Olivia Rodrigo played two nights at the Hydro this week, Tuesday and Wednesday. I liked her first album to a degree and thought her second one was very good. But when I saw the ticket prices, I baulked at paying that amount to see a young girl who sings about boyfriend break-ups. Sheesh, I wouldn't pay those prices to see Stevie Nicks, and she's had a massive career with a huge back catalogue to pull from. That didn't stop me from setting up an alert on Twickets in case any second-hand bargains came up.
Fortunately, the prices for every ticket that popped up were still extortionate, even for seats next to the roof, so I never went as far as clicking 'Buy'. Which was just as well because, subsequent to her tour being announced, I'd already booked myself up on both nights. What an expensive blunder that would have been.
'On I Bang' is a tale about how Miles discovered he had a brain tumour and the subsequent operation to remove it. As you might imagine from a raconteur as posh as Miles, the tale is not simply told. It includes aspects of his family life (five kids), his wife's propensity for clutter, and his relationship with his parents.
It is marvellously told using his precise command of language, weaving a deft narrative with sly satirical asides and observation comedy. He throws in callbacks and cracks at his choice of 'insert a local reference into script here' (for the record, Elaine C Smith gets a mention in this capacity), though I'm sure that laugh is scripted, too.
Before the interval, he leaves us, most amusingly, with a cliffhanger: did he survive the operation? I bet you can guess the answer.
This was superior storytelling, ripe with character, humour, and frequent belly laughs, beautifully performed. He did not receive a single heckle. I guess the pisshead brigade is not his demographic, and all the better for it.
As I left the theatre, I noticed in the merch section that they were selling mugs with the tour image on them for £10. A label, written in pen, had been placed in front of them, simply saying, "Clutter." A lovely final callback for those of us who spotted it.
Ticket Price: £28.53 (plus £3.95 Transaction Fee) from ATG.
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| The view from my seat, pre-show |
Blurb:
Since Miles’ last tour finished at The London Palladium in 2017, he’s been in The Full Monty on Disney Plus, The Durrells and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? on ITV, as well as a heap of episodes of Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and Have I Got News For You. He’s made an award-winning radio series and he’s published a novel. But for Covid, he would have played a lead at the RSC. Hey ho. Nevertheless he’s done a play in the West End and played the Emperor of Austria and Europe in a Ridley Scott film.
Yet one sunny day in the middle of all this, he suddenly suffered a brain seizure. This led to the discovery of a tumour the size of a cherry tomato, and a rather pressing need to undergo major neurosurgery. Obviously, one doesn’t wish to make a big deal of it, but the experience has left him with a story to tell and a few things that he’d like to share with the room. So that’s exactly what he’s doing in his new show On I Bang – a tale about surprise, fear, luck, love and qualified medical practitioners.
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