THEATRE REVIEW: Ricky's Royle Variety Show - The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Entertainment legend Ricky Tomlinson and local Liverpool vocalist, Asa Murphy, are aiming to bring variety back to Liverpool and this show is the first of many leading the way to fulfil their aspirations. ‘Where better to start than Liverpool?’ asked Tomlinson as he and Murphy opened the show. It was a full house with an audience of mainly over 55 year olds but there were groups of younger theatre-goers as well, a captive audience wanting to be entertained.

As they both stepped out onto the stage there was a loud cheer giving them a warm welcome and the popular hosts sang, danced and joked their way through their intro; Tomlinson was in full swing with anecdotes and jokes, albeit he is in his eighties now, whilst Murphy accompanied him lapping up the admiration from their hometown fans.

They introduced singer, Nula Murphy (a member of the talented Asa Murphy family) who entertained with popular Jazz songs, ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, ‘All Of Me’ and Tony Bennetts, ‘Maybe This Time.’

Tomlinson then introduced Liverpudlian comedian, John Martin and impressed the audience by informing them that over the years Martin has written comedy for Sir Ken Dodd, Jimmy Tarbuck and Bob Monkhouse and has written a book entitled, ‘I Want To Be A Comedian, Mr Tarbuck.’

Martin entertained with a torrent of topical comedy covering COVID, lockdown, ‘wife’ jokes and anecdotal humour about his birthplace, Bootle. There was plenty of teasing and ridiculing of audience members but the interaction was taken mainly without causing offence or too much embarrassment but some jibes were pretty near the knuckle; all in all it was taken in good spirits with a lot of laughter and conviviality.  Martinb is a master of ad-lib and his razor-sharp wit was lapped up by the audience plus he is a Guinness World Record holder for continuous joke telling, a title he’s held undefeated since 1993; this certainly came across in his performance and he had to be reminded his slot was overrunning and was dragged off the stage still telling jokes.

Soprano singer, Danielle Louise Thomas performed after the interval with renditions of ‘Never Enough’ from ‘The Greatest Showman’, ‘I Dreamed A Dream’, My Fair Lady’s, ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, ‘Nessun Dorma’ and Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Time To Say Goodbye’; all beautifully executed and appreciated with warm applause.  She informed the audience she had the privilege of performing at Jürgen Klopp’s Freedom of the City inauguration last year.

Top of the bill were The Mama Mia’s, an ABBA tribute act consisting of two female singers; publicity for the variety show promised ‘a top of the bill act backed by a live band’ but disappointingly this did not materialise as the singers were singing to backing tracks. They performed enthusiastically but didn’t really hit the mark. Unfortunately there were some sound issues mainly that the backing tracks were overly loud causing the singers to sing too loudly and at times their voices sounded rather shrill and screechy as well as their vocals being over-exaggerated, rather than melodic.

The staging was non-existent as the stage for the entire performance was bare, unadorned except for a white backdrop with the occasional coloured lights flashing onto it, consequently there was no atmosphere either to enhance the artists’ performances or for the audience to enjoy.  A dry ice machine was in view, stage left but was somewhat unnecessary.

The afternoon show was a pleasant two hour interlude on a cold, dull Sunday afternoon but undoubtedly needs some attention to both meet up to the standards advertised in the publicity as ‘an afternoon of amazing variety talent with some of the best cabaret entertainers in Merseyside’ performing and to satisfy an audience enough to want more and return again in the future.

Reviewer - Anne Pritchard
on - 5.2.23