FUN HOME at the Young Vic - Drawing out the past...

I had never heard of Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic novel/memoir FUN HOME until it's musical adaptation transferred to Broadway in 2015 where it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.  I can't say I was particularly interested in it until the Young Vic announced it was going to stage it's London premiere and I thought "Uh-oh, that will sell out there so I had better go - just in case".  I am glad I did because I enjoyed it a lot.

The Young Vic production is staged by the Broadway creative team - directed by Sam Gold, choreographed by Danny Mefford, designed by David Zinn, lighting by Ben Stanton - so it's a rare opportunity to get the full intention behind the original musical over here.  To be honest, I can't say I totally loved the score but allied to the excellent performances, I was won over at the end.

Alison Bechdel wrote (and drew) FUN HOME to come to terms with her upbringing in a Funeral Home (FUNeral HOME) in Pennsylvania.  If that wasn't odd enough, it was only when she went to University - and came out - that she realized she had been unknowingly living in an emotional pressure-cooker: her father - full-time teacher, part-time funeral director - was a closet homosexual who had indulged in risky encounters throughout his marriage, even leading to police involvement.  After a visit from Alison to the now-bleak family home, her father walks in front of a speeding lorry.  Her father might have been destroyed by his sexuality but Alison is liberated by hers...

Lisa Kron's book slides back and forwards in time as Alison reviews her life: from Small Alison first realizing that she might be different to Medium Alison's coming out while confronting her family's secrets.  Indeed I felt that Kron's book is better than her lyrics, I am sure she would say that repeating a line three times reflects Small Alison's limited vocabulary but after a while it got wearing "I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes..."  Really Lisa?

Jeanine Tesori is on a bit of a UK roll at the moment: THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE has just toured (cancelled abruptly by shady producers), CAROLINE OR CHANGE is due to open later this year in the West End after a sold-out run at Hampstead and now FUN HOME is sold out at the Young Vic.  Her score was certainly soaring at times and had her usual pastiche numbers - a Jackson 5-style number when Alison and her brothers pretend to be in a tv ad for their Fun Home, and a Partridge Family pastiche about living in a loving family - but they stay in my mind while I am in the theatre, none of them have stayed with me since.  However within the show they worked very well, I really liked the scene where Small Alison and her brothers are visiting New York with their father, and when she catches him leaving them alone at night-time, he sings her a lullaby, almost whispered and a capella, you could hear a pin drop as we watch a moment of tenderness while knowing he wants her to sleep so he can leave them to have sex.  

Sam Gold's direction is excellent however - you can believe all characters have an inner history and motivation - and he brings out performances which draw you in to the story (apart from one).  David Zinn and Ben Stanton's contributions also make this show a surprisingly visual delight - there was a reveal in the second act which even elicited an 'ooooo' from the audience.  The music also sounded rich and full under Nigel Lilley's musicians, hidden away at the back of the stage.

As I said, one of the nine performers, for me, stood out for the wrong reasons: Zubin Varla as Bruce, Alison's father, gave a jangling, odd performance that was resolutely charmless.  As written, Bruce is an unsympathetic character so the actor playing him has to have some spark of charisma and humanity to understand him but Varla remains a cold fish throughout so his desperate suicide makes no impact.

No such problems with Jenna Russell as Helen, Alison's schoolteacher mother, hers is a performance that, from the start, is intriguing.  Tense and stoic, Helen's life is spent watching for signs of Bruce's infidelity and this finally cracks when she tells Alison of her unhappy life; Russell's singing of the angry "Days and Days" was one of the show's highlights.

Kaisa Hammerlund was very good as Alison, hardly ever offstage and totally sympathetic; she also had one of the best musical moments: riding in the car with her father on her last visit home, they struggle to speak to each other and the moment to connect is lost while Alison watches the telephone lines stretching out into the night.  Eleanor Kane also created a sympathetic Medium Alison, stumbling bashfully into her lesbianism.  She was partnered with the delightful Cherrelle Skeete as her fellow-college student lover Joan.

Playing Small Alison was Harriet Turnbull, she was remarkably charismatic and shone with a directness that totally swept you along with her; none more so than in her solo "Ring of Keys" where for the first time, while sitting in a diner with her unobservant father, she notices a butch lesbian delivering a parcel and immediately feels a connection.  Hers was the performance of the evening. She also had a good onstage partnership with Archie Smith and Eddie Martin as her siblings.

Who knows if FUN HOME will transfer, it certainly deserves a chance for it's remarkable originality, production and performances but would it find an audience?  Watch this space...

 

50 Favourite Musicals: 38: PACIFIC OVERTURES (1976) (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: 1976, Winter Garden Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1987, London Coliseum

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: John Weidman

Plot:  1853, Japan:  Two acquaintances find themselves on opposing sides of society when the ordered, feudal world of Japan is shattered by the West's gunboat diplomacy establishing trade links.

Five memorable numbers: SOMEONE IN A TREE, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY, PLEASE HELLO, WELCOME TO KANAGAWA, POEMS

To go big or go small, that is the question...  Only Sondheim could conceive that, in the year of the flag-waving American Bicentennial, what Broadway needed was a musical of the opening up of Japan to western trade seen through Japanese eyes!  It ran for five months on Broadway but contains some of Sondheim's most haunting and deliciously complex music.  John Weidman's book also has a central couple whose story will remain topical: against the background of change which erupts when an American battleship appears off the coast of Japan to force them to open trade links to the West, Kayama, the prefect of police, becomes more westernized while Manjiro, a fisherman who was rescued by Americans when he was lost at sea, becomes a Samurai and more fundamental.  It took eleven years unil a London production thanks to the English National Opera - although Paul Kerryson had staged the British premiere the year before in Manchester - and it was an epic production - I still yearn for one of the massive veiled-cartwheel hats - but for me the 2003 production at the Donmar, by virtue of being smaller, edges it.  It was directed by US director Gary Griffin and was based on his own revival in Chicago the year before.  It's not for everyone... but I love it.  It also contains the song that Sondheim claims to be his favourite, SOMEONE IN A TREE, which asks the question: how can we believe what happened unless it was witnessed.  The all-important treaty was signed behind closed doors but Sondheim imagines that it was witnessed by a young boy watching from a tree who could see but not hear, and a Samurai hidden beneath the room who could hear but not see.  This glorious song supposedly inspired HAMILTON's "The Room Where It Happens".

The original 1976 Broadway production was filmed to be broadcast on Japanese television - how fabulous it would be to see the full version.  At the top of the show, Mako, as The Reciter, introduced the secret world of 1853 Japan with "The Advantages of Floating In The Middle Of The Sea"...

DVD/150: ATAME! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) (Pedro Almodóvar, 1989)

Ricky has a goal: to find Marina, a former one-night stand, and make her love him, marry him and have their children... and now he's released from the psychiatric home...

Almodóvar set the cat among the PC pigeons with the scenes of violent attack and bondage - and America definitely had issues with it's two lead actresses seen peeing - but the shock has evaporated and what emerges is an oddly tender story - with restraint.

Antonio Banderas channels his four previous Almodóvar roles into Ricky and is sensational: dangerously unhinged but played so sympathetically that he delivers a real breakout performance which was his calling card to Hollywood; it would be 22 years before he worked with Pedro again.

I never warmed to Victoria Abril in any of her three three lead Almodóvar roles; here she fades against Banderas' electricity and the machine-gun attack of Loles Leon as her sister.   

Shelf or charity shop?  With nice cameos for three Almodóvar actressses: Maria Barranco, Rossy de Palma and Julieta Serrano - and a jaw-droppingly hilarious tv ad for pensions - ATAME! is tied onto the shelf...

50 Favourite Musicals: 39: NINE (1982) (Maury Yeston)

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: 1982, 46th Street Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1997, Donmar

Productions seen: one

Score: Maury Yeston

Book: Arthur Kopit

Plot:  1960s Venice; Guido Contini, a famous film director, wrestles with the subject of his overdue next film while thinking of the women in his life, both current and in the past...

Five memorable numbers: FOLLIES BERGERES, BE ON YOUR OWN, MY HUSBAND MAKES MOVIES, UNUSUAL WAY, BE ITALIAN

It's odd how you come to some musicals... I came to NINE through Elaine Paige's "Be On Your Own" on an 1983 album 'Stages'; the song intrigued me with it's compelling, snaking through-line that calls out an unfaithful lover.  I was so intrigued I bought the Broadway cast album and found that in it's original setting, it wasn't Paige's 80s power pop ballad but a downbeat, powerful, cold-as-ice dismissal.  The more I played the album, the more I was drawn into Maury Yeston's thrilling musical of Federico Fellini's film "8 1/2"  that gives a dizzying array of numbers to his lead character Guido and the women in his life: his long-suffering wife Luisa, his mistress Carla, his favourite actress Claudia, his producer Liliane and in his memory, Saraghina, the ample prostitute he desired as a boy.  Tommy Tune famously made his original production a chic black & white-themed show in which Raul Julia was the only male (along with a boy actor) in a cast of women.  I finally got to see the show in David Levaux's Donmar production which made a virtue of it's small playing area but still flooded the stage to show us Guido's vision of "The Grand Canal".  Laconic Larry Lamb played Guido and he was surrounded by some great musical actresses: Clare Burt, Eleanor David, Sara Kestelman and, in particular, Susannah Fellows who brought real heartbreak to Luisa, and a show-stopping turn from Jenny Galloway as the voluptuous Saraghina.  Despite the clunking screen version, this is a show that could definitely take a revival...

The 1982 Tony Awards delivered a shock when NINE beat the highly-touted DREAMGIRLS to Best Musical along with winning four other awards; the telecast immortalized the late Kathi Moss' rattling performance as Saraghina and her big number "Be Italian"...

Dvd/150: SUDDEN FEAR (David Miller, 1952)

To celebrate the BFI Joan Crawford season, I watched the thriller which gained her a third Best Actress Oscar nomination, SUDDEN FEAR. 

Playwright Myra Hudson demands Lester Blaine be fired from the lead in her new play; travelling home by train to San Francisco she discovers Blaine is on it too.  Despite their past, Myra is drawn to him and after a whirlwind romance they marry.

Lester discovers Myra will change her will in three days time to give him a small income after her death, so he plots with ex-lover Irene to kill Myra before then.  But Myra accidentally left her Dictaphone on and it recorded them - and Myra hears it the next day...

With time running out, Myra concocts a plan to stop them... but will she succeed?

Crawford is magnificent with hissable support from Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame.  David Miller's direction builds the tension excellently.

Shelf or charity shop? Definitely shelf... apart from a plot contrivance which stretches credibility to breaking point, I always find SUDDEN FEAR delivers Film Noir tension excellently... who knew a tin wind-up dog toy could be so thrilling!!! 

  

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More adventures in museum and exhibition gift shops...

1) NAKED MAN STANDING (1505-6?) - Michelangelo

Although this postcard is published by the Louvre I have an idea I bought it at the British Museum in 2010 for their Italian Renaissance Drawings exhibition.

Michelangelo's pen and ink sketch wonderfully conjures solidity and muscle out of thin air; even The Louvre are unsure of exact dates for the drawing or what it might have been a sketch for.

2) THE ARTIST'S GARDEN AT GIVERNY (1900) - Claude Monet

I bought this at the Royal Academy's 1999 exhibition MONET IN THE 20TH CENTURY which made me appreciate Impressionist painting for the first time as I was exposed to room after room of Monet's remarkable works.

A bed of vibrantly painted Irises lead you away from the painter to the seclusion of the tree-lined path by his house; another painting I just want to jump into!

3) LILY POND TABLE (1913) - Duncan Grant

The table design is attributed to Duncan Grant and I bought the postcard at The Courtauld Gallery's 2009 exhibition "Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of The Omega Workshops".  It was a poor excuse for the actual table itself but I would have had difficulty hiding it under my coat.

This lustrous design really stood out against all the other exhibits and suggested the dark cool water beneath the lovely greens and oranges of the lily pads.  Roger Fry set up the Omega Workshop in Bloomsbury to give younger artists the opportunity to make art (and money) by designing and making objects for the home, surrounding yourself with beautiful furniture as well as paintings on the wall.  Along with Grant, artists who worked on and off for Omega in it's six years of trading were Vanessa Bell, Carrington, Paul Nash and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

4) DAVID TRIBUNE (1501-4) - Michelangelo

Another postcard from the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence where Michelangelo's epic David stands in solitary majesty.  As you can see I do love a Michelangelo bloke in the nip.

DAVID was originally placed in the Piazza della Signoria beside the Palazzo Vecchio.  It stayed there for 369 years until it was moved to the Galleria in 1873.  One of the most famous bums in art.

5) PORTRAIT OF JEANNE KÉFER (1885) - Fernand Khnopff

I bought this a while ago at the Royal Academy's exhibition IMPRESSIONISM TO SYMBOLISM: THE BELGIAN AVANT-GARDE 1880-1900.  I love the charming delicacy of the painting of little Jeanne Kefér, dressed in her best to go out. The subdued colours of Khnopff's palette gives the picture an oddly luminous quality.

Five year-old Jeanne was the daughter of Khnopff's pianist friend Gustave; his positioning her in front of the large front door, along with her pensive expression, emphasizes her hesitancy in facing the outside world.

50 Favourite Musicals: 40: SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (1976) (Stephen Sondheim / various)

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: 1976, Mermaid Theatre

First seen by me: 1986, Donmar Warehouse

Productions seen: Two

Score: Stephen Sondheim / various 
Book: Ned Sherrin

Plot:  Three singers and a narrator explore the songwriting genius of Stephen Sondheim, spanning his first 19 years of writing for stage and screen.

Five memorable numbers: LOSING MY MIND, I'M STILL HERE, CAN THAT BOY FOXTROT, BROADWAY BABY, I REMEMBER

David Kernan was appearing in Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at the Adelphi in 1975 when he was asked by Cleo Laine and John Dankworth to arrange a trio of fundraisers for their theatre in Berkshire.  He decided on a tribute to Sondheim, asked Millicent Martin and Julia McKenzie to join him and Ned Sherrin to do links between the songs.  Cameron Mackintosh, recently started out as a producer, saw it and produced it the following year at the Mermaid Theatre, which had previously been the home for two similar songwriter tributes COWARDY CUSTARD and COLE - both of which Julia McKenzie had appeared in.  The show was such a success that it quickly transferred to the Wyndhams where it ran for over a year before transferring to the Garrick for another year.  In 1977 the show - in true coals to Newcastle style - opened on Broadway where it was nominated for Best Musical as well as the whole cast being nominated too.  The show is credited with gaining Sondheim a bigger audience in the UK - of the ten musicals primarily featured, only half had been produced previously in the West End.  After falling in love with Julia McKenzie in GUYS AND DOLLS in 1982, I quickly sought out the cast recording which blew me away; 40+ years later, so many of McKenzie, Martin and Kernan's performances are still nigh-on definitive.  I finally had a chance to see it when Kernan staged a tenth anniversary production as part of his Show People series of shows at the Donmar, with the wonderful pairing of female powerhouses Diane Langton and Angela Richards with the men represented by Tim Flavin and Kernan (now the narrator).  Subsequent productions has attempted to drop in numbers from the post-1976 years and it is still a popular production to stage both here and abroad.  I suspect this is primarily because the piece attempts - to quote Ned Sherrin - "to explore three propositions, Sondheim is the best lyric writer of our time; the most adventurous composer of musicals; and the most considerable musical dramatist."  They succeeded.

Here is Millicent Martin on the 1977 Tony Awards giving her nuanced but steely version of 'I'm Still Here' from FOLLIES, as I said, near-definitive.

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...

50 Favourite Musicals: 42: KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1985) (Jerome Kern / various)

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: 1985, Donmar Warehouse

First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: one

Score: Jerome Kern / various 
Book: Dick Vosburgh

Plot:  Four singers explore the songs of Broadway and Hollywood composer Jerome Kern with a particular emphasis on songs that were used in the Golden Age of the Hollywood Musical.

Five memorable numbers: WHY WAS I BORN?, BILL, CAN'T HELP LOVIN' DAT MAN OF MINE, SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES, REMIND ME

Before the Donmar became a player, along with the Almeida, in the off-West End, mini-National Theatre stakes, it was the humbler Donmar Warehouse and staged an eclectic mix of plays, musicals and cabaret.  In 1985 David Kernan formed 'Show People' to put on shows that had evening and regular late-night performances so performers in other shows could catch them too.  In that year they staged two revue-style shows which followed the tried and trusted formula of SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM - cast of four with some occasional biographical detail to space the songs out - and both are on my Top 50 musicals list.  The first is KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD which was Kernan's idea to showcase the remarkable songbook of Jerome Kern, emphasizing songs written for or used in films.  Kernan brought together a trio of female singers which gave the production a sheen of pure class: Elaine Delmar, Liz Robertson and, in particular, the glorious 81 year-old Elisabeth Welch who was nominated for an Olivier Award.  The show transferred to Broadway the following year for a short engagement but long enough for Welch to again be nominated, this time for a Tony Award.  On the back of her success in KERN she returned the following year to the Donmar with her own show, luckily for posterity both were recorded.  I was lucky enough to meet her around the time of KERN and when I complemented her on the show she said her only regret was more emphasis was not placed on the lyricists who had been on the top of their game with Kern's music.  KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD was a fantastic show and could certainly do with being revived... but where would you find performers of such impeccable musical taste and class nowadays? 

There is no video footage of the show but here is Elisabeth Welch's glorious version of WHY WAS I BORN? - existential pain never sounded so lovely... and just for you Elisabeth, the lyricist was Oscar Hammerstein II.

THE KING AND I at London Palladium - Sher Quality

Constant Reader, as you might have noticed, I am currently running through my Top 50 Musicals but pity the new musicals that land in the middle of this exercise... I cannot include them in the list so they will have to sit in the anti-room, swinging their tap-shoes and twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the next go-round.  Rules is rules...  and remarkably that is where the 67 year-old THE KING AND I finds itself now I have finally seen it on stage.

I had always resisted seeing it onstage as I had a lingering dislike of Rodgers and Hammerstein's canon which was probably as much to do with perception as anything else, I simply had not seen any on stage, only the film versions of their biggest shows: OKLAHOMA, CAROUSEL, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.  But after seeing Bartlett Sher's wonderful revival of SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center, I decided it was time to have another look at them - and here we are again in the safe hands of Sher with his Lincoln Center production now residing at the London Palladium, which has twice before been the home for the show.

What THE KING AND I has always been is a star vehicle: Gertrude Lawrence's agent contacted Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1950 to see it they could adapt a book about Anna Leonowens who had been a tutor to the children of the Siamese King Mongkut between 1861 and 1867.  They were wary, not seeing how they could make the episodic book into a through-story and also had concerns about Lawrence's failing vocal power but after seeing the 1946 film ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM they saw how their show could be about the clash of cultures - the King wishing to open his country out to the West but reluctant to give up his absolute power - while the traditional musical love story could be relegated to the supporting characters of Tuptim and Lun Tha.

The search was on to find The King but none of the original choices were available - enter an actor who was concentrating on being a television director, Yul Brynner.  What was considered a supporting role suddenly took off with Brynner's magnetic performance and the show was a hit.  But tragically, Lawrence started to falter with the demands of the role and started missing performances regularly; she would recover but then be hit with another illness.  Despite hospital check-ups for the various ailments the doctors failed to diagnose that she had liver cancer.  She, Brynner and the show won Tony Awards in March of 1952 but her health continued to fail and she died in September 1952, one of her last wishes was for Brynner to be given star billing. 

Brynner's success in New York meant he could not appear in the London premiere which starred Herbert Lom opposite Valerie Hobson, and of course Yul Brynner went on to recreate his role in the 1956 film version opposite Deborah Kerr for which he won the Best Actor Academy Award; Brynner would finally play the King in London at the Palladium in a 1979 revival which he had already played on Broadway and a tour for three years.  He continued to play his iconic role on and off until four months before his death in 1985, even after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer two years before.  A limited engagement New York Center revival in 1960 gave Barbara Cook a chance to play Anna opposite Farley Grainger; she later said that, although she only played it for a month, it was her favourite role - she said the actress playing Anna is perfectly supported by both score and book.

This thought is certainly borne out by the extraordinary Kelli O'Hara who lights up the production with a luminous performance which fully justifies her Tony Award for it; her Anna is an intelligent, still-grieving widow who, while standing her ground to The King when she feels she is in the right, warms to his intellectual curiosity and belief in his country.  We had missed seeing her in SOUTH PACIFIC so it was a real thrill to experience her soaring, full-bodied soprano voice as she sang the standards "Hello Young Lovers", "Getting To Know You" and "Shall We Dance?"

She is joined by her Broadway co-star Ken Watanabe who was given a bit of a rough ride by the NY critics for his heavy Japanese accent but I thought he gave a winning performance, effortlessly bringing out the King's wily humour and curiosity as well as his imperious demands for respect.  It was a testament to both their performances that by the time of their climactic duet "Shall We Dance?" you can relax and just enjoy their obvious pleasure in performing together.  It's a role that is so identified with Brynner that Watanabe's success in the role is all the better for that.

It was announced that Ruthie Ann Miles would recreate her Tony Award-winning role as Lady Thiang but tragically she has hit by a dangerous driver in March, killing not only her 4 year-old daughter but her unborn child too. Miles is still credited in the programme as is Naoko Mori who was a glorious addition to the production, her version of "Something Wonderful" was one of the stand-outs and she made Lady Thiang a real presence.

I also liked Na-Young Jeon as Tuptim, the 'present' from the King of Burma to the King.  She too had real presence on stage and played the role was a keen pain; I particularly liked her singing of "My Lord and Master", which is one of my favourite songs in a score packed with classics.  One of the few failings of Hammerstein's book is the role of Lun Tha is so under-written: he literally runs on, sings a song with Tuptim, then runs off again - twice!  Dean John-Wilson ran nicely but that's about it.

As with SOUTH PACIFIC, Bartlett Sher's direction seemed to clear away all the accumulated clutter around the musical so the characters lived within the production, bringing fully thought-through lives onto the stage with them.  For such a lavish musical there are only 9 roles within it and Sher seemed to give them all - apart from Lun Tha - a space and a moment to make themselves known.  His production certainly had it's moments of lavishness - and of course the lengthy "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet in Act II - but Sher seemed to make the book numbers spring naturally from the action rather than signalling "Ok musical number, I'll hand over to the choreographer".

Sher is reunited with his SOUTH PACIFIC creative team and they all contribute to the show's success: Christopher Gattelli recreates Jerome Robbins' choreography well -  I even liked the potential interest zone-out of "Small House of Uncle Thomas" with it's fine central performance by Ena Yamaguchi!  Michael Yeargan's glorious Siamese court shimmers with gold opulence of the court without overdoing it and also gives us a memorable opening scene of Anna's ship coming into the Bangkok harbour against a turbulent sunset.  Catherine Zuber's costumes are pure joy and Donald Holder's lighting also give the production a glorious sheen.

THE KING AND I is playing until the end of September - do see it, it's Something Wonderful.

 

 

50 Favourite Musicals: 43: FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE (1959) (Lionel Bart)

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: 1959, Theatre Royal, Stratford East 

First seen by me: 2011, Union Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Lionel Bart
Book: Frank Norman

Plot:  1950s Soho; Fred runs a 'spieler' - a gambling bar/brothel - with his longtime girlfriend Lil, but their relatively peaceful life catering to brasses, pimps, bent coppers and ne'er-do-wells is threatened by the expansionist plans of a neighbouring thug Meatface...

Five memorable numbers: FINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED T'BE, WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO?, THE CEILING'S COMING DAHN, POLKA DOTS, G'NIGHT DEARIE

Ex-con Frank Norman had originally sent his play to Joan Littlewood as a possible production for her Theatre Workshop company but Littlewood saw it's potential instead as a London musical and sent it to pop songwriter Lionel Bart - who had just written the lyrics for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS - to see what he could come up with.  The musical took off like a rocket, straight from Stratford East into the West End where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical.  Despite it's mundane - and now rather dated - storyline, Bart's music and vibrantly non-pc lyrics still burst off the stage with his unmistakable signature cocky cockney bravado.  After a muddled and clumsy Union Theatre production - nothing new there - there was a much better revival at Stratford East in 2014.  However which cast nowadays can compare to the sensational original cast recording. recorded live, which features Glynn Edwards, Miriam Karlin, Barbara Windsor, Toni Palmer, James Booth and Yootha Joyce?   That original production, by the way, was choreographed by Jean Newlove who was pregnant with her daughter, Kirsty MacColl...

Here is a trailer for the 2014 Stratford East revival, staged to celebrate Joan Littlewood's centenary..

50 Favourite Musicals: 44: PASSION (1994) (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: 1994, Plymouth Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1996, Queens Theatre, London

Productions seen: three

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: James Lapine

Plot:  In the 1860s, a young Captain in the Italian army is transferred to a remote outpost, leaving his mistress in Milan.  While there he becomes the object of obsessive desire for a withdrawn and sickly woman, his Colonel's cousin.  Her passion repels him but love is a strange thing...

Five memorable numbers: LOVING YOU, I WISH I COULD FORGET YOU, HAPPINESS, I READ, FINALE

Sondheim's deeply intense musical - based on a novel by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti and the Italian film adaptation by Ettore Scola - can leave you feeling claustrophobic at times; it is relentless in it's exploration of the mysterious power of love with hardly any humour to leaven it.  A remarkable chamber musical, it slowly ebbs into your mind as you watch Giorgio - a man who has always been in control of his love life - become enmeshed and undone by Fosca's unrelenting passion.  I had been swept away by the Broadway cast recording but was left somewhat cold by the London premiere where a torturous Maria Friedman and somnambulist Michael Ball rattled around the large Queens Theatre stage but subsequent smaller-scale productions have hit the show's emotional core, culminating in Jamie Lloyd's excellent Donmar production in 2010 which pared the basilisk-stare of Elena Roger's Fosca against the emotional fragility of David Thaxton's Giorgio.

Here the original Fosca, Donna Murphy, casts a spell with LOVING YOU, the score's emotional peak..

50 Favourite Musicals: 45: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE (1990) (Louis Jordan / various)

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: 1990, Theatre Royal Stratford East
First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: three

Score: various

Book: Clarke Peters

Plot: Nomax, down on his luck and left by his woman, is is visited by the five guys named Moe who appear out of his radio and bring him back to happiness through the songs of jazz legend Louis Jordan.

Five memorable numbers: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE, DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING, I LIKE 'EM FAT LIKE THAT, SATURDAY NIGHT FISH FRY, CHOO CHOO CH'BOOGIE

Short on plot but big on joy, Clarke Peters' tribute show celebrates the back catalogue of Louis Jordan whose recordings span the 1930s big band jazz sound through the jump 'n' jive swing years to the early stirrings of rhythm and blues that led to rock & roll.  Starting at Stratford East - where I was lucky to see it - the show conga'd into the West End where it ran for over four years; on Broadway it ran for over a year.  In 2010 the show appeared again at Stratford East where I saw it again and had the great joy of meeting Clarke Peters.  MOE memories include sitting in the prompt-side box at Stratford East in 1990 with Ann Molloy and Suzanne Golden who memorably held the show up because she didn't have a lyric sheet in her programme - Peters had to go into the audience to find a spare one - and when I saw the West End transfer at the Lyric with friend Guy, on his last night in the UK before leaving to work in Brazil, we were seated next to Ben and Tracey from Everything But The Girl!

Here is Clarke Peters with a revival cast in 1998 appearing in the Cameron Mackintosh tribute show HEY MR PRODUCER! singing a medley of the title song, HURRY HOME, IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN'T MY BABY and DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING...

50 Favourite Musicals: 46: COMPANY (1970) (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: 1970, Alvin Theater, NY
First seen by me: 1996, Albery Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: George Furth

Plot:  Robert is single and living in New York; on his 35th birthday his best friends - five couples - throw him a surprise party which finally makes him confront his lack of commitment in relationships.

Five memorable numbers: BEING ALIVE, THE LADIES WHO LUNCH, BARCELONA, GETTING MARRIED TODAY, SIDE BY SIDE BY SIDE

As you all reel from the fact that a Sondheim musical is only at #46, I have to say that, although it's not my favourite of his shows, I think I enjoyed it more than the 'Variety' critic who reported after seeing it's 1970 Boston try-out "As it stands now it's for ladies' matinees, homos and misogynists."  Charmed.  I had to wait quite a while to see it and finally caught up with Sam Mendes' Donmar revival when it transferred to the Albery in 1996 with the extraordinary cast of Adrian Lester as Robert, the late Sheila Gish as Joanne, the unstoppable Sophie Thompson as Amy and such solid musical performers as Teddy Kempner, Paul Bentley, Clare Burt, Clive Rowe and Michael Simkins - a company as good as that can distract you from thoughts that the characters are all fairly annoying.  My main COMPANY memory is seeing Patti LuPone at the Leicester Square Theatre who ended her show with Joanne's coruscating solo THE LADIES WHO LUNCH and, at the song's climax, tossed her martini (aka water) into the audience - and over me.  Cow. Let's see if she can do it again in October when we see her play the role in Marianne Elliott's upsy-gender revival at the Gielgud....

Here is a remarkable performance of THE LADIES WHO LUNCH by it's originator Elaine Stritch - the performance is worthy of Beckett it's so unflinching..

.

50 Favourite Musicals: 47: BLUES IN THE NIGHT (1980) (various)

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: 1980, Playhouse 46 NY
First seen by me: 1988, Piccadilly Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: various

Book: Sheldon Epps

Plot: Three women sit in a run-down hotel waiting for the same no-good man to appear, and sing their lives through the classic blues and torch songs of the Golden Age of American jazz.

Five memorable numbers: BLUES IN THE NIGHT, ROUGH AND READY MAN, FOUR WALLS (AND ONE DIRTY WINDOW) BLUES, TAKE ME FOR A BUGGY RIDE, WASTED LIFE BLUES

Following on from similar jazz and blues revue-style shows like BUBBLING BROWN SUGAR and ONE MO' TIME, BLUES IN THE NIGHT changed the format from a night-club setting to a run-down hotel so the songs play more as a musical than an out-front recreation of a cabaret show.  Three women: an ingenue, a sophisticate and an older touring blues singer all interact with a man who seems to connect them through classic songs written by Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Ida Cox and Harold Arlen among others.  It's a simple format that works because of the exhilarating song choices and having a tightly-focused quartet and I still remember the pure pleasure when I saw it 30 years ago.  An atmospheric live cast recording immortalizing the excellent original London quartet of Clarke Peters, Carol Woods, Maria Friedman and Debby Bishop has kept the show alive for me and I look forward to seeing a new production next year with Sharon D. Clarke and Clive Rowe in Kilburn,

Here is a compilation of scenes from a 1989 tv version of BLUES IN THE NIGHT with Peters, Woods, Bishop and Friedman.  The video quality is a bit shonky but it does give a flavour of the show's fun...

50 Favourite Musicals: 48: HAIR (1967) (Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, James Rado)

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: 1967, Public Theater NY
First seen by me: 1993, Old Vic, London

Productions seen: three

Score: Galt MacDermot / Gerome Ragni & James Rado

Book: Ragni & Rado

 Plot: A 'tribe' of hippies in New York assert their love of life and peace in late 1960s America but the Vietnam war looms ever closer...

Five memorable numbers: AQUARIUS, I GOT LIFE, HAIR, FRANK MILLS, THE FLESH FAILURES (LET THE SUNSHINE IN)

Odd for HAIR to be so low in my chart, particularly as Diane Paulus' 2010 revival was so wondrous but, for all the variety of the score, the book is showing it's age - and in particular, the lengthy and disjointed Vietnam drug trip in the second act stops the show dead, just when you want more of the members of the tribe that you have grown to like in the first act.  I got to know the score through the 1968 London cast album, but was totally bewildered by the disjointed Old Vic production by Michael Bogdanov in 1993; my only lasting memory of it was sitting in the back row of bleacher seats on the Old Vic stage with fellow First Call workers - as I watched Sinitta spiral down to the stage holding onto a strap with one hand while singing AQUARIUS, I had not noticed 1) that Paul J Medford had popped up behind us to sing the second verse and 2) that one of my colleagues had started a nose bleed - when the spotlight snapped onto Medford it also revealed Nigel covered in blood!!  That was the most dramatic thing in the whole show.  All was put right by the fantastic revival by Diane Paulus which we first saw on Broadway then visited 5 times when it transferred to the Gielgud Theatre but sadly it just didn't connect with a wider audience and closed early.  However I will long treasure the definitive performances of Claude, Sheila, Jeanie, Berger and Crissy by the wonderful Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy, Kacie Sheik, Will Swenson, and Allison Case who made me blub every time with her heartrending performance of FRANK MILLS.

Here that remarkable ensemble led by Gavin Creel and Will Swenson take over the Tony Awards with the title song - it won the Award that year for Best Revival...

HAMLET at the Globe - "To hold the mirror up to nature..."

Last week I found myself back in the dangerous corridors of Elsinore, this time via the bare stage of The Globe Theatre.  Yes folks, another week, another Globe visit...

So here I am again, seeing an actor taking on the challenge of Hamlet for the eleventh time - and who was following in the steps of Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Northam, Ian Charleson,  Simon Russell Beale, Dan McSherry (indeed, who?), Jude Law, Rory Kinnear, Michael Sheen, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott?  Michelle Terry, my first female Hamlet - apart from seeing Frances de la Tour doing a scene at a charity event - and a major challenge for The Globe's new Artistic Director.

HAMLET is presented by the same 12 actors who also appeared in AS YOU LIKE IT and I think the comedy succeeded more than the tragedy.  The same two directors are credited but there is no sense of direction during the play: people come, people go, with no sense of escalating tension for either Hamlet or Claudius.  Hamlet goes to England, he comes back from England...  people drop like nine pins in the final scene but with no real sense of mortality or that this is the climax of the actual play.

The directors' blocking and positioning of the actors on the stage, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, suggested it was possibly all worked out in the rehearsal room and just dropped onto the stage as is; there was a lot of traffic on the stage but none of it seemed to make any sense or helped with the dodgy acoustics in the round auditorium.  It was all a bit infuriating.

As I said, this Elsinore had gone minimalist and appeared to have no furniture to speak of at all.. and don't start me on the costumes or lack of them.  I was not totally surprised to read in the programme that they have brought their own stuff in to act in.  That might explain the light blue floaty dressing gown that Gertrude - the Queen of Denmark remember - wears in the closet scene:  they were obviously having a sale on at Primark.

There actually was one concept that worked: the scene with the players and Hamlet's staging of "The Mousetrap" - that never fails to get a laugh - is usually a problematic one because you have to see the play twice: once in mime, then the players act it out.  It can really try one's patience when you just want to get on with the plot, and also it's a bugger to focus on because you are too busy concentrating on watching Hamlet watch Claudius watch the play to see his reaction to the player king being murdered.  Here the players did the dumb show to set up what they were going to act but then vanished into the audience and the play was not shown, just the reactions front and centre of Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet; loud and ominous percussion was played behind our first-level back-row to suggest the play.- which was effective but a bit-heart-attack inducing.

The casting, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, was ethnic and gender blind and created as many problems as with the comedy.  Surely an idea behind gender-mix-up casting is to possibly give a new slant on the role in question but here that was not in evidence apart from possibly within Terry's performance.  There were some seriously under-powered performances: James Garnon as Claudius made no impression at all as Claudius - he seemed to just point his elaborate hair-style at people (think Cameron Diaz in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY) while Catrin Aaron was colourless as Horatio and Helen Schlesinger played Gertrude as if she had come into a room and forgotten what she was looking for.

The main problem was with the tipsy-tarty casting of Bettrys Jones and Shubham Saraf as Laertes and Ophelia respectively - if they had switched roles it might have proved more interesting and allowed them to give better performances, but no: Saraf brought no insights to Ophelia - just a man in a dress - and James was as lightweight and as vaguely irritating as she was in AS YOU LIKE IT in yet another male role.  I have enjoyed her performances in previous productions but in these two plays she has proved that she is a lousy man.  Shubham Saraf did redeem himself briefly as a very characterful Osric.

The fine Jack Laskey was reduced to playing Fortenbras and the player who recites the Priam speech - but even he was defeated with being placed over at one side of the stage in that scene and his speech went for nothing.  But credit where credit is due: Colin Hurley was a dull Ghost but seized his laughs as the Gravedigger, Richard Katz was a suitably irritating Polonius - while missing any suggestion of threat in his relationship with Ophelia - while the indispensable Pearce Quigley and Nadia Nadarajah made a good Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Above all else, it was Michelle Terry's show; she played with a solid authority and spoke the lines with great intelligence - oh, and that speech?  She played it kneeling at the front of the stage, holding an audience member's hand and asking him "To be or not to be?" which was a very nice touch, it somehow personalized it, as if Hamlet was asking his opinion.  Sadly she was given no help with the absurdly ugly costumes she had to wear and ultimately, a lot of the production was not up to her level.

I will have to ponder where Michelle Terry sits in my pantheon of Hamlets, but I know that her interpretation did not move me as others have; it is possible for this to happen even within a shonky production - Andrew Scott is a good example - but here I suspect Terry was unwilling to out-shine the ensemble - she didn't even get a solo bow!  This strikes me as a rather false humility, after all, as the Globe's artistic director she nabbed the role for herself.  Despite all the failings of the production, I have to admit that I was pleased to have seen it and I still have high hopes for Michelle Terry's tenure.