50 Favourite Musicals: 12: SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (1984) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

 First performed: 1984, Booth Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1990, Lyttelton Theatre, London

Productions seen: three
  
Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: James Lapine

Plot: Paris, 1884: The impressionist painter Georges Seurat obsessively works on his large pointillist painting A SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF LA GRANDE JATTE despite the ridicule of the public and critics; George is also unaware of his mistress Dot's growing resentment until she leaves him.  Despite all this, he finishes his masterpiece.  A hundred years later, Seurat's great-grandson George fears his own artistic vision is fading..

Five memorable numbers: SUNDAY, CHILDREN AND ART, FINISHING THE HAT, PUTTING IT TOGETHER, MOVE ON

So here we go.  Each musical I choose from now on are the ones which mean the most to me, the ones that all feature indelible memories of songs or stage and screen images; these are the ones that on any other day might appear higher up in the chart.  So why does SUNDAY not make it to the Top 10?  A certain austere distancing in James Lapine's book which makes it easy to admire but difficult to love?  The tricky second act where, after the lovely opening scene where each of the painting's characters relate the history of LA GRANDE JATTE and the fate of Seurat, it then pitches into the 1984 sequence which, in essence, entails the audience having to warm to a prickly new lead character too late in the day?  The character of Dot which feels sketched in at best and should be more pronounced?  After the shock Broadway failure of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG in 1981 which severed forever the working relationship between Sondheim and his longtime director-producer Hal Prince, Sondheim felt disenchanted with musical theatre.  However when he was approached by the younger playwright-director James Lapine he found a new impetus to do something different, more experimental.  Lapine suggested the teasing enigma of Seurat's painting and that was the spur.  The first-ever showing of SUNDAY was at the Off-Broadway not-for-profit theatre Playwrights Horizons for 25 performances only.  When it opened Lapine and Sondheim had only the first act completed - the full show was only staged for the last three performances.  Despite this they still managed to get the show financed for a Broadway transfer in 1984.  Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, while known stars, had never appeared in a Sondheim show before and despite their frustrations during the Playwrights Horizons run in trying to shape their characters while half the score still was being worked on, they both opened on Broadway and both received Tony Award nominations.  Bernadette was particularly frustrated in the under-developed role of Dot which was only solved when Sondheim's friend playwright John Guare suggested that while Seurat is painting his masterwork maybe Dot can be learning to read?  Dot's joy in bettering herself is all the more cruelly dashed as Seurat is so absorbed in his art.  Sondheim and Lapine also gifted the actress playing Dot with the second act role of Marie, Dot's 98 year-old daughter, before Dot appears again in the final scene which ties in all the strands of the three lead characters.  Lapine's Broadway production was nominated for 10 Tony Awards but only won two design awards, it was the year of the feel-good juggernaut LA CAGE AUX FOLLES which beat SUNDAY in most of the bigger awards; however it did better at the Drama Desk Awards where it won 8 of it's 13 nominations including Best Musical.  By a stroke of luck just as the Box Office was starting to slow down SUNDAY won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama which perked the Box Office up again and the show closed after a year, the good news being that a week after it closed, the cast returned to film it for television which is now available on DVD.

I had to wait six years to see the show - after having fallen in love with Sondheim's score through the original cast recording - but found that National Theatre production disappointing as Maria Friedman failed to soar to Bernadette Peters' artistry but Philip Quast was an excellent Georges / George, deservedly winning the Olivier Award for Best Actor in A Musical.  It also won Best New Musical - beating Sondheim and Lapine's London production of INTO THE WOODS!  It would be 15 years before another London production came along but this time it was the Menier Chocolate Factory's game-changing production which incorporated the wonderful designs of Timothy Bird's digital projections which flooded the stage with colour and fluid movement.  Used with economy and wit, the digital animations were a total delight with nice touches such as the ensemble leaving the onstage 'tableau' of the painting one by one at the start of the second act, while their character digitally reappeared in the original painting behind them hanging on the Art Institute of Chicago's wall.   More importantly they did not distract from the performances particularly that of Daniel Evans who had never been better than as Georges / George.  This production also marked my first time visiting the Menier and it has stayed in my mind as one of their finest productions.  Sam Buntrock's production transferred first to the West End where Evans was joined memorably by Jenna Russell as Dot and then to Broadway in 2008 where I saw it with Owen and my late friend Dezur at Studio 54.  This production was nominated for 7 Tony Awards but failed to win any as it was the year of two other all-conquering revivals of SOUTH PACIFIC and GYPSY.  However Buntrock's production triumphed at the Olivier Awards winning 5 of it's 6 nominations including Best Musical.  But above all, there is Sondheim's wonderful and challenging score - the score shows itself as Sondheim's most personal to date, in particular his glorious solo for Georges "Finishing The Hat" in which he wonderfully encapsulates the joy of the artist in creating something from nothing while acknowledging the personal cost that brings.  Whatever failings the book has, the score for SUNDAY is the one that effects me the most emotionally.  The three songs that finish the first act floor me - Dot's farewell "We Do Not Belong Together" usually starts me off. Georges' duet with his mother "Beautiful" keeps the snuffles on a fairly low-light and then the tears just flow during the final song "Sunday".  One of the most beautiful melodies ever, it's sung softly by the characters in Seurat's painting as he moves around them, arranging them into the final 'tableau' that will freeze as A SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF LA GRANDE JATTE - It gets me EVERY time - and I'm not talking one tear trickling down my cheek, I am talking seat-row-shuddering sobs.  To make things worse, the three last songs of the second act mirror this: George's despairing "Lesson #8", George and Dot's empowering "Move On" and a final reprise of "Sunday"; floods... just floods.

My video choice has to be the first act finale of the filmed original Broadway production with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.  The DVD has a commentary by Sondheim, Peters and Patinkin - and Sondheim and Patinkin start to blub during this scene so I am in good company.  Let's see if the score works it's potent magic on me next year when I see it at the Savoy with Jake Gyllenhaal and and Annaleigh Ashford who are repeating their roles of Georges / George and Dot / Marie from the last Broadway revival in 2017.

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY at Menier Chocolate Factory - capturing the moment...

Ah the power of a well-timed casting notice.  I wasn't particularly enthused about seeing the Menier Chocolate Factory's new show THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY but then they announced who was playing the lead role - thank you Menier Box Office, two please...

I knew very little about the show other than it flopped on Broadway in 2014; directed by Bartlett Sher, it had starred Broadway heroine Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale but ran for just under three months.  The composer Jason Robert Brown is a Broadway quandary: his songs are loved by cabaret singers and his scores attract awards - two Best Score Tony Awards (PARADE / BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY)  and four Drama Desk Best Music or Lyrics Awards (PARADE / THE LAST FIVE YEARS / ...MADISON COUNTY) but not one of his shows - either on Broadway or Off-Broadway - has ever run longer than three months! 

This is the Menier's first Jason Robert Brown show for 13 years after his two-hander THE LAST FIVE YEARS in 2006, and his only other London productions have been PARADE at the Donmar and SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at the St. James Theatre (as was).  I must admit that I still have issues with his music and the score for MADISON COUNTY overall didn't really impress either - yes there are some stand-out numbers particularly towards the end of the show but a lot of the time the score sounded like it was stitched together from 'New Country' b-sides.  They floated around the auditorium to little effect, but luckily the cast were strong enough to keep my interest in the show going.

I also had very little knowledge of the story having never seen the film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep or read the original novel - interestingly in his programme interview, Brown says that both he and book writer Marsha Norman had to pay lip service to the novel when interviewed in the lead-up to the original production as they both felt the book was under-par and they had changed the plot for the musical.

Italian-born Francesca moved to Iowa with her American GI husband Bud at the end of WWII and, as the musical starts, she is waving off Bud and their teenage children Michael and Carolyn to a Youth Fair in 1965 for a few days.  Alone on their farm her thoughts of what might have been are disrupted when Robert, a photographer on an assignment for National Geographic magazine, stops by to ask for directions to a nearby covered bridge as he is photographing Iowa's famous bridges for the project.  After showing him the location, Francesca invites him to have dinner at the farm due to the late hour and is charmed by his knowledge of the world, even her old home city of Naples.

Slowly these two lonely people realize that they have a unique understanding for each other and, despite daily calls from Bud, their bickering children and her prying neighbour, Francesca and Robert discover they have both fallen in love.  But how can Francesca leave her family despite Robert's insistence that she can just take off and make a new life with him?  With time running out until Robert leaves town, Francesca makes a decision that effects her and Robert forever...

Marsha Norman's sparse book which focuses on about six characters cannot fight off the inescapable Mills and Boon elements of the story - the character of Robert is too obvious a romantic fiction device to be truly believable - but thanks to the committed performances of the cast I found it very easy to bob along with the story's current as it raced to it's emotional climax.

Director Trevor Nunn brings his usual drawn-out playing time to the show - it does feel a fairly long 2 hours 45 minutes - but he also elicits fine performances from his cast.  There are two good performances from David Perkins and newcomer Maddison Bulleyment as the opinionated teens Michael and Carolyn and a very nice performance from Dale Rapley as stolid and unknowing Bud.  Robert was played by Edward Baker-Duly and he was fairly lightweight in the role, he sang well but he couldn't make the photographer anything but a foil for the more strongly-defined character of Francesca.

And what a Francesca the production has in Jenna Russell, once again proving herself as one our finest musical actresses.  She played her character's unexpected blossoming into the passionately loved woman she could only dream of with a shifting delicacy that made you believe her every growing smile, every hesitant step along the way, came from the heart.  By the time of her soaring last song she had created a character that was truly believable.

The production is also graced with Tim Lutkin's lighting, Tal Rosner's videos and Jon Bausor's clapboard set (Owen wondered if it was the old COLOR PURPLE set!) which opens to reveal Francesca's world of kitchen, porch and bedroom, although I must admit the glimpses of stagehands shifting the sets into place rather pulled focus.

Tom Murray's music direction made the eleven-strong orchestra fill the auditorium so even the most unsubstantial song sounded good.  THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is on at the Menier until 14th September and is definitely worth a visit to see Jenna Russell illuminate the work with her lovely performance.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at the Playhouse - Fathers and Daughters...

I couldn't get terribly worked up over seeing Trevor Nunn's revival of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF when it originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory as, while I admire the stagecraft that went into it's creation, it's not really one of my favourite musicals.  But it's glowing reviews, it's transfer to the Playhouse Theatre - and the fact that I had seen every other show in the West End that interested me - meant that my birthday theatre event found me journeying back to the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in the early 1900s.

In it's transfer to the Playhouse, director Trevor Nunn has reconfigured the stalls to echo his Menier staging so a raised meandering path runs through the stalls to bring you into the middle of the small Jewish town, it's a bit cumbersome in finding your seat but very effective and for once, I felt engaged with the show.  Of course being a Trevor Nunn production, it's very lengthy which for me only highlighted the repetitions in Joseph Stein's book, but as I said, I was engaged.

I have only seen the show once before onstage - a jaw-dropping 14 years ago in New York in a Chekhovian production directed by David Leveaux starring Harvey Fierstein and Rosie O'Donnell - and, of course, the Norman Jewison film version starring Topol. As I said, it's not a particular favourite of mine, mostly because I find the plot device of a Jewish village milkman finding the traditions he lives by erode through his three daughters marrying against his wishes too repetitive.  I will agree that this is done by degrees: the first falls in love with a nebbish Jewish tailor, the second to a Bolshevik, the third to a gentile - but, particularly in this production, the three daughters are played exactly the same, sound exactly the same - typical west end soprano - and are so resolutely two-dimensional, that it's like you are seeing one actress on a revolve.  The three boyfriends are all given different shadings but the daughters get no personalities at all.

I also am not the biggest fan of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's score which has it's standards - "Tradition", "If I Were A Rich Man", "Sunrise Sunset", "Do You Love Me" - but otherwise I find it fairly anonymous and repetitive. But as I said, I found Nunn's production to be involving with very good musical direction from Paul Bogaev which serves the score well, apart from the endless "Tevye's Nightmare" which proves that time is not always a continuum.

Nunn has chosen Andy Nyman for his Tevye and he is excellent, making him a very human-sized character, unlike the usual Star turn from actors taking their lead from the originator of the role, the larger-than-life Zero Mostel.  Without the character being figuratively spot-lit downstage while the other actors huddle upstage, it makes for more integrated story-telling with the town of Anatevka coming fully to life.

Like the daughters, the role of Tevye's wife Golde is a fairly thankless one; for ever careworn and kvetching at her husband's foolish dreams, but Broadway actress Judy Kuhn suggested more depth to the character than is on the page.  In particular the duet "Do You Love Me?" where Tevye finally plucks up the courage to ask Golde whether their 25-year marriage is based on love or just circumstance is a touching, almost embarrassed moment between Nyman and Kuhn rather than being played for comedy.

The other stand-out in the cast is Louise Gold as Yente, the gossipy matchmaker of the village; another two-dimensional female character but imbued by the ever-reliable Gold with a vibrant personality who again had colour and depth that was not suggested by the script.  I also liked Stewart Clarke as Perchik the stern Bolshevik student who is smitten by the middle daughter Hodel.

Of course the spirit of Jerome Robbins, the show's original director/choreographer, is ever-present in the big dance routines for "To Life" and "The Wedding / Bottle Dance"; for a man who has been dead 21 years, it's not bad that he gets named three times on the poster.  Matt Cole is responsible for the rest of the enjoyable choreography.

Robert Jones' set design brings the crowded Anatevka to vibrant life both onstage and off, while Tim Lutkin's subtle, shifting lighting gives the town the warmth of summer and the dark of winter.  None more so than in the final scenes when the mood turns sombre with the forced eviction of the Jews from the town.  Despite my problems with the show, it is impossible not to be moved by the final scene where lifelong friends and families say their goodbyes knowing they will probably never see each other again as they scatter over Europe and America.

As the snow falls on Tevye's shattered community slowly trudging out of their hometown, clutching their few possessions on a long journey to who knows what fate, Nunn shows his production is sadly very relevant to today's world of displaced people and the search for home in a world of prejudice and fear.

I am not always a fan of Trevor Nunn's work but here he gives us a memorable production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, maybe one to see again...

50 Favourite Musicals: 33: SWEET CHARITY (1966) (Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1966, Palace Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 2009, Menier Chocolate Factory, London

Productions seen: one

Score: Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields
Book: Neil Simon

Plot:  Charity Hope Valentine is an unlucky-in-love but ever-optimistic taxi dancer in a run-down Manhattan dance hall. One day she gets trapped in a stalled lift with a shy but panicky tax advisor called Oscar.  Slowly a romance blossoms... is this Charity's moment?   

Five memorable numbers: BIG SPENDER, RHYTHM OF LIFE, THERE'S GOTTA BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN THIS, I LOVE TO CRY AT WEDDINGS, IF MY FRIENDS COULD SEE ME NOW

Two female characters dominated the 1965/66 Broadway season, Auntie Mame Dennis and Charity Hope Valentine, two indomitable survivors of life's vicissitudes, but neither MAME or SWEET CHARITY ultimately claimed the Best Musical award which went to doughty old MAN OF LA MANCHA; a decision that in retrospect seems odd.  Indeed out of it's nine Tony nominations it only won Best Choreography for Bob Fosse's memorable work.  Going by the film versions alone - I've not seen MAME OF LA MANCHA on stage! - SWEET CHARITY wins hands down.  It's Overture blares out like a traffic jam of NY cabs, showcasing the contemporary and brassy feel of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields' score with it's remarkable collection of songs: cynical and hard-edged numbers that cover the heroine's sadness with a noisy bravado.  Blessed with a wisecracking but sympathetic book by the then-King of Broadway comedy Neil Simon, the story is based on Federico Fellini's NIGHTS OF CABIRIA - the first of three musicals based on his films, the others being Lionel Bart's flop LA STRADA and Maury Yeston's hit NINE.  Simon also creates great supporting characters like Nickie and Helene, Charity's comrades in the dance hall, Herman the grouchy manager and Oscar, Charity's latest chance at happiness.  Bob Fosse - who conceived the show for his muse Gwen Verdon as well as directing it - choreographed memorable routines and these moments stud the plot like zircon buttons.  With it's glorious score and memorable characters, SWEET CHARITY has been regularly revived and, although it flopped on release, Fosse's film version keeps delivering down the years.

There are plenty of videos of SWEET CHARITY but I thought I'd stick with the trailer for the Menier production - it's a nice reminder of the winning performances of Tamzin Outhwaite, Marc Umbers and Josefina Gabrielle, as well as the excellent pairing of Ebony Molina and Paul J Medford who made THE RICH MAN'S FRUG such a thrilling experience.

SPAMILTON at the Menier Chocolate Factory - He's Not Throwing Away His Jokes

When Gerard Alessandrini saw HAMILTON he realized he was in trouble; what was he going to do when he wrote the next version of FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, his hugely successful off-Broadway comedy revue, to encapsulate the whole HAMILTON phenomenon?  A single routine? No.. even a medley of songs that he had used in the past for big shows would not cut it, there was only one thing for it... it would have to have it's own show.  Now that HAMILTON has repeated it's huge success in London, the ever-opportunistic Menier have served up Alessandrini's piss-take.

It opened in 2016 and, being Alessandrini, is about more than just HAMILTON - it is primarily about that show's writer/star Lin-Manuel Miranda who has now been elevated to major stardom with everyone getting in on the act - it's the same over here where any show that has his dabs on is suddenly being rushed into production.  SPAMILTON has numerous references to his upcoming role in the remake of Disney's MARY POPPINS and some of the more in-house references even defeated me.  Needless to say - as with the Menier's last FORBIDDEN BROADWAY production - dotted around the audience were arseholes who's slightly too-loud braying said I KNOW WHAT THAT JOKE MEANS AND YOU DON'T - we had one such clown in front of us and it was only when a few women in the row in front of them turned around and stared daggers at her that she toned down the hysteria.

As such the wider ripples of the HAMILTON phenomenon are parodied and other shows and personalities come in for some gentle ribbing: the Book of Mormon blokes turn up to wail about the curse of being last year's hit-show, other hit shows are mashed up to be made relevant such as LES MISMA MIA and THE LION KING AND I while Liza Minnelli, Elaine Paige, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews and Stephen Sondheim turn up to critique the show and Miranda.  In the show's most cutting number, George III turns up - and as in HAMILTON - the character steals the show with the "Straight Is Back" number, pointing out that now the history books are being raided for inspiration, shows about gays and drag queens are being shown the door.

It could have been more cutting about the show and it's creator - HAMILTON's woeful roles for women for example - but it was more of a cheeky poke in the ribs than a hard kick up the arse which might explain the Lin-Manuel Miranda press quote on the poster.  But it was certainly on point about the intricate plot having to be followed by a bewildered audience as exposition is spat out in tongue-twisting rap, the impossibility of getting tickets, and the cast who have practically all won awards but know they probably will not be picked for "the film when it happens"!

The cast of five meet themselves going off as they come on as they have so many roles to split between them but they are all very winning and talented - I also would not be at all surprised if they get a call when HAMILTON recasts!  Liam Tamne is a hoot as both Hamilton and his preening creator, Jason Denton is good as the bouncy Thomas Jefferson, Marc Akinfolarin made a good George Washington - wanting his One Big Song - and even more surprising as 'Annie'! - Eddie Elliott was a witty Aaron Burr ("sir") and Julie Yammanee was sensational as Philippa Soo, Eliza Hamilton, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Estefan!  The two 'guest stars' were Sophie-Louise Dann, a trifle overdoing it as Elaine Paige, Liza Minnelli and Julie Andrews but Damian Humbley was delicious as George III.

A special mention to music director Simon Beck who hammers out the score on his piano and the show does speed through it's 85 minutes quickly enough, but you do feel like the show is forever chasing iself to get to the end before the joke simply plays itself out.  See it for the hugely talented cast - but I would suggest it will all be lost on you if you have not seen HAMILTON.

The real joke is - as Alessandrini's King George puts it - the fun has gone out of musicals now they are all clamouring to get their own version of HAMILTON - if you had said only a few years ago that their would be a hip-hop stage version of the life of Sylvia Pankhurst or a 'rock documentary' of The Bronte Sisters or a pop jukebox musical of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald - well you would have thought it was a FORBIDDEN BROADWAY piss-take.  But no, these are real shows due on at the Old Vic, Southwark Playhouse and The Other Palace.

Be afraid, be very afraid...

50 Favourite Musicals: 41: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1983) (Jerry Herman)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1983, Palace Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1986, London Palladium

Productions seen: four

Score: Jerry Herman
Book: Harvey Fierstein

Plot:  Georges and Albin, a middle-aged, long-term gay couple who run a Riviera drag club, find their public and private worlds clash when Georges' son falls in love with the daughter of a homophobic politician who wants to close the area's gay clubs.

Five memorable numbers: I AM WHAT I AM, SONG ON THE SAND, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, THE BEST OF TIMES, LOOK OVER THERE

The 1984 Tony Awards for musicals were seen as a clash between tradition and modernity as the two most obvious nominees were Jerry Herman's musical comedy LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and Stephen Sondheim's more austere SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE.  SUNDAY was to lose out - apart from the Design and Lighting awards - to the LA CAGE juggernaut.  When Herman scurried onstage to receive the Best Score award he crowed that it put paid to the rumour that "the simple, hummable show tune was no longer welcome on Broadway" - a not-so-subtle dig at Sondheim.  That certainly coloured my opinion of the show when I saw it's UK premiere at the London Palladium although I certainly enjoyed the delightful starring performances of George Hearn (recreating his Best Actor Tony-winning role as the flamboyant Albin) and Denis Quilley, as well as the fantastic drag chorus 'Les Cagelles' which spotlit performers like Scott St. Martyn as Chantal and Andy Norman as Hanna.   That production famously closed early citing it's failure on the public worry of AIDS; I never bought that reason as the show ran on Broadway for four years - I still suspect that the Palladium was just the wrong house for it.  It was only when I saw Terry Johnson's more intimate - alright, smaller - revival at the Menier then also when it transferred to the Playhouse - that the show's charm really showed.  It's sheer relentless optimistic tone can eventually be wearing - the second act really doesn't know where to go - but with the right performers, Fierstein's book can still make you laugh and Herman's self-referencing score can still charm.  I last saw the show when the Menier production transferred to Broadway and Harvey Fierstein played Albin.  Despite LA CAGE's longevity - the only Broadway musical to win Tonys for Best Musical and then Best Musical Revival for each of it's two subsequent incarnations - Jerry Herman has never written another original musical.  And where do I stand on the LA CAGE versus SUNDAY face-off?  Watch this space...

There is fair amount of video on LA CAGE but here is Denis Quilley from 1986 on the stage of the London Palladium introducing 'Les Cagelles' for the great opening number "We Are What We Are" - I first saw the show on a pro's matinee with West End Legend Nicola Blackman and I still remember the sheer excitement of watching this for the first time...

BARNUM at the Menier Chocolate Factory - Life Under The Small Top...

It's not for want of productions that I have never seen the Cy Coleman musical BARNUM which I have finally caught up with at the Menier Chocolate Factory.  Michael Crawford, Paul Nicholas, Peter Duncan, Christopher Fitzgerald and Brian Conley have all played the title role in UK productions and now it falls on the lofty shoulders of comedian Marcus Brigstocke.

BARNUM opened on Broadway in 1980 with Jim Dale in the title role and upcoming actress Glenn Close as his long-suffering wife Charity, it was nominated for 10 Tony Awards but so was EVITA which won most of the top prizes, BARNUM eventually ending up with 3, including the Best Actor nod for Dale.

For such a populist and popular musical, my only reference for it was the 1983 skating routine by Torvell and Dean, and I find that odd as I am a bit of a musicals fan.  None of the songs are particularly famous in their own right and I think ultimately it might be because the material is actually fairly thin.  The role of Barnum needs to be played by a charismatic, show-off, starry performer because - not only is he hardly ever offstage - but he needs to carry the thinness of the book.

For all the time onstage, what do we ever learn of P.T. Barnum through Mark Bramble's threadbare book?  That he was a bit of a chancer and believed in flim-flam as much as the punters he was always trying to attract, be it showbiz or politics?  What do we learn of his wife Charity?  That she was that most awful of things - long-suffering - and met all of her husband's outlandish plans with a wry smile and a pat on the hand?  Yeesh.  The workman-like lyrics by Michael Stewart tell us as much as we need to know and nothing more.  Bramble and Stewart both were responsible for the paper-thin book for 42nd STREET so it comes as no surprise that they are similarly bereft of imagination here.

Cy Coleman's music is also fitfully memorable but does finally pull out a showstopper with "Come Follow The Band" but it's sad when one considers this was the man responsible for LITTLE ME, SWEET CHARITY, ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY and CITY OF ANGELS, but maybe he flourished better in more hard-nosed entertainment worlds than folksy Americana.

Marcus Brigstocke certainly gives a likeable and quietly-winning performance as Barnum, one that certainly fits within the Menier's limited performing space, but therein lies the production's problem.  As I said before, the role cries out for a performer who is not content in simply inhabiting a space - Dale, Crawford, et al are all larger-than-life, unabashed show-off performers who also have that underlying thread of being unlikeable.  As I said, Brigstocke is likeable which isn't enough for this role.  His singing voice also seemed to remain in his mouth - SING OUT P.T.!

Where the production scores is in it's female characters - for all the afore-mentioned dullness of material, Laura Pitt-Pulford was very good as Charity, the level of musicality seemed to perk up whenever she was onstage and her lovely voice got the most out of her earnest ballads.  The inexplicably busy Rosalie Craig isn't a patch on Pitt-Pulford.

Also hitting their mark are Celinde Schoenmaker as the Swedish diva Jenny Lind - her voice belts out and bounces around the small Menier auditorium so you really feel it's force - and Tupele Dorgu also registers as both Joyce Heth, Barnum's first successful 'personality', and in the second act as a luscious-toned blues singer.

The ensemble seemingly never draw breath as they spin, dance, somersault and cavort around Paul Farnsworth's mini-big top set - mind out for the flame-twirler!  Shining out of them is the remarkable Danny Collins, fresh from Matthew Bourne's EARLY ADVENTURES, whose sinuous physicality stands out in Rebecca Howell's energetic choreography.

Gordon Greenberg, whose Chichester production of GUYS AND DOLLS so impressed, here keeps the action flowing and ingeniously uses every opportunity that the Menier's playing space can provide but, again we have to face the fact, that with such thin material to work with Greenberg has no other option but to keep the show moving and distract us with flames, gymnastics and a constant whirl of movement.

It is a tribute to Greenberg, musical director Alex Parker and the non-stop cast that the show ultimately wins one over - it sure ain't because of the material they have to work with.

LOVE IN IDLENESS at the Menier - Rattigan Reimagined

Just when it looked like the revivals of plays by Terence Rattigan were over, up pops another one at the Menier Chocolate Factory, a highly unlikely home for this writer.

It turns out that LOVE IN IDLENESS is a bit of a cut-and-shunt job.  In 1944 Terence Rattigan wanted to write a play which reflected the conflicts of the time - when confidence in winning the war was tempered by worries of what the country would do next - as well as write a typical Shaftesbury Avenue comedy star vehicle.  Gertrude Lawrence turned it down unread but the acting (and married) partnership of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne picked it up.

The title was LESS THAN KIND which hints at the play's riffing on HAMLET but Lunt felt it's plot - young man burning with Socialist idealism returns from wartime evacuation to Canada to discover that his widowed mother has moved in with an industrialist currently serving in Churchill's wartime cabinet - was not humorous enough for him so Rattigan rewrote it, dropping most of the confrontations over politics.  Later on he recanted saying that he wished he had kept the play as it was and not bowed to star power.

Fast forward to 2016: Trevor Nunn was looking for another Rattigan project after his successful revival of FLARE PATH in 2011 and discovered the two similar projects and after urging from the Rattigan estate to meld the two scripts - reinstating some of the political debate but also keeping it light and amusing - we now have LOVE IN IDLENESS.  Incidentally the unperformed LESS THAN KIND was given a belated debut in 2011 too at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre (home of the hags, don't get me started).

I must admit to some trepidation at the thought of Trevor Nunn imposing his love of playing length on what sounded like a frothy comedy (and it does come down after nearly three hours) but remarkably his production delighted in it's brio and in the winning performances.  True, Rattigan weights the plot in favour of the industrialist Sir John Fletcher but when he is played so delightfully by Anthony Head it's a point one is willing to concede.

I was also hugely surprised by Eve Best as the high society-loving Olivia Brown.  Best is *ahem* best at roles which usually find her mournful and constantly wiping away tears or blowing her nose on a hankie secreted up the arm of her dowdy dress but here she blossoms as a gushingly over-indulgent mother but whose sense of fun is nicely balanced with a sense of fair play.  There were several times during the play that I thought what a nice part this would have been for Emma Thompson to have played had she not seemingly turned her back on theatre (SWEENEY TODD withstanding).

As I said Anthony Head is utterly charming as Sir John, possibly the best I have seen him on stage.  He captures the combination of a believable powerful man of influence while also being totally thrown by the emotional devastation that Olivia's truculent son brings with his arrival back from Canada.  As Michael, Olivia's son determined to break up his mother from a man who represents everything he despises, Edward Bluemel starts a bit wobbly but gained in strength during the evening, eventually playing Michael's selfish side well.

Another performance which really surprised me was Helen George as the society girl Diana.  Nicely introduced as what you expect to be a girl that Michael has picked up, the reveal that she is in fact Sir John's estranged wife is nicely done and she plays Diana's ruthless determination very well.  She more than holds her own against her more illustrious co-stars. Sadly the other supporting cast members are all a bit weak but the four leads carry them well.

Stephen Brimson Lewis has designed a pleasing Mayfair apartment for the primary action to take place which converts nicely into a low-rent Baron's Court flat for the final scene and it's a nice touch to have the time and place so well established with old Pathe News clips projected onto the wraparound scrim curtain.

Yes it's lightweight and throwaway, and not really Rattigan's best work, but it entertains and proves that sometimes experience does count for everything.  I was somewhat surprised to hear that it will transfer to the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue in May but wish it well as it is a play written to be seen on the Avenue.  I hope it finds it's audience.

SHE LOVES ME at the Menier Chocolate Factory - Love at Christmas...

My last two theatre visits of 2016 are coincidentally two shows that I have never seen onstage before but know very well through the original cast recordings - finally I know the bits that go between the songs!

SHE LOVES ME premiered in 1963 with a score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick and written by Joe Masteroff; it was an odd case of them all just being one-show-away from their career-defining highs - 1964 saw the premiere of Bock and Harnick's FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and in 1966 Masteroff wrote the book for a little-known musical called CABARET.

SHE LOVES ME is based on the Hungarian playwright Miklós László's 1937 play "Parfumerie" and has become a bit of a well-ridden pony: James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan starred in Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 film version "The Shop Around The Corner", in 1949 it inspired a first musicalization as "In The Good Old Summertime" starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson, and nearly 40 years later the plot served as the basis for the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film "You've Got Mail".

The original production was produced and directed by Hal Prince and was choreographed by Carol Haney (who tragically died the following year from pneumonia) and, in retrospect, provided Barbara Cook with her last great Broadway starring role playing Amalia opposite Daniel Massey's Georg.  The show was a modest hit and received a scant five Tony Nominations - none for the score - it's only win being for Jack Cassidy's duplicitous Kodaly.

A London production followed in 1964 (with the dynamic casting of Rita Moreno as the lovelorn Ilona) and in 1978 Gemma Craven and Diane Langton co-starred in a BBC tv version. SHE LOVES ME had to wait 30 years for a Broadway revival however but proved popular enough to transfer to London with Ruthie Henshall and John Gordon Sinclair as the leads where it ran for a year - and history repeated itself this year with a new revival at Studio 54 which has resulted in the Menier staging it as their Christmas show.

It's odd that there is an idea that the show is a difficult proposition to revive - all it needs is the right size theatre and a well-judged cast; the show could be accused of being old-fashioned and slight - but what it affords is a show of real charm and warmth, with characters that you quietly root for and leaves you feeling entertained and smiling.  A rare commodity these days when the one thing most musicals lack these days is a genuine heart.

Bock and Harnick's score keeps the songs coming - there are 16 in the first act - but they all are tuneful and move the story along.  The score is what has kept the show revivable, mainly in part to the sparkling original cast recording and Barbara Cook's subsequent solo career in cabaret and concerts where she regularly featured Amalia's great songs ICE CREAM, WILL HE LIKE ME, DEAR FRIEND and even Ilona's solo A TRIP TO THE LIBRARY.  Hearing them within the context of the show is like hearing from an old friend.

1930s Budapest: a small perfumerie and chemist shop is owned by Mr Maraczek, his staff include the assistant manager Georg, suave womanizer Mr Kodaly who is not-so-secretly sleeping with co-worker Ilona, the quiet Mr Sipos and the energetic delivery boy Arpad.  Into their world comes the eager-to-please Amalia who has heard of a job vacancy but Maraczek isn't hiring as the shop is just ticking by, the resourceful Amalia notices however the staff have difficulty selling a new range of music boxes so proves her worth by selling one as a musical candy-box which gets her the job.

Georg and Amalia take an instant dislike to each other but their antipathy chimes with Ilona's anger at being dumped by Kodaly and Mr Maraczek's sudden unhappiness with Georg.  What Amalia confides to Ilona and Georj to Sipos is that they are both in love with anonymous pen-pals who fill them with the chance of happiness in their lonely lives.  Yes you guessed... they are unknowingly writing to each other. 

With only a few weeks to Christmas and on the night they are due to meet for the first time, Georj, fed up by the increasingly nit-picking Maraczek, resigns and later on, after seeing to his horror that it's Amalia waiting for him in the designated meeting place with the book and rose to identify her as "Dear Friend", goes in and makes fun of her.  The next day the staff hear that Mr Maraczek has tried to kill himself, his increasing bad temper had been caused by his suspicions that his wife was having an affair with Georg only for it to be revealed that her lover was Kodaly.

Georg agrees to return as manager, Arpad is promoted to salesman, Kodaly skulks off to join a rival establishment and Ilona decides she will give up on men and start reading books instead.  But what of Georg and Amalia?  Will love find a way?  C'mon... this is 1963 Broadway!

Matthew White's heartwarming production fills the small Menier stage with bustling activity - more than one prop went flying due to the onstage business but it all added to the charm.  Paul Farnsworth's lovely set and costumes add the right period flavour and Paul Pyant's lighting is an added delight.  Rebecca Howell gives the show vibrant choreography that utilizes all the stage particularly in the busy romantic Café where waiters and customers dance and leap.

The cast all rise to the occasion and shine in their roles: Scarlett Strallen bursts off the stage with her lovely soprano and bubbly personality as Amalia, Mark Umbers is a slow-burn as Georg but finally flowers into a likeable hero, Les Dennis is surprisingly effective as the love-lorn Maraczek while Dominic Tighe makes a deliciously smooth Kodaly.

Katherine Kingsley is a larger-than-life Ilona who finds and delivers laughs with her cockney Ilona and rises to the challenge of her solo A TRIP TO THE LIBRARY wonderfully.  Callum Howells is a firecracker as the ambitious delivery boy Arpad - although the Norman Wisdom posture could be dialed down a bit - Alastair Brookshaw is a delight as the quiet Mr Sipos while Cory English really stands out as the Head Waiter of the romantic Café, trying to convince us that he provides a suitably subdued atmosphere - as the waiters crash metal trays all around him.

I had been a bit worried that the production might not give me the show that I had waited so long to see but SHE LOVES ME is one of the best musicals they have staged and if you want to see an example of classic Broadway musical comedy then run to see it before March 4th.

A remarkable postscript: MGM bought the film rights for the show and mooted it as a vehicle for Julie Andrews.  Both Harold Prince then Blake Edwards were named as directors with possible casting of Dick Van Dyke and Maurice Chevalier.  The studio was bought out however and in the changing mood of the times the project was dropped.

INTO THE WOODS at the Menier Chocolate Factory - Into the prop cupboard?

INTO THE WOODS is not only one of my favourite Sondheim shows but holds the distinction of being the first musical I saw on Broadway in 1988.  So what treats would my sixth production hold for me at the Menier?

Actually this is not a Menier production at all, it's an import from off-Broadway where the Fiasco Theater Company opened it in 2014.  It's USP is that the show is presented by a cast of ten plus a pianist in a production that brings a new high (or low) in minimalism: a bare stage is augmented by broken innards of pianos, 2 rows of vertical ropes at the back to suggest a wood, a table, a piano... and that's it.

The costumes seem vaguely Edwardian in varying degrees of cream - or maybe just dirty white - and various props are utilized to tell James Lapine's tale of what happens to various fairy tale characters on the other side of "Happily Ever After".

Ultimately I did enjoy the show - it's INTO THE WOODS after all - but time and again I bumped up against the 'poor' theatre techniques.  It took a long time for me to relax into the show, the minimalist approach just seemed to be a gimmick, I couldn't see why it was done but to draw attention to itself.  It certainly didn't seem to grow organically out of the work.  I think I have come to the end of my patience with 'reimagined' INTO THE WOODS productions.  I want the full nine yards next time... big frocks, picture book sets, magic effects, the full deal.

This production did without a narrator, the linking dialogue delivered by other cast members.  The recent film did this too - no doubt saying that it was too much of a theatrical device - but I think the show is the poorer for the character's exclusion, especially in the second act when the characters turn on him and sacrifice him to the Giant's Wife to appease her; the characters are really on their own then after that without the one person who knows how their stories end.

The US cast were all very energetic and could obviously turn their hand to anything but not all made a real mark.  Since the show opened three lead roles have been recast with UK actors and I was very happy that Harry Hepple is The Baker.  He gave a quietly lovely performance, he first caught my eye five years ago at the Menier as PIPPIN so it was nice to see him on that stage again. 

Another UK addition was Laura Tebbutt as The Baker's Wife and she also gave a fine performance and sang the character's 'big' song "Moments In The Woods" very well.  The character's demise after this is one of the plot's great moments.

Of the American performers I liked the tart Little Red Riding Hood of Emily Young but she overplayed the secondary character of Rapunzel, Vanessa Reseland was better as the sexy Witch rather than the ugly Witch, Patrick Mulryan was effective as Jack and Claire Karpen was excellent as Cinderella, it's a role that can get almost fade away in some productions but here she was a warmly sympathetic presence.

As I said, it took a long time to focus on the piece rather than the at-times childish trappings but by the second act the plot's more stripped-down action naturally made co-directors Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld drop the cutesy shenanigans and let the story work... needless to say by the end I had a tear in my eye as Sondheim's emotional score paid off.

Now, someone, a full-on production with an orchestra please?

FUNNY GIRL at the Savoy Theatre - The Greatest Star?

With every year there is a fondness for looking back to 50 year anniversaries so here is another one - it is 50 years since the Bob Merrill and Jule Styne musical FUNNY GIRL opened in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre.  It starred a certain actress who had played it on Broadway two years before...

Four months after it opened, it was gone after Streisand discovered she was pregnant.  Nice timing Babs.  Almost a year after it closed, she started filming the movie version which went on to win her an Academy Award - and she has never acted on stage since.

The common belief is that the show has never been revived due to Streisand's indelible stamp on it but there is another more basic problem which is shown up in the new revival which has transferred from the Menier Chocolate Factory to the Savoy, recently the home of another Jule Styne revival GYPSY.

As Mr and Mrs World know, the show stars our very own Sheridan Smith as Fanny Brice, the gangly, rubber-faced Jewish New Yorker who, in the Ziegfeld Follies between 1910 and 1923, made herself an audience sweetheart with her clowning but also with her ability to sing torch songs that broke your heart.  She is all but forgotten now, her memory kept alive by the show.

Sheridan Smith is one of the select few actresses who can guarantee an audience for a West End show and for good reason - she has real star wattage on stage and a natural bond with her audience.  Her voice isn't the most distinctive but she knows how to use it and, as she proved with the famous numbers here, she also knows how to belt out a long last note.

Of course a star will always be a star but not for one second did I feel that Sheridan Smith lost herself in the character of Fanny Brice, she was always Sheridan Smith in a black wig.  Director Michael Meyer has her playing up the face-mugging, knock-kneed klutz but it's an uneven fit.  Her most telling moments are when she is in a more reflective moments, singing lovely versions of "People", "His Is The Only Music That Makes Me Dance" and the interpolated title song which was written for the film.

Despite Harvey Fierstein rejigging the script and swapping some songs around, the biggest problem is the show itself.  I suspect one reason it has not been revived more often is because it all feels so desperately thin. The whole focus is on Fanny - and even her character is hardly layered - the other characters are so paper-thin they could almost blow over.  Fierstein should probably have dropped a couple of the more generic numbers and in particular, the endless "Rat-A-Tat-Tat".  A song which highlights Brice's usual shtick, it's an endless song about a Yiddish soldier in World War 1 that had me biting my knuckles in pain.

Darius Campbell was surprisingly effective as the gambling man-about-town Nicky Arnstein who was Brice's first husband but again he is only there for Fanny to react off of so the sudden rush of exposition about his downfall in the second act - and an added solo number - come to late to make him at all interesting.  His height also made for an odd fit with the diminutive Sheridan.

Bruce Montague wanders on and off occasionally as Florenz Ziegfeld without ever suggesting how important he was either on early 20th Century Broadway or in Fanny's professional life, Joel Montague has some nice moments as her friend Eddie Ryan but the award for making bricks from straw goes to Marilyn Cutts as Mrs Brice, always watchable and a performance of loving steeliness.

FUNNY GIRL had a torturous birth: Fanny Brice's son-in-law, producer Ray Stark, decided against the publication of a biography and wanted to make it into a film, only to be told by Mary Martin that it should be a stage show.  It then was offered to or passed on by, among others, writer Ben Hecht, lyricists Stephen Sondheim and Dorothy Fields, producer David Merrick, directors Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse and performers Mary Martin, Anne Bancroft, Edye Gorme and Carol Burnett.  When the show finally made it to the stage it was nominated for 8 Tony Awards but didn't win anything, 5 of them ironically lost to HELLO, DOLLY! which was turned into a film starring... Barbra Streisand!

Back at the Savoy, Lynne Page's choreography is busy but unmemorable while Michael Pavelka's skewed set of Ziegfeld's New Amsterdam stage only offers the occasional 'wow' image - really only the very last moment to be honest.  Ultimately I felt that the show needed a larger-than-life personality to swamp the stage and to distract you from the rickety star vehicle - Sheridan Smith is not that kind of star yet.

Thanks to Sheridan Smith's popularity the show is in for a long run until October - unless she does a Streisand and gets pregnant - I just wished I liked it more.