An Evening with Brian Blessed at the Parr Hall Warrington Review

Reviewed by Jan Mellor

When you think of Brian Blessed – what do you think of? An enormous man with an equally enormous beard and bellowing voice! Well that may be true- but who is he? What does he do? What’s his impact on our planet? Is he just famous for the three afore mentioned assets? I was going to find out…

The Parr Hall in Warrington was packed wall to wall with people sitting eagerly awaiting ‘the great man’ as I took my seat. He arrived at 7.45pm to rapturous applause, dressed casually in a checked shirt and cargo pants. He roared his welcome and delighted the crowd with his famous exclamation- “Gordon’s alive” (his line made famous for his role as Voltor in the remake of Flash Gordon). The crowd were butter is in his hands. He explained to the audience that he didn’t know where the f… he was as he had been in a car all day on a horrendous journey up north to Warrington and his ease and natural ways warmed the 1,000 crowd immediately.

Brian went on to explain about his childhood days watching Buster Crabb in the original ‘Flash Gordon’ film and his yearning to be an actor. He was proud of his northern roots (growing up in between Doncaster and Barnsley) and of his working-class background. As he described his ‘glorious’ childhood and his wonderful memories of his father. His father was a miner – who had saved the lives of 300 fellow miners, used to read The Beano to Brian (as he sat on his knee) played cricket with Fred Truman and could recite Shakespeare word for word. We too felt melancholy over these great past times.

Brian has known a lot of famous actors in his lifetime – all 82 years – and he gave delightful stories of how he and his pal Patrick Stewart went scrumping and how he worked in theatres in Bristol and Birmingham with the likes of John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole and Judy Dench. His stories entranced us. They were laced with warm humour and sheer passion about how he as a mere Northern lad with no qualifications, got a scholarship and went on to become one of the country’s best actors and all of this was so endearing. What Brian wanted to share with us as well was his passion for animals, expeditions and the universe. I was in awe to find out that he  was a keen naturalist and had given millions of pounds to save animals such as tigers and elephants and that he had saved to date 3,000 animals; that he was the president of Natural Parks Society; that he had been on an expedition and climbed to the summit of Everest (his tales of this were hilarious) and was now currently training to be a cosmonaut and go to Mars.

At the interval, his two books ‘Absolute Pandemonium’ and ‘The panther in the kitchen’ sold out (as well as paper face masks of the infamous great man) and no wonder … he had had (and was having!) an amazing life.

He thanked us at the end of his 2.5 hour show for coming and helping him to support not only his animals but the theatres of Great Britain and keeping live entertainment ‘live’. I and all there tonight were very happy that we had.

A very enjoyable and intimate evening, filled with humour, nostalgia and fascination. A wonderful story teller, an animated and engaging delivery and a lovely opportunity to meet who is in essence a very great man. See this giant of a star!

Brian’s Alive!! Like no-one else on earth.

Rating: 4/5

For other shows at the Parr Hall in Warrington visit www.pyramidparrhall.com or call the box office on 01925 442884.

Pyramid & Parr Hall, Cultural Quarter, Palmyra Square South, Warrington, WA1 1BL