By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
Mike Skinner brought The Streets to the seafront, the GLC and the Inbetweeners.
By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum (press ticket)
We were Bonkers.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Tracklist: Can’t Get Next To You; Favourite Kind Of Idiot; I Want The Job; Sad Songs And Lawsuits; She Ain’t Pretty; One Eye Open; Send In The Clowns; Do Not Ask Me; Don’t Lean On Me; Jet Black Sky; The Whisky Did; Before Before; Good For The Bees; Go Upstream; A Son Of A Father
We 1st saw Heaton live at Aldershot’s West End Centre with his 2nd band The Beautiful South as chart-topper Song For Whoever was released in 1989.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Monday 24 August, opens 2 September and runs through 3 October 2026 RUNTIME: 140 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
Sophie Okonedo (Medea, @SohoPlace) is the beating heart of this revival of Brian Friel’s (Dancing At Lughnasa, National) take on this very Chekhovian tale of an 1840s Russian landowner’s wife’s infatuation with her son’s young tutor.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Tracklist: Remedy; Waiting On Nina; Sea Change; Fault Lines; The Thread; Removed; Collapsing; DLR; Silhouette On The Hill; Three Moon Trail; Tunnels
Rather than a brat summer, this season has been more Confessions II or Pride summer for us but this understated debut album has grown in stature thanks to repeated play.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Madonna’s latest album Confessions II stakes a claim to be the best LP of the year so far and this is a remix of 1 of its many singles with a guest duet vocal with another of the world’s biggest gay icons.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHEN? Saturday 1 August, opens 11 August and runs through 12 September 2026.
It feels like musical theatre has never been more popular and yet we can’t help but also think that not everything’s ripe to see its characters burst into song.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN? Sunday 2 August (matinee), opens 4 August and runs through 27 September 2026 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
X Factor winner Burke (Chicago, Phoenix Theatre) is Chaka Khan and encores with a mash-up of her biggest hits – I Feel For You, Ain’t Nobody and I’m Every Woman – and it’s a joyous end to the story of a complicated woman born ahead of her time in the surprise hit show of the summer.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN? Thursday 9 July, runs through Saturday 11 July 2026
Festival organisers are giving away free sombreros as temperatures surpass 40 degrees – the highest recorded for 112 years – and Suede compliment this vast crowd on their enthusiastic singing along.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Wednesday 8 July, festival runs through 11 July and Sigrid tours through 5 September 2026
SETLIST: I’ll Always Be Your Girl; Burning Bridges; Plot Twist; Sucker Punch; Jellyfish; High Five; Head On Fire; Mirror; Don’t Feel Like Crying; Do It Again; Have You Heard This Song Before?; Home To You; Dynamite; It Gets Dark; Fort Knox; Don’t Kill My Vibe; Strangers
It’s over 30 degrees in Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum by the sea as Sigrid takes to the stage as 1 of the opening acts of this 4-day festival which means ‘crossroads’ in Catalan.
