'Blues in the Night' at the Kiln Theatre, Kilburn

Last week we went to see 'Blues In The Night' at The Kiln theatre in Kilburn (formerly the Tricycle Theatre, a much better name). It's not one of my regular haunts but I wanted to see Sharon D Clarke in her latest role as a blues singer in a boarding hotel back in the day with a score made up of classic blues songs from the canon. It's a sort of review show with songs by different people pulled together and worked on to tell the stories of three women and one man who seems to have something to do with each of them. But what?

The play is set in a boarding hotel and the stage is et with three separate rooms with a bar where the band play. The rooms are on risers around the stage and we meet an old blues singer, a woman of the world down on her luck and a young girl disappointed in love. The four-piece band play in the bar with a compere who visits the women at different times and for different reasons, maybe to seduce one or to deliver heroine to another. They each sing songs that illustrate their position and are surrounded by things in their rooms that show their position - the blues singer is waiting to make it big again, the women surrounded by furs that she gradually sells for drugs and the young lady by her one good frock. And the man? Well, he's the one with the drugs.

I quite like this kind of show since you're not constrained by the book or plot, the songs tell you enough to build your own picture of who these characters are and make up their back stories. I do that anyway. The old blues singer has seen it all over the years and is straight forward and the mother of the place, the young lady has clearly had a failed love affair but what about the worldly women with her furs? She was someone's mistress clearly, but what happened for her to end up in this low rent hotel and selling her furs for the next fix? I think she's the one who's back story I wanted to explore most.

The four main characters all have about the same time to shine and sing but the whole thing was dominated by Sharon D Clarke's presence - which is fine by me. Clive Rowe played the man, Debbie Kurup the lady and Gemma Sutton the young girl and they all shined at different times but it must've been a bit daunting to share the stage with Ms Clarke. She was on blistering form.

It would be good if the show transferred into the West End, that would probably galvanise the rest of the cast to up their game a bit to try to challenge Ms Clarke (and I don't think she'd mind in the slightest). I'd certainly go to see it again.