Miles Jupp Songs of Freedom at The Lowry Manchester Review
Miles Jupp
Songs of Freedom
The Lowry, Manchester
5 February 2017
Reviewed by Catherine Joyce
Miles Jupp has come a very long way since I first saw him on TV playing Archie the Inventor in the popular children’s programme, Balamory. I spent many hours watching this with my son who was a huge fan and I certainly never thought that 13 years later I would be choosing to watch him again, this time sat in a packed theatre waiting to see his Songs of Freedom tour. Balamory is now a source of amusement and the butt of a few jokes throughout the evening, although I suspect a large proportion of the audience have never seen a single episode and might not even know who Archie was!
These days he is more often seen on “Mock the Week” or heard chairing “The News Quiz”. With a couple of well-aimed comments he makes light hearted fun of his stereotypical Radio 4 audience wearing “beige trousers and silk scarves” and adding “I thought I’d died and gone to Waitrose” this was probably quite accurate and got a few early laughs.
Now a 37 year old father of 5, living in Wales, he starts with a comment overheard whilst leaving a previous show that he is a “Nice enough bloke but what unexpected things to talk about.” Despite a promise to turn this statement on its head to bring us an “Unpleasant man banging on about things that are utterly predictable” Miles, never quite succeeds at being unpleasant and instead takes us on a rambling tour of his life, keeping the audience entertained with subjects as diverse as the unacceptable temperature of soup, being mistaken as a train-spotter, Duchy Original biscuits, being too polite and inaccurate signage.
The second half continues in much the same manner as the first, with Miles talking about his victory in Celebrity Mastermind, and then not being recognised as a celebrity by his removal man. I particularly enjoyed Miles’ anecdote about dragging his children to church at the insistence of his wife – a situation often mirrored in our own family!
Miles obviously has a great following, almost filling the large Lyric Theatre, and the audience certainly enjoyed the show with laughter throughout. Whilst amusing, we did feel that the performance lacked focus and we struggled to identify a theme for the evening. In reality it was more a collection of witty comments and observations loosely strung together with no real highlights.
The Lowry theatre is handy for the motorway, located on the edge of the city it is easy to get to, either by car or public transport. There is plenty of parking at the nearby multi story car park, costing us just £3.00 for the evening.
Rating: 3.5/5
Miles Jupp is currently on tour around the UK, for more information and tour dates visit www.milesjupp.co.uk.
For other shows at The Lowry in Manchester visit www.thelowry.com.
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000
