Previews

Previews

metromagazine
21/ 4/2006

Good Mourning Mrs Brown

Opera House, from Tuesday

Brendan O'Carroll has always been a welcome guest in Manchester.

He's now back again, dressed head to toe in black and with a fag in hand, as the incorrigible Irish matriarch Mrs Agnes Brown.

Good Mourning Mrs Brown is the second instalment of O'Carroll's family soap opera.

In part one, she was organising her son's wedding - whether he liked it or not. Now she's organising granddad's funeral - with the slight problem that he's not quite dead.

Her son Dermot and his pregnant wife Maria are now living with Mrs Brown, and the pressure for them to find a place of their own has Dermot considering returning to a life of crime.

Meanwhile, Father Quinn is beginning to have doubts about his vocation, and when he says he needs a sign Mrs Brown decides it's time to step in.

There's likely to be plenty of foul-mouthed language and hilarious comic asides from O'Carroll's straight-talking creation along the way.

The show has already proved a huge hit across the country, and is returning to Manchester after a successful run at the Opera House two years ago.

And it was at the same venue that the Irish comedian struck up a friendship with Peter Kay, who came to see him backstage along with his Irish mum during an earlier Mrs Brown performance.

The pair hit it off so well that the Bolton comic offered him a part in his new show - the Phoenix Nights spin-off Max And Paddy's Road To Nowhere.

Ricky Martin

Apollo, Friday

LATIN superstar Ricky Martin has sold a staggering 70 million albums during his career. The hip-swivelling Puerto Rican will always be remembered for his massive 1999 hit Livin' La Vida Loca, which spent a month at the top of the UK chart.

It can still be heard on repeat at every Tex-Mex restaurant in the land and is guaranteed dance floor filler at family weddings. But there's more to Ricky than living the crazy life and wearing tight white T-shirts.

Before recording his latest solo album Life, the 34-year-old heartthrob spent months travelling around the world experiencing different cultures. The album is a result of those experiences in places including Brazil, Thailand, India and Egypt.

Ricky says he believes it is a "global" album.

"My dream is to unite lifestyles with my music, making it easy for people from all over the world to relate," he adds. Fair enough Ricky, but can you dance to it?

It's the Latin rhythm on tracks like Livin', Shake Your Bon-Bon and She Bangs that have made his name, so why change a successful formula?

Ricky rose to fame as the member of Latin boy band Menduo when he was just 12 years old, before realising he was the one with the talent and going solo.

He signed with Sony in 1990 and moved to Mexico City and on to Los Angeles, landing a role as a barman in the popular US soap General Hospital.

Ricky's career has opened the doors for the likes of Enrique Iglesias and Shakira but he's the original and, probably still the best.

The Streets

Apollo, Thursday

MIKE Skinner's rise to fame has followed the blueprint of every other whinging pop star. He was hailed as a genius for his fake cockney raps about grotty clubs, KFC and nights out on the beer.

This was the first time we'd seen a white British rapper who had no interest in copying the Americans, and on one of his biggest hits - Fit But You Know It - he seemed to have more in common with fellow mockneys Blur during their Britpop period than with Fiddy, P Diddy, or anyone else with a stupid name, too much jewellery and a penchant for pouring expensive champagne over ladies' bottoms.

Critics fell over themselves to hail him as someone who wanted to express what life was like for real people in British cities. The problem is, he doesn't really have to eat KFC or go to grotty clubs anymore, and although he might not be as rich as any of the champagne-wasting rappers he shares Reebok billboards with, he's probably got more in common with them than with the estate kids he once claimed to represent.

Unlike previous efforts, his latest album The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living seems to be obsessed with the problems caused by stardom.

Recent single When You Wasn't Famous contains the line "when you're a famous boy, it gets really easy to get girls" and you can almost hear the Crystal dripping away. It even sparked a debate on the pages of celebrity magazines about the identity of the famous girl he goes on to describe.

You could say he's at least being honest about his life now, rather than continuing to write songs about life on the dole while lighting another Havana cigar with a £50 note. But does anyone care?


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