Funny Turns and the Opening of The New Hull Truck Theatre By Gary Clark

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the opening gala night of the very impressive Hull Truck Theatre to get a first hand look at the new venue and to see the opening night of the latest John Godber play, Funny Turns. The company went to great expense to make all the invited guests welcome with vats of free champagne and a choice of wines already poured out for the 440 guests to gorge themselves on. We had fire eaters, stilt walkers, human statues, and an attempt by three buxom drag queens to gate crash the proceedings, with young ladies mixing with the dinner suited guests offering silver platters of delightful little nibbles, all very posh and it must be said, highly professional.

The new building stands proudly on Ferensway, in the very heart of the city centre, fitting in nicely with the St. Stephens development and the new hotel and Albemarle music school that form the new 'theatre square'. After dark it was hard to imagine what stood on such a prestigious site as this before all these new shiny buildings sprung up. It gives the city centre a very modern look, yes, I was impressed and I can see a new drinking and dining circuit erupting on Ferensway before the newness wears off. This will soon be the place to be seen, the new Princes Avenue.

The building is unmistakably a Hull Truck design.

If you had never visited the old venue on Spring Street then one look around this place lets you know how unique that splendid homely little theatre was. If you were a Spring Street regular then the new venue will please you. It is fabulous, there are no other words to describe it, and the £15 million pound spent on building has taken away none of the chic and Hullness of the old place, they have simply bottled it up, improved on it and transported it a couple of hundred yards onto the main road.

If you had been locked up in a darkened room for twenty years and suddenly wheeled out to watch this new play there is no way you couldn't tell within seconds who had written it. It has John Godber stamped all the way through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. It is entertaining, it does make you feel a bit uncomfortable at times when you feel you should be laughing and your chuckle muscles don't work, and it ends leaving you thinking that you have seen it before somewhere. Or at least bits of it. But it's unmistakably Gobder, with a sprinkling of the X-Factor.

It would be unfair to let you in on the story line, buy a ticket and decide for yourself. I thought the plot and the characters got stronger in the second half, or was that the free wine taking effect? But it did bring two encores from the audience who lapped it up, you knew what you were going to get beforehand and Godber delivered with both barrels.

This is a fine addition to the Hull nightlife scene, somewhere the over 25's can go and know they are not going to be out of place. It is also a top class workshop and showcase for the youngsters, one of which was 11 year old Martha Godber who was worth the admission fee alone, if I had paid to get in that is. This little girl has talent.

We have a brand new jewel in our fine and improving city, I do hope the people will still flock to it when the novelty wears off because it's bums on seats that will make or break this splendid new venue.

If I were awarding marks out of ten then everyone involved with the new Hull Truck would get ten plus. A huge attraction for the city and more importantly the city centre which seriously needs a boost like this to breathe new life into it. I also hear the new cafe bar with its very own in-house chef is worth a visit, leaving the other city centre cafe bars having to up their ante to compete on this level, which cannot be a bad thing. As Arnie Whatsit said, I shall return.

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