AT first glance New York`s coolest, smoothest hepcats, the Fun Lovin` Criminals, looked a strange choice for Durham Brass Festival yet a specially configured version of the band was assembled especially for the show and within seconds of hitting the stage it all made perfect sense.

Alongside the band fronted by the hippest man in rock, Huey Morgan dressed all in white, was three-piece brass section The Brooklyn Horns, handpicked by bassist and trumpet player Brian “Fast” Leise, who also arranged the brass parts for this unique show.

For an hour-and-a-half the Fun Lovin` Criminals grooved and swaggered through their greatest hits with Scooby Snacks sounding so effortless and Fun Lovin` Criminals, the song, with such a swing, it was irresistible.

Morgan must be one of the most engaging frontmen around who not only dripped in attitude but engaged the crowd in such a humorous way coming across as the sort of guy you could quite easily share a pint with.

While he got the lion’s share of the attention, drummer Frank Bembini`s tight, driving groove formed the centre piece of the music while Leise was the jack of all trades moving effortless from keyboards to bass, to trumpet and harmonica weighing in with some backing vocals too alongside Bembini. The icing on the cake however was the phenomenal Brooklyn Horns, whose sparkling accompaniment added a totally new dimension to the Criminals music.

Loco with its laid back vibe could only have sounded better with a palm tree overhead and a tall, cool cocktail in hand. Whereas King of New York`s lyrics may tell the tale of the Big Apple`s Mob scene, the music bumped and grooved in a bright and carefree way while Love Unlimited was more than a fitting tribute to the great Barry White.

Big Night Out upped the tempo, kicking the party into overdrive and Morgany was loving every minute of it and just to top it off he threw in a cheeky snippet of Van Halen`s Eruption into the middle of Fun Lovin` Criminals before ending on an ultra-silky smooth take on Louis Armstrong`s We Have All the Time in the World.

Whether the Gala Theatre will ever see a band quite a cool as the Fun Lovin` Criminals again remains to be seen, but those in the crowd this was a unique opportunity to see a special one-off show in an intimate setting. A truly wonderful evening and the perfect soundtrack to a hot summer evening in Durham.

Mick Burgess

Confusions, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

ONE of the joys of Scarborough's glorious summers is Alan Ayckbourn's revivals of his myriad works. He has so many to his now knighted name – Hero's Welcome later this season will be his 79th – that it can take an age to revisit even a favourite.

Ayckbourn refers to his 1974 play Confusions as a stepping stone, from the situation comedy of How The Other Half Loves to the darker comic arts of Absent Friends. This is not so much one play as five one-act plays within one play (facilitating Ayckbourn's desire to give free rein to his actors' talents in multiple roles).

Each has its own theatrical style or a comic device. The first, for example, is built around a devoted but exhausted young mother, Lucy (Elizabeth Boag), in Mother Figure. She is so isolated and housebound that when her concerned neighbours (Emma Manton's timid Rosemary and Stephen Billington's domineering Terry) pay an uninvited visit, she treats them as if they were children.

Each play has a link of sorts to the next (until the stand-alone finale), and so we encounter Lucy's unfaithful travelling-salesman husband Harry (Richard Stacey) as he tries out his sales patter to entice fellow guest Paula (Manton) into Room 249.

Billington's discreet waiter from Drinking Companion, Walter, moves centre stage for Between Mouthfuls, for which Ayckbourn came up with the brilliantly comic idea of the waiter moving in and out of listening range of two increasingly fraught conversations at separate tables. Billington's poker face is comedic minimalism at its best, while Russell Dixon's irascible diner, business boss Mr Pearce, would turn restaurateurs up and down the land ashen.

Boag pops up again in a glorious slice of vintage farce, Gosforth's Fete, where she is the subject of assorted mishaps as the overbearing organiser (Dixon) spreads mayhem.

A Talk In The Park has four people are minding their own business, when a fifth arrives and creates a chain of reaction thanks to an unwanted conversation.

Runs until September 26. Box office: 01723-370541 or sjt.uk.com

Charles Hutchinson