Me & The King
Bolton Evening News

Elvis triumph will have you all shook up

THIS is the best show of the year. Motion Loco’s Terence Mann and Julia Rounthwaite have already shown themselves as true theatrical innovators with their acclaimed bittersweet tragicomedy Syd and Fanny’s Christmas Turkey.

But their new comedy thriller surpasses even that in its ambition, scope and intellectual and emotional honesty.

The story centres on the efforts of Harry Smith Jones, a man with no memory, as he struggles to find his identity when he moves into a new flat and opens the door to a world of ghosts, squirrels and an increasing obsession with Elvis Presley.

That story is a springboard for an increasingly surreal journey through a land of lost souls, all of whom are as desperate as Harry to imprint themselves on a world that doesn’t know they exist.

In multiple roles, Julia Rounthwaite and David Scott Roberts are superb. Terence Mann is simply outstanding as Harry, and his ‘Elvis’ is out of this world.

There are genuine laugh-out-loud moments as well as unnerving visual shocks, as all three performers – along with exceptional lighting, sound and set design – create a dreamlike world of hilarity and nightmare. The searing climax is both wonderfully uplifting and unbearably sad.

In presenting this concise, stylish epic of human despair, love and dark humour, Motion Loco has created a truly classic piece of modern theatre.

Nigel McFarlane

Syd & Fanny’s Christmas Turkey
The Stage

This is priceless, a rare and original evening so daft as to almost defy description. A gleaming-eyed Terence Mann, in thick glasses and atrocious wig, and a pursed and spinsterish Julia Rounthwaite play Syd Selby and Fanny, a magic act long past its heyday, if it ever had one.

With nothing but a flight of steps, some shiny curtains, swing doors and a Cabinet of Doom, they play out a lifelong grievance that a celebrity TV magician stole their act. Preying on hapless members of the audience, they perform hilarious mind-reading and levitation acts, show slides on a wobbly sheet and use silhouette puppets in hilarious mock-narrative.

Escapology is the grand finale, as Fanny totters into the wardrobe and Syd rams in the blades. Turkeys figure, of course, and so do celebrities as various as Aled Jones and Chris Tarrant, though not in any form that might have been expected. Craig O’Connor, in butcher’s apron and evening dress, plays the stooge as the Derek Farnell Orchestra.

The show tours to large venues as well as small but here in the intimacy of a village hall it is almost surreal. Up close and personal, we buy the fiction of Syd and Fanny’s lives completely.

Pat Ashworth

Syd & Fanny’s Christmas Turkey
Bolton Evening News

What a magic show

This delightfully compact production hilariously stretches the old social club/music hall magic act story to breaking point and beyond in 90-odd hilarious, crude, surreal minutes, and leaves you aching for more.

Disillusioned ‘magicomedy’ act Syd Selby and Fanny emerge from retirement to publicly settle a few old scores with a certain celebrity TV magician and his wife who, they claim, stole their act back in 1963 and turned it into a success story, leaving them with, shall we say, not a lot. Cue plenty of gags about Paul Daniels, missed opportunities, the underbelly of light entertainment and some quite brilliant and witty magic tricks.

Terence Mann and Julia Rounthwaite as Syd and Fanny are splendid comic creations – exaggerated enough to be funny but without falling into caricature. Their Christmas medley should be number one, frankly, though it would never be played on air. For a finale we have an hysterically drawn-out ‘007 Escapology’ featuring the Cabinet of Doom, followed by a tender ending of pathos and beauty.

With marvellous support from Craig O’Connor as the Derek Farnell Orchestra and Peter Slater as a fellow act ‘fleeced’ by Neil Diamond, this is the most original piece you’ll see this year. The perfect Christmas tonic.

Nigel McFarlane