Kevin McNally Headlines Packed Programme at The Tabard

Performing an Alan Bennett monologue A Chip in the Sugar

Kevin McNally is a long-time supporter of the Tabard Theatre
Kevin McNally is a long-time supporter of the Tabard Theatre

February 23, 2025

Kevin McNally will be making the first of two appearances in special events to mark the 40 th anniversary of the Tabard when he performs an Alan Bennett monologue.

The writer gave his personal permission for A Chip in the Sugar to be performed by the Chiswick-based actor, best known globally for his role in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

The piece is the first of Bennett’s Talking Head monologues and the only one in which he himself appeared as an actor when it was first broadcast on the BBC nearly 40 years ago. In it we hear from Graham, a middle-aged bachelor, emotionally unintelligent and chronically dependent on his mother, who finds life difficult enough at the best of times. When Mother meets an old flame and seems set to marry him, Graham’s old insecurities rear their ugly heads.

There is only one performance of the 40-minute monologue at 3pm on Sunday 23 March. Tickets at £30 may sell out quickly to see one of the country’s best-known actors perform on such an intimate stage. Book tickets here.

Kevin McNally is a huge supporter of the Tabard and A Chip in the Sugar is not the only time he will be appearing there during its 40 th anniversary celebrations.

He is reprising the role of Tony Hancock in The Missing Hancocks, a loving recreation of the missing episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour radio show.

Between 1954 and 1959, BBC Radio recorded 102 episodes of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s comedy classic, Hancock’s Half Hour. The first modern sitcom, it made stars of Tony Hancock, Sid James and Kenneth Williams, and launched Galton & Simpson as one of the most successful comedy-writing partnerships in history. Actor Neil Pearson discovered the scripts of recordings lost from the BBC’s archives and the show was first performed at the Assembly Rooms for the Edinburgh Festival in 2015 and then was recorded for BBC Radio 4.

The episodes performed are The Matador and The New Neighbour. Kevin McNally is joined on stage with the original radio recording cast, Simon Greenall, Robin Hunter, Kevin Eldon and Susy Kane.

It is being performed on Sunday 4 May and tickets cost £30.

Book for The Missing Hancocks.

Kevin McNally in The Missing Hancocks
Kevin McNally in The Missing Hancocks

Before both these events the Tabard is staging its first in-house production of the year with A Special Relationship directed by Margarett Perry who flew in from New York last week along with Broadway actor Bryan Dykstra who has appeared in the film Knight and Day and the TV series Law and Order. He will star alongside Tim Marriott in this transatlantic comedy. The play, which is currently in rehearsal, will run for 4 weeks at the Tabard prior to transferring to New York in May in the Tabard’s first international transfer.

It is the morning of the wedding of their children and British dad Monty is hosting American dad Pete and his family. Everyone else has gone to the church for the wedding rehearsal but the two dads have been left behind to put up a gazebo in the garden. Communication proves challenging and not just because the instructions are in Chinese. What could possibly go wrong with the Special Relationship?

Bryan Dykstra with Tim Marriot rehearsing A Special Relationship
Bryan Dykstra with Tim Marriot rehearsing A Special Relationship

Simon Reilly, Artistic Director of the Tabard said, ‘It’s wonderful to have an international transfer in time for our 40th anniversary year at the Tabard. When Sarah and I read the script, we couldn’t stop laughing but also the piece has lots of heart, bags of emotion and characters that are immediately relatable. Tim and Bryan are absolutely electric together with superb comic timing; A Special Relationship is shaping up to be very special indeed. And you must see how we fit a gazebo on our intimate stage!’

Book tickets for A Special Relationship which runs from 26 February to 22 March.

Fans of Gilbert & Sullivan will be delighted to hear that there is to be another staging of The Mikado where you will be transported to post-war Britain, where privilege, power, and pompous authority are rife and a love-struck minstrel is on the run.

Military chief The Mikado has set out that executions are mandatory; but Lord High Executioner Ko-Ko—a slippery spiv in a zoot suit—avoids carrying them out. Enter Nanki-Poo, the Mikado’s son in disguise, desperate to marry Yum-Yum, who’s unfortunately betrothed to Ko-Ko. When the Mikado demands an execution, Ko-Ko fakes one to save himself, roping in Pooh-Bah, a pompous bureaucrat, and Pish-Tush, a clueless toff. Meanwhile, the formidable Katisha arrives, determined to reclaim Nanki-Poo as her rightful fiancé. Mistaken identities, absurd laws, and comic deception spiral abound – will there be a happy ending without a single execution?

Directed by Keith Strachan, with musical direction by Annemarie Lewis Thomas, this in-house production marks a return of the Tabard Theatre’s long tradition of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with a cast of 10, live music and a 5 week run from 23 April to 24 May.

Tickets are on general sale now so book now for your favourite seats.

Theatre at the Tabard is at 2 Bath Road, Chiswick (W4 1LW).

 

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