Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton – until 11th April 2026
Review by Amanda Allen
5*****
Whether or not you are a parent, you were once a child, and the memory of your own or other children’s parties will without doubt be burned into your brain. Watching the fabulous Party Season was a reminder of how traumatising those celebrations could be! This production by the Wardrobe Ensemble brought back so many memories of my own children’s parties in the 1990’s, thankfully before the advent of the WhatsApp group.
With the action unfolding over one weekend when three children all have birthday parties, we are introduced to a disparate group of parents whose only common link is that they have children the same age, go to the same school and live in the same area. With obviously different parental styles and being from different socio economic backgrounds there was plenty of scope for misunderstandings and differences of opinion.
The first character we meet is “The Entertainer.” The classic children’s party entertainer complete with frilly shirt and old jokes, tame magic tricks and a slightly funny voice, played brilliantly, if slightly cheesily, by James Newton, he opened the show in classic style getting the audience to join in, so we were immediately invested in the performance. Next, we meet Xander (Tom England) and his son Felix, also played by James Newton. Xander has been left in charge as his partner is away on business, as the weekend unfolds, we learn that Xander grew up in the area but moved away to go to university, only recently relocating back to his home town. Old friendships are rekindled and new friendships are explored with moments of great hilarity and candour.
Celia (Jesse Meadows) and David (Ben Vardy) play the “Posh” couple, their son Aonghus (Jacade Simpson) is the first party we go to. Super organised with a full, timed schedule it should all go to plan but with a stroppy spoilt birthday boy and a shy unhappy guest/Friend, life and parties are often far from perfect, however hard the organising parents try. The simple yet remarkably effective staging was used imaginatively to portray the different homes, with 5 doorways there was a lot of coming and going but the cast all held your attention enough in all the right places so that you always knew where you were supposed to be. The descriptions of the interiors helped to paint a clear picture of the type of parent and home you were seeing. By the time we got to Bea’s house for Mayas party we were getting to know the parents and children enough to think we could see where the story was going. The 3am drunken rant accidently left by Xander on the WhatsApp group rather than where it was intended, for his partner, must have resonated with quite a few in the audience! Followed by his losing or rather misplacing his son and the dawning of the fact that he was the son of the entertainer we witness Xander falling apart and finally realising who he is.
There were two quite different highlights in the performance for me, the first was the cast all hilariously dancing to Gang man style at the party disco, most of the audience were jigging about and laughing along at this. But my favourite bit was the monologue delivered by Simone (Kerry Loval) describing so many ways the animal kingdom reproduces finishing off with the fantastic description of a human having a baby, delivered straight faced and calmly into a mic at the front of the stage. As we had seen so little of her face which had previously been hidden by a curtain of hair and a newborn baby for most of her performance, this was even more noticeably emotive.
If you are a parent you cannot help but empathise with the goings on of the Party Season, Go and see this show you will laugh until you cry and then realise that you could be one of those parents, this could be about you! Just remember whatever you do, do not join the WhatsApp group!