Manchester Theatre News & Reviews

REVIEW - Trouble With Kids is the perfect example of being brave enough to share your struggles with the world and creating light out of darkness

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We went to The Lamproom Theatre in Barnsley to check out Ben Nickless' new comedy play, Trouble With Kids. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this fantastic drama...

Every once in a while, if we are lucky, we find ourselves in the right place at the right time. Tonight, I found myself at The Lamproom Theatre in Barnsley, a journey that was rewarded with love, laughter, and luminous energy, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. The reason for my trip over the moors from Bury to Barnsley? Our very own Manchester panto legend, Ben Nickless, has written a play! And spoiler alert, it is utterly brilliant! Trouble With Kids is jam packed with heart, humour, and humanity as it blends the highs and lows of parents old, parents new, and parents in waiting, resulting in an authentic, empathic, beautifully written play.

Based on real life events, we are enveloped into the jostling and warm friendships of best friends Marc and Claire, and Will and Nat, who we immediately feel at ease with as we are welcomed into their connected worlds. Marc has the perfect family, Will has the successful career, and yet fate seems to be mocking them both as each long for what the other has. As we meet their other friend Jen, a perpetual dater who is always on the look out for Mr. Right, unknown tensions lie ahead in an impossible tangle of frayed emotions, where friendships are tested and truths are hunkered down waiting to undo their very foundations. But with couples to look up to such as Maurice and Irene, Nats mum and dad, where annoyances and quirks are embraced, enjoyed, and celebrated as a part of their love, you will laugh as many tears as you cry.

Trouble With Kids is plentiful in Northern and British humour, observational, self-deprecating, and the friendly jibbing and mocking of those you love the most. It’s our national love language after all, and it’s what makes this play so relatable and comfortable from the off. Regardless of your own parental status, these are characters you recognise, even know, and so you feel like you have come home. Marc is a hard-working comedian and entertainer, longing for his big break into mainstream. He is incredible at dedicating time to his career but isn’t the best at keeping up with his dad duties, leaving Claire to do way more than her fair share. Meanwhile, as Claire is planning their son’s 8^th birthday party, tending to the baby, shopping, and keeping their daily lives afloat, he is driving up and down the country fulfilling small gigs, making props, and creating new material as he prepares to appear on Britain’s biggest talent show so that he can financially provide for his family.

Ok, so his lack of supervisions leads to a microwave versus tin of beans disaster, but it’ll all be worth it when he wins the talent show and can afford to take them all to Disneyworld, right? Meanwhile, Will has the career success as a comedian who has made it to the big time but is without the child he and Nat so desperately want. As we bare witness to their physically, emotionally, and financially demanding rollercoaster of IVF, their desire to meet their precious miracle is palpable. There are moments of hilarity, moments of disbelief, and moments that will shatter your heart. Will everyone find a way to their happily ever after? Life is certainly no fairy tale when it comes to family. It’s complicated, messy, confusing, absorbing, dizzying, and worth every second. And that’s the Trouble With Kids.

Written and produced by the multi-talented and award-winning Ben Nickless (Opera House Manchester panto’s, BGT finalist, Big Night Out, Rule Brit-Ha-Nia), Trouble With Kids is a theatrical breath of fresh air! It is a story driven character led play that delves into painfully difficult topics whilst equally killing it with some of the best, real, unpretentious humour seen on stage for a long time! Ben also performing the role of Marc brilliantly. We see a heady mixture of comic genius, tender vulnerability, and a shattered heart. This is an exemplary showcase of the undeniable talent fizzing away within Ben Nickless as we revel in his comedy, his first-class impressions, his singing, his daft gags, his acting, and his ability to embrace and engage every single audience member as equals. I am thrilled we get to see such a vast display of his remarkable talent.

Marc’s wife Claire is performed with love, strength, and resilience by Stephanie Dooley (Cross Talk, Riot Women, Rita Sue & Bob Too). A loyal and strong performance that shows the strength and the power of love. We understand Claire, she makes her character so real, and she performs a big twist with such truth that you will feel all the feels, willing this couple to find a happy resolution. They make you care and that is an impressive achievement in a world full of cynicism.

Tom Hudson (Coronation Street, Love & Hate, MD of Marvin’s Magic), delivers a down to earth, approachable, and heartfelt performance as Will. Everyone’s pal, he is chill personified, even making jokes of his own personal heartache. This is such a relaxed and comfortable performance that you’d be forgiven for forgetting it is actually a performance, and not a real person up there called Will, sharing his life with us. But don’t be mistaken, for when his world falls apart, and then equally finds a new, surprising future, we are taken on one heck of a rollercoaster of emotions, each nuanced and evocative as we feel both his highs and his lows. Then we have Linzi Matthews (Blood Brothers, Warriors, Popcorn) alongside him as his partner Nat, compassionate, warm, and funny amidst heartbreak and loss. I don’t want to give too much away, but I have to say that as well as drawing us into a beautiful relationship with her engaging performance, she will squeeze your heart until it bursts with one of the most emotionally charged, brutally real, performances I have seen in a long while. The strength of Linzi Matthews performance silenced the brilliant comedians, sliced the humour apart, and brought us a raw, unapologetic broken heart. The theatre fell silent. Even the tears that audience members were weeping were silent, unwilling to break this moment of pure truth. It was spellbinding.

Maurice and Irene are a brilliant couple that everyone fell instantly in love with, bringing us friendship, love, understanding, and brilliant observational humour. Performed by the fabulous Steve Royle (Max & Paddy’s Road To Nowhere, BGT, Car Share) and Janice Connolly (Phoenix Nights, Mrs. Barbara Nice, Coronation Street), theirs was a relationship built on true foundations of trust, support, family, and love. Between them, they had some of the best one liners in the show, always delivered with perfect timing, a cheeky wink, and devilish innocence. Steve Royle was everything you’d hope he would be and more! His energy was infectious, his continual facial reactions to Irene’s daftness were absolute gold, and we even got some of his brilliant juggling thrown in for good measure. I really hope that this is just the beginning of his acting because he has found exactly where he is meant to be!

Janice Connolly is just utterly brilliant as Irene. A heart full of love for her husband, her daughter, Will, and all of her daughters friends, her arms are always open wide, as is her heart. She is so funny, doesn’t give two hoots what anyone thinks of her, gets things continually mixed up with faux pas’ becoming a party trick, and is just completely and utterly magnetic. This character is not only beautifully written, but exquisitely performed, meaning every audience member left wanting an Irene in their lives, and I left beaming with pride as I have my own one in a million in my own mum.

Jen is a fun, feisty, character, and on the surface appears to be wild and carefree. However, there is so much more to her which we are wonderfully drip fed as we begin to realise she is lonely, wants what her friends have, and in fact continually looking for love, usually in all the wrong places. Lucy Evans (Coronation Street, Mile High, Waking The Dead) portrays all of this with ease, always knowing when to give us a little, and when to pull back, making her character intriguing. Despite the opportunity for us to paint her as the bad guy when certain events unfold, she doesn’t take us down that road and we feel for her own pain whilst simultaneously feeling frustration at her timing of wanting to be vulnerable and connect. It is a really tricky and delicate storyline she is given to navigate and I think she did so with respect and dignity.

Directed and co-produced by Jack Land Noble (Creative Manager for The Lamproom Theatre, Crossroads Pantos regular performer, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat), Trouble With Kids makes use of this multi-talented cast to the very best of their combined talents and skills. This is a beautiful gift for a director to offer their cast and the result is dazzling. It feels like a true repertoire of performers who have been together for years, reminiscent of Victoria Wood assembling her own team of regular performers. Jack Land Noble also brings us the larger than life agent Phil and is the perfect mix of hustle, showbiz, and loyalty. There is a gentle and quiet moment as we see the human beneath the agent when he is talking about his own experience with children, and a few of the words he spoke really hit home for me. It was understated and poignant.

Ray Taylor, the child performer playing Marc and Claire’s son was fantastic! Not only did he keep up with the array of talent around him, carving out his own jokes and laughs from the audience, but he did so with a natural ease that is sure to make him a star!

Completing the cast is Mark J. Olszewski (Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, Brassed Off, The Crucible) as a multitude of brilliantly comic characters such as the donation clinic receptionist, the barman, Tony the ‘magician’ and the TV talent show host. Each one is as witty, yet entirely different from the last, and he has a brilliant way of just appearing. His various roles gift him the opportunity to bring us a variety of comedic styles, from deadpan, to sarcastic, cheesy chat, and shock and surprise. Each character is executed as perfectly as the last.

The set of Trouble With Kids is so clever. Three homes are set up stage right, centre stage, and stage left, to home Marc and Claire, Will and Nat, and Maurice and Irene, with indicators brought on, such as a bar or a counter, to change locations to the pub, clinic, or TV studio with ease. This means the play flows throughout, eliminating the need for clunky changes, and we always know exactly where we are meant to be. Another stunning moment in the show that deserves mention is the song Trouble With Kids, music by Jack Land Noble and lyrics by Ben Nickless. It is so tender, emotive, and simple with its vulnerability, that it was a big hit with the audience, another moment causing many of us to well up and fight back the tears.

With a twist ending that still manages to surprise us, it opens up a whole host of important conversations too, lighting the way for anyone facing struggles of their own. This is a show that knows exactly what it is doing, and by basing it on real life events, allows its truth to shine through. It is powerful, punchy, and perfectly pitched throughout, taking us on the unpredictable path of parenthood, fertility, friendship, and following your heart. Trouble With Kids is the perfect example being brave enough to share your struggles with the world and creating light out of darkness. It is a play that I am sure will go on to huge theatrical success, but perhaps it’s biggest win will always lie in giving a voice to the impossible nature of life and letting those who are struggling with fertility know that they are not alone.

WE SCORE TROUBLE WITH KIDS...