The football pools. I was too young to partake at their peak but that doesn’t take away memories of the pools man knocking on the door every week and the parental mad dash to find the coupon, and random shouting out of numbers, each corresponding to a fixture that weekend…each a prediction of a score draw…each a small part of the bigger dream of maybe, just maybe, winning the pools and metaphorically sailing off into the metaphorical sunset with the means to buy all the happiness you’ll ever need.

My equivalent is the lottery. I bemoan the fact that I’ve never won so much as ten pounds. But then I remember I never buy a ticket. And on those rare, momentous occasions that I do, cannot fathom that it ‘wasn’t me’, even though I’d gone to the bother of buying into the dream having been explicitly told ‘it could be’.

But, to cross the streams between the two dream-inducing concepts, in 1961, it was Viv Nicholson and boy did she embrace it…

Addicted to excess and seduced by materialism, Viv takes us through the kaleidoscopic and messy journey of her life. From the council flats of Castleford to the grandeur of Garforth, to new handbags and husbands, Viv faces the ultimate question: after the champagne stops flowing, can money really buy happiness?

When handed the cheque by Bruce Forsyth (oh yes) for £152,319 (about £4.4 million in today’s terms), Viv vowed to

Spend, Spend, Spend

and so let’s talk about the revival stage show of the same name.

The show (first debuting at Leeds Playhouse in 1998) was a collaboration between Steven Brown (book, lyrics, music – my first recollection being MD on Knowing Me, Knowing You under the guise of Glenn Ponder 🤣) and Justin Greene (book, lyrics) and indeed is dedicated to the former’s memory, who sadly died in February of this year.

Directed by Josh Seymour and with Rachel Leskovac as Viv(nominated for an Olivier Award for her portrayal of the young Viv Nicholson in the original London production) and Rose Galbraith as Young Viv, Spend Spend Spend is a kaleidoscope of a show. It’s high camp, high energy, high end entertainment that delights and demands your attention from the moment that giant cheque dangling from the ceiling goes up in literal flames in the opening scenes, to the moment the story reaches its conclusion, having spent a dizzying hour and 40 minutes lending meaning and detail to what the pyrotechnics were all about.

I do it with every post about a Royal Exchange production, but one cannot speak to the experience without bringing into it what the ‘in the round’ format of the theatre lends to each show. In this case, we’re looking into what feels like a circus ring. No necessarily in aesthetics but in the big, bold, brash, never a dull moment nature of this musical spectacular.

I’ll bore my regular reader with my oft-expressed sentiment of ‘I don’t like musicals’. But that keeps coming back to bite me on the bottom as I often find myself concluding ‘but I liked this one’. And reader? same.

And it might be the comedic nature and style of many of the songs (Garforth I could listen to on a loop) or even the beautiful voices which still manage to retain that lovely Yorkshire lilt to a T, but I did not groan, I did not cringe, I did not clock-watch. I just watched, listen, laughed and got a dose of the ear-worm into the interval and back home on the tram, more than once.

It’s not all laughs though – it’s heartfelt. I was moved as Viv’s (spoiler) love of her life (of the five husbands) Keith (Alex James-Hatton) cashed out, and crashed out his car, leaving behind his devastated widow. ‘Who’s Gonna Love Me?’ hits hard and speaks to all those who have lost their spouse in ways I can only imagine.

Rabble -rousers Miners’ Arms and John Collier are love letters to the Yorkshire men-folk of old, and Sexual Happening – well, it was like a thesaurus and Alexa got together and made a baby. But where ‘baby’ is actually a song where the lyrics cover every word, phrase and reference to a ‘sexual happening’ as it can muster.

If you love musicals? You’ll love it. If you don’t love musicals – well, you’ll love it.

But what of other aspects of this stunner of a show brought riches to the experience?

Let’s make a list.

• The ensemble. What a talented line-up. It was a rare moment when we weren’t being entertained by the wider cast via some impressive quick-costume changes and stage appearances as supporting characters and the chorus. They were husbands (1,2,3,4 and 5), angels, miners, mothers, middle-class nay-sayers, bank managers, bell-boys and, well, Bruce Forsyth.
• The musicians – for me it’s actually the first time I’ve been to a production at Royal Exchange Theatre (I guess the main-stay being the play rather than musical) with a live orchestra and what a treat this always is. The daughter of a Musical Director, I would say that, but I’m sure I don’t stand alone. A pitch-perfect performance, directed by Livi van Warmelo.
• The props. The repeated use of the bed as we saw it at the centre of various chapters of Viv’s life – a teenager (and the brilliant entrance of a surprise guest), struggling wife and mother in two rooms, rich and living the life of riley and excess in Garforth, strewn with champagne bottles as they drink away their boredom in New York, and when back to Yorkshire as husbands come and go.
• The props part 2 – the neon depiction of the pink Cadillac which Viv was determined to have and summed up her approach to having it all.
• The props part 3 along with some wonderful stage magic and choreography, never did I ever see such an iconic way to be taken into an interval, as our Viv astride a giant bottle of champage (daubed ‘Viv Cliquot’, if you please) rose ever higher out of sight and up into the rafters.
• And like a gold thread running through it all, the narrative style and bringing together of our older Viv and younger, as one tells her story and looks on with a wry comment and witty aside (but no regrets) as we see the younger take us through a life lived large.

(takes a moment to dust off and bring out the long-awaited money-winning pun)

If you want a show that thrills, moves, makes you laugh, tap your feet, all with more than a sprinkle of sparkle and sass, Spend Spend Spend hits the jackpot.

Spend Spend Spend is showing at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to 11 January 2025. 

For more details, visit https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event/spend-spend-spend/

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Cast: Rachel Leskovac, Rose Galbraith, Rebecca Thornhill , Alex James-Hatton,  Joe Alessi, Lejaun Sheppard ;
Ensemble: Jamil Abbasi, Abigail Brodie, George Crawford, Ayesha Maynard, Rachel Moran, Alfie Parker, and Karen Wilkinson ;
Directed by Josh Seymour ;
Designer: Grace Smart ;
Lighting Designer: Jack Knowles ;
Sound Design: Richard Brooker & Nick Lodge ;
Choreographer & Intimacy Director: Lucy Hind ;
Music Supervisor, Arrangements and Co-Orchestrator: Ben Ferguson ;
Co-Orchestrator & Orchestral Manager: Matthew Malone ;
Musical Director: Livi van Warmelo ;
Voice & Dialect Coach : Natalie Grady ;
Music Preparation: Matt Smith ;
Casting Director: Jim Arnold CDG ;
Associate Director: Nickie Miles-Wildin Birkbeck ;
Assistant Director: Elizabeth Laurence ;
Assistant to Choreographer: Simone Amps ;
BSL Interpreted by: Lizzie Wharton ;
Reed I: Diane Hammond ;
Reed II: Jessica Tomlinson ;
Trumpet: Mia Plummer ;
Keys & Musical Director: Livi Van Warmelo ;
Guitars: Sam Quinn ;
Bass: AJ Brinkman ;
Drummer: Oliver Pooley