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Johnny’s Midnight Goggles a ‘one-man operatic thriller’, featuring the gifted Matthew Sharp telling the tall tale of kidnap, turtle men and a bearded lady-providing all the voices and cello accompaniment It’s a story worthy of ‘Arabian Nights’; perhaps Disney should take a look. Commendable music theatre with much to enjoy – Check it out.

Jonathan Lennie Time Out on Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

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In every festival there is the ‘one’, the Holy Grail, the great find of the whole season and in the case of this year’s mainstream festival it is ‘Johnny’s Midnight Goggles’ by Sharpwire at Brighton Dome Pavilion Theare. In the words of the lady who sat next to me at the performance ‘It’s magical’. And it was.

And what is crazy is that this small piece of theatrical genius that is as funny and wonderful as anything I have seen in a very long time, is only on for two nights.

They had better bring it back next year is all I can say.

In essence the totally likeable Mathew Sharp performs the work of Pete Wyer in a show that consists of him sitting down with a cello, and a brilliant operatic voice, and telling a compelling and fantastic story about a hidden world that may only be seen and visited though a set of special goggles. And he does all this in an hour.

The whole show is played for laughs but has an Enid Blyton’s ‘Magic Faraway Tree’ meets Harry Potter meets Indiana Jones edge, though in a way that defies any kind of attempt pigeon-holing.

This is magical, and it is comedic, but it is firmly rooted in a dramatic context.

It is in reality a monologue, but I would guess that such a word has so often proved such a turn off for mainstream audiences that it is not mentioned here.

Sharpwire has created a world within a world, and a wonderful one where French people think a decent croissant is more important than global freedom (then again that’s our world isn’t it?).

We are taken on a journey into a dark and wonderful place where the evil that controls its slave inhabitants is threatening to spill out and into our own existence.

There are shades here of the ever present threat of tyranny and intolerance in our world one suspects.

But there are perhaps more serious ideas that lie behind this work.

One can see the influences of Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and the following film ‘Apocalypse Now’ in the sense of a journey in which one is inexorably drawn deeper and deeper into the source of human malaise and despair.

There is also a distance between the character that lazes about playing the cello and the man forced into action, determined action.

Without being asked he is thrust directly into the heart of danger, indeed he ‘dies’ on two occasions but is saved by being transferred back into our world.

Are there undertones here, subconscious or not, of the role of our soldiers, thrust into mind boggling conflicts, marked by a sense of Kafkaesque confusion about whose side one is really on, who one can trust, and never quite sure about what will actually secure victory?

Hilarious scenes include one where Sharp plays his own character, a friend who keeps bursting out into an operatic voice and a waiter trying to keep a lid on the singing situation.

As Sharp spins his magic, like spider spins its web, we are take further and further into the imagination of the writer, into a world concocted essentially for gags but still able to retain a rather clever beauty.

Try as I might, I cannot even begin scratch the surface in this review of how clever and funny this show really is.

If magical glasses, seeing the future in French onion soup, huge turtle guards, strange black camels and magical lands hidden carefully in the south of France are your thing (Oh, and magic goggles) then this is the one for you. If not, then get yourself an imagination.

This is not very high art, it will probably not save the world and there are no great answers provided; but when it’s this funny and engaging, who cares? Sometimes things can just be good in their own right.

Buy, steal, beg and queue to get a ticket to this show. If you do get a seat, you will not regret it.

Howard Young Brighton Magazine on Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

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SharpWire are a combination of the writer and composer Pete M Wyer and the multi-talented performer Matthew Sharp. The show that they have currently at the Riverside studios opened the Tête á Tête opera festival and frankly was as inspired a piece of absurdist, sustained, artful whimsy as anybody is likely to see in long time.

At commencement the audience is each given a paper bag containing a boiled sweet, a pen, a small plastic pop out cake decoration stating 'congratulations',
a smaller plastic fish and a balloon – un-expanded. You reviewer wondered momentarily if there was going to audience participation a la Rocky Horror Show,
but thankfully the gifts were pointless.

The goggles of the title we learnt were a portal into Takrilakastan, a greenish dimension that co-exists in the space taken up in our world by the heat-sozzled backwater of La Lavandou in Southern France.

Bought from a turbaned lunatic in the weekly market they give access to a world of man-eating lizard dogs, turtle-headed guards, massive fortifications and a tiny resistance. Not to mention fleets of dwarves carrying large cartoon bombs that tick loudly.

Our unnamed cellist hero it transpires must descend into the chaos of Takrilakistan to rescue his neighbour Johnny who has been abducted by a black camel and is now toiling automaton-like on the infernal machine, which is threatening our world with a series of 50 satellites designed to crush individuality and spirit from the human race. And he must do it fast.

Matthew Sharp gave a virtuoso performance as the narrator, French waiter (from central casting), transvestite cabaret artiste, Dulang Dulang the gimlet-eyed, turbaned store holder, murderous turtle men and other assorted characters. Oh yes and he played the cello, grimaced and sang his way through the performance with joyful élan.

The writing of both music and libretto (can this be described as a libretto?) was light and dark in turns and created the aural soundscape that finger-fitted the performance.

As a one man show this was a revelation and enormously English, the images, goonish in their flights of fancy, burnt impressions on the minds eye as the tortuous story wended its way through the evening.

The show will no doubt travel. If it does so near where you live, screw up your courage and let SharpWire take you to the land of Takrilakistan.

Gawain Towlor England Expects on Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

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When theatre companies claim that their new show ventures into uncharted territory, pushing the boundaries of the genre, it all too frequently translates onto the stage as a jumbled mess. Every so often, though, don't you find yourself coming across something that's not only truly original but fantastically entertaining?

This was certainly the case with Johnny's Midnight Goggles, which I had the pleasure of catching last week at Alnwick's Pride Of Place festival. Accurately billed as a one-man operatic thriller, this new show from young company Sharpwire tells the spellbinding and often hilarious story of a musician who is charged with rescuing his neighbour Johnny, who has been kidnapped and enslaved in the parallel world of Takrilakastan.

The narrative is whimsical, witty and poignant, yet the real triumph is the way in which performer Matthew Sharp tells the story through a beguiling mix of spoken word and opera, with live cello accompaniment. It shouldn't work, but it does. Brilliantly, too.

Christopher Collett Metro, Newcastle on Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

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This was entrancing stuff for kids and kids-at-heart who love being told a story.
This has everything, mystery, magic, music, mystics and monsters.
SharpWire are Matthew Sharp, international cellist, singer and theatre performer and transatlantic guitarist and composer Pete M Wyer.

Sharp is the man on stage telling the story of Johnny who is kidnapped by the black camel of Takrilakastan to be slave to its infernal machine which keeps the people of this other world immortal.

The storyteller is told by mysterious people to be a super hero and rescue not just Johnny but the whole universe. The tale is told with the spoken and sung word and the voice of Sharp's cello all superbly executed.

Lighting and sound effects complete the scenes and whole worlds are conjured in your mind, all in a studio that is basically a black box.

It's exciting, funny, sometimes scary and clever.

Jo Bayne Gazette Herald on Johnny’s Midnight Goggles