Gig Review: My Darling Clementine - Kitchen Garden, Kings Heath, Birmingham. Sunday 30th November 2025

Twelve months ago the review of My Darling Clementine’s Kitchen Garden show featured a short paragraph and inspired poem, sufficient to sum up an emotional evening. A year later, and the stage is set to assess where the careers of Lou Dalgleish and Michael Weston King are within the spectre of publicly focussed grief. The immediate future lies in the cathartic process of two individual albums, a bold move powered by mutual support. Two highly personal approaches will direct the content, with Michael slightly more experienced in light of his 2023 record. 

We had six solo songs shared during the second half of this annual Birmingham renewal. As expected Lou’s had the piano accompaniment and possessed the full emotive sheen. They were fairly explicit about the events of summer 2024, and the aftermath, with a couple getting a first public airing. The full complement is planned to be available in 2026 as the duo aim to forge a new normality.

Michael’s three songs each offered a different source and perspective. One had been in the drawer for a number of years but a little tweaking revealed its therapeutic qualities. The second was the apt ‘The Hardest Thing of All’, one with renewed feeling since appearing on the 2023 solo album The Struggle. The final one shared came out in September and displays an allegorical intelligence. ’La Bamba in the Rain’ puts events in a wider context and a mini epic structure expresses a long haul presence. 

The rest of the show re-enforced an Elvis Costello devotion and gift wrapped a healthy dozen-strong reminder of the strength and eminence of the My Darling Clementine back catalogue. The ability to write and perform such distinguished songs is a guiding light to what they do best as a duo.

Signs of recovery were stronger at the back end of 2025 than twelve months earlier. There is the challenge of commercial re-establishment. Numbers were down from many previous seasonal Kitchen Garden gatherings but that ship sails once the curtain goes up. My Darling Clementine can only control song content and associated staging peripherals such as price, presentation and promotional activity. As a band, duo and solo, they have delivered before and can do again in whatever they construct as the new normal.