Chris n that

2012-01-01T16:59:00.034Z

After a turbulent year it is time to look back on the theatrical highlights of the past 12 months and bestow the 2011 Chrissies!

BEST DRAMA/COMEDYCLYBOURNE PARK by Bruce Norris at the Wyndhams Theatre
Nominees: CAUSE CELEBRE (Old Vic); JERUSALEM (Apollo);
THE LAST OF THE DUCHESS (Hampstead); OTHELLO (Sheffield)

BEST MUSICAL

SWEENEY TODD at Chichester

Nominees: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (Martin Beck, NY); NUTCRACKER! (Sadler's Wells); ROAD SHOW (Menier Chocolate Factory);
SOUTH PACIFIC (Barbican)

BEST ACTOR
MARK RYLANCE(Jerusalem, Apollo)
Nominees: Jude Law (Anna Christie); Jonny Lee Miller (Frankenstein);
Michael Sheen (Hamlet); Dominic West (Othello)

BEST ACTOR (Musical)
PAULO SZOT
(South Pacific, Barbican)
Nominees: Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles); Harry Hepple (Pippin);
Michael Jibson (Road Show);
Daniel Radcliffe (How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)

BEST ACTRESS
SOPHIE THOMPSON
(Clybourne Park, Wyndhams)Nominees: Anne-Marie Duff (Cause Celebre); Vanessa Redgrave (Driving Miss Daisy);
Sheridan Smith (Flare Path); Marcia Warren (The Ladykillers)

BEST ACTRESS (Musical)
IMELDA STAUNTON
(Sweeney Todd, Chichester)
Nominees: Katherine Kingsley (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee);
Caissie Levy (Ghost); Bebe Neuwirth (The Addams Family); Samantha Womack (South Pacific)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NICHOLAS JONES
(Cause Celebre, Old Vic)Nominees: Mackenzie Crook (Jerusalem); Boyd Gaines (Driving Miss Daisy);
Charles Edwards (Twelfth Night); Wood (Flare Path)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Musical)DANIEL KOEK

(South Pacific, Barbican)Nominees: John Bowe (Sweeney Todd); David Burt (Crazy For You);
Alex Fearns (South Pacific); Peter Polycarpou (Sweeney Todd)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
ANGELA THORNE
(The Last of The Duchess, Hampstead)Nominees: Lorna Brown (Clybourne Park); Niamh Cusack (The Playboy of The Western World); Alexandra Gilbreath (Othello); Gemma Jones (Richard III)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Musical)

LOUISE GOLD
(Pippin, Menier Chocolate Factory)Nominees: Loretta Ables Sayre (South Pacific); Carly Bawden (Pippin);
Gillian Bevan (Road Show); Suzie Chard (Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be)

BEST DIRECTORDOMINIC COOKE
(Clybourne Park, Wyndhams)Nominees: Daniel Evans (Othello); Richard Eyre (The Last of The Duchess);
Ian Rickson (Jerusalem); Thea Sharrock (Cause Celebre)

BEST DESIGNPAUL WILLS (Anna Christie, Donmar)Nominees: Hildegard Bechtler (Cause Celebre); Michael Taylor (The Ladykillers);
Ultz (Jerusalem); Anthony Ward (Nutcracker!)

BEST LIGHTING
HOWARD HARRISON
(Anna Christie, Donmar)
Nominees: Neil Austin (The Cherry Orchard); Howard Harrison (Nutcracker!);
Bruno Poet (Cause Celebre); Bruno Poet (Frankenstein)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
MATTHEW BOURNE
(Nutcracker!, Sadler's Wells)
Nominees: Javier de Frutos (The Most Incredible Thing); Christopher Gattelli (South Pacific); Stephen Mear (Crazy For You); Nick Winston (Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be)

2011-12-31T23:27:00.011Z

Luckily the National Theatre has highlighted the word COMEDY on the programme cover for their new production of THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. You would be hard-pressed to know it was one from Dominic Cooke's production.

Oh Mr. Cooke... your production of CLYBOURNE PARK was one of the best of last year - by turns hilarious and thought-provoking. Here all one can marvel at is why such a such a dreary 'concept' has been clamped down over this play.

I can't say I am the biggest fan of Shakespeare's comedy of mistaken identity as it plays into my infamous irritation at farce but here any potential for interest is stymied by an ugly production in which the action is needlessly transported to current day South London.
I knew I was in for trouble within a few minutes during the opening scene of the merchant from Syracuse explaining to the Duke of Ephesus why he is in the country when it is forbidden. It is played as a gangland kidnapping with ex-work colleague Ian Burfield playing the Duke like a long-lost brother of The Krays. It was totally disorientating as well as being poorly acted. I felt for veteran actor Joseph Mydell as his speech about the shipwreck that cost him his wife. one of his twin sons and their allotted servant being totally upstaged by a needless reenactment of it including an on-stage airlift.

After that I sat watching the action with a diminishing interest which was only fully engaged oddly enough when Bunny Christie's overly-elaborate set refused to work! Lenny Henry is cast as the Antipholus and gives a nice enough performance but why does he have to use an unnecessary African accent? He could just as well as used his natural Brummie accent to highlight the fact that he is a visitor to Ephesus/Peckham? Even regular favorites like Claudie Blakely and Michelle Terry failed to impress.

It goes without saying that the verse speaking is beyond bad and it was lucky that I had a knowledge of the play beforehand - truly the nadir of the evening was a farting competition via intercom between the Dromios.

I saw Ian Charleson's Hamlet on that stage.

Just as the final scene started - and I was grasping under the seat for my bag to high-tail it out of there - something extraordinary happened. Cooke just let Pamela Nomvete as the long-lost Aemilia perform her speech without any distracting business going on and she stole the show in those few minutes. How odd to sit through a show for about 2 hours and only become fully engaged in the last scene.

I left the Olivier thinking that if the National had wanted to stage THE COMEDY OF ERRORS but in a radical new way all they had to do was stage the Rodgers & Hart musical version THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE, at least then we would have had a good laugh *and* also have got FALLING IN LOVE WITH LOVE, THIS CAN'T BE LOVE and SING FOR YOUR SUPPER.

2011-12-31T21:03:00.016Z

I suspect that the continued success of WICKED in the West End has played it's part in the Menier Chocolate Factory staging of Stephen Schwartz' 1972 musical PIPPIN. The Menier has now an established success with reviving musicals that deserve being revisited in different production styles from their originals - A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, SWEET CHARITY, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and most famously of all SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. Timothy Bird's video-based production design, which made SUNDAY such a gloriously visual experience, features again in this production but sadly the effect is not as successful in the hands of director Mitch Sebastian.

PIPPIN was first seen on Broadway in 1972 in an acclaimed production directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. It was Fosse's golden year which also saw the release of his iconic screen version of CABARET and within a year he became the only person to win the Best Director Academy Award, Best Director Tony Award and Best Director Emmy Award (for the tv special LIZA WITH A Z).

John Rubenstein played Pippin, the questioning, drop-out son of Emperor Charlemagne, whose CANDIDE-like journey through his life was told by a 70s' style Comedia dell'Arte troupe of strolling players and narrated by the charismatic Leading Player which provided a perfect vehicle (and Tony Award) for the wonderful Ben Vereen.

The cast also included BEVERLY HILLBILLIES star Irene Ryan as Pippin's grandmother Berthe, Leland Palmer as Pippin's scheming stepmother Fastrada, Jill Clayburgh as the widow Catherine - a role understudied by the young Ann Reinking who was also in the chorus, in only her third Broadway role.

The show's pop/rock score - released on Motown of all labels - and Fosse's signature style caught the time's anti-establishment vibe and the show ran for a remarkable five years.

In London it ran a mere 85 performances when Fosse brought it to the Her Majesty's Theatre in 1973 despite a great cast of Paul Jones (Pippin), Elisabeth Welch (Berthe), Diane Langton (Fastrada) and Patricia Hodge (Catherine).

I saw the show when it was revived at the Bridewell Theatre in 1996 by Mitch Sebastian which starred David Burt, Michael Jibson, Mazz Murray and Juliette Caton which highlighted the troublesome book by Roger O. Hirson which strives for a Brechtian approach to telling Pippin's story but without a director like Fosse's ultra-theatrical style, it looks pretty threadbare.

So Mitch Sebastian is having another crack at it at the Menier, only now he has rehauled the show to give it the appearance of a computer game which, while intriguing to watch, can do nothing to hide the limited range of the book - indeed by the end of it it the show can't help but collapse under the weight of the concept. Retaining some of Fosse's original choreography only highlights the slight desperation of other part's of the concept - and sadly that's all it remains: a concept, not a thought through production. The show's structure of Pippin going through various different adventures can certainly lend themselves to the idea of going through computer game levels but it only serves to make the piece darker (in all ways) than it needs to be - the Leading Player's final twist to Pippin's tale comes as no surprise as we are now used to Sebastian's heavy-hand.

There are hidden gems lurking within the production however. Harry Hepple is an engaging Pippin with a fine singing voice, a charming playing style and it made you wish he was in a better production. Carly Bawden was a delight as Catherine, bringing a freshness to the show's jadedness.Ian Kelsey was anonymous as Charlemagne and Matt Rawle over-played the Leading Player to such an extent that he was practically unwatchable by the end. However Frances Ruffelle made the most of the scheming Fastrada and, in the performance of the show, Louise Gold made Berthe's solo number "Time To Start Living" into a real wake-up number, performing it in a Gracie Fields style. I have always had a fondness for Schwartz's score and the original Broadway score is a much-played cd - the songs just about came through unscathed in this production but the score's Broadway roots constantly strained against Sebastian's TRON effects.

2011-12-31T19:47:00.008Z

And still they come...

The West End listings are fast resembling IMDB as there are so many film-to-stage versions playing and Owen and I went to see one of the more individual, Graham Linehan's take on the classic Ealing comedy THE LADYKILLERS at the Gielgud.

Constant Reader, it's admissions time - I have not seen the original Alexander Mackendrick film from 1955 which is the play's source. Wiliiam Rose's oddball idea of a little old lady foiling the plans of a gang of criminals who are using her home as cover for a robbery adapts well to a stage treatment with all it's action taking place within Mrs. Wilberforce's Kings Cross house.

The original cast of Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Peter Sellers, Danny Green, Herbert Lom and Katie Johnson would make anyone think long and hard about recreating them on stage as they were all such memorable performers but here the production is well-served by the casting of Peter Capaldi, James Fleet, Stephen Wight, Clive Rowe, Ben Miller and Marcia Warren.

Capaldi is a sheer delight as Professor Marcus, the criminal mastermind who runs his criminal network under the guise of being a music professor from Mrs. Wilberforce's spare room. With his loping gait, trailing scarf and wheedling voice he has the right mix of inspired lunacy with the undertow of genuine menace. He galvanises the production and keeps up the energy which has a tendency to flag occasionally.

Director Sean Foley also elicits nice performances from James Fleet as a secret cross-dressing ex-major, Stephen Wight as the young wired Harry and Clive Rowe as the punch-drunk ex-boxer One Round. Sadly I was less impressed with Ben Miller as Louis, the lethal crook from Romania. He seemed very muted on stage which I can only suspect is down to his inexperience as a stage actor apart from his Edinburgh stand-up shows. It was a pity as I had been looking forward to seeing him.

The production's secret weapon is the ever-glorious Marcia Warren as Mrs. Wilberforce who more than matches the flashier performances of the criminals. The role could almost have been written for her as it plays to all her onstage strengths - the sweet, daffy and smiling persona that hides a moral core of steel.

Marcia's sneaky stage craft stole the show from her thieves co-stars. It doesn't seem 27 years since I first saw her onstage in her Olivier-award winning role as the impossibly nouveau rich Vera in the original production of Ayckbourn's STEPPING OUT.

Michael Taylor's set is also a potential scene stealer - all crooked and wonky angles and playing surfaces which must be a difficult space to act on so well done again to the cast. In a fun little segue, the set rotates to reveal the building's front where the robbery is enacted on the wall with little cars racing all over it.So despite all this why were there times when I was less than gripped and found my attention easily wandered? There seemed at times to be an overly cosy atmosphere which seemed to make the action simply coast along, the scene changes seemed to last forever and despite the play's second half being primarily about the gang's internecine killing spree, there was little genuine menace apart from the final scene between Marcus and Louis played in the gloomy darkness of James Farncombe's inventive lighting design.

The production was rapturously received by my fellow audience members so go figure, maybe it was me.

2011-12-19T23:38:00.013Z

Last month Owen and I went to the Hampstead Theatre - um... my first visit since it moved to it's new home 8 years ago! But finally something was on that I was eager to see. I mean... the combination of Richard Eyre directing a play about the Duchess of Windsor starring Sheila Hancock - bring it!!

The Hampstead Theatre is actually quite a nice space which I should make an effort to revisit more but the main excitement was the play itself (which is how it should be eh?)
Nicolas Wright's play THE LAST OF THE DUCHESS is the latest of his works that takes it's inspiration from a real life person such as Melanie Klein, Vincent van Gogh and Terence Rattigan only here he takes on three larger than life women - and another invisible one.

The play is based on Lady Caroline Blackwood's book which she wrote after her experiences trying to obtain an interview with The Duchess of Windsor in 1980. The Duchess, a virtual recluse in her home in Paris after the death of the Duke, was the hoped-for subject of a Sunday Times article by Caroline Blackwood who found her every approach blocked by the Duchess' lawyer Maitre Suzanne Blum. Blum proves such a fascinating but secretive character that Caroline soon realises that she is the more worthy subject for an article and even arranges for Lord Snowden to take her photograph. The article however causes more arguments and a final showdown.
Nicholas Wright's play managed to keep you thoroughly entertained with the character's barbed dialogue but it also quietly raised subjects such as loyalty, loneliness, marriage and honour that stayed with you long after.

Richard Eyre directed with his customary lightness of touch that suited the gossamer atmosphere of the play and he elicited full-bodied memorable performances from his three leading ladies.

Sheila Hancock was at her vinegary, caustic best as Suzanne Blum, the watchful and secretive keeper of the Duchess of Windsor's secrets and if Caroline Blackwood's suspicions are realised, her possible jailer. Hancock once again proved she is an actress who has been under-valued for too long.

I must say I have never been a big Anna Chancellor fan, I always seem to have seen performances that echoed her jolly hockeysticks character in FOUR WEDDINGS but here she was a quiet revelation. Effusive and outspoken, her Lady Caroline was the perfect foil to the buttoned-down Blum with her hands forever trying to calm her unruly mane and knocking back another drink.As Wright points out , it's one of the quirks of the aristocracy that their relatives can turn up in the oddest places and such was the case when Carolyn turned for help to one of the Duchess' oldest friends Lady Diana Mosley - a distant relative thanks to her mother being one of the Guinness family as was Diana's first husband! Angela Thorne was wonderful as Diana, nailing the ultra-posh Mitford drawl, deaf as a post in one ear and still unrepentant in her support of Sir Oswald despite his failing health. It's a rare play that can pull off having Diana Mosley as the comic relief but this managed it.

With excellent work from designer Anthony Ward and lighting designer Peter Mumford, THE LAST OF THE DUCHESS was one of the best nights in the theatre this year.

2011-11-29T16:07:00.018Z

I would like to give you, Constant Reader, A Tale Of Two Ricksons.

A couple of weeks back Owen and I *finally* caught up with Ian Rickson's production of JERUSALEM which is now back on in the West End. After opening at the Royal Court to tumultuous reviews for Jez Butterworth's play and Mark Rylance's lead performance, it transferred to the Apollo Theatre then onto Broadway winning in close succession the Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Best Actor. Now the production has returned to the Apollo for one last hurrah.

Rylance - in a performance that threatens to eat you alive - plays Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, a drop-out who lives in a caravan deep in a forest in Wiltshere that borders a small town. Byron, although hated by the town's community as a supplier of drugs, is a natural focus for the town's bored and restless youth who party the night away with Johnny and his slacker mate Ginger (Mackenzie Cook).
As the play opens, Lee, one of Rooster's clique, is travelling to Australia and as his friends try to put him off, Rooster faces his own life-changing events - the local council are going to enforce an overdue eviction notice; his ex-lover threatens to stop him seeing his young son and the father of an absconded girl threatens to lynch Rooster if the father finds out Rooster is involved. All this and it's St. George's Day too.

The last point is quite salient as Jez Butterworth's play is a comment on the state of late 2000s England. Butterworth has Rooster represent the anarchic, subversive and pagan side of England becoming more and more threatened by the advance of the dull grey stupidity of the modern world. Butterworth and Rylance have stated in interview that the character of Rooser was further worked on during the preview period at the Royal Court and it shows. Rooster almost seems to have grown beyond the play and all the characters opposing him are made as unsympathetic as possible.Rickson directs the piece with a surety of hand which makes the running time of three hours hardly noticeable and the play's heady combination of scatter-gun scatology, dangerous undertow and ruminations on the English soul are socked over the footlights by the remarkable ensemble.

Particularly impressive were Alan David as a ruminating English professor out of step with the modern world, Geraldine Hughes as Rooster's ex- Dawn and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger, Rooster's slacker friend. A special mention to Ultz' forest setting which in the closing moments takes on a life of it's own.But bestriding the stage and play was Rylance, it's impossible to think of another actor playing the role as it seems to come as natural to him as breathing. He was quite extraordinary.

Fast forward a few weeks and along with Sharon and Eamonn we found ourselves schlepping around the side of the Young Vic auditorium to enter the soulless, authoritarian, high security asylum which was the setting for Ian Rickson's production of HAMLET.
The big selling-point of this production was the chance to see Michael Sheen give us his melancholy Dane - how I wish he had been doing it as a one-man show.

Everything that seemed so right with Rickson's direction in JERUSALEM seemed so wrong here, his first Shakespeare production. The whole thing seemed trapped in the all-encompassing 'concept'. Nicholas Hytner's version at the National Theatre last year was set in an Elsinore that was rife with surveillance cameras and ever-watchful courtiers but at least the production had room within it to live and breath - here any life is drained away by the heavy-handed concept clamped down over the text. It's view of Elsinore as a maximum security nuthouse is strained and simply ugly.What purchase can there be in Hamlet's feigned and Ophelia's genuine flights of madness if they are outdone by Sally Dexter's jittery, scratchy Gertrude, all wild hair and exposed nerves. I was greatly disappointed in her performance but at least she made an impression which is more than can be said for James Clyde's woeful Claudius. He is not helped by having his one big scene - Claudius' speech as he attempts to pray - performed in a glassed-in office, his speech relayed to the audience by intercom.

All through the play, Rickson's annoying tricks kept shouting "look at this - you never expected to see a Hamlet like THIS eh?" It all smacked of a 1970s theatre collective production - is there to be NO progress? It also didn't help that I missed the final coup-de-theatre by having a bloody actor standing in my eye line. Allegedly Fortinbrass removes his helmet and swipe me, it's Hamlet. Ooops. Spoiler alert.Every so often a performance sparked interest - Hayley Carmichael briefly shone in the last minutes as a female Horatio, Pip Donaghy's gravedigger seized his moment, Michael Gould was occasionally effective as Polonius (played in the usual office bore style) and Vinette Robinson was the latest in quietly effective Ophelias but the casting of light-skinned black actresses in this role is becoming depressingly obvious. Again she was saddled with annoying business - handing out pills instead of flowers during her mad scene - did no one realise this leads to the background to her suicide? - and P.J. Harvey's tunes for Ophelia's snatches of song merely dragged out the playing length.

I also have to say that the idea of having the stage resembling a large open grave from Ophelia's burial scene to the end of the play worked excellently when Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes and Hamlet were piled in next to Ophelia and Polonious, really bringing home the sense of two families laid waste.All of which means that Michael Sheen will be needing some serious chiropractor sessions after carrying this damn show for nearly three months.

He was certainly charismatic, switching from Hamlet's soliloquies to his gallows humour in the bat of an eye, and investing the role with moments of real humanity. Sadly the one thing I didn't feel for him was any empathy and when Hamlet is left alone with Horatio facing his encroaching mortality, surely you need to have empathy for him. I also felt I was sometimes watching "the wheels go round" during some of his line readings - by trying to speak the text as naturally as possible I was... aware of... the... odd pauses... during his... lines.

Poor Michael Sheen... Ian Rickson done rained on your parade.

Oh and so did I when I sneezed LOUDLY towards the end of "To Be Or Not To Be"

*crimson*

2011-11-21T21:16:00.019Z

A couple of Saturdays ago Owen and I ventured once again out of the Smoke to see a show in the provinces. This time it was to the leafy sleepiness of Chichester to see one of my favorite musicals, Stephen Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET.

It has since been announced that it will transfer to the Adelphi next year but I am glad we saw it in it's original thrust stage setting.

The last production we saw of SWEENEY was John Doyle's at the Ambassadors which started my antipathy for shows with actor-musicians and was really no way to introduce Owen to the show but no such problems here: Jonathan Kent's production is as it should be seen.

Sondheim himself is very keen on it - he stayed on in Chichester after seeing it to see it a second time. Jonathan Kent's vision for the show is to bring it visually forward in time to a gloomy, shadowy Patrick Hamilton-esque late 1920s/early 1930s London, suggesting backstreet warehouses with smashed windows, metal grills and clattering roll-down shutters. A semi-circular gallery topped off Anthony Ward's set giving a good vantage point for members of the chorus to watch the proceedings.

Kent's direction is clean and sharp, giving the action in Hugh Wheeler's marvellous book a real momentum which builds to the show's shattering final act. I have long said that the last section of SWEENEY TODD. if handled well, can be one of the most thrilling theatrical pleasures and so it was here.

The big news around the production has been the casting of Mr. Show Business himself, Michael Ball, as the wronged barber out for bloody revenge. Not the most obvious casting but on the whole I think he succeeded in giving a fine, unexpected performance.

However to give this performance, he underplayed to such a degree that it rendered his Sweeney a trifle colourless and monotone.

Sweeney is a role that does demand a quality of disconnectedness and muffled rage but other actors I have seen play the part have managed to thread though the pea soup fog of his character a glittering dark humour which was hard to find with Ball as he was too busy downplaying. However it cannot be denied that the show probably would not have been staged had he not agreed to play the role.

His banked-down performance was all the more noticeable compared to the tsunami of Imelda Staunton's Mrs. Lovett. Imelda gave the performance I was expecting but that didn't detract from it's pure pleasure.Imelda's Nellie Lovett was the engine for the show, constantly scuttling about in her fur-lined ankle boots. She easily handled the changes from humour to horror while all the time keeping the undertow to Nellie's character strong, her passion for the former lodger who has now re-entered her life.

It was this multi-layered, naturalistic approach which stood out so against Ball's performance - in particular with the dramatic shift in the final act when Nellie's deception is fully revealed. It's almost 30 years on from first seeing her as one of the "Hot Box Girls" in Richard Eyre's landmark National Theatre production of GUYS AND DOLLS and her career has been a joy to follow.

In mentioning GUYS, it is interesting to compare her performance with Julia McKenzie's award-winning one at the National in 1993. Julia's was a gin-soaked harridan straight out of a Penny Dreadful illustration where as Imelda's is played more naturalistic. Both valid, both excellent. The show also benefited from two very hissable villains in John Bowe's venal Judge Turpin and, in particular, Peter Polycarpou's deliciously odious, bowler-hatted Beadle Bamford. The juves were a bit colourless sadly but James McConville was very good as Tobias as was Robert Burt's Pirelli - it was a delightful touch that Pirelli's travelling vehicle should look like a converted ice-cream van! Sondheim's glorious score was well played by the orchestra under the direction of Nicholas Skilbeck and Mark Henderson's lighting design was wonderfully atmospheric.The show is due in at the Adelphi in March 2012 and I urge you to see it. It would be a bloody crime if you missed it!

2011-11-19T22:48:00.015Z

A few weeks back Owen and I braved the wilds of Waterloo to see the Old Vic's production of one of the classics of Irish theatre, THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD by J.M. Synge.

Owen was particularly excited as he has long wanted to see a production of the play which he studied once. I had only seen the play once before when Fiona Buffini directed it at the National Theatre in 2001 which I mostly remember as being lit very murkily and featuring a fine performance by Derbhle Crotty as Pegeen, so I was curious to jog my memory of the piece.

The theatre was very busy in the peanut gallery, due to the production starring Robert Sheehan of Channel 4's MISFITS. Hey... if it takes a tv star who can also act well enough to get an impressionable audience into the theatre then that's fine by me - as Malcolm X said "By any means necessary"!Synge's freewheeling black comedy shows the effect on the locals of a small coastal town in County Mayo when, into their midst, stumbles Christy Mahon. Christy is a young man who tells them that he is fleeing from the police after killing his father during an argument on their farm.

Instead of turning him in, Christy becomes the most popular man in the village and in particular, is pursued by Pegeen, the daughter of the town's publican, and the Widow Quin, a tough old broad who is actually chasing Christy because Pegeen's boorish fiancee has asked her to steer him away from his intended. When Christy wins the local donkey race he truly can do no wrong in the eyes of his adoring public but in the middle of the celebrations, another stranger appears... Christy's father who he in fact only wounded.The villagers now turn on Christy, collectively embarrassed at their lionising a 'nobody' - Christy out of desperation attacks his father again but this only inflames the crowd more, even Pegeen denounces him as a liar and a charlatan. It's only the appearance of Christy's seemingly indestructible father that stops them lynching him!

Christy realises that his one chance for fame has passed him by and he dejectedly leaves the village with his father to resume his miserable life on the farm. It is only when he leaves that Pegeen too becomes aware that she has lost her one chance of true happiness as she dejectedly cries "Oh my grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World."
Synge's dialogue still twists and turns through the plot, time and again a line of dialogue leaps straight into the mind making it hard to believe it was written 104 years ago!

Sheehan makes a brave stab at the title role - it's his stage debut - but he is more a bumbling eejit rather than the master of his fate that Christy needs to project and he was easily out-matched by Niamh Cusack as the voluptuous Widow Quin and the luminous Ruth Negga as Pegeen. In the past year Cusack was excellent in CAUSE CELEBRE also at the Vic and Negga was a sympathetic Ophelia at the National so it was great to see them both again.

Special mention to Diarmuid de Faoite as the permanently woozy Jimmy Farrell, his second act slapstick pratfall was worth the price of admission alone! Also eye-catching were Kevin Traynor as Pegeen's insufferable fiancee Shawn and Frank Laverty as Pegeen's publican father.

Scott Pask's set design for Flaherty's bar was a revolving delight and wasn't overly-set dressed to detract from Synge's verbal fireworks.

Famously the 1907 premiere at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin saw rioting in the auditorium by those shocked at Synge's portrayal of small town Ireland but while Joe Orton and Martin McDonagh have reworked his themes of the glamour of violent young men and the venality in the Irish character, Synge's play still rightly holds it's place as one of the most entertaining of early 20th Century classics as well as a lasting tribute to a writer who tragically died aged 38 of Hodgkin's Disease only two years after PLAYBOY was premiered.

2011-11-08T23:29:00.012Z

A few weeks ago Owen and I made a rare visit to the Strand Theatre as was, the Novello Theatre as is, to see the Regents Park Open Air transfer of it's summertime hit CRAZY FOR YOU.

The Open Air Theatre's artistic director Timothy Sheader has hit upon a winning streak with his musicals: HELLO, DOLLY! won them the Evening Standard award for Best Musical as well as 3 Olivier Awards and last year's INTO THE WOODS won the Best Musical Revival Olivier Award and CRAZY FOR YOU has gone one better than those by moving into the West End.

I must admit that looking back on the experience I am a little surprised as, although enjoyable, I found the show a little under-powered with choreography which seemed to echo 42ND STREET a little too strongly.I think my problem with the show is Ken Ludwig's rather one-note book: it has enough stock musical comedy characters such as the energetic leading man and spunky leading lady; the high-class unwanted girlfriend and the rough-and-ready joe she sets her sights on; the waspish grande dame and the egomaniac theatre director et al but none of them seem particularly well-developed and their actions are dictated by the needs of the cobbled together Gershwin songs.

Peter McKintosh's standing set which would have filled the Open Air's stage seems oddly forlorn within the proscenium stage at the Novello and rather than looking tastefully elegant tends to just look a bit cheap.It doesn't seem like I enjoyed it much does it? I did actually and my enjoyment had a lot to do with the delightful performances by the leads.

Sean Palmer gave a winning performance as Bobby, the banker who has a secret desire to dance on Broadway - I know, ONLY in musical comedy. After failing in an audition with the over-the-top Broadway producer Bela Zangler his imperious mother packs him off to foreclose a failing theatre in Nevada. Needless to say Bobby turns this to his advantage and persuades the townsfolk that he is in fact Bela Zangler and he has come to give their theatre a boost. Palmer is a real find, a likable personality who can carry a tune, and more importantly, dance up a storm!

One reason that Bobby is determined to stay is the go-getting charms of Clare Foster's theatre-owning Polly and she too, gave a performance of great charmth and warmth (to quote Sam Goldwyn said). They were a delightful couple on stage - a rarity these days.

The supporting company were a bit more uphill in the charm department but the show gave David Burt a marvellous opportunity to shine as the over-the-top Zangler. His bewildered fish-out-of-Broadway-water when he unexpectedly pops up in the town was a great comedy showcase for him and his double-takes and pratfalls were a real joy.Needless to say any show that boasts a score including SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, EMBRACEABLE YOU, I GOT RHYTHM and THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME is a must-see and there are enough lesser-known Gershwin songs to keep the show bouncing along - whatever the drawbacks of the book you know there is going to be an enjoyable song along in a while.

CRAZY FOR YOU has no obvious star performers, is not based on a film (although a few have been made from it's source show GIRL CRAZY) and is not a pop/rock songbook musical - so to transfer it into the West End which is dominated by all the above is a brave venture - and for that alone it deserves to succeed.

2011-10-23T20:46:00.008+01:00

A few weeks ago we went to the Arts Theatre (and it's not often I can say that) to see the new revival of Frank Marcus' notorious THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE.

Now I have to say that I have never liked the film - yes, I know it has Beryl Reid and Coral Browne in it but the sheer heavy-handed awfulness of Robert Aldrich's direction makes it a dreadful experience.

The play opened in 1964 with Reid and Eileen Atkins as her child-like girlfriend and the cast also included Lally Bowers as Mercy Croft and Margaret Courtenay as the neighbouring clairvoyant. A cast and a half who would more than be able to carry a play along no matter what it's deficits.

Sadly in Iqbal Khan's wonky production the performers don't have the confidence to grab the material by the scruff of the neck. Khan's direction is woefully uneven in tone and it leaves the performers all having to fend for themselves... some better than others.Meera Syal's last stage performance was as a winning SHIRLEY VALENTINE but here she only fitfully engaged as June, the ageing actress facing the ignominious decision by her producers to bump off her popular character in a radio 'soap' series not unlike The Archers. Not helped by the ugly costume design by Pam Tait, she certainly suggested the desperation of June's situation but she seemed at sea with the odder elements of the character, namely the hints of sado-masochism between her and Alice.

By far her better scenes were with Belinda Lang who gave the best performance of the evening as Mrs. Mercy Croft, the woman from the BBC with a cut-glass accent and a redundancy letter in her handbag. Belinda Lang had no problems playing the villain but she played it with nice shadings of character and with killer timing.Sadly the evening was scuppered by the am-dram performance of Elizabeth Cadwallader as Alice. It's a role that is as equally difficult to play as June as so much of the part is playing the girly-girl but with the ability to turn on a dime and show the character's predatory side, a survivor always on the lookout for the next protector. June's reveal at the end should also make dramatic sense but with the casting of the obviously young Cadwallader it simply didn't.

The casting of Helen Lederer as the spare-wheel character of Madam Xenia must be looked on as another of the production's problems. This utterly meaningless character was dropped from the film and Lederer's already - um - idiosyncratic performance style simply highlighted this character's absurdity.
And this was all played out on to a truly schizoid set design by Ciaran Bagnall - downstage an Agatha Christie touring production, upstage a standing set for RADIO GA-GA: THE MUSICAL.

The Arts Theatre has had an uncertain life recently with more threatened closures than hits. If they are banking on ho-hum productions like this as a lifeline then they had better think again.

2011-10-19T19:41:00.009+01:00

Sorry about that delay in blogging... life, you know...

Our second exposure to the Bard showed the truth in the old phrase of the mountain coming to Mohammad.

Sometimes you just gotta get out of town... so a few Saturdays ago found Owen and I sitting on a train chuffing merrily out of St. Pancras International to ... wait for it.... Sheffield. Sheffield yet! So what could get me to up sticks and venture north? Well, it was the news that the thrilling partnership of Clarke Peters and Dominic West which proved so successful in the epic US tv series THE WIRE was to be made flesh at the Sheffield Crucible in OTHELLO. There was no mention of a London transfer so a day-trip to the home of The Human League was a must.
It was also good to finally see inside the famous Crucible auditorium so beloved of the World Snooker Championships and it makes you understand how, with the right match, the atmosphere must be tense.

The theatre itself isn't all that exciting - it's form seems to echo so many regional late 20th Century builds, all concrete and large windows overlooking either the main road or the car park! But the place seemed very buzzy and busy, no doubt down to the excellent reviews the production had garnered the week before.

The actor Daniel Evans has landed the Artistic Director role at the Crucible and he made his Shakespeare directorial debut with this production. Surprisingly he made an excellent job of it - while playing up the - ahem - black comedy of such a hissable villain as Iago, Evans also gave us a thorough, uncluttered reading of the play with a momentum which moved smoothly but relentlessly ever-onward, like a shark honing in on it's prey.Oddly enough, the play's final scene did dissipate this momentum but Shakespeare did rather prolong the end of his play - how many times *does* Desdemona have splutter to life after having been smothered? However by then Evans and his talented cast had done enough to deserve the ovation that they genuinely deserved.

Evans gave us a fairly traditional setting for his version of the play with doublets, jerkins and wide skirts a-plenty against Morgan Large's set comprising a large functional brick wall with central doors which with Lucy Carter's subtle lighting worked well in exterior and interior scenes.

I guess the best Shakespearean productions should seem to introduce the play to you afresh and this it certainly did. I can't remember laughing so much at the tale of the tragic Moor but I suspect a lot of that was down to the inspired central casting.
It's a shame that the exciting performances of Dominic West and Clarke Peters will not be seen by a wider audience but I feel very lucky to have done so. The chemistry revealed in THE WIRE was built on here and their scenes together fizzed and sparked as Iago teased and wheedled Othello from his benign married state into a jealous murderous husband.

Dominic West was the true star of the show, using a broad Yorkshire accent to suggest a hail-fellow-well-met character who secretly relishes the carnage his malicious lies provoke. No one is safe from him including his wife Emilia and here West was perfectly matched with Alexandra Gilbreath who brought an earthy wisdom to the role. As with the best performances, it was her a pleasure to watch her silent reactions to others as well as speaking her lines - her slow realization that she was an unknowing contributor to her husband's scheme was heartbreaking.Clarke Peters came in for some unfairly critical reviews in the press but he gave a fine performance, becoming more and more unravelled as his jealousy took hold until his mania was scary to see. Peters is an actor who you instinctively can trust on stage and this performance proved again his wide-ranging versatility and powerful presence.

Desdemona is a sticky role but Lily James made a good fist of her inherent innocence and her scenes with Peters and Gilbreath gave her ample opportunity to show her versatile playing. In a small but impressive cast, special mention should go to Gwilym Lee as Cassio, Luciano Dodero as Montano and Leigh McDonald as the courtesan Bianca.

C'mon someone, film this production and give these fine actors the wider acclaim they deserve.
Oh and well done HMV Sheffield for stocking the dvd of Vanessa Redgrave in ISADORA which the HMV Piccadilly Circus haven't done!

2011-09-26T22:51:00.010+01:00

Time to catch up on my last two theatre trips, both written by that promising Brummie William Shakespeare.

Both productions featured performances that had Must-See stamped on them but none more so than Kevin Spacey as RICHARD III - if ever there was a perfect marriage of actor and role this had to be it.This production marked the end of the highly-publicised - and pretentiously titled - Bridge Project which featured Sam Mendes directing nine plays over the past 3 years which toured the world with a yearly company of actors drawn from the UK and the US. However none of the productions I saw seemed to be that successful with some remarkably ropey performances - mostly from the Americans to be honest.

The production was stark - each scene started with the first word of the scene projected on a scrim - and had a clunky stylised air such as certain doors that enclosed the playing space being marked with a X as another of Richard's victims bit the dust - we were treated to Gloucester being graphically drowned while others made do with just having their eyes closed by another company member. All very odd. As with previous Bridge productions there were some remarkably dodgy performances - the prime suspects here were Chandler Williams as a Clarence who seemed to be channelling a bad Kirk Douglas impersonator, Michael Rudko as a dull Lord Stanley and Nathan Darrow as a dreary Henry, Earl of Richmond.

There were no particularly exciting male performers in the cast so let's move on to Spacey. As much as I enjoyed him I must admit that afterwards I felt a bit becalmed as he gave exactly the performance that I was expecting. The slithery delivery, the barnstorming theatricality, the glittering ambiguity... it was all there. To be honest though, nothing he did surprised me or made me see a hidden dimension to his character.

I must say Spacey's physicality was impressive with his twisted gait and calipered leg and, with his constant scampering around the stage, he had boundless energy.

In both acts Mendes and Spacey concocted indelible stage moments: in Buckingham's stage-managed attempt to 'persuade' Richard to accept the crown while he demurs to be left alone to his prayers, Mendes had him broadcast live on a tv screen seemingly shocked and tremulous to be interrupted praying, while at the same time surreptitiously pushing away the fake monks surrounding him. In the second act, as the Battle of Bosworth draws ever closer and Richard's paranoia increases he delivered his speeches in the ranting style of Gaddafi which really drove home the timelessness of the play.

His death scene - while physically impressive - rather defeated his performance. Mendes has the dead Richard hoisted aloft by his ankles, Mussolini-style, to sway above the stage while Henry delivers his speech to the glories of the Tudor age to come. All this did was to remind me of reports of Olivier's famous death scene in CORIOLANUS at Stratford in 1959 - and Olivier should never be allowed to enter people's minds when they are watching another actor play Richard III.Oddly enough, for once the women ruled the roost - Haydn Gwynne (not an actress I usually warm to) was an impassioned Queen Elizabeth, Annabel Scholey was a forlorn Lady Anne and, in the real performance of the night, Gemma Jones gave us a thrilling Queen Margaret, haunting the stage in a top coat and wild hair. Her big scene where she denounces the Yorkist Queens was, for me, the highlight of the evening.I guess any time this play is performed it will always seem to mirror whatever despot is ruling somewhere in the world but with Gaddafi shrieking his revenge in a hidden location at all those seeking to overthrow him it made this 420 year old play remarkably contemporary.

2011-09-05T22:10:00.013+01:00

Banderas is back... and Pedro's got him!

In news that will make any Almodóvar fan's heart leap up, he has reunited with his former protege for the first time since ATAME! in 1990. Antonio has gone on to a Hollywood and Broadway career but has seemed adrift in no-doubt profitable but increasingly treading-water jokey latino roles. Reunited with Pedro, it is almost a shock to see that he is capable of giving a multi-layered performance - charismatic, tortured yet deeply twisted.

Banderas plays Robert Ledgard, a respected plastic surgeon who has baffled his colleagues with what he has been working on so secretly in the hidden laboratory in his isolated mansion.

When he tells a conference that he has researched the invention of a new man-made skin which is soft to touch but resistant to fire, he is warned off by his superiors, all too mindful that he is probably still haunted by grief at the death of his wife in a car-crash and more recently, the suicide of his deranged daughter Norma.What is unknown to his colleagues is that he has gone beyond research. Locked away in a spartan bedroom in his mansion is a young woman named Vera, covered in a skin-tight bodysuit, that he has operated on for the past six years. Her only contact with the world is Ledgard and his housekeeper Marilla (Almodóvar diva Marisa Paredes) - who holds her own secret that Ledgard is her son.

This precarious world is shattered with the arrival of Marilla's second son Zeca who is on the run from the law after a failed robbery. Zeca spots Vera on a monitor and after tying up his mother, rapes the girl who he mistakes for Ledgard's wife. It turns out he and Ledgard's wife were running away together when the car crashed and Zeca escaped, leaving the wife to die in the conflagration. Ledgard returns and shoots Zeca dead. This triggers the all-important flashback that lets us know what exactly happened six years ago that led to the mysterious appearance of Vera in Legard's life.
Even by Pedro's standards, the plot is labyrinthine but you are swept along in his brio of telling a tall tale with the straightest of faces helped immeasurably by a committed cast and the combination of lush cinematography and a vivid, Hitchcockian score.

Since his stunning re-emergence with TODO SOBRE MI MADRE (All About My Mother), Pedro has proved himself to be among the greatest of directors working in cinema today, with a facility of drawing you deep within his screen-storytelling. I respond in different ways to his films: his films with female lead characters TODO SOBRE MI MADRE, VOLVER and LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces) I connect with immediately; his films with male lead characters HABLE CON ELLA (Talk To Her) and LA MALA EDUCACION (Bad Education) I have to allow to ferment and grow in my subconscious. The joy of Pedro's work is that his films allow this to happen.
Banderas' darkly menacing performance is complemented by those around him. Elena Anaya's Vera is initially seen as a mystery and it's a measure of her performance that with minimal dialogue you still stay intrigued in her which pays off at the end when she really comes into her own. It's always a joy to see Marisa Paredes and here she gives a sturdy, unflashy performance in a role that gives a core to the film - as twisted a core as that maybe.

Jan Cornet makes an impression as the young man in Vera's past and special mentions to Susi Sánchez as his mother, Bárbara Lennie as his shop assistant friend and especially Blanca Suárez as the tragic Norma.
Pedro's film - which echoes his own work as well as VERTIGO, FRANKENSTEIN and EYES WITHOUT A FACE - is given a glorious sheen by his cinematographer José Luis Alcaine whose lush and disturbing cinematography is one of the major triumphs of the film, allied to Alberto Iglesias' teasing and haunting score.

It's a mark of his taste as a filmaker that at the very end, when most film makers would go in for a big emotional screen moment, Almodóvar fades to black. Somethings are best left to the audience's imagination.

2011-08-31T23:05:00.010+01:00

One of the most exciting nights in the theatre last year was our trip to Lincoln Center, NY to see Bartlett Sher's wondrous production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC, marking it's first Broadway revival in 54 years! Luckily we had a chance to re-visit this production last week in the not-as-far Barbican Centre (and this time with no snowy streets outside!)Well swipe me if we hadn't booked for the opening night! Seeing a red carpet and autograph collectors should have tipped me off but it was only when we saw Rolf Harris, Barbara Windsor and Miranda Hart in the auditorium that the penny dropped! But we were there to see the show not the audience. There was an oo-er moment when Bartlett Sher stepped out on the stage and informed us that although Samantha Womack (née Janus) had broken her toe a day or so earlier she would be going on thanks to Dr. Theatre.

The production has been somewhat curtailed by being squeezed into the smaller stage and although the music still sounds glorious played live, the orchestra sounded slightly less encompassing than at Lincoln Center. However the production still thrills, delights and makes your jaw drop that it's score can contain so many classics that not only work as stand-alone classics but more importantly still manage to move the story forward.One of the production's biggest surprises was how well Samantha Womack coped with such a major musical role. The actress playing Nellie has songs that range from the broad comedy of HONEY BUN and I'M GONNA WASH THAT MAN RIGHT OUTTA MY HAIR to the big solos like A COCK-EYED OPTIMIST and I'M IN LOVE WITH A WONDERFUL GUY - oh and she has to go from comedy to drama quite abruptly. Although her voice isn't as strong as our NY Nellie - Laura Osnes - she certainly had a grip on the character and any reservations I had brought with me were soon forgotten.

We also saw finally Paulo Szot who played Emile originally at Lincoln Center and although he stopped the show dead with a stunning THIS NEARLY WAS MINE, I must admit I preferred our NY Emile, David Pittsinger. I am not sure whether it was down to him possibly being over-familiar with the part having played it off and on for such a long time or Pittsinger's more mature ruggedness being a better fit for the character but I was a bit underwhelmed by him. I must also admit that, akin to the recently-seen PYGMALION, a little more chemistry between Womack and Szot wouldn't have gone amiss. Another Walford escapee Alex Fearns plays the spivy Seebee Luther Billis and was quite effective in the role, making a real impression as a character and not just someone who moves the comedy along. The production has a major find in Daniel Koek as Lt. Joe Cable, nicely playing the character's shift from loner to lover and socking over YOUNGER THAN SPRINGTIME and YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT with power and conviction.

We were lucky too that Loretta Ables Sayre has travelled with the show to reprise her wonderful performance as Bloody Mary. She is a magnetic performer and perfectly captures not only the character's humour but also her hard-edged survivalist nature - her version of HAPPY TALK turns the song not into just a cute throwaway number but a song sung with a growing desperation and underlying threat.There was good support from Nigel Williams too as the Captain Brackett and the ensemble work is consistently good.

If you want a great night out with a genuine musical triumph get along to the Barbican before October 1st - but also keep in mind the show will be touring after this date.

You'll laugh, you'll cry... I did.

2011-08-29T19:46:00.018+01:00

My other belated theatre blog is for the latest production at the Donmar, Eugene O'Neill's 1921 play of redemption and a life on the ocean wave, ANNA CHRISTIE.
It's strange that it has taken this long for the play to appear at the Donmar as it seems a shoe-in for any smallish theatre needing a solid well-made prestige play - it also only has four major roles! It has not been seen in the West End since Natasha Richardson's award-winning performance nineteen years ago at the Young Vic - when she repeated the role the next year in NY opposite Liam Neeson it led to their marriage and her re-locating to live there.
The piece is most well-known for providing the vehicle for Greta Garbo's debut in talking pictures in 1930. Two years elapsed between the release of Al Jolson's THE JAZZ SINGER and the release of ANNA CHRISTIE and during that time Garbo had starred in 6 silent films as M-G-M searched for just the right film to launch their Swedish star onto the now listening public. But Anna's Swedish background gave Garbo the the perfect role and she went on to garner her first Academy Award nomination for her performance. Her opening lines, "Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side... and don't be stingy baby" have entered film history. But what of the Donmar production? The production is directed by Rob Ashford who was responsible for the theatre's 2009 revival of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and both productions share the same downbeat spit-and-sawdust atmosphere - how different to his HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING which we saw earlier this year in New York!

O'Neill's play tells the story of Anna, a young woman who comes east to the docks of New York to find the father who entrusted her to relatives on a farm after the death of her mother while he worked on his coal barge. Old Chris is nervously excited about seeing her after so long, only knowing from her infrequent letters that she worked as a nursemaid in Minnesota. His drink-sozzled mistress Marthy knows better when she spots Anna enter the dockside bar and their wary, cagey conversation reveals that Anna was working in a brothel until arrested and sent to jail. All options shot, she now wants her father to support her. During a storm at sea, Chris and Anna rescue sailors from a shipwreck and the last one saved is Mat Burke, a belligerent Irish stoker whose rollicking Blarney steamrollers Anna into a love affair. When Mat and Chris battle for the right to 'own' Anna, she angrily denounces them both and the long line of men who have used and abused her. Confronted with the truth of Anna's past how forgiving will her father and lover be?

O'Neill certainly powers his plot along in only four scenes and, despite the clunky repetition of Old Chris' simile of "that old devil sea", his rangy and muscular dialogue still keeps you rolling with the punches. He certainly created one of the great female roles of the last century in Anna and it's a shame we have not seen more actresses have the opportunity to play her.
Ruth Wilson played her with Anna's raw nerves fully exposed: from her first appearance staring down the hungry looks of the bar-room men to her last, alone again but stronger than before, she delivered a powerful performance which would have been a great performance if she had found more space for Anna's humanity.

The performance of the evening however was from Jude Law as Mat. Proving to be as much of a force of nature as the storm in which he makes his first appearance, this was the best I have ever seen him on stage. Even if his brogue was tempest tossed from Kerry in Ireland to Kingston in Jamaica, Law gave such a bravura performance that you could not take your eyes off him. For once he gave a performance which justified his star status.
David Hayman wrestled with the potentially deadly role of the salty Sveedish sea dog and eventually managed to overcome the hurdy-gurdy accent and repetitive dialogue to give a well-rounded performance.

Jenny Galloway proved that when it comes to scene-stealing she's the best around. However she really needs to find a play that allows her the chance to do her larceny more than once - here as in CAUSE CELEBRE and AFTER THE DANCE she only appeared in one scene! Although not written by O'Neill it would have been nice if Ashford had interpolated the extra scene included in the 1930 film for Marie Dressler as Marthy when she turns up begging while Anna and Mat are in a Coney Island beer garden. The production was aided immeasurably by Paul Wills' adaptable set, Howard Harrison's evocative moody lighting and Adam Cork's sound design. All in all, another memorable Donmar visit.

2011-08-24T22:50:00.010+01:00

It appears I have let a few theatre trips slip by unnoticed although it's certainly not because I disliked them.

A few weeks ago we went to see George Bernard Shaw's most popular play PYGMALION at the Garrick Theatre with the intriguing casting of Rupert Everett as Henry Higgins, Kara Tointon as Eliza Doolittle and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Higgins.
The production was directed and designed by Philip Prowse who used to be the artistic director of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Back in the day I saw a few of Prowse's London productions - although none which featured Everett who I have surprisingly never seen on stage before.

Prowse's productions always had a visual swagger but his directorial skills never seemed to come across as being particularly incisive or having much joy in them. Here though he gave us a production which moved with speed and a twinkle in the eye. Prowse's design was also slightly more restrained than usual - the only excess being a very obviously theatrical red swagged curtain.
I enjoyed Rupert Everett's bullish and bullying Professor Higgins, taking great delight in his challenge of turning a gauche cockney flower girl into a polite lady while blithely ignoring the fact that Eliza might have feelings as well as dropped aitches. He had good chemistry with Peter Eyre's humane Col. Pickering and in his scenes with Diana Rigg, as his quietly caustic mother, he showed that here was one woman he couldn't dominate. His handling of the final confrontation scene was expertly done as Higgins shifts from exasperated humour to a sniping combativeness.

Kara Tointon certainly made an impressive West End debut as Eliza but as seems to be the norm for all actresses playing this role, her Cockernee accent was totally over-the-top. I've never seen the text but even if the lines are written all Gawd Blimey it would be nice for a director just once to have the actress play the role in an ordinary London accent. She was very effective in the tea party scene where Eliza test-runs her 'proper' accent to the puzzlement of all present and she certainly held her own in the final argument with Higgins. The one thing lacking was any noticeable chemistry between the two leads. Needless to say Diana Rigg - who was herself an onstage Eliza in the 1970s opposite Alec McCowan - stole her scenes as Mrs. Higgins, quietly exasperated at her son's crassness but capable of cutting him to the quick with a polite put-down. It must be said however that Prowse did her no favours with some awful costumes! Michael Feast also had great fun as Eliza's guttersnipe father Alfred with a fine line in bristling indignation - especially when he is left a legacy that catapults him into the dreaded middle class.

I am not a Shaw lover to be honest - that thumping tone always finding it's way through the prose - but PYGMALION still knows exactly how to lull it's audience into social comedy security before challenging them with the debate about the war of the sexes.

2011-08-01T20:32:00.011+01:00

Last week it was time to return to the Menier for the first time in over a year - since the debacle that was PARADISE FOUND in fact. It was to see another musical but this one actually lived up to it's hype, Stephen Sondheim's ROAD SHOW. It took a long time to get here.

In 1999 Sondheim and John Weidman (his book writer on PACIFIC OVERTURES and ASSASSINS) staged a workshop of the show under the title WISE GUYS with Nathan Lane and Victor Garber as the real-life brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner which foundered afterwards during a legal dispute with producer Scott Rudin.

But Sondheim, who had become intrigued with the story of the brothers as early as the 1950s, did not give up and in 2003 the show appeared in Chicago then Washington as BOUNCE with Richard Kind and Howard McGillin as the warring brothers with a supporting cast including Jane Powell as their mother, Gavin Creel as Addison's gay lover and Michelle Pawk as Wilson's mistress.Despite being directed by Sondheim's long-time collaborator Hal Prince, the show received middling reviews and never made it to Broadway although the score was recorded.

After the success of his minimalist SWEENEY TODD, director John Doyle was asked to work on the troublesome show with Weidman and the new revised ROAD SHOW opened in 2008 off-Broadway and won both the Obie and Drama Desk Awards for Best Lyrics.

The new production dropped the role of the mistress - and the interval - and concentrated more on the relationship between the brothers and their ever-present mother and father's ghosts. This is the version that has appeared at the Menier.John Doyle's production is staged traverse-style so the audience is fully involved with the action, mostly being pelted with dollar bills that are thrown around by the Mizners regularly, nicely illustrating their approach to money, especially Wilson's - it's only money, there's always some sucker to fleece it from.

The brothers are delightfully played by Michael Jibson as the quiet architect Addison and David Bedella as the devil-may-care Wilson, both in their own way obsessively chasing the road to fame and fortune promised them by their dying father. Again the closeness of the audience to the actors was rewarded by the subtle playing of Jibson in particular, as well as the always fine Gillian Bevan as Mrs. Mizner. Her solo number "Isn't He Something!" was performed beautifully, making the mother's love for her wastrel son fully believable.
Glyn Kerslake was effective as the Mizner's father, dying early but hovering around the action disapproving as his sons fail at his dreams for them and Jon Robyns was charismatic as Hollis the rich boy who is the love of Addison's life.

The ensemble did sterling work, Fiona Dunn in particular was great fun as a Florida snob who engages Addison to build her a dream house.

I wasn't a fan of Doyle's SWEENEY TODD but here his direction keeps the show moving while also illuminating the dynamic of the brother's relationship with small but telling touches.Although I liked the BOUNCE cast recording it never really settled in my mind but here the score struck me as the natural progression from ASSASSINS and PASSION. By turns melodic, funny, tart and insightful, the score also includes one of Sondheim's most lovely songs "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened". Originally sung in BOUNCE by Wilson and his mistress, here the song has been moved to Addison and Hollis and makes much more sense dramatically.

I suspect ROAD SHOW will not get too many outings down the years but it is a worthy addition to Sondheim's body of work and, like it's odd central characters, is proof that there is always another chance when it looks like something has failed.

2011-07-27T20:42:00.009+01:00

Last week it was time to meet again the tortured and torturing inhabitants of Anton Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD showing up again at the National's Olivier Theatre, ten years after Trevor Nunn's production starring Vanessa Redgrave.

The production reunites the team behind last year's re-discovery of Gorky's THE WHITE GUARD, director Howard Davies, adapter Andrew Upton, designer Bunny Christie, lighting designer Neil Austin and actor Conleth Hill. The production certainly has it's merits but for once Howard Davies' signature painstaking thoroughness doesn't quite suit this play.

Andrew Upton's version keeps poking you in the ribs with clunking modern terms - it certainly was a surprise for Lopakhin to blurt out "Oh bollocks" - but he didn't seem to bring much by way of insight.I have seen THE CHERRY ORCHARD a few times although it's not my favourite of Chekhov's handful of classic plays. All the components are there and there are certainly a remarkable number of roles for actors to get their teeth into, but somehow it doesn't quite engage me fully - although it features enough great Chekhov moments to make one seek it out again.

For me the problem is the dreaded second act when after a number of expositional conversations between characters, the act comes to a juddering halt when Trofimov, the eternal student, rails at the family and hangers on of Madame Ranyevskaya for their indolence and willful ignorance of the lives of the lower classes. It just goes on and on and on. And on.It's a production that probably would have worked better in the Lyttleton - there seemed to be an awful lot of stage to cover for the cast getting around Bunny Christie's faded dacha and this expanse of stage rather dissipated the tension that should grow during the third act party which culminates in Lopakhin's drunken appearance to announce to the stunned Ranveyskaya that he now owns her beloved Cherry Orchard. However despite these mis-steps, the great moments of the show worked their magic.

Most of these involved the heartbreaking character of Varya - in a lovely performance by Claudie Blakely - Ranyevskaya's older, practical daughter who has run the family home while it's fortunes have dwindled to zero and who has a wary but quiet affection for the equally shy Lopakhin. The painful fourth act scene when these two potential lovers attempt to voice their true feelings under the guise of small talk only to let the moment vanish for ever was profoundly moving. Their were fine supporting performances from Sarah Woodward as Charlotta - of the family, but not one of it - whose loss of security and home makes her one of Chekhov's most haunting figures, Kenneth Cranham's decrepit, tragic Firs, Tim McMullan's cadging friend of the family Simyonov-Pishchik and James Laurenson's permanently bewildered Gaev.

Conleth Hill and Zoe Wanamaker were both potentially exciting choices for Lopakhin and Ranyevskaya and while they both gave interesting performances neither banished memories of Roger Allam and Vanessa Redgrave in the 2001 production. In particular Zoe Wanamaker, so adept at playing clear-eyed, practical characters, seemed at times an odd fit for Ranyevskaya who simply refuses to see the woods for her cherry trees.

2011-07-17T17:53:00.015+01:00

Last Thursday Owen took me to see the Open Air Regent's Park's production of THE BEGGAR'S OPERA - and it didn't rain, hurrah!Now Constant Reader as you might or not know, I have history with John Gay's ballad opera.

Back in 1982 at the National Theatre, Richard Eyre staged a version of BEGGAR'S in the Cottesloe while in repertory with his legendary production of GUYS AND DOLLS and SCHWEYK IN THE 2ND WORLD WAR at the Olivier. If I wasn't in my favorite front-row seat for GUYS I would be in the Cottesloe enjoying the remarkable company take on this famous satire of morality and justice, brought forward to the Victorian era.

Headed by Paul Jones' swaggering Gorbals Macheath, he was superbly matched by Harry Towb's Belfast Mr. Peachum, June Watson's Una O'Connor-ish Mrs. Peachum, David Ryall's Mr. Lockit, Kevin Williams' scene-stealing Filch, Belinda Sinclair's lovelorn Polly Peachum and, above all, Imelda Staunton's terrier-like Lucy Lockit - spitting venom one minute, tremulous with love the next. Her version of "I, like the fox, shall grieve" will never be bettered.Oddly enough when the production was filmed for Channel Four, it seemed to lose a lot of it's uniqueness in the translation.

Lucy Bailey's production places the action back in 1728 when it was first staged and is aided immeasurably by William Dudley's clever design - framing the action under two large Tyburn gibbets and utilising two large tumbrels fashioned into various settings.Sadly I suspect I have been spoiled by being introduced to the show by such a wonderful company as this production, although good in parts, could not find an even footing.

Maybe it was the surroundings, I didn't feel the park setting helped the grimy and Olde London atmosphere that this show demands. The tone also seemed to strain too hard with it's acknowledged Hogarth inspiration being laid on with a very heavy trowel in the first half. The show settled down in the second half with the appearance of the First Family of Newgate, the Lockits.Both Phil Daniels as the snarling Lockit and Beverly Rudd as a powerhouse Lucy, mixing both the thwarted mistress' conniving and bruised tenderness to good effect, were outstanding. Rudd was a very funny Red Riding Hood in the Open Air's INTO THE WOODS last year so it was great to see her again.
Jasper Britton was a venal Peachum although the over-the-top performance of Janet Fullerlove as Mrs. Peachum was a disappointment. Flora Spencer-Longhurst was a winning Polly Peachum and while David Caves was an energetic Macheath - and played his comedy scenes with his warring lovers well - he was a bit lacking in the charisma stakes - his Macheath also liked to show off his physique which proves there *were* gyms in the 18th Century!

2011-07-17T14:11:00.013+01:00

A couple of weeks ago Owen and I went to see the new film-to-stage musical version of GHOST at the Piccadilly Theatre.I can't say I am a big fan of the film which always seemed to me to be a perfectly amiable if unbalanced star-vehicle which somehow seemed to hit a nerve with the public and gave a whole new lease of life to the lugubrious UNCHAINED MELODY by The Righteous Brothers. Unsurprisingly, this is also the only memorable song out of the stage show.

I have just read the chapter on DO I HEAR A WALTZ in Stephen Sondheim's book of collected lyrics "Finishing The Hat" and he writes about the problematic "why" musical. DO I HEAR A WALTZ was a musical he co-wrote with Richard Rodgers based on Arthur Laurents play "The Time of The Cuckoo" (Laurents also wrote the book of the musical). It is Sondheim's contention that the musical failed as it had no real reason to be written as the original play had done all that was needed in that form. If they had an original take on the material it might have been worthwhile but no - they presented a play interrupted by songs. The same problem is inherent in practically all the recent film-to-stage productions - apart from XANADU which had the good sense to lampoon the whole premise.The book by Bruce Joel Rubin (who won an Oscar for his original film script) sticks doggedly to the already meagre plot - there are only five main roles - so if you have seen the film you will know the outcome from the get-go - yep, it's still *him*.

The score by Dave (Eurythmics) Stewart and Glen (Alanis Morissette) Ballard is ever-present but isn't memorable - the nearest song that breaks the generic pop theatre-score sound is the 2nd act belter for Sharon D. Clarke's Oda Mae which sounds like it could have come from the Eurythmics album "The King and Queen of America" with it's faux Big American sound.The male cast members are ok but not inspiring, the show's strength lies in the two female performers. In the role which won Whoopi Goldberg an Academy Award, Sharon D. Clarke is certainly in good voice as the sham spiritualist but she is not an inherently funny performer so the comedy scenes are played with a slightly forced air.

For me, the main reason to see the show is Caissie Levy as Molly, the widow who refuses to stop believing. As she proved in last year's HAIR revival, Caissie has a delightful stage presence and a powerful voice, she sprinkles her effortless quality on all her numbers, in particular her sad ballad "With You".The choreography of Ashley Wallen relies a little too much on the stuttering slow-motion movement so beloved of pop videos and stadium pop choreography but it fills the stage well and the combined visuals of Hugh Vanstone's lighting and Jon Driscoll's video projections always make the show arresting to watch.

So for the most part I sat watching the show, letting it all wash over me like a classy firework show - and then something most peculiar happened. In the last scene of the show it suddenly all came together! Director Matthew Warchus finally pulled off a genuine, emotionally affecting theatrical moment which had the audience snuffling and prompting a huge ovation - and sending the audience out on an emotional high.I guess that in itself will ensure a successful run - it's just a shame the whole show could not have been infused with the genuine magic of that final scene.

2011-07-08T21:47:00.018+01:00

On Sunday I made it to the Globe Theatre for only my second visit - the first time was... um... 7 years ago. What can I say... I obviously don't like alfresco theatre! However both Owen and Sharon's keenness on seeing Christopher Marlowe's DOCTOR FAUSTUS found me risking the elements - to say nothing of the bum-numbing bench and lack of leg-room... it's a known fact that they were of a smaller stature in the Elizabethan era - is there to be NO progress?After a good chomp at the Anchor pub, Owen, Sharon, Eamonn and I made our way to our front row gallery ledge then it was eyes down, here comes Faustus!

Surprisingly this was my first ever Christopher Marlowe play although I had seen the 1967 film of DOCTOR FAUSTUS co-directed and starring Richard Burton, based on the production he appeared in with the Oxford University Dramatic Society with a cameo from one E. Taylor as Helen of Troy. To be honest it's her several wordless appearances that I remember from the film.

I must admit my heart sank when Felix Scott spoke the opening prologue as I could not make out horned head nor pointed tail of what was being said but before long I was hooked by Marlowe's oft-told tale of Faustus, an intellectual who has become frustrated by the limits of knowledge and turns to the lure of magic. He offers to sell his soul to the Devil for the possibility of 24 years of limitless possibility and we follow him through the years as he becomes debased by his own power, relying constantly on the Devil's emissary Mephistopheles, and he becomes all too aware of his day of reckoning.Faustus' story is, of course, mirrored with a 'rude mechanical' tale of a couple of thickos who use the magic book for their own means and as usual it was in these scenes that the production pushed too hard on the button that blares "See, it's rude this bit... see, this is like Carry On". This was at variance with the delightfully subtle performance of Pearce Quigley as Robin who reacted to the most frightening apparitions from Hell with a baleful indifference.

Matthew Dunster's production moved along at a good even pace - the only mis-steps being the grating burlesque moments and also what I assume is an in-house tradition of having a musical coda which here jolts you from the dramatic ending of the play to a jolly jig-about onstage with stick puppets. Again, I am sure the Elizabethan audiences needed something to sugar the pill but we don't need it anymore. There was also a worrying touch of modern dance at the start that, as usual, was a bit of a worry.Have a haunted, lead character who doesn't get many laughs? Call for Paul Hilton! I have seen him in the past as the haunted Orestes in THE ORESTEIA, Eugene O'Neill's version of Orestes as the haunted Orin in MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, the haunted Hjalmar in Ibsen's THE WILD DUCK... you get the deal. Needless to say the role of Faustus was a good fit for him and he charted Faustus' hubris with ease, making his descent from scholar to court 'turn' a fascinating one.

Hilton was well partnered by Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles. I assume Darvill accounted for the enthusiastic younger strain to the audience numbers thanks to his tv role as Doctor Who's sidekick and he gave a leisurely performance which finally caught fire when Mephistopheles shows his true nature when Faustus turns to him in his final hour. I only wish he had more presence in the role, more often than not I found myself concentrating on the more charismatic Hilton.In the busy supporting cast who doubled and tripled roles I found much to enjoy in the performances of Felix Scott as Faustus' servant Wagner as well as his aristo foppery as the Emperor Charles, Jonathan Cullen as the deposed Pope Bruno, Nigel Cooke as a dessicated Lucifer and Michael Camp, appropriately playing an obviously bubbly bi Duke.

It certainly made me keen to see more of Marlowe's canon.
Production photographs by Keith Pattison.

2011-07-07T23:53:00.011+01:00

Last week we had a double dollop of none other than Owen's favorite singer Buffy Sainte-Marie. For the first time he didn't get a hand-shake afterwards but more of that later...

The first helping was at a BBC4 recording for their series SONGWRITER CIRCLE which gathers together singer/songwriters of note (no pun intended) to play some of their best songs and chat about their process of creation. Joining Buffy was her contemporary folkie Donovan and Blue Mink creator Roger Cook.

You soon learn that these recordings - like signing sessions - only include punters to provide a backdrop, one is stickered, moved around and marshalled like so much condemned veal.

However once the actual show started a good time was had by all. The running order was Donovan then Buffy then Roger taking turns to sing a song, chat a bit and help their amies out with the odd harmony. Owen rightly surmised that it was a good idea to put Roger Cook at the end as he usually lightened the mood after Donovan and Buffy's occasional serious songs.

Buffy gave us 'Until It's Time For You To Go', 'Piney Wood Hills', 'Cod'ine', 'Little Wheel Spin And Spin', 'I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again', 'Up Where We Belong', 'Universal Soldier' and 'Still This Love Goes On' and all were delightfully performed and "Universal Soldier" in particular, was given the biggest ovation of the evening. It was also very noticeable that of the three, Buffy is the one who is still current and making music.
The next night we took our pew places at the Union Chapel in Islington for her concert backed by her fine, rocky band of three big lads all from Winnipeg.

First however we had to suffer a 30 minute set by some winsome, dreary, Dido-esque singer dressed in her best Ophelia-ish long white floaty frock. Dear lord, she sucked donkeys... at one point she informed us that she was going to do a song "that's a bit more up-tempo". Thanks for the heads up love, but it still meandered itself up a musical cul-de-sac. What ultimately annoyed me the most was that Buffy played a curtailed set - just over an hour - so why did this dreary bleating mare get a full 30 minutes?

As I said, Buffy played a curtailed set - about halfway through I was aware she was checking her watch more than somewhat and after an enjoyable but raggedy ending with a taped pow-wow song playing while they did their best reservation dance to it, they left the stage to a massive standing ovation. We clapped and clapped but the little backstage door remained shut and after an announcement that the show was over, we were hustled out of the chapel with undue haste. It turns out that Buffy had a photo session booked on the stage, it's a shame she couldn't have done a quick acoustic number and ended the show properly.

It was great to see her again though in these two different shows.

2011-07-01T22:03:00.010+01:00

After providing the emotional climax to the READY STEADY GO! show a week or so back, David McAlmont was back on stage to dazzle us (literally) again in a special event.It was only recently that I made the connection that two of my favorite singers, David and Kirsty MacColl, are children of Croydon and while Kirsty couldn't wait to get away, David is proud to come from the birthplace of David Lean and Roy Hudd and here he was playing a homecoming gig in the smaller space at the Fairfield Halls. Sadly even a Homecoming King such as David garnered a smaller audience than I would have expected. Still me and a few fellow McAlmonteers were front and centre to give him loud cheers - and we were greeted by name from the stage by him!
David and his collaborator Guy Davies have been working on new material and they debuted three new songs which all sounded very fine indeed. They have also finished their tour to launch his LIVE FROM LEICESTER SQUARE cd and dvd so of course we had a smattering of the tracks included on it which have now become like breathing for them and their fine band of musical brothers: "Blues in The Night", "Snow" (which I knew the mystery co-writer of!), "Isn't it A Pity", "Lose My Faith", "Never, Never, Never" (in a sublime duet with 'Level' Neville Malcolm on double bass) and his two McAlmont & Butler anthems "Yes" and "Falling" which sounded wonderfully loud and vivid - much better than at Leicester Square.
David announced that he and Guy were off to Ireland for another session of writing songs for their upcoming album as McAlmont & Davies. I was a little surprised that their musical partnership is now being formalised as an official duo - if only because David has had problems in the past being part of a team - but it says much about his trust and security with Guy to take this step. I can't wait to hear what they have in store for us!

As you can see Owen took some fab pictures of David onstage and it was nice to see him afterwards to thank him for a great show.

2011-06-24T22:48:00.009+01:00

See there IS a God.... I had doubts whether the hilarious US comedienne Kathy Griffin would ever come and play over here as her act is so based around US celebrities and politics but last Sunday there she was - playing a sell-out show at the Palace Theatre. So of course there I was too!

After a suitably diva-ish wait we were treated to the usual rapidly-edited video introduction to all things Kathy - from her early stand-up act through to appearing with Brooke Shields in the sitcom "Suddenly Susan" and onto her cameos in films ("Pulp Fiction"), tv shows ("Glee") and even pop videos (Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady"). There was also clips from her reality show "My Life On The D List" and her controversial appearances on tv such as the all-women chat show "The View" and the CNN New Year broadcast from Times Square with straight-laced Anderson Cooper when she screamed at a heckler "SHUT UP - DO I COME TO WHERE YOU WORK AND SLAP THE DICKS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH?"

And there she was! She was utterly hilarious, working her way through the few UK celebrities she had sussed out and her appearance a few days earlier on The Graham Norton Show with Cameron Diaz and Bear Grylls who needless to say came in for some severe shit-taking thanks to his Born-Again tweets and posh background.

She was very impressed by the audience being so aware of "right-wing nutjobs like Michele Bachmann - she said she played a gig in the South recently and there were unaware of her and her protestations that slavery was stopped by the founding fathers of the country!

In her 2 hour show Kathy mostly took well-aimed, beautifully-timed jabs at her favorite targets: Oprah Winfrey, Whitney Houston, Gwyneth Paltrow and most pleasing of all, Sarah Palin who recently pathetically called Kathy a "50 year old bully" - as if her knuckle-headed comments don't amount to a rally-cry for bullies everywhere.

I have enjoyed Kathy's eleven tv specials on YouTube as I presume the rest of the heavily gay audience had and I am being generous in saying that the excitement of finally seeing her in the flesh maybe provoked the near-hysterical response to her every statement. After a while it got really wearing, as if they were all trying to out-do each other in braying,

However nothing could stop me finally enjoying Kathy in the flesh! A woman after my own heart "I only talk about people behind their backs. It's called manners."

To give you an idea of the way she spins real life into her act here is her recent run-in with THE VIEW co-host - and right-wing bimbo - Elisabeth Hasselbeck (it's hilarious to watch the unease of the other co-hosts)

and here is Kathy's side of it: http://youtu.be/InDSLBsyFSc

2011-06-24T21:25:00.004+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #10:

Chris Tummings as 'Ray Pierre' in THE HARDER THEY COME (Barbican/Playhouse, 2008)

2011-06-23T16:25:00.005+01:00

There were two more events at Ray Davies' Meltdown Festival that need commenting on.

Ray invited his fellow 1960s singer/songwriter Alan Price along to do a turn with his band at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and, because we had only ever seen him before in the quaint but cramped backroom space in the Bull's Head pub in Barnes, Owen decided on seeing him in a more traditional setting.
The last time he was certainly entertaining, singing his signature choons while holding forth behind his keyboards with folded arms like your worst grumbling granddad about alimony payments, the modern world in general and what with the price of coal... Here we got the dour act again but with more of a twinkle in his eye and he was certainly good fun.

I didn't have long to wait before he did the song I had hoped to hear, "Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear"! Yes you can keep your faux-New Orleans blues stuff... give me Randy Newman at his Vaudevillian best and I'm happy!

Alan is definitely a musician's musician. I say that because he certainly let his band members show what they could do, almost to the detriment of the show... I mean, a drum AND a bass solo? Admit.

However we also got wonderfully muscular versions of I PUT A SPELL ON YOU, DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD, O LUCKY MAN, THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SON and much to Owen's pleasure, THE JARROW SONG.

He made a good addition to the Meltdown experience.On Saturday afternoon we had a hugely entertaining few hours in the company of Mr. Ray Davies himself on stage at the National Film Theatre in conversation with his good friend Julien Temple for a look at the films that shaped him growing up in the 1950s and through into films from the 1960s that reflected the times he was helping to shape.

Temple had edited together collections of film trailers that ranged from Ealing comedies to westerns, Hollywood historical epics to Carry Ons, Hammer to European arthouse and UK 'kitchen sink' films to the "swinging" films of the late 1960s.

Ray treated us to anecdotes of his filmgoing years - how he went with his courting older sisters to act as a juvenile chaperon, how he and brother Dave would recreate the westerns in their Muswell Hill bedrooms etc. I loved that he said that ever since BREATHLESS he had been searching for a Jean Seberg lookalike, he found an American girl who looked like her from behind (!!!) and took her to Paris just to have her walk up the Champs Elysee calling out "New York Herald Tribune?". The relationship didn't last the weekend.He was also very perceptive about BLOW-UP and PERFORMANCE, thankfully shattering the illusions of the obvious film fans in the audience by saying that, although he could appreciate them in a certain way, they were also testaments to a bygone age even as they were being filmed - that the film-makers were projecting onto "swinging London" their own sensibilities when in reality the momentum that had brought that era about had fatally stalled. I have always felt both films to be shockingly over-rated. Poor Ray kept returning to PERFORMANCE as he felt the cineastes in the audience were in a profound state of shock.After a break they screened two TV plays that Ray had appeared in. The first was a Play For Today from 1970 called THE LONG DISTANCE PIANO PLAYER about the attempt by a fragile pianist to break the record for the longest time a piano is played, for some unknown reason in a rundown Manchester church hall. It was nice to see Norman Rossington as the pianist's tough manager and a young James Hazeldine as his assistant but the play strained for a profundity that simply wasn't there and at 80 minutes it could have done with about 50 minutes taken out.

Bless him Ray is many things but he is no actor which was also shown in the second, shorter, TV play called STARMAKER from 1974. He co-starred with the delightful June Ritchie and told the story of a rock star who decides to take over the life of a nobody so he can write an album about 'real people' - or does he?

The show was entertainingly cringeworthy watching the TV studio audience reacting with bemused incomprehension at the action taking place all around them but it slowly worked it's charm and in the end it was an interesting take on the idea of stardom.

2011-06-21T21:26:00.017+01:00

Time to clamber aboard the Meltdown Time Machine at the Royal Festival Hall... this time it was to celebrate READY STEADY GO! with past alumni and sympathisers.It was a really buzzy, happy audience - and we were star-studded, people... the star was Glen Matlock - sat behind us yet - and the stud was Cheryl Baker.

I was never aware of READY STEADY GO while growing up although I was certainly aware of Cathy McGowan as a media 'face'. I caught up with the shows when they repeated heavily-edited editions in the late 1980s on Channel Four - they had fallen into the hands of Dave Clark so instead of ad breaks there were interspersed clips of the Dave Clark Five with obviously-edited-in footage of screaming crowds.

However what I saw I loved... acres of Dusty footage of her being fabulous - my favorite was a clip of her singing EVERY DAY I HAVE TO CRY where she had an obvious fit of the church giggles after bumping into a frugging member of the audience while miming. It also was the first time I saw Motown diva Kim Weston when she was introduced by The Beatles no less singing the glorious A LITTLE MORE LOVE.

Sadly no Kim tonight - in fact there were no Motown acts which surprised as RSG was the acknowledged launchpad for Motown in this country - and of course there was no Dusty but there was a tribute, more of which later. What there was however was the chance to see three singers I have great affection for.First up was The Manfreds fronted by himself, Paul Jones - I have history with him on the South Bank. He took over from my beloved Ian Charleson in the NT's GUYS AND DOLLS in September '82 and every time PJ would come on for the first mission scene and the song I'LL KNOW - I fell asleep. Every time. In the front row. Oddly enough I stayed awake for him in THE BEGGAR'S OPERA which was on at the same time! Anyways they kicked the show off with the show's theme song 5-4-3-2-1 which was as good a way to start and PJ's showboating kicked in during an extended version of DOO WA DIDDY DIDDY.

After an amusing turn by Dave Berry - in full panto mode - and an endless set of only 2 songs from the stage school diva-stylings of Paloma Faith - the evening kicked it up a notch with the appearance of Carl Barát who brought a bit of good old fashioned star quality and some raucous rock n roll glamour to the proceedings. Then it was time for the actual reason for going... ladies and gentlemen, Miss Sandie Shaw.

SCREAAAAAAAAAM! I have always wanted to see Sandie Shaw on stage and assumed it was never going to happen but there she was RESPLENDENT in a fringed pink coat, lacy pink top and pink shorts.. and barefoot. Sadly she only did THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME and GIRL DON'T COME (sat on the stage waggling her feet over the apron) but there she was - grinning from ear to ear, bouncing over the stage and looking so damn HAPPY to be there, she was utterly winning.

As if my heart couldn't take any more, on sauntered my very dear close personal friend David McAlmont and launched into a wondrous version of the anthemic McAlmont & Butler YES - damn it was good to hear it in this widescreen version - the last two gigs I have seen David do have been at most with piano, drums and bass - YES is a song that demands HUGE sound, HUGE strings, HUGE everything... and it was a joy to hear it done so loud.
Next cab of the rank was Nona Hendryx who had the longest time on stage... now it was great to see her so ultra-professional stage persona and magnificent arse encased in skintight leggings and of course, hear an original LaBelle sista WORK "LADY MARMALADE" but you can have too much of a good thing and as her anti-apartheid song WINDS OF CHANGE clocked onto it's 11th hour it smacked of favoritism - she is the girlfriend of Vickie Wickham who produced the show as she did the original READY STEADY GO. She followed this up with another marathon funk-workout called SWEAT - if she had done BABY A GO GO which Prince wrote for her it would have cheered me immeasurably. I was sweating for her to get off.

I should have mentioned that the show was - ahem - compered by Annie Nightingale - um, I know she is rock royalty and all that but damn she was like the walking dead, hair by Phyllis Diller, legs by Twiglet and wearing a purple sack dress that just hung on her like a shiny potato sack. It was embarrassing to see, especially compared to the soignée figure of Biba herself, Barbara Hulanicki who popped up to be interviewed onstage.After a short 2 song - 2 songs, Nona!! - set by young r&b/grime singer Loick Essien which was easy on the ear it was time for another visit from Planet Diva... the majestic Ronnie Spector. Honey she worked those heels... all 4' of her made large by teetering stilettos and a lioness mane of back-combed and messed-up hair, she wiggled and teased as she has been doing since the early 1960s and you knew why she is the old rocker's pin-up of choice...with boobs as big as her voice she turned in faultless versions of BE MY BABY, BABY I LOVE YOU and WALKING IN THE RAIN - I had tears of joy in my eyes!After Ronnie lifted the edge of her shirt one last time as she sauntered off it was time for a little tribute to our fallen Queen Dusty. After a ropey version of I ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOU from Nona Hendryx - who REALLY should have known better - it was time for an enjoyable evening to reach it's climax.

David McAlmont came on again and told a nice anecdote of how when he and Bernard Butler appeared on the 1995 episode of LATER... with Dusty, Sinéad O'Connor and Alison Moyet and was told by mistake that he would be singing back-up for her - it turned out it was just going to be the women. Crestfallen, he was visited the next night at his dressing room by Dusty and she presented him with a small bouquet of Freesias that he still has pressed in a book. Awww....

He then launched into a stunning version of YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME that just built and built and climaxed with David, arms outstretched, palms aloft and his voice effortlessly riding the music for the final "Belieeeeeeeve meeeeee" - I was on my feet as he ended the final note. Apart from the singalong ending his was the only standing ovation of the night.

It took a while after this glimpse of musical heaven to notice that Paloma Faith was on stage again with a karaoke SON OF A PREACHER MAN then did the best thing she did all night - introduced Ray Davies to duet on LOLA, joined by most of the performers. For the second night in a row, the Festival Roof was lifted to the mass singing in praise of a Soho transvestite. The hilarity was the song ended and while they were all milling about on stage, Sandie Shaw leaned into the nearest mike and started singing "Lola, lo-lo-lo-lo Lolaaaa" and started it all off again!!!

And another fabulous Meltdown omnibus show trundled off to live in memory.

2011-06-17T18:56:00.009+01:00

This is the dawning of the Age of The Meltdown!

Yes Constant Reader, we have been a-visiting the South Bank a bit to sample what Ray Davies has cooked up for his tenure as curator of the annual Meltdown Festival.
The first show was the kid himself, Mr Ray Davies with his current band.

The first section of his show started, as usual, with Ray and his guitarist Bill Shanley playing a loose acoustic set - my personal highlights included "I Need You", "See My Friends", "Misfits", "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", "Set Me Free" and "All Day and All Of The Night". Also as usual, Ray threw most of his Kinks classics open for the audience to sing-a-long, which I always find a bit of a surprise - especially when he sings an extra chorus after the applause dies down to get the audience singing again. What this section always shows is what a gifted guitarist he has in Bill Shanley.After a while the other members of his band snuck on and again his extensive songbook was given a thorough airing with great performances of "Well Respected Man", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone", "I'm Not like Everybody Else" and audience-rousing "Sunny Afternoon" which of course took place "in the summertiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime"!

During the show my attention was constantly being diverted by the vaguely amusing sight of a clutch of *ahem* 40-something women who occasionally ran down the aisles to stand in front of the stage to do some dancing that only missed their handbags on the floor to complete the image. The ushers were not having any of that however and after a verse or two shooed away the Rayettes to their seats again.Ray of course left the best til last, ending with four songs that any writer would have given their eye-teeth to have written but luckily for us were written by him; songs that all beat with a true Londoner heart "Waterloo Sunset", "Days", "You Really Got Me" and "Lola".

And yes, Constant Reader... "Waterloo Sunset" again hit me right in the tear ducts. I had just started to type "I wish I knew what it is about this song that...." but on reflection I *don't* want to know what it is about that melody and that choice of words that has such an immediate emotional effect on me - every time. The only other song I can think of that has such an effect on me is Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday" from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE.To go from that intense personal experience of "Waterloo Sunset", to "Days" with all it's memories, to the barb-wire whiplash of "You Really Got Me" to the the lyrical slyness and life-affirming generosity of spirit within "Lola" is to celebrate the genius of Ray Davies, songwriter.

2011-06-16T20:09:00.002+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #9:
Helen Mirren as 'Lady Torrence' in ORPHEUS DESCENDING (Donmar, 2000)

"Tough, feisty, calloused by an awful marriage, she still managed to suggest a yearning, a tenderness and finally a joy deep within" - Benedict Nightingale, Independant

2011-06-13T18:42:00.008+01:00

Sometimes you eventually get to see an elusive film and you wonder not only how on earth you managed all this time without seeing it but also why the film itself is such a hidden treasure.

On Friday I finally saw Carlos Saura's CRÍA CUERVOS at the National Film Theatre - BFI Southbank m'arse - and sat entranced, puzzled, and moved by it.

This milestone of Spanish cinema, filmed literally in the dying gasp of Franco's rule, is an allegory of the stifling grip the dictatorship had on the Spanish psyche through the story of an imaginative but sad little girl trying to comprehend the emotions of loss.

The film stars the astonishing child actress Ana Torrent (who was nine at the time of filming) in only her second film after her haunting performance in Víctor Erice's THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE in 1973. Her blank, wide-eyed stare follows you for hours afterwards.

Ana is the middle daughter of a military general (Héctor Alterio) living in a large house in Madrid but the busy city rarely impinges on their shuttered rooms or forlorn walled garden with it's drained swimming pool. Although close to her sisters, Irene (Conchi Perez) and Maite (Maite Sanchez), Ana is still quietly distraught at the recent death of her mother Maria (Geraldine Chaplin). The lonely girl gravitates towards the family's no-nonsense maid Rosa (Florinda Chico) who also looks after their maternal Grandmother (Josefina Diaz), wheelchair-bound and speechless.One night Ana sees a woman running from her father's bedroom in distress, when she goes in she passively observes him dead, seemingly from a heart attack. Ana empties his bedside glass of milk into the kitchen sink and meticulously cleans it.

The three girls seem non-plussed by this new tragedy but are dismayed when they are told that their new guardian will be their strict aunt Paulina (Mónica Randall). As Paulina attempts to stamp her authority on the girls and a resentful Rosa, Ana continues to imagine conversations with her dead mother. Another layer is added by having the adult Ana (Chaplin also) address the audience of her memories from that time.Ana's odd behaviour on the night of her father's death is slowly explained during the film: her mother asked her once to throw away an old tin saying it was dangerous to keep. Ana believes her mother to mean that it's a deadly poison and, thinking her father was ultimately responsible for her mother's early death she 'poisons' his glass of milk. The contents are revealed to only be bicarbonate of soda but Ana's belief in it's lethal qualities comes into play later in the film.

There are so many memorable scenes: the three sisters dancing to their only record, the oppressively jaunty pop song "Porque Te Vas" by Jeanette; the strict aunt's absence one day giving the sisters the chance to play dress-up with her clothes and make-up leading to a game of "mummys and daddys" in which they re-enact their parents arguments; the grandmother staring forlornly at photos on a wall of her lost youth; Ana accidentally wandering into her mother's bedroom as she lies contorted in agony, and most poignant of all, Ana's reverie of her being told her favorite bedtime story by her mother's ghost only for her to vanish a few minutes into it.This was the first film that Saura finally had complete artistic freedom over after a 15 year career of battles with Franco's censors and it tells with his sure grasp on the film's narrative, tone and imagery, in regards to which, the current restored print is marvellous - it's clarity and rich colours make you doubt you are watching a film over 35 years old. The film's odd diversions and elliptical moments are easy to go with as you are always aware that here is a filmmaker fully connected with his vision.

Saura's allegory of the Franco regime is easy to read with hindsight but at the time it must have seemed a radical statement of how things would be changing in the not-too distant future. It is telling so much of the film is about the holding on to memory as a way of dealing with loss, as even now, Spain still struggles to reconcile itself to aspects of the Civil War. I was struck too how certain aspects of the film reflect Lorca's THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA with it's closeted daughters, all-knowing maid and the grandmother left alone to her thoughts and memories.
Saura's vision also accounts for the excellent performances he elicits from his ensemble. The battle for the control of the children is beautifully played by Florinda Chico as plain-speaking 'Rosa' and Mónica Randall as the aunt 'Paulina', Saura taking care to show she is not in herself a bad person, just one unable to read the family situation.

As I said earlier Ana Torrent gives one of the finest performances by a child actress ever, all the more so as you are never aware of Saura 'manipulating' her performance from her. The surprise for me was Geraldine Chaplin. Hard to believe that this is the same actress who has given such milquetoast performances - here as the dead mother 'Maria' she gives a performance of arresting subtlety, complexity and strength.

CRIA CUERVOS, which won the Grand Jury prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival is a film which truly haunts you.

2011-06-08T23:05:00.020+01:00

Last week it was time for my second Terence Rattigan play in this, his centenary year. Following on from FLARE PATH, we now have his last play CAUSE CÉLEBRE, he died four months after it's premiere at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1977.The Rattigan revival was kicked off last year by the huge success of Thea Sharrock's production of his little-remembered second play AFTER THE DANCE at the Lyttleton and here she is reunited with her stage designer from that production Hildegard Bechtler to work their magic again - and they do.

Rattigan based his play on a 1935 murder trial that had haunted him. In 1934, in that febrile hothouse Bournemouth, 18 year old George Stoner answered an ad in the Daily Echo "Daily willing lad, 14-18, for house-work; Scout-trained preferred. Apply between 11-12, 8-9 at 5 Manor Road, Bournemouth". The ad was placed by retired architect Francis Rattenbury, 67 and his younger songwriter wife Alma, 39. Before long Alma and George were openly having an affair with Francis' tacit approval as he was not only impotent but a heavy drinker. Six months later, the police arrived in the early hours to find him with his head bashed in and Alma in a state of drunken hysteria.

Alma and George were put on trial for murder in an atmosphere of lurid press headlines that played up the "experienced woman - innocent lad" angle. In a sensational outcome George was found guilty but Alma was found not guilty. A few days later Alma took a train to Christchurch near Bournemouth, found a spot near the River Avon and, believing her lover soon to hang, stabbed herself to death.

The irony was that after a petition of 320,000 signatures, his sentence was commuted to Life. However, in 1942 he was released on early parole, joined the army and fought in WWII, and was even reported to have been seen in the audience at Her Majesty's seeing his 18 year old self be seduced by Glynis Johns as Alma. He died in 2000 aged 83 on the 65th anniversary of the murder.Rather than retell the sad story as is, Rattigan seeks to spotlight the atmosphere of sexual hypocrisy that the case was rife with by contrasting Alma's trial with the fictional story of Edith Davenport, a sexually-frigid, emotionally-cold woman whose own marriage is collapsing due to her husband's small affairs and her puritanical attempts at keeping her teenage son with her and away from the temptations of the world. Out of the blue she is summoned for jury duty - and to her horror, is made foreman of Alma's jury.

He neatly shows that while Mr. Davenport's dalliances for sexual gratification are seemingly understood and turned a blind-eye to by society, the same cannot be granted to Alma whose sexual frustration is seen as something abhorrent especially when her lover is a younger man, the poor boy preyed upon by a wicked woman. The fact of a woman being judged more for her morals rather than any perceived crime had been the case over ten years before with the tragic hanging of Edith Thompson and was certainly a factor twenty years later in the case of Ruth Ellis.Rattigan said he didn't have far to look for his inspiration for Edith as he based the emotionally-fraught scenes between her and her sexually curious son on the relationship between him and his mother. In a remarkably hard-edged performance, Niamh Cusack excelled as Edith, a woman who finds at the end of the play that the woman she despised but could not find guilty thanks to her own morality, could not live on because of her own morality.

She was complemented well by Simon Chandler as her husband John, exhausted by years of living by her rules and Lucy Robinson as her more gregarious sister Stella, mad with excitement about the latest gossip from the jury room.Rattigan has great fun with the legal scenes in showing the court-room cat & mouse games between the defense and prosecuting councils are merely the public jousting to revenge losses between them on the golf courses. Nicholas Jones is a stand-out as T.J. O'Connor, Alma's wily Defence Council who gambles constantly with his handling of her case.

In a a role that only amounted to two bookend scenes, the consummate supporting actress Jenny Galloway still managed to shine as Alma's live-in companion Irene Riggs and Tommy McDonnell was a cocky and dangerous-to-know George in this, his professional stage debut. The echoes of AFTER THE DANCE were in the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch's father Timothy Carlton as the doomed Francis.
But the show was rightly dominated by Anne-Marie Duff's high-voltage performance as Alma. First seen playing with the gauche George by adopting a stolen-from-the-movies divinely decadent lady of the manor demeanor, the play's structure of flashback scenes had her moving from bring strained and drawn in court to be blindly hysterical while blindly drunk to being finally a shattered woman, her declared innocence a hollow victory. She was mesmerising.

The play's strangely amorphous quality where scenes move from place to place, forwards and back in time, betray it's origins as a 1975 radio play which starred Diana Dors as Alma (wow!) - both Rattigan's radio script and an initial stage version were edited together by the director Robin Midgeley with the ailing Rattigan re-writing when necessary. Thea Sharrock however keeps a firm grip on the narrative and the play is helped immeasurably by Hildegard Bechtler's set which opens up the whole of the Old Vic stage with walls constantly moving between scenes to provide new vistas with several hugely effective uses of the stage's depth. Again these visually arresting scenes emerge from the shadowy gloom of Bruno Poet's dreamlike stage lighting.When Rattigan wrote his play he left out some intriguing facts about the case: Alma was actually Canadian, having met George in 1923 while he lived and worked there as an architect of some renown Alma's first husband was killed in the Battle of the Somme and she volunteered to be a nurse in the French Red Cross where she was wounded twice in action and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Her second husband was a Pakenham so was distantly related to Lord Longford who later was such a supporter for the release of Myra Hindley.

When George's first wife refused him a divorce he harassed her mercilessly - stripping their home of furniture and turning off the power. He eventually moved Alma in and forced his wife to live on the first floor until she eventually agreed to a divorce and they were married in 1925. These actions were seen as in the Canadian newspapers as a shocking scandal. In 1929 they left Canada after his first wide died and his sons by that marriage disowned him. So his murder at the hands of Alma's lover 12 years later was headline news here and there.

The Rattenbury's youngest son John was evacuated to Canada in WWII and eventually, following in his father's footsteps, became an architect and joined Frank Lloyd Wright's practice helping with the design of the Guggenheim Museum amongst others.

2011-06-06T23:11:00.003+01:00

C'mon... did you know that Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina had starred in a Carmel video in 1987?

2011-06-03T13:53:00.014+01:00

Constant Reader, you can get set into certain ways of doing things.

Brushing your teeth, arranging your cds, putting on socks... and going to the theatre. You can settle into a certain West End Boy way of seeing things so in the spirit of the Arab Spring last Saturday I thought it was time for a change.

We left the smoke behind us to experience the untrammeled soil of the provinces. Um, Dartford. Well there *were* comps with my name on them waiting at the Box Office.Ah the years just rolled away to when I worked with the actor's agency and the countless excursions to the provinces to see clients in touring productions in theatres usually up sideroads and *never* signposted, joining the hardy perennials who did the Saturday matinees, that clatch of women in their prime who always wore their best Crimplene for their theatre visits - and God bless 'em for it.

Well times haven't changed and we joined the ladies who theatre, the quiet couples and the single rather furtive-looking men in the generic civic-centre style foyer of the Dartford Orchard for the quaintly-named FIVE BLUE-HAIRED LADIES SITTING ON A GREEN PARK BENCH.
During the play my mind wondered - it wasn't difficult - to the countless productions of plays like this that criss-cross the nation at any given time, and how - or why - audiences still turn up.

An alleged comedy by John A. Penzotti, it can be filed alongside STEEL MAGNOLIAS or CALENDER GIRLS, plays that can be easily toured with a standing set and a cobbled-together cast of ex-soap stars.

Sigh, what can I say? They were not blue-haired and they didn't sit on green benches.This is no reflection of our five gallant ladies of the stage. With the determination and guts that has kept them still keeping on, the titular-ladies were my very dear and close friend Miss Nicola Blackman, Anita Harris, Shirley Anne Field, Anne Charleston and Lorraine Chase. If you already don't have whiplash from the time-travelling involved reading those names, the cast was rounded off with Frazer Hines, Christopher Beeny and Tom Owen. I will let you have a breather after that.

Five women - some widowed, all lonely - have become friendly sitting on the same park benches in Washington Park Square. They pass the hours talking about their former lives and oddly enough their approaching deaths which I am fairly certain is the last thing on most peoples minds when talking to friends.So far so amiable but needless to say over the course of the year one by one the women disappear - and also needless to say with this playwright - the remaining women don't pass comment on their shrinking number until finally ex-jazz singer Lala, played in Nicola's best show-stealing stylee, is the last one alone. She is confronted by a stranger who tells when her former compadres died, tells her she is in fact now dead too and magics up a 60's sequined cocktail dress, a slash glitter curtain and flashy lighting signalling she can now headline in Heaven. Nicola obliged with a sassy rendition of "Miss Otis Regrets".

The second act finds our heroines reunited on white park benches in Heaven where they can now introduce their spouses to each other and clear up old arguments. Sadly by then the writer had totally run out of steam and was reduced to homilies like "Home is where the heart is", "Love makes the world go round", "It's better to have loved and lost..." etc. etc.As further proof of the writer's cluelessness, there is an over-reliance on references to famous stars: "Honey I bent over backwards for him more times than Elizabeth Taylor on her wedding nights", "You have more shoes than Sarah Jessica Parker" etc etc ad nauseum. Each name landed with a more desperate thud. His biog reveals he was an editor of Soap Opera Update magazine. It shows in his writing.

As I said, the women of the cast deserved better than the rather leaden direction and woebegone script. The male actors appeared late on in the second act and made no impression whatsoever.The leading ladies have a good chemistry together - and it's always a joy to see Anita Harris - but even their combined talents can do little with this wobbly vehicle.

Oh by the way, in the Dartford Orchard foyer there is a digital clock counting down the days to the opening of the panto starring Craig Revel Horwood as the Wicked Queen - no stretch there - and Anne Widdicombe as Widow Widdy.

"The horror... the horror" - it's hard to know who to be more angry with... the management for doing it, them for accepting it or the punters who will legitimise it by paying to see it.

2011-06-01T20:54:00.016+01:00

When I heard that the Union Theatre were reviving Lionel Bart's "play with music" FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE I was cockahoop. I have been a fan of the original cast recording - recorded live - for some time but suspected that the show would not be revived as the lyrics certainly betray a certain dated quality. But I should have guessed that the Union, the home of the unlikely revival, would come through. Yes the show has dated in parts - and the production has a few distinct problem areas - but it won me round in the end. It certainly made me imagine how dynamic the original production would have been.

In 1959 Frank Norman submitted his first play to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East. It's story of Soho heavies and prostitutes - drawn from a milieu that ex-con Norman knew all too well - was too bald for Littlewood and she hit on the inspired idea of suggesting they show the script to Lionel Bart, a successful pop song writer who had recently written the lyrics for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS to turn it into a play with music. The result was a huge success and the show transferred to the Garrick where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

The original cast - captured 'live' on the album - was one you would now kill to see: Glynn Edwards as Fred Cochran, the crook who owns a gambling club/brothel, Mariam Karlin as Lily, his long-suffering girlfriend who runs his decrepit knocking shop, James Booth as Tosher, Fred's second-in-command who pimps his two brasses Rosey and Betty, played by Barbara Windsor and Toni Palmer, Wallis Eaton as the camp interior decorator Horace, Tom Chatto as the bent local Police Inspector and, among the supporting cast, a young Yootha Joyce.
Phil Willmott's dimly-lit production did itself no favours by starting off with the cast bellowing out the numbers at the top of the volume which was ridiculous in such a confined space - I have rarely heard such an overbearingly loud noise - even the most experienced of them, Neil McCaul as Fred, barked out his lines and songs like he was on the Palladium stage.

People.... read, your, space.

The entrances and exits were at times a bit haphazard and the whole thing seemed to need a firmer hand controlling it as it's quite a large cast of characters and at times it was hard to get an idea of who one was supposed to be concentrating on.

Also I want to single out Richard Foster-King who played Horace, the camp interior designer. I have never seen such an over-emphasised, ugly, performance. His horribly over-the-top delivery totally ruined Bart's charming "Contempery" - imagine if you will the bastard offspring of Larry Grayson, Julian Glover and Frances de la Tour. Only camper. His screaming and lisping made me seriously consider leaving at the interval.That's him at the back of the picture being strangled by McCaul. If only... But despite this hideous performance and over-pitched delivery, slowly the show began to settle down and I found myself enjoying the show as much as I had hoped to.

Hannah-Jane Fox who it appears is a West End leading lady thanks to four years in WE WILL ROCK YOU played Lil with a gentle restraint - but all it took was a short reprise of "The Ceiling's Comin' Dahn" by Ruth Alfie Adams' weary-but-rough tart to show how great she would have been in the role. I did however like her performance of "Where Do Little Birds Go?" that stopped the show for Barbara Windsor.
The show was stolen by the partnership of Hadrian Delacey's crooked Inspector Collins and Suzie Chard's dizzyingly voluptuous tart Barbara - imagine a talented Jodie Prenger. Their tough-but-tender relationship was fully believable and they performed "Cop A Bit o'Pride" with a real élan.

I also liked Ian Rixon as Fred's 'gopher' Billy who nabbed all the funny lines going and Jo Parsons also made an impression as Tosher, a young cocky wide-boy quietly nursing his ambition for all that Fred has. The trouble with Norman's script is that the characters all have a moment to step up but the storylines are all left hanging as he cuts to a quick denouement to wrap up the Fred/Lily story - a storyline that seemed to be a cockney reflection of GUYS AND DOLLS' Nathan and Miss Adelaide.

A special mention must go to Nick Winston's choreography which makes the most of the wide but shallow stage although it was only a matter of time during Suzie Chard's raucous number "Big Time" that one of the jitterbugging couples would send one of the front row pub tables go a-clattering!

So despite the quibbles - and shiteous performance by Foster-King - I am glad I finally got a chance to see this show with it's delightful score and see a few performers that I will keep an eye open for in the future. It certainly helps to put Bart in perspective - it's frustrating that OLIVER! seems to be the only one of his shows that get's revived.

Maybe the Union Theatre would like to have a go at his Liverpool musical MAGGIE MAY which starred first Rachel Roberts then Georgia Brown during it's run at the Adelphi in 1964.

2011-06-01T01:53:00.002+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #8:

Harvey Fierstein as 'Edna Turnblad' in HAIRSPRAY (Neil Simon, NY 1983)

"Fierstein's deftly hilarious star turn intoxicates the audience from the moment he steps onstage. He's effortlessly adorable" - Charles Isherwood, Variety

"The best performance in a Broadway musical by an actor I’ve ever seen" - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-05-27T00:39:00.016+01:00

Well I suppose I have to blog about A DELICATE BALANCE... it's been over two weeks since I saw it in the awgoosed company of Andrew & Phil West-End Whinger (of the Vauxhall West-End Whinger clan). I was fully expecting, when we entered the Almeida auditorium, a sudden outbreak of whispering and fluttering of programmes-substituting-for-fans as usually seen when the fallen woman attends the Opera in films like CAMILLE or ANNA KARENINA... but no. Damn the chattering classes of Islington and their unflappable hauteur.

But all good things must come to an end... because the play had to start.

I had seen the play previously in 1998 at the Haymarket when the Battle of the Dames took place between Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins. I suspect I was too busy experiencing these two blazing divas to concentrate much on the play itself so retained only a vague imprint of it as I watched this revival, it was like watching something on a worn video and seeing vague shadows flickering of what had already been on it.

What I remember most of it was that in Agnes' opening speech she talks about her fear of losing her mind... and Eileen Atkins promptly forgot her words. She apologised to the audience and asked an amused John Standing playing her husband to start the scene again. He did this and as soon as she uttered the words "...losing my mind" she got an enormous laugh and cheer from the audience which she slyly acknowledged.

Needless to say Maggie came on all guns blazing to get the audience back with her and soon you could not see the set for cocked shoulders and flapping wrists. They were both utterly magnificent.

Here Penelope Wilton got through this speech without any problems - her stumbled line-readings came later - and away we went into Edward Albee's intriguing but in equal measure infuriating play. Well it wouldn't be Albee I guess...

Tobias and Agnes live a well-heeled WASP life in their tastefully dull large house in the suburbs where they spend their days drinking from an array of decanters and sharing polished, superior dialogue about the possible break-up of their daughter Julia's fourth marriage and what to do with Claire, Agnes' alcoholic sister who, of course, lives with them for the only discernible reason that it breaks up the days fighting with your dipso sister.After sibling verbal battles that echo George and Martha in his - ahem - superior play WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? the threesome's evening is interrupted by first the arrival of Julia seeking a return to the family nest - although one suspects it was never that much of a sanctuary and the sudden arrival of their best friends Edna and Harry who suddenly do a dog's hind leg and take the play down the ever-shadowy Pinter Alley by announcing they too have come seeking shelter as they have suddenly both developed a sickening terror of... something.

Far from being docile and invisible presences in the house, soon Edna and Harry are seemingly laying down the law in the house and take great delight in turning on Julia - especially as they make a quick dash back to their house to pack more belongs for their lengthy stay at Agnes and Tobias' House of Fun.In further echo's of WAOVW - one of the characters appears in the living room waggling a gun about and Agnes reveals to us that they had a son who died at an early age, an event that was the turning point from which the family have never recovered.

After another act of polished yakking Edna and Harry come to the conclusion that they would never have let Agnes and Tobias stay with them if the roles were reversed and return home, leaving Tobias bereft of speech as he had just asked them to stay... because that's what friends do.One cannot doubt that Albee is a fine writer and the play occasionally comes to life but in James Macdonald's hermetically-sealed production, seemingly as airless as the mahogany-crammed living room, it is just too dreary and strives for a profundity that resolutely refuses to appear. After the first Act I staggered out into the Almeida foyer never in my life wanting so much to hear some Gangsta Rap. I felt smothered by the interminable yak of insufferable middle-class angst played to an Islington white, middle-class audience. And me. And The Brothers Whinger. And Sian Phillips. It was all I could do to shout out "Who the fuck CARES??" The audience also had that really irritating habit of braying loudly and eagerly at any line that had even the whiff of humour, collectively WILLING it to be a comedy.

Imelda Staunton plays Claire, the alcoholic sister who can blister the varnish with her viperous wit and damn, was she missed when not onstage. She gave it her usual abrasive turn, grasping every opportunity she could in her diatribes against the world, her sister and her family, or a snotty sales woman who she teases mercilessly. I must admit that I was fixated on her, not only for her performance but the odd shape of her bust. No doubt an old Playtex Discontinued was pressed into action but it looked like she had a bumper Arctic log under her jumper.Tim Pigott-Smith as Tobias seemed to be giving us an impression of Corin Redgrave - and made me realise how great Redgrave would have been in it and how Pigott-Smith seems to be theatre's answer to Mogadon, his speeches more often than not had me admiring the interesting thing the woman in front of me had done with her hair.

Penelope Wilton has over the past few years proved herself time and again as being an actress of great power but here - wearing Jill Clayburgh's old hair with a glazed, bland air - she whisked me back to the early 1980s when I would walk a mile in tight shoes to avoid her. The fact she stumbled occasionally on her line-readings really suggested the Duse of the Donmar's heart really wasn't in it. It's certainly not the part - when Eileen played it she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress.Lucy Cohu as the desperately needy Julia gave another uphill performance which again made me blanch that one day she will probably be giving us her Hedda Gabler. However the biggest surprise was the performance by Diana Hardcastle as Edna. Her rapid transformation from victim to tormentor was very well done from this actress who I have always found a bit mumsy.

The dead-hand direction of James MacDonald was disappointing after his masterly spare production of JUDGEMENT DAY. Laura Hopkins' design probably impressed some but I had to agree with Les Fréres Whinger that it suggested more a funeral parlour than a suburban household.

Needless to say the play has had raves so go know.

2011-05-20T16:34:00.005+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #7:
Clare Higgins as 'Stella Kowalski' in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Mermaid, 1984)

"Sheila Gish's scenes with Clare Higgins as her sister Stella became the nexus of the evening, which, especially in the heart-wrenching closing scene, became, fascinatingly, a tragedy of two women." - Alan Strachan , Independant

"excellent support from Duncan Preston and a great Stella from a young Clare Higgins." - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-05-11T23:49:00.001+01:00

On Friday Owen and I went to the austere Cadogan Hall to see Shelby Lynne who was engaged in a mini-European tour. It's a rare performer that can make that place feel intimate but Shelby certainly did.

We last saw her in the autumn of 2008 when she was promoting her album of Dusty Springfield covers JUST A LITTLE LOVIN' and in my blog for that show I hoped she would come back soon - well two & a half years is better than seven years which was the gap before the Festival Hall gig!

For once at the Cadogan Hall, we had good seats in the centre of the third row which had me more than somewhat excited. The tour was just Shelby performing with her fellow-guitarist John Jackson but that only added to the quiet intensity of the show.

Shelby came on with her best tousled blonde, bed-head thing going on and wearing a grey tunic-style jacket that was soon disposed off and for nearly two hours played an overview of her six albums, from her 1999 breakthrough I AM SHELBY LYNNE to last year's TEARS, LIES AND ALIBIS.

She is a totally no-frills performer - her songs are best heard in this stripped-down style, emphasising her sometimes bleak, sometimes loving lyrics and similarly her persona is one of less-is-more, not for her the gushing nonsense of the standard American singer to London. She gives off the air of being watchful and guarded, for the first few songs I wondered was she going to speak at all!

But as the audience greeted each song louder than the last - and after she asked the lighting guy to turn the lights down "feels like I'm giving a piano recital up here", Shelby too started to open up, telling us the background to the songs or how soused or high she was at the time of writing it. Towards the end she said she truly appreciated how we were responding to her playing the songs acoustically as that was how they were written to be heard.
She even confided to us that she was not the only daughter of Alabama in the house as her sister Allison Moorer, a singer in her own right, was in the audience too which led into a tender version of her bayou lullaby WHERE I'M FROM. It was nice that she said it was a night she would remember for a long time.

Other highlights for me was the majestic YOUR LIES (the song that made me a fan), LEAVIN', KILLIN' KIND, ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU DISAPPEARED, WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME, IF I WERE SMART (was ecstatic she played this), WHERE AM I NOW, the exquisite JOHNNY MET JUNE and two thrilling covers of Dusty's I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT ANYMORE and YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME. A special mention must go to the subtle playing of John Jackson.

She finished her encore with a tender version of ICED TEA and with a big wave and a smile she was gone. I guess she won't be back anytime soon but I will definitely be there when she does.
The moody concert shots are by Shelby's fellow Facebook fan Anthony Burtenshaw.

2011-05-10T16:54:00.002+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #6:

David Haig in LOOT (Tricycle, 2009)

"What makes this a first-rate farce performance is Haig's suggestion that Truscott is a madman in the grip of an idée fixe" - The Guardian

"It was a joy to watch him prowl the stage drop-kicking Orton's outrageous one-liners into the audience with expert timing" - me, ChrisNThat

2011-05-03T15:10:00.003+01:00

Congratulations to Vanessa Redgrave who has received her third Best Actress Tony Award nomination for her performance in DRIVING MISS DAISY. She has previously been nominated in 2003 for LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (won) and in 2007 for THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING (lost to Julie White for THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED).

I suspect she will lose out again this year but it's good that she was nominated as her co-stars James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines were not.

As usual the British have some good representation: Jez Butterworth and Nick Stafford are both nominated in the Best Play category for JERUSALEM and WAR HORSE respectively ~ Brian Bedford (THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST) and Mark Rylance (JERUSALEM) are both Best Actor nominees ~ Hannah Yelland is nominated alongside Vanessa in the Best Actress category for BRIEF ENCOUNTER ~ Mackenzie Crook is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for JERUSALEM ~ Joanna Lumley is a surprise nominee for Best Supporting Actress as LA BETE flopped ~ Adam Godley is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for ANYTHING GOES ~ Ultz (JERUSALEM) and Rae Smith (WAR HORSE) are nominated for Best Designer ~ Mark Thompson is nominated for Best Costume Design for LA BETE ~ Paule Constable is nominated for Best Lighting for WAR HORSE ~ Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris share a Best Director nomination for WAR HORSE.

In addition the Handspring Puppet Company will receive a special Tony Award for their remarkable work on WAR HORSE.

However there is no nomination for Daniel Radcliffe for his performance in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING although his co-stars John Larroquette and Tammy Blanchard picked up nominations in the Supporting categories.

It's a shame as his performance was one of the reasons for the show's undeniable success and charm.

2011-04-30T18:22:00.002+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #5:

June Watson as 'Mrs. Peachum' in THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
(Cottesloe, NT, 1983, seen here with John Savident)

"The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves... June Watson was particularly good as Mrs Peachum" - Peter Ackroyd, Times ~

In a production teaming with vivid, memorable performances June Watson was a wonderfully conniving and venal Mrs. Peachum, firing off endearments to her daughter Polly as "Not wiv an 'ighway man you sorry slut"

2011-04-26T21:41:00.003+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #4:
Bryce Ryness as 'Woof' in HAIR (Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 2010)

"The production's veterans have honed their characterizations into second skins... Bryce Ryness' Mick Jagger-loving Woof drolly balances swagger and sweetness" - David Rooney, Variety

"The other men who made an impression were Bryce Ryness' Woof, a blissed-out giant going to great lengths to stress he was not gay but was gagging to sleep with Mick Jagger" - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-04-26T16:09:00.017+01:00

I suspect we shall know by the end of the year where we stand with Terence Rattigan. Much is being made that this year marks the centenary of his birth and a slew of productions are being staged to celebrate this as well as the release later in the year of Terence Davies' remake of THE DEEP BLUE SEA.

It's all rather odd as 2011 is also the centenary of Tennessee Williams' birth and he is a writer whose work has received more attention in the past few years in London than Rattigan's but of Tennessee there appears to be nary a peep of celebrations this year.

Rattigan in truth has never been that far from our stages with fairly frequent revivals of THE DEEP BLUE SEA and, to a lesser extent, SEPARATE TABLES and THE WINSLOW BOY but I suspect the upswing in Rattigan's profile has been due to the phenomenal success last year of the National Theatre's AFTER THE DANCE. This seems to have led to him now being seen more as a playwright to be taken seriously as opposed to a writer whose plays make handy vehicles for starry revivals.Trevor Nunn is launching his tenure as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket with a production of Rattigan's 1941 play FLARE PATH, written while he was serving with the RAF. It is what you expect from Rattigan, a solid well-made West End play with a beginning, a middle and an end - in that order. Not as haunting as AFTER THE DANCE but worthy of a revival I guess.

The Falcon Hotel is a genteel Lincolnshire hotel which has as it's clientele the officers (and wives) of the neighbouring RAF airbase. We follow the events that take place over a single night when the airmen are recalled to the base for a night flight over Germany. One of the four planes in the squadron is fired upon by waiting enemy planes on take-off and one is reported Missing In Action and we watch as the news of a missing pilot refracts on his wife and his friends.
Rattigan rewrote the play for the 1945 film THE WAY TO THE STARS which packs a more emotional punch as he didn't hedge his dramatic bets as he does here. I suspect that because the film script was written towards the end of the war, it was easier to include lead characters being killed in action.

The action here is given a melodramatic twist by having the hotel's occupants surprised by the appearance in their midst of Peter Kyle, an actor who has made a name for himself in Hollywood. It turns out that it isn't just a random visit as Kyle has been conducting a clandestine affair with Patricia, one of the pilot's wives. She is on the verge of telling her husband that she is leaving him when the call comes through for the night flight so the tension is stretched to breaking point between the lovers.
With not much sub-text to play, Trever Nunn ramps up the tension of the waiting women and this works very well. He also elicits sympathetic performances from his cast, the stand-out being the 'West End's Sweetheart' Sheridan Smith as Doris the down-to-earth and amiable ex-barmaid who now finds herself the Countess Skriczevinsky after her marriage to a Polish airman.

Sheridan was the real heart of the play and as the realisation dawned that her husband had not returned with the others, she shone with a stoic sadness. In the scene where Doris asked Kyle to read her the letter that her husband left to be opened in the event of his death, her delicate reactions were heart-breaking.Owing to the non-appearing James Purefoy, the lead role of Peter Kyle was played by Jim Creighton and he was very good. Kyle secretly knows he is coming to the end of his Leading Man roles and is banking all on his relationship with Patricia and Creighton played this quiet desperation very well.

The role of Patricia was played by media darling Sienna Miller. She was ok as the stage actress torn between her love for Kyle and her duty to her obviously disturbed pilot husband but watching her I was amazed that her name has such cachet. There are any number of actresses who could play the role as well if not better and her blandly attractive, blonde looks conjure up the model on a Timotei ad rather than a memorable actress. The media's constant infatuation with her is truly baffling.

The role of the golden boy pilot Teddy Graham who is becoming more and more frazzled with each sortie was played well by the impossibly posh-named Harry Hadden-Paton and there was fine support from Joe Armstrong as Sgt. 'Dusty' Miller, Emma Handy as his visiting wife Maudie, Mark Dexter as Johnny the Polish flyer and in particular from Clive Wood as Squadron Leader Swanson aka 'Gloria' who made a sympathetic older 'uncle' to the pilots.

It was an additional pleasure to see the play in a full theatre - although it was amusing to find that his personification of his core audience 'Aunt Edna' - "a nice, respectable, middle-class, middle-aged, maiden lady, with time on her hands and money to help her pass it, who resides in a West Kensington hotel" - is alive and well. She is going to need that money to catch up with all the upcoming productions of his work!

2011-04-23T19:01:00.003+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #3:
Laura Osnes as 'Nellie Forbush' in SOUTH PACIFIC (Lincoln Center, 2010)

"Incadescent... With her ability to be adorable, charming and alluring all at once, she'll make you laugh your head off with her fearless comedic efforts." - Lee Hernandez, Latina

"She gave a wonderfully nuanced performance with no attempt to gloss over the character's more questionable side - oh that any of our graduates from the tv talent school shows should make such an impact." - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-04-21T18:46:00.004+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #2:

Danny La Rue in DANNY LA RUE AT THE PALACE (Palace, 1970-2)

"By 1970, when he performed in a long-running revue at the Palace Theatre in the West End, he was being described as the highest-paid entertainer on the british stage. He liked to describe himself as Max Miller in sequins" - The Times obituary

"Danny la Rue ruled that stage... holding the audience like a true star and managed to bring the house down with a look" - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-04-19T15:59:00.004+01:00

Memorable Theatre Performances #1:
Gillian Anderson as 'Nora' in A DOLL'S HOUSE (Donmar, 2009)

"A superb Nora, by turns sexy, neurotic, manipulative, terrified, and in the great last act absolutely merciless" - Charles Spencer, Telegraph

"Her realisation of her worth in her husband's eyes at the end of the play was admirably played, growing in strength and steely determination" - me, ChrisNThat blog

2011-04-15T18:18:00.019+01:00

Constant Reader I am ALL behind... now where was I? Oh yes. National Theatre Part 2.So it turns out, you can keep your jukebox musicals or over-hyped film-to-stage west end shows... the show that is the #1 fight-for-a-ticket production is the National's FRANKENSTEIN by Nick Dear, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller who are alternating the roles of 'Victor' and 'The Creature'.

The Benedict Frankenstein/Jonny Creature combo was the one that made most sense to me but the only performance we managed to get was last Saturday matinee. It made an interesting contrast to leave the brilliant sunshine and chattery throng to sit in the darkened Olivier feeling the cold clutch of the undead. Well, I was never that much on sitting in the sun - give me a thumping, edge-of-the-seat work of pure theatre anytime. The immersion begins even before the play starts - Underworld's unsettling, electronic soundscape plays in the foyer as you enter the Olivier (the urge to use their BORN SLIPPY track was obviously ignored!) and, as we settled into our stalls seat in the red-lit auditorium, we nervously eyed the huge bell that hung above the stalls with an actor waiting patiently underneath holding a rope! Sure enough BONG went the bell and all attention was on the circular frame that had slowly rotated on the stage showing the form of the Creature within, echoing Leonardo's Vitruvian Man.

Unlike other adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel, the story is initially told through the eyes of The Creature - from his 'birth' pangs to Victor's rejection and on to his scary first experience of the real world and the hatred of strangers. It was a hypnotic beginning and one that acclimatised you to Jonny Lee Miller's astonishing physicality as the Creature. Naked, flapping and rolling about on the Olivier stage, Miller literally threw himself into the role. It also got you accustomed to Danny Boyle's vision of the play and his full use of all physical theatre trops - lighting, sound effects, music, water and fire, all of which culminated in the thrilling appearance of a steam train - all bright lights and showers of sparks.
The story then settled down to the Creature's education at the hands of Karl Johnson's kindly blind professor, driven from his university into a rural exile by a political regime. It was the first of many reflections and echoes between characters that Nick Dear has found in the tale. Needless to say, the Creature's idyll cannot last long as the Professor's son and daughter-in-law react in horror at his appearance and he responds by wreaking revenge on the family by burning the house.

The Creature journeys to Geneva where Victor has returned to his father's house and to his fiancee Elizabeth, who he has ambivalent feelings for at best. Benedict Cumberbatch is not an actor I warm too but here his shtick of cerebrally emotional coldness was well-used as Victor. When Victor's infant brother is found murdered, he confronts his creation who presents him with an ultimatum - make him a female companion so he will know love and he will vanish from his creator's life. Initially horrified, Victor's vain-glorious ambition cannot be suppressed and he agrees to the deal, which, as we all know, leads to disaster...
I will admit that at times Nick Dear's script was alarmingly thin when it came to the supporting characters but the confrontation scenes between Cumberbatch and Miller were wonderfully vivid, owing much to the chemistry between the two actors. The fact that they are alternating the roles I suspect gives them a rare insight into the characters and each other as performers.

As I have said, of the two I found Miller absolutely thrilling. He has filled out a bit since his Sick Boy days but this solidity works well for the Creature, making him more believable as a figure of menace. He gave a nuanced performance, by turns bitter, humorous, angry and with a genuine feeling of loneliness.Karl Johnson made the most of his featured role as Professor De Lacey, just the right actor to 'settle' into the play with as his character is the first the Creature relates to after the sturm und drang of the production's opening.

Being the National we have the inevitable non-traditionalist casting which works both for and against the production. Naomie Harris brought vitality and intelligence to the role of Elizabeth - I am still haunted by the execrable performance by Helena Bonham-Carter in the misguided Branagh film - but even she can do nothing with Dear's line of "We'll have less of that" when the Creature touches her breast in the bedroom scene. Excuse the pun but there were titters.

Sadly the same cannot be said for George Harris as Victor's father. All I can say is that Victor and murdered William must both take after their mother. It's not the fact that he's black that makes him stand out, it's the fact he is so under-powered as an actor. In a fairly anonymous support cast, Ella Smith was a delight as Elizabeth's maid Clarice.

It's 15 years since Danny Boyle directed a play and it seems that he has burst back onto the stage with a fevered imagination that rarely shows in his films - THE BEACH anyone? As I said the show is a real Sensurround experience with Mark Tildesley's set, Bruno Poet's lighting and Underworld's score all contributing to the experience, but it's Danny Boyle's vision that holds it all together.How pissed must the National be that this sell-out production is only going to have a run of 3 months thanks to the lead actor's availability? I would hope that they will be able to revive it at a later date - but would it have the same impact with two other actors?

If only there was some way for Cumberbatch and Miller to be cloned... they could run it till the wheels dropped off then. Cloned... *reaches for test-tube and Bunsen burner*

2011-04-11T16:24:00.018+01:00

Two...count 'em two... visits to the National Theatre in the past week.

Midweek I flew solo to the Lyttleton Theatre launchpad to take Clifford Odets' ROCKET TO THE MOON. There, got all the puns in at the start. Owing to Owen's continued lurgy I had the option of an empty seat next to me to use as a table for coat, programme, bag etc. Better that than offering the ticket back to the box office due to the worrying sign Tickets Available for the Lyttleton.In 1984, Bill Bryden directed a revival of Odets' boxing melodramatic GOLDEN BOY at the Lyttleton and 27 years later the National Theatre have decided to do another of his plays!

When it comes to productions in London, Odets definitely loses out in the shakes to Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and after seeing ROCKET TO THE MOON I'm not that surprised. His plays are well-constructed with well-drawn, meat-and-potatoes working class characters but they lack that extra something to lift them to a more profound level.
Last produced in London in 1982 at Hampstead which transferred briefly to the West End, ROCKET TO THE MOON takes place in New York during the broiling summer of 1938. In the stifling offices of dentist Ben Stark business has dropped as the heat has risen, and with the empty hours comes restlessness and temptation.

Ben had ambitions once but they have been stymied through circumstance and is happy to be under the benign thumb of his wife Belle, both of them trying to move on from the death three years earlier of their baby son. Their main point of contention is his friendliness with her father who she has distanced herself from since her mother's death.
Ben sublets his offices to a fellow dentist Phil Cooper, whose sardonic asides barely cover his desperation at his livelihood vanishing. Into this tinderbox situation sashays Ben's new dental nurse Cleo Singer whose office and nursing skills leave much to be desired but whose zest for life and affability can not be matched.

When Cleo confesses to Ben that her stories of a happy family background are told to cover up her real existence as the only wage-earner in an ungrateful household, they are drawn together and start an affair, Cleo's love making him believe in himself again. But when Ben's father-in-law starts laying siege to Cleo's affections too - and the Talent Agent down the hall starts sniffing around too - it can only lead to disappointment and regret.
The play, for all it's blue-collar ranginess of 'little' people struggling to keep their head's above the flow of the times, feels oddly paced and is hampered by a fairly long first half and a second which abruptly changes emphasis. It is as if Odets approached the play differently every time he came to write a new scene. One can only surmise that the actions of the Ben, Cleo and Belle characters mirrored at times his own life as at the time of writing he was married to Hollywood screen star Luise Rainer while romancing another, Frances Farmer.

Odets had started the affair with Farmer the previous year after she left Hollywood in an attempt to gain some kudos as a stage performer by appearing with The Group Theatre company in GOLDEN BOY. The Group Theatre - who had staged all Odets' plays since his ground-breaking debut about the unions WAITING FOR LEFTY in 1935 - was *the* theatre company to work for but Farmer eventually felt disenchanted with the company and, when no further roles were offered, had the impression she had only been used as a box office draw for the play. It was indeed their most successful play financially.Director Angus Jackson tries to keep the various shifts of emphasis under control and it's not entirely his fault or his company that the last odd lurch of the play doesn't quite ring true. He is not helped either by the play being staged on the expanse of the Lyttleton stage, no wonder Ben's business is dodgy - he is paying rent on an office the size of Grand Central Station. The play and Jackson's direction seemingly cries out for the intimacy of a space such as the Cottesloe or the Donmar.

That is not to put the blast on Anthony Ward's set which is virtually a 3-d rendering of an Edward Hopper painting - large windows illuminating solitary figures surrounded by suffocating silence.

Bizarrely enough I was even more impressed with the small corridor at the left of the stage - the perfect recreation of the awful, drab corridors found in any NY office block from the period. My attention however kept getting drawn to the fact that the top section of the set wasn't joined to the main back wall so kept waiting for a massive set change that never happened.

One thing Odets knew how to do was give actors chewy characters to work with and mostly they make good. Joseph Millson was an interesting choice as Ben, I suspect the character should be played by an older, more burnt-out actor but if there is one thing Millson does well it's the conflicted leading man and he made Ben more sympathetic for that age shift. Keeley Hawes however could do nothing with the role of the exasperated Belle, it was a portrayal that seemed to entirely consist of mannerisms with no interior spark.
Making the most of their supporting roles were Nicholas Woodeson as the wealthy and gregarious Mr. Prince, Ben's father-in-law and Peter Sullivan as the unlucky fellow-dentist. Always 'on' and with the rejoinders of a Catskills resort comic Mr. Prince can be an exhausting character but Woodeson played him with a roguish charm no more so than in his brusque proposal of marriage to Cleo, merely a business merger for their mutual gain.

Peter Sullivan was excellent as the flailing, failing fellow-dentist, denied help at every turn and finally becoming a paid blood donor to make ends meet. Through this role and Sullivan's performance one gets a suggestion of why the play is being performed now with his fear of being unable to pay the never-ending bills that his family and failing business engender.The performance of the evening was Jessica Raine as the endearingly naive Cleo. In a role that Marilyn Monroe would - and should - have triumphed in, Cleo's ditsy exterior covers a heart as cowed and afraid as the men surrounding her and in the final scene, when Odets gives her the possibility of a shining future lived according to her own ideals, you find yourself willing her on.

Odets seems entranced with his glittering creation and I suspect Cleo would have had a more depressing end in the hands of other writers. Raine went from fluttering Judy Holliday-like daftness to wordly-but-wise Jean Harlow go-getting broad in the blink of an eye and was utterly enchanting.If you want a meandering but solidly well-acted night at the theatre, than you could do a lot worse than visit the Lyttleton. Ultimately however, I left feeling once again that Clifford Odets' literary reputation isn't fully justified.

I guess you had to be there at the time.

2011-04-04T14:32:00.038+01:00

Ah the last show in New York... always a tricky one to get right. You can end up with a SOUTH PACIFIC or if you are unlucky, you get CRY-BABY.

This year marks the centenary of Tennessee Williams' birth so to get the party started the Roundabout Theatre Company were staging his 1963 play THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE at the *big breath* Laura Pels Theatre at Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center For Theatre.Far be it from an American to donate to the arts anonymously. There was the Hymie Goldfinkle Staircase, the George Bumfarter Gents Restroom, the Shagger Beikenhoff Bar etc. etc. - and none of it was all that to be honest. Harold and Miriam could have picked a better architect.

I have to applaud Roundabout however for putting the play on as it has a dodgy track record. Williams wrote it under the shadow of the failing health of his lover Frank Merlo - something Williams could not face - and the first Broadway production closed after a month although Hermione Baddely was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress.

Merlo died from stomach cancer and Williams sunk his pain and guilt into rewriting MILK TRAIN which re-opened a year after the first in a new production directed by Tony Richardson with the jaw-dropping cast of Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter as Flora Goforth and Christopher Flanders. However it was greeted with even less enthusiasm and closed after only 5 performances.

For some unfathomable reason, Joseph Losey filmed it in 1968 with Williams rewriting the play for the screen. Renamed BOOM! the film starred a totally miscast Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and it further charted their decline into box office poison.

The play's last London outing was at the Lyric Hammersmith with Rupert Everett as Flora Goforth - yes, as Flora - directed by Philip Prowse. It's a rare role that can be played by such distinctive players as Baddely, Bankhead, Taylor and, um, Everett - and now it's Olympia Dukakis' turn to have a go.

Flora Goforth is dying, a fact acknowledged by everyone but Flora who refuses to give in to the inevitable and rages against the night by racing through the dictation of her memoirs to meet her publisher's - and maker's - deadline. She is aided by her secretary Blackie although she isn't much happier as she is still mourning the sudden death of her husband and bridles against Flora's incessant demands on her time.

Flora chides Blackie for her mourning - she has buried a string of husbands whose fortunes now keep her in lavish surroundings in a villa on the Italian coast. Now, recollecting her progress from showgirl to millionairess, she acknowledges the loss of her young first husband and the lost chance of companionship with the death of her last.

Into their closed world, comes itinerant poet and mobile-maker - go know - Chris Flanders who is acting upon a possible past invitation from Flora to visit the villa. Flora likes what she sees and thinks that he will be the answer to her problems.

In a way he is... her bitchy gossip friend The Witch of Capri tells her that Flanders is known in their circles as The Angel of Death as he has a habit of being with elderly wealthy women when they die.

And there you have it... Flora rages louder and more desperately against the encroaching darkness and Chris' presence, Blackie realises that there is a life to be lived and Chris waffles on about life, death, poetry and mobiles.MILK TRAIN started the decline in Williams' output with the onset of his alcohol and pills addictions and it shows. Like the glass mobile that twirls at the side of the stage, flashes of his genius illuminate the text occasionally but much of the text seems to be writing for the sake of writing, as if by doing this he hoped that the play might form itself.

The production was directed by Mike Wilson who helmed the play in 2009 in Connecticut with Dukakis and while a perfectly adequate production I am not sure why he felt the urge to stage it as his obvious passion for the play is not felt in it's staging.The supporting cast went through various stages of adequacy but overall Maggie Lacey as Blackie was monotonously one-note - she could do 'terse secretary' but the human heart that is being denied was nowhere to be seen. Darren Pettie played Christopher Flanders adequately enough but again I was left feeling vaguely frustrated as his Angel of Death had all the enigma of a carpet salesman. I am also not sure the production had to hold such a long beat when he whipped his towel off - it was like a penis, only thinner.

Continuing the casting gender twist that started when Losey cast Noel Coward as The Witch of Capri in BOOM!, in this production Broadway's default waspish queen Edward Hibbert played that role.

He did his usual shtick and certainly gave the show a galvanising bitchy uplift, his heightened theatrical style seemed at odds with the naturalistic playing of Lacey and Pettie but it was all the more welcome for that.

And then there was Olympia Dukakis. I had seen her before on stage in 1999 at the National in the rather dull one-woman play ROSE so I was aware of her scouring powder quality onstage. She don't do soft.

It certainly was a fascinating performance - Tennessee has Flora's moods change almost in the blink of an eye going from a tough old broad to introspection, from sorrow to anger, from cutesy to belligerent, from swaggering to frightened. It's a big ask for any actress brave enough to put herself out there out of their comfort zone. Suddenly Vanessa Redgrave has sprung to mind!

On the whole - physically and emotionally - I think she triumphed apart from one fatal error. She played the role like she was doing an impression of Foghorn Leghorn. And there was me thinking it was only British actors who overdid the Southern accents. No word was knowingly let go without a couple of vowel sounds boinging away in the middle like a slapped ruler. But here I am. a week and a bit after seeing it and I am still haunted by her.Apart from her haunting performance, what I take away from the event is my flat refusal to ever go to a matinee at the Laura Pels Theatre again. I was appalled at the behaviour of the mainly octogenarian audience who you would think would know how to behave in a theatre - the kids at SPIDER-MOOSE knew to shut up - why the fuck can't you lot?

Talking loudly during the start of this tricky play, zipping and unzipping handbags, rustling sweet papers... I had half a mind to stand up and request Christopher Flanders work his deathly magic on the noisy old cows and alter kockers in the audience and leave Flora be.

Oh and Constant Reader? Owen has made me promise never to take him to a Tennessee Williams play again. So stand by to be ready for some theatre trips....

2011-04-03T19:27:00.020+01:00

THE ADDAMS FAMILY last Saturday afternoon had left me in a state of terminal boredom thinking I never EVER wanted to see another musical again. Who could come riding to my cultural rescue? Step forward Frank Loesser - I should have guessed.

On Saturday evening we went to see the last preview of Loesser's 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.
I have never seen the show - either on stage or film - so it was nice to experience it all through this bright and breezy production. I am guessing it's distinctly American flavour explains why it has not been seen in London since it's 1963 premiere although Joe McFadden and James Bolam starred in a production at Chichester in 2005.

I guess there is a chance we will see this production here as it marks the musical debut of one Daniel Radcliffe and he has chosen his show well. And no, he doesn't show his arse in this one.
The lead character of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window cleaner who by following the dryly Machiavellian instructions of his How To... book manages to rise up through the corporate world of World Wide Wicket Company, is a fairly unlikeable character on paper so you need a performer of unshakable charm to make him sympathetic. Luckily director/choreographer Rob Ashford has Daniel Radcliffe and what he brings to the party is an instant likability, bags of charm and - who knew? - a nice singing voice and unflagging energy in the dance routines.

I have had a quick squint at the reviews and some seem very grudging about his performance. I suspect the taste of sour grapes in the air - get over yourselves, you have an actor who can do the job, does it surprisingly well and is getting a charming book show on where otherwise there would be a jukebox musical.After the tired vaudeville shtick of THE ADDAMS FAMILY and the poe-faced cluelessness of SPIDER-MOOSE it was a real joy to watch a show which had a funny book with likeable characters - GUYS AND DOLLS co-writer Abe Burrows co-wrote this too - and a score that not only was good to listen to but that moved the story along and gave the characters a little more depth.

Frank Loesser wrote the scores to only six musicals and one of them, GUYS AND DOLLS, has my enduring affection as being the show that, in Richard Eyre's production at the National Theatre in 1982, was my entry into the world of theatre-going. WHERE'S CHARLEY? was seen in NY for the prestigious Encores series last month but has only been seen in London twice - I guess London managements are more likely to put on CHARLEY'S AUNT rather than the US musical! THE MOST HAPPY FELLA is rarely seen as is GREENWILLOW while PLEASURES AND PALACES has not been seen since it's 1965 Boston try-out when Loesser cancelled it and it's Broadway run.
His conversational, vernacular lyrics suit the business milieu of the show - not knowing the show I was only familiar with two of the numbers: the show's hit I BELIEVE IN YOU and the rousing finale BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. I suspect I will be getting the cast recording!

If I have a criticism of the show it's that while Rob Ashford's direction keeps the energy up and the plot running smoothly, his choreography seemed at times at odds with the score and seemed at times to pull the focus away from the dancing, as t'where. However I did like his Fosse-esque moves for the men in the office plotting to knock Finch off his perch. Boom and, indeed, boom.I wasn't overly sold on Derek McLane's MAD MEN-ish design but I don't want to criticise the show too much as it was such fun.

Ashford has cast fine performers in all the roles - John Larroquette was nicely harassed as J.B. the boss who picks Finch to run his advertising after believing they share the same college and Christopher J. Hanke had great fun as J.B.'s conniving nephew who is Finch's rival for the Big Job. Ashford also has CNN's Anderson Cooper providing the dry, laconic narration to Finch's progress.

Rose Hemingway was a delight as Rosemary, the secretary who sets her cap at Finch and Tammy Blanchard was a riot as Hedy LaRue, J.B.'s mistress who he sneaks into the company as a secretary. She had echo's of G&D's Miss Adelaide, a good-natured broad who sashays before she thinks.

Mary Faber as Rosemary's office friend and Ellen Harvey as J.B.'s tough-as-nails secretary Miss Jones also made an impression.

So thank you Rob Ashford, Daniel Radcliffe and Frank Loesser for restoring my faith in theatre musicals!