage version the young man, Henry, and the mermaid are represented both by actors (the boyish Benedict Hastings and the beguiling Chloe Ward) and by striking, eerie-looking puppets, manipulated around the stage by members of the ensemble company.

There’s a straightforward simplicity and earnestness in the telling of the story by a troupe of young actors.

A soundscape of crashing waves evokes the feeling of being on a Cornish beach. All the performers are barefoot, and the stage essentially bare, aside from a few essential props. These are used to clever effect, in particular the cradle of ropes which forms a “soul cage” in which the puppet Henry is imprisoned under the sea.

If the first half of the show, which sets up the story, has a simple charm, the second half enters another dimension, with an ingenious combination of light, sound and puppetry evoking the strange, scary, other-worldliness of under-sea life to spectacular effect.

Alongside the story of Henry and the mermaid runs what seems to be a parallel plot involving Thomas, a fisherman, and his sweetheart Iris (strong, moving performances here from Paul Sheridan and Shelly Atton).

The couple’s mysterious, adopted daughter Imogen (a winning turn by Alice Sillett) turns out to be the catalyst who brings the strands of the story together.

The uniformly talented ensemble is completed by puppeteer and actor Emiliano Calcagno.

In addition to their acting and puppetry skills, all the cast prove to be fine singers. It’s one of those evenings when you find yourself still humming tunes from the show long after you’ve left the theatre.

Sillett and Atton also created the puppets, and great credit must also go to the show’s director, Madelaine Ryan.

Many young actors, in the months after leaving drama school, will find themselves in various versions of Shakespeare plays and other pieces of classic drama at fringe venues around London.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s refreshing to find a company like Moon On A Stick striking out on its own to produce such original, inventive and impressive work.

Some of my favourite plays are those where you feel as if you’re eavesdropping on a very intense conversation. The Gambit, the latest work from Mark Reid, is an imaged conversation between legendary chess grandmasters Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, after a stony silence of 25 years.

Unless you have knowledge of the history of chess, which I certainly do not, the plot of The Gambit may elude you somewhat. Thankfully, this should not impede your enjoyment. At its core, The Gambit concerns the relationship between two men who decades earlier were extremely close, before something drove a chasm between them. It took me a little bit of post-show Googling to ascertain what this was, but only to satisfy my own curiosity.

It is the beauty of the conversation, and the performances of the two actors, that make this piece enjoyable. Each vocal barb is as carefully considered as a chess move, and given the history of these two players (a very young Kasparov ended Karpov’s ten-year reign as chess World Champion after a controversial game in 1985), the stakes are very high. The script is wonderfully crafted, and the heightened language of both characters is not unbelievable, given their vast intellect.

I’ve expressed my adoration for actor Ben Rigby in previous reviews. In this, he further displays the actor’s versatility as Anatoly Karpov. Karpov has become very bitter towards Kasparov, but after so many years clearly wants some kind of resolution. Rigby switches between calm, angry and desperate with ease. He delivers a particularly moving monologue at the height of Karpov’s frustration that is absolutely captivating.

Nick Pearse plays contrasting Kasparov extremely well. Kasparov is younger, and more successful, and Pearse maintains the level of calm appropriate for this character. He knows he has the upper hand in every sense, but never comes across as arrogant or smug. He plays the role with a certain amount of pity towards Karpov. Rigby and Pearse complement each other extremely well; it was a real treat to see two such talented actors battling each other.

The Gambit is a wonderful, short piece about conflict in its various forms. While I would have appreciated more information on the characters (as both their stories are very interesting) and their relationship, I still enjoyed this rich, intelligent and fascinating piece of work.

The Gambit is currently on tour, dates can be found here. 

The Freedom Plays at the Courtyard Theatre by Sarita Plowman originally stemmed from a response to the word ‘restriction’.  It is no surprise then, that with a topic of such possibility, we are presented with a triptych of plays which are incredibly varied.  Jumping, seemingly a domestic drama, becomes an absurdist journey of escape. Falling, set in an un-named war zone, where a lost soldier waits for rescue is intense and surreal. Landing, is a comically accurate depiction of a universal scenario with which we can all empathise – the need to let it out.

When we enter the space, we are led down a path of bubble wrap, the noise and feel of the material underneath is both liberating and frustrating, a foreshadow of what we are about to experience. We are greeted by the Pastor himself and a team of energetic church goers handing out biscuits. There are a number of charming touches used to immerse the audience within the performance, including a prayer book on every seat and a collection from the audience of luggage tags, which we have been asked to write on. These are all enjoyable, notably an interjection from the congregation of a rendition of sexual healing, is a welcome break from the serious nature of the themes being explored.  But the strength of the writing which is to follow questions whether this is all necessary. There is something to be said for letting the writing speak for itself, especially when it is as bold and poignant as it is here.

Each of the plays has their own merits, Jumping, sees a house wife Sue, over worked and under-appreciated, surrounded by mountains of washing and trapped in a tower block. Sarita Plowman is committed and honest in this role and as the play twists into absurdism, she is joined by Victoria Grove as Boudicca, a symbol of the female strength, which she ignites within Sue. The playfulness and transformation of language shines through here as well as the enjoyment for the audience when we see the situation from another side.

Falling, sees Dan Shelton as the Soldier and Toyah Frantzen as (H) in a charged and enigmatic encounter. Sweat drips from the Soldier’s face as (H) arrives with a cup of water for him, an oasis in a desert, but which he cannot trust. She challenges his whole world, and in turn ours. What are we fighting for and is there even a war? Is the solider living on a land of lies? Again, we see the world distort and deconstruct, becoming strangely trippy.

Landing is the light relief and what a relief it is as Sally Lofthouse plays a child who has drunk too much squash and finds herself in desperate need of the toilet. Surrounded by the congregation, Abigail Dempsey, Anna Nicholson, J.Raphael Richards and Samantha Anderson, and over looked by the Pastor, Darrell Bailey, she has no way out. Her only option is to fight the ultimate human restriction and let go.

West End juggernaut The Book of Mormon doesn’t really need any more support, does it? It’s already received mostly glowing reviews (except for a few older critics who just don’t “get it”), and is currently booking until January of next year. Well, it turns out there is a reason for all this overwhelming support; this is the most exciting thing to hit mainstream theatre since Matilda.

The Book of Mormon is the brainchild of South Park creators (and Academy Award nominated songwriters) Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and one half of the team behind the fantastic Avenue Q, Robert Lopez. We follow a group of young Mormon missionaries, just before they are due to leave America to begin their two-year stint of trying to convert people to the Mormon faith. Some Elders are given glamorous locations such as Norway and Japan, however Elders Kevin Price and Arnold Cunningham are sent to the slightly less ideal country of Uganda. Upon their arrival, they are greeted by a group of people extremely disenchanted with religion, and under threat from the tyrannical General Butt-Fucking-Naked. However, Elder Cunningham’s interesting, and slightly sci-fi influenced take on the Mormon religion begins to sway the people of the village, especially young lady Nabulungi. Will the village stand up to the evil General? Will they become Mormons? Will the easily offended audience members be able to cope with all the swearing?

Not only is this an extremely funny and oddly heart-warming show, the musical numbers are genuinely brilliant pieces of song writing. The appropriately titled opening number Hello is very clever, with overlapping vocals, great harmonies and bewitching choreography. This is closely followed by the beautifully bouncy Two By Two. It is hard to pick a favourite; this show has really set the bar stupidly high for original musical theatre. My highlights were the immensely funky and factually accurate All-American Prophet, and the staging of the dark Spooky Mormon Hell Dream was absolutely perfect. But probably the most jaw-dropping performance came from Alexia Khadime as Nabulungi, who absolutely nailed the off-beat balled Sal Tlay Ka Siti (read it aloud, it’ll make more sense).

Clearly, given the show’s success on Broadway, the UK casting team had their pick of musical theatre talent when filling these roles. Gavin Creel, who previously played the role of Elder Price in the US National Tour, was outstanding. He has a delicious voice, and portrayed the young man’s descent into madness extremely well. Jared Gertner, who had the honour of playing Elder Cunningham on Broadway, was absolutely adorable. Both actors had huge shoes to fill, and did something incredible. Stephen Ashfield was also hilarious as Elder McKinley. But every single member of the cast was of such unbelievable quality.

It also shows how far we have come. It was only eight years ago that Jerry Springer: The Opera was shut down by small-minded, right-wing protestors, accusing the writers of blasphemy. While this show is not outwardly offensive, there is plenty for the average Daily Mail reader to get outraged about. Cleverly, the Mormon Church has even used the show as a marketing opportunity, using three full pages of the programme for advertising. After all, the show leaves the audience with no negative feelings towards Mormons, so why not?

The only negative thing about this show is that at £127, top-price tickets are very expensive. While the theatre holds a lottery for every performance, offering top price tickets for £20 each, sheer demands means odds of winning are pretty lousy, and doesn’t do any favours for those theatre lovers outside London. A musical such of this could really get previously sceptical people interested in theatre; it’s a shame ticket prices make it inaccessible to many.

However, if you can get hold of a ticket, you should. Like Jerusalem before it, this is a real piece of event theatre. There is a reason why this show is getting so much praise; it is just fantastic. Wonderful songs, a hilarious script and faultless performances, this is a show you need to see.

The Book of Mormon is currently booking until January 2014. More information here.

Chapel Street

The dialogue in Chapel Street isn’t just quick fire fast, it is machine gun fire. There is no apology to the audience, no slowing down so that they can catch up its all about tuning in and staying with the two characters as they discuss their experiences of an evening out on the town.

What I like about this play is that it isn’t really about anything new yet it feels fresh and challenging and I think that has to be put down to the bravery of all involved. The writing isn’t always linear, one character often veers off into a disjointed rant about an unconnected matter right in the middle of someone else’s monologue, yet the diversion is often welcome, it prevents sentimentality and keeps the narrative flowing. The direction is brave, there are no tricks or gimmicks, it is two people and four crates yet the world and the story come alive in front of you. And the acting is brilliant, Josh Mayes-Cooper and Nicola Coughan play the characters with very little vanity, their reactions and their experiences explained in painstaking detail to the audience and this interaction helps endear them to us.

There is no judgement of these people in the script, only their situation. For me it helped highlight how removed the government of today is from the man on the street, how little they would know of the circumstances and the driving factors in their lives. But it also helped drive home the lack of change in the last fifteen years, I recognised these characters from my own experiences of growing up and escaping and it is disappointing to think that nothing has change.

This is a thought provoking, exciting and brave production of an interesting and moving play.

Bitch Boxer

I had heard a lot about this play, it seems to have been around for a long time, and having seen it, I now understand why.

It is brilliant.

The piece tells the story of a young female boxer who is training for the Olympics when her father and her inspiration passes away. What follows is a battle against the growing pressures of success and the creeping shadow of bereavement.

Charlotte Josephine the writer and star of the piece is something else. She puts herself through such physical exertion so that the truth of the character is centre stage. She is hard, determined and a frightening prospect but at the same time she has a beautifully charming centre, and slightly embarrassed smiles often light up her face. The play is about pushing yourself to the limits and the sacrifices that are made along the way.

In the build up to the Olympics there were several plays that captured this determination and I think it is what makes these sporting adaptations work so well. Often sporting stories fail because they over glamorize or over explain the worlds that are actually irrelevant to the story. Bitch Boxer doesn’t do that, all we see here is a girl who is hurting, both mentally and physically, and yet she is still pushing.

This is a wonderful companion piece to Chapel Street, one play depicts the ease with which you can just give up, and the other showcases a desperate need to better yourself. Together they make for a really wonderful night at the theatre.

Its easy to get stuffy about long running musicals, and We Will Rock You is one that sets off all the alarm bells, however, for the most part I was pleasantly surprised.

We follow the story of a young man, Galileo Figaro (Oliver Tompsett), who is being haunted by dreams of rock n’ roll in a Orwellian world controlled by the Killer Queen (Brenda Edwards). In the first half the story works seamlessly, to an extraordinarily satisfying degree. The complexities of the relocation and the absurdity of the characters, doesn’t jar as much as it should, instead you find that you’re being pulled along with them and slowly becoming absorbed in their troubles.

It is a testament to Queen that their songs stand this manipulation and actually offer something fresh and new in the retelling. In fact the music is the crowning glory of the play, it looks as if it has been written specifically for this purpose and often tells the story much more clearly than the dialogue. The highlight for me was the very simple staging of ‘Under Pressure’ which magically explained Freddie Mercury’s vocal flourishes and still enhanced the narrative.

Rachael Wooding is brilliantly dry as the engaging Scaramouche, she mixes comic timing with a wonderfully powerful voice and is often the best thing on stage. Oliver Tompsett has a remarkable voice but I found it a bizarre choice to employ an American accent – something I couldn’t really get over and often his moves felt prescribed rather than spontaneous. Brenda Edwards and Alasdair Harvey are perhaps the driving forces in the narrative, their comic evil villians are exciting and well pitched, and their musical abilities are mind blowing. Kevin Kennedy is charming as the washed up hippie, however he is often seduced by the presence of the audience.

Of course the play isn’t perfect, and in fact it even borders on pantomime by the end. I left the theatre a little annoyed that the second half didn’t live up to the promise of the first. The care that Ben Elton had taken to create a world and to develop the characters in the first half is all but thrown away in the farcical pub scene where Kevin Kennedy’s Pop delivers a monologue of plot points which all but destroys the hard work everyone has put in.

Having said that, there is a reason the show is still on the West End and the theatre is still full to busting, and that reason is Queen. High quality music, sung by phenomenally talented performers through amps pumped up to the loudest. This is an exciting musical which slightly loses its way.

We Will Rock You is at the Dominion Theatre for more information or to book tickets please click here

For cheaper tickets you might also want to look here: www.showsinlondon.co.uk

It takes a certain sort of person to go to a gig on their own and until a few years ago this is someone that I wasn’t. Ever since the ill-fated Benicassim of 2010 when I missed the likes of Ian Brown, Echo & The Bunnymen and Foals I have vowed never to let going alone stand in the way of my musical preference.

As such I found myself paying the ridiculous amount of tax demanded on German gig tickets to see Ghostpoet, a Mercury Prize nominated artist who I saw for 8 quid in Leeds Union just over a year ago. Debut album Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam received critical acclaim from music fans of all shapes and sizes and his latest release, the tongue-twisting Some Say I So I Say Light is already beginning to make waves. However, I must admit I am yet to hear it in its entirety, but that could be a good thing right? Thus there were absolutely no preconceptions as I stepped into Feierwerk in Munich.

Munich’s Feierwerk never ceases to amaze me as a venue. A sprawling labyrinth of buildings, each interconnected but with its own distinctive feel. The Kranhalle, tonight’s venue is, although intimate, a clear indication that things are going well in Ghostpoet world at the moment – last time I saw him, he was playing a room the size of the huge Ghostpoet drape that now adorns the wall.

As someone whose friends’ have played as support for bigger bands before, I’m ashamed to say that I missed the majority of Cloud Boat’s set, arriving just in time to see their last song, a fusion of distorted guitar and hypnotic beats.

Taking to the stage to rapturous applause, Ghostpoet bursts straight into Start Again, a sleazy groove vastly bettered by the addition of a drummer, bassist and synthesiser. Standing stage-left just next to the drummer I was hypnotised by his electric drum pad, emitting bleeps and crashes as was his wont. This ‘live’ aspect gave a fantastic energy to the show, something that all the technology in the world would not be able to recreate.

After only a few seconds of the first song from his new album it was clear that Ghostpoet had got his groove shoes on. And his groove pants. And most likely his groove socks too. That said, his music transcends genres especially in a live setting.

Switching from repetitive dance driven moments to full on rock breakdowns with a flick of a switch, the large grin plastered across his face throughout the evening proved he loved every minute of it – as did the hordes of two-stepping teenage girls who gathered to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at his feet.

One thing I could have criticised the last time I saw him play would be the amount of aspects performed by tape recorders.

Not this time. This is particularly evident on tracks such as Survive It and new single Meltdown where the ‘synth siren’ gently cooed with chilling brilliance. The stand-out moment of the gig came when arguably the two best songs of the first album, Liines and Cash and Carry Me Home, were played back to back, the latter being one of the first songs he ever wrote and as such it has taken on a life of its own – dynamic and ever-changing from the original version. I keep on writing,writing but them folk ain’t biting, biting maybe the bait ain’t juicy enough? questions Mr Poet on Liines, effectively a parable for every budding musician faced with the doubts and worries of ‘making it’. It’s simple poeticism at its very best.

After a short encore Ghostpoet and co. thanked the crowd sincerely and as the last remnants of reverb died away I was left questioning why I’d ever dreamt of not going to this gig in the first place. It was fantastic to see just how much his music has evolved in a mere 18 months and to see a fellow Brit succeed abroad is always great. If you’re reading this and feel you would never go to a gig on your own I urge you to give it a go – Because in the end it’s all about the music, man.