Last week was a bit of a blur with 2, count 'em 2, trips to Beckton at the end of the Docklands Light Railway where I had a job interview. Once for a reconnaissance and then the actual interview. If I get it - God I slay me sometimes - that will be another 90 minute commute. Oh joi. Much more importantly I managed to get in three trips to the theatre.

On Tuesday Owen & I went to see the revival of WAR HORSE at the National - who don't want me as a Box Office Assistant by the way. See how a love of theatre can overcome feelings of pyromania? We were both emotional wrecks after seeing it last year so we were keen to see it again. Oh yes, there was blubbing again. But as before, we were not the only ones. The climax of the play again had the whole Olivier auditorium stifling sobs... and not so stifled as with the woman behind us.

My thoughts on this remarkable production haven't changed since last November but I was struck by how anonymous the cast was. No one gives a particularly memorable performance apart from Bronagh Gallagher as the young hero's firm but loving mother. Sadly the overwrought "Ve Haff Veys Off Making You Neigh" performance from Patrick O'Kane stood out for all the wrong reasons. Playing the kind-hearted German soldier who 'adopts' Joey the horse on the Western Front O'Kane gave a performance which would have been better suited to the role of the Emcee in "Cabaret".The real stars of the show are the puppeteers who manipulate Joey and other animals that appear in the story - including the scene-stealing goose. I overheard a woman in the interval say "Oh they are so lifelike" which isn't actually the case. The magic of the production is that although you can see the puppeteers inside and alongside the 'horses' the heightened reality allows you to make the leap of imagination needed to cancel them out. It is the stylised theatricality that creates so many arresting images - the horses transported to France; the futile cavalry charge into the German machine guns; the tank that appears from nowhere; Joey trapped on barbed wire and many more.WAR HORSE is currently booking until January 24th and if you have not seen it I urge you to do so. It's an experience that will stay with you.

On Wednesday we saw one of the last performances of the comedy THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES by Joanna Murray-Smith at the Vaudeville. This reunites several people from the National's production of Murray-Smith's HONOUR a few years ago: actors Eileen Atkins & Anna Maxwell-Martin and director Roger Michell. Despite a blazing, award-winning performance from Atkins as a woman suddenly facing the end of a happy marriage I thought the play was fairly lightweight for the talent attached.

The inspiration for FEMALE OF THE SPECIES was the incident in 2000 when Germaine Greer was held captive by a younger female student who had broken into her home. Here the incident is played for laughs - which is probably why Germaine is spitting feathers over it.
Margot is a famous writer on the female condition who has survived the years by cutting her cloth to suit the fashionable length - anti-men/pro-men, anti-children/pro-children, anti-marriage/pro marriage. But now she is struggling with a new book having exhausted all avenues and mindful of the dumbing-down of the publishing world. She is so preoccupied it takes her a few minutes to realise that the young woman she is chatting with and who has suggested the title for her book has in fact just walked through her French windows unannounced.

Molly turns out to be a student dismissed by Margot as having no talent in a writing class. She also announces that her mother was one of the women in the late 1960s whose life was changed by reading Margot's groundbreaking "The Cerebral Vagina" and left husband and daughter, she was also clutching the book when she threw herself under a train. Molly pulls a gun from her bag and handcuffs Margot to her desk and gags her. It's payback time.

However her moment of cultural revenge is sent awry by the sudden appearance of Margot's daughter Tess driven to distraction by the demands of her children, Tess' ineffectual husband Bryan, the un-new man taxi driver Frank who drove Tess there and is stung by her uninterest in his divorce and finally the deus ex machina of Theo, Margot's gay publisher.

The play then turns into a sub-Shavian argument of the various points-of-view of the characters: Tess is angered when she overhears that her mother thinks she has wasted her life by getting married and tethering herself to hearth and home and urges Molly to shoot her. Tess also tells Bryan that for all his new-manisms she wants to be excited again. Bryan stands up for himself as Frank also vents his spleen on what women want men to be.
I just wish I had liked it more. Again I found Murray-Smith's writing to be all surface and no substance - and lord knows there's plenty of material there to get to grips with. There were plenty of nice one-liners but ultimately it was all a bit frustrating. All of this is due to the disappointment I felt at the end - the gay publisher appears out of nowhere and guess what? Yes he turns out to be Tess' unknown father, the result of one of his last pre-coming out shags with Margot at a party in Chelsea thrown by Mick and Marianne. Of course - why else have a homosexual character if it's not for them to have had a hetrosexual encounter. That was when I realised how facile the piece was which up until then had *just* been disguised by the constant one-liners. The play then ended with all the characters going off to eat in the kitchen after Molly and Frank had been given book deals by Theo. Stuck for an end where we Joanna?
The cast gave it their all, making bricks from Murray-Smith's straw. It's always a pleasure to see Sam Kelly on stage even if his ridiculous character of the publisher put my teeth on edge. I found Anna Maxwell-Martin as the vengeful Molly as unlikeabe as I have always thought her on stage. In truth I wanted to see the play for two reasons, and they didn't disappoint. Sophie Thompson was huge fun as the young mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown, losing her mind with the frustration of not genetically knowing how to make a balsa-wood cinema for a school project or knowing where Pokomon goes on his holiday. She somehow stayed *just* on the right side of the top without going over it. I have been following Sophie's career for about 23 years now and it's always a joy to see her. Even if I wussed out of going to *see* her afterwards.And then there was Eileen Atkins as Margot who was simply wonderful. No one does disdain as well as her. From her opening scene, on the phone to her publisher while wrestling her bra off under her top, to her condescending chat to Molly before she realises the real reason for her visit, to her exasperated interjections at the moans of her unexpected visitors she was just great. Hopefully she will be remembered in the Best Actress awards for this year, I'm sure she's got room for a few more to go with all her others!
Okay... enough of the west end - it was time to travel! Out to Stratford East to be precise to see their new musical COME DANCING with a score by Ray Davies who also co-wrote the book. I can count the times I have been to this legendary theatre on the fingers of one hand which is to my shame as I always enjoy the experience. It really is a great community theatre with a personality all it's own. After having seen their production of "The Harder They Come" so often this year in other theatres I was determined to see this show there!
We were in D row of the stalls but found to our surprise that it's the front row as they took the ones in front out for tables & chairs in front of the stage to fit in with the Palais de Danse ambience. The other surprise was how low the seats were! God knows what they are like with other rows in front - it was bad enough with the punters at the tables!! But all such thoughts were banished from my mind when the show started and there... there in front of me was Ray Davies... Ray bloody Davies!! The man responsible for "Waterloo Sunset" was a couple of feet away from me.

I never knew how much I loved him until I saw him on that stage! I couldn't take my eyes off him thinking "That's Ray Davies that is". Memories of watching him on Top Of The Pops with The Kinks back in the day singing about "Lola" came flooding back - and I remembered the white suit too. I remember knowing instinctively that "Lola" was about something I didn't really understand - but it conjured up all sorts of great images! He started singing a solo version of "Tired of Waiting For You" and that was it... I was glued to his every move.

He serves as the narrator to this delightful show inspired by the Kinks' hit from the 1980s of the same name and taking us back to when he was a boy and his three older sisters would go with his mum and dad to the Palais on a Saturday night and do the social, dancing and flirting. Julie, the sister closest to him in age is shy and awkward at the Palais because of a limp caused by Polio but she has a lively spirit which attracts her to Tosher, a local tearaway just out of borstal. At the Palais she meets Hamilton, a young Jamaican seeking his fortune in London but getting only the blank incomprehension of the locals and their thinly-veiled racism. The two misfits are drawn to each other despite Tosher's threats and the warnings of Frankie, the Palais' manager and crooner who sang with Julie's mum once. When Tosher is fatally stabbed during a fight on the dancefloor and Hamilton flees the scene, Julie has to decide whether to trust her heart or her head. The ensuing drama also is the catalyst for a long-held family secret being revealed.
I had deliberately not read any of the reviews for the show so it was good to react to the storyline as it happened and although I will agree with the reviews that say it feels a bit unfinished I would also stress that I found that totally endearing. The production has the same lively and slightly ragged feel that "The Harder They Come" had but that's what gives both shows such warmth and vitality lacking in so many shows these days. According to the programme Ray Davies has been attempting to get the show staged for about 11 years so it's great that Stratford East have given it the green light finally and Kerry Michael has given it such a fine production.
The cast put their all into the show giving energetic and likeable performances. It was nice to see Samantha Hughes again as the mother, I don't think I have seen her since the mid 1980s when her terrific tapping made her standout from the chorus in ON YOUR TOES. Delroy Atkinson was very good as Hamilton, his hopes slowly turning to indifference when confronted by racial injustices and Gemma Salter is a real find as Julie, a character that could be a bit saccharine in the wrong hands but she gave her a fiesty intellegence and has an excellent voice.

The other stand-out performances are from Alasdair Harvey as Frankie, the manager of the Palais as well as the crooner with the dance band who is desperately holding off the encroaching threat of rock 'n' roll and who becomes more of a central figure in the second half as his secrets are revealed. This is the third musical I have seen Harvey in - he was the vulger boatman in the Menier's "Sunday In The Park With George" and was also in "Side By Side By Sondheim" at the Venue so it was good to see him in a role that really showed all his talents off.

The other fine supporting performance is from Wendy Mae Brown as Rita, the rhythm & blues singer in the club where Hamilton plays the saxophone. She sang the bejasus out of the songs she has in the show and it's sad she is only given a tiny scene with Julie to act in. However she garnered a big laugh at the end when the characters lets the audience know what happened to them over the years.

And of course there is our Ray, no actor by a long way but who needs to act when you have natural charisma and that quintessential North London voice immediately recognisable from his songs, telling you the story. It is left to him to supply the coda to the the story, revealing an ending which illustrates how personal it is to him and which is genuinely moving.

I have snapped up seats for this Thursday's evening performance, it's only running until 25th October so I recommend you get to see it soon. Do the clicky here http://www.stratfordeast.com/