I went to Chris Packham’s show yesterday evening at the Derngate Theatre in Northampton and it was brilliant. Now you might think that because Chris is a mate of mine then I’m bound to say that but, stop and consider. I don’t have to admit to having been there and I don’t have to tell you anything about it but the fact that I am telling you it was brilliant means that I do think that it was brilliant. And the snatches of conversation I heard on heading out into the streets and the buzz in the audience made me think that 95% of the audience thought the same.
That’s not to say that we didn’t pour out into the night air having been challenged and made slightly uncomfortable at times but that was Chris at his challenging best. And it’s not to say that I agreed 100% with absolutely everything he said or the way he said it but that, too, is because Chris pushes the boundaries (at his challenging best).
The first ‘half’ of the show, running up to the interval, is nerdy, knowledgable, naturalist Chris delighting in natural history. He knows a lot – and he really does know a lot. I was reminded that this is not a presenter of natural history (and increasingly science) shows who knows a bit about the subject but someone rooted in it from the days of Badgers in the bedroom and poo in his pockets. How many other wildlife presenters would take apart an intact Barn Owl pellet under a camera, live on stage, and clearly demonstrate that he enjoyed every second of it and skilfully explain why the jawbone inside was that of a Bank Vole? What will be in Monday’s Barn Owl pellet in Truro I wonder?
I’ve never known Chris be as funny either! When we had a coffee with oatmilk, actually that was me, Chris had a vegan hot chocolate, in the Grand Cafe yesterday afternoon he wasn’t nearly as funny as he was on stage! The Grand Cafe is definitely a cafe but not definitely grand, and they’d have sold us some food if they had had anything convincingly vegan. But if you don’t finish the first half of Chris’s show laughing your head off, even if you read the Daily Mail, then you must be a person without humour.
The second half is passionate, angry, challenging Chris and many of us will have come away fired up and wanting to do more. And the fact that the USA has moved away from Trumpism buouyed up Chris, visibly, and many of the rest of us.
A word of warning, don’t book your train home thinking that the show lasts two hours including the interval, you’ll be home later than that and you’ll have loved it.
Yesterday evening followed shows this week in Leicester, York, Glasgow and Salford, the week before in Shrewsbury, Coventry and Fareham, and kicked off the week before in Andover. Next week it’s Truro, Exeter, Bristol and Cardiff. The last show is in London on 1 December by which time Chris will have done 17 November evenings in different venues – a punishing schedule for a bloke in his mid 60s fuelled by vegan hot chocolate and a sense of injustice.
Let me give the last word on Chris to a friend of ours who is visiting the UK and who doesn’t have a TV and vaguely remembers Chris from the Really Wild Show but isn’t steeped in Chris Packham. She was doubly impressed by the evening; first by the ability to be on stage for so long and put so much of yourself into the evening, but also by the messsages that were put to us in the, shorter, second half. Go see Chris – click here – and you’ll be entertained and challenged too.