Gypsy Queen Kings Head/Tour

Just seen this in today's matinee at The Hope Mill in Manchester - in the last day of it's current outing.

This is the sort of representation that just doesn't make it to the theatre very often - boxers, gay sportsmen, the traveller community - and if this hasn't had money from the Arts Council at some point then I consider that to be a travesty.

I enjoyed this. It's very much a fringe show, with the two actors playing many, many roles between them. There's one scene that seemed to come from nowhere, and was something of a 'tonal whiplash', but it was plainly the scene that was the catalyst for the action of the denouement of the narrative - but I did feel this could have been foreshadowed, even slightly.

Seat wise, the 'three coloured blocks' approach that Hope Mill adopts was abandoned as this performance was only about 40-50% sold, and they let us sit anywhere. I was on the third row, and the sight-lines and audio quality were fine. Leg room fine, seat a little on the small side, I felt. In this configuration though the Hope is a long old space, and I wonder if you'd have to strain to hear if you were on the back row, especially in the quieter scenes? This afternoon City were at home, and so with a 3pm start we were smack in the middle of a huge group of football fans as we walked to the theatre - but there still were some spaces in the Mill's car park.

Overall, a good show, that deserves to tour and tour until the entire country has seen it...