Sunday for Sammy: Bigger and better than ever

BIGGER VENUE MEANS A BIGGER SUCCESS FOR SURPRISE-FILLED SUNDAY FOR SAMMY, REPORTS SIMON DUKE

WELL it’s official... Sunday for Sammy has got bigger AND better.

Any fears that a change of venue would be to the detriment to the show’s success were well and truly quashed as a cast of homegrown talent and adopted Geordies entertained two capacity crowds as the Tyneside institution made the switch from Newcastle City Hall to the much bigger Metro Radio Arena.

Yes, there’s no denying the City Hall is a venue steeped in history and spirit but Sunday for Sammy also has plenty of both and settled into its new home with impressive ease.

A bigger venue meant a bigger audience and a bigger production. And while all that’s so brilliant about Sunday for Sammy was still very much there, it was taken up a notch or two with the team behind it upping the production values for a rip-roaring entertainment extravaganza.

Two years to the day that their dear friend and Sammy stalwart Brendan Healy passed away, his great friends paid tribute to them in fine style to him with three hours’ worth of top-notch music and comedy. The usual suspects were, of course, present and correct with Tim Healy, Kevin Whately and Christopher Fairbank back in their much loved Auf Wiedersehen Pet guises for another great sketch inspired by their hit TV show.

Doing it for the lasses, Denise Welch, Charlie Hardwick, Julia Tobin and Angie Lonsdale were all once again very much part of the equation and were part of some well-received sketches, with Jazz Hands 2 and Speed Dating for Men going down a treat.

The sense of camaraderie between the cast is infectious and as well as plenty of laughs, with Pete Peverley getting things off to a flying start as an angelic Bobby Thompson, before Jason Cook, Rosie Ramsey, Steven Peddie and Dave Johns gave us their fair share, there was some cracking music to enjoy.

Chelsea Halfpenny got into Motown mode to impress with Reach Out while Billy Mitchell and Jill Halfpenny were resident king and queen of the powerballad with a stonking rendition of Starship schmalz fest Nothing’s Gonna

Stop us Now. Producer Ray Laidlaw describes Sunday for Sammy as like Secret Santa – in that people know they’re going to get a surprise, they just don’t know quite what.

Well, there were surprises galore for the audience to lap up.

One of the biggest saw Trevor Horn bring the house down with Video Killed The Radiostar; Ralph McTell’s Streets of London was a real pin-drop moment, while Brenda Blethyn’s shock cameo as Vera was real scenestealer in the hilarious Geordie Cops sketch, as was Jonny Vegas’s appearance as a doctor.

And fresh from donning his technicolor dreamcoat to great aplomb in the arena at Christmas, Joe McElderry’s soaring vocals were at their goosebump-inducing best with Time to Say Goodbye and a duet of Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me with North Shields-born Jersey Boys Ryan Malloy.

But if we’re talking Sunday for Sammy goosebumps, there’s only one song that reigns supreme and there would have been a stewards’ enquiry if anything other than Run for Home rounded things off.

After Billy, Ray and the fantastic house band delivered a touch of Lindisfarne class with Clear White Light, the North East national anthem brought things to a rousing crescendo.

Sunday for Sammy is an event that has written itself into Geordie folklore and deservedly so.

No other city has anything that comes close to it and just like the Great North Run, it’s something that fills you with immense pride. Bigger venue? No sweat. Now if they could lift the O2 Arena up to Newcastle for two years’ time, that’d be champion!