THE WIRE's gripping storytelling makes it unforgettable. Between 2002 - 2008, five HBO seasons delivered a forensic view of Baltimore: police, criminals, dock workers, politicians, teachers and newspaper reporters all intersect but discover "the system" always wins.
Homicide detective Jimmy McNulty triggers an investigation when drug dealer D'Angelo Barksdale's murder trial collapses due to witness intimidation. McNulty knows D'Angelo is nephew to drug overlord Avon Barksdale who has proved untouchable.
McNulty is loathed by his superiors, but they allow Lt. Cedric Daniels a surveillance team to run a basic investigation.
But the unit - including narcotics officer Kima Greggs and the analytical Lester Freamon - realize that Barksdale's complex operations demand deeper surveillance. Kima's junkie informant, Bubbles is also enlisted.
Avon with his deputy Stringer demote D'Angelo to running young pushers but he now is conflicted about "The Game"...
Everything changes when Barksdale's operations are targeted by maverick hood drug thief Omar Little.
Shelf or charity shop? SHELF!! Writers David Simon and Ed Burns - one an ex-newspaper police correspondant, the other a former policeman/teacher - based THE WIRE on the Baltimore institiutions they knew and created an astonishing television experience, using a pool of script writers and directors. Over 13 hours their characters come alive, illustrating the internicine power struggles within both the police and criminal worlds. The scripts are masterpieces of long-form narrative which drew complaints from US audiences about the complex story. Dominic West leapt to stardom as McNulty and he was well teamed with Wendell Pierce as Homicide colleague Bunk Moreland - the scene where they investigate a crime scene using every permutation of the work 'fuck' is tv gold. The always excellent Clarke Peters shines as Lestor Freamon, languishing in police admin hell until given a second chance through the case, as is Sonja Sohn as the empathetic narcotics officer Kima. Idris Elba was launched to fame as Stringer Bell, the cool but dangerous deputy of the Barksdale crew, well-cast opposite the intense Wood Harris as Avon Barksdale. Lawrence Gilliard Jr. is unforgettable as D'Angelo, the loyal Barksdale foot-soldier who realizes the devastating impact of "The Game" and there is a memorable performance from Michael B Jordan as the tragic Wallace. Dependant on both sides is Andre Royo as the police informant junkie Bubbles and lurking in the shadows is the unforgettable Omar Little played to charismatic perfection by Michael K Williams.
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. So here we are... a year and 10 months in the
making and we have reached the stage musical that is my favourite ever -
and I cannot name one out of the four shows that I have left to
consider.
I have tried every criteria, every angle and there is simply no way I
can say that one of the four is better than the other. So let's
go... my Top Four Number One's (in alphabetical order)
First performed: 1950, 46th Street Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1982, Olivier Theatre, London
Productions seen: seven
Score: Frank Loesser
Book: Jo Swerling / Abe Burrows
Plot: Set in Damon Runyon's New York of gamblers, gangsters and showgirls. Nathan Detroit has nowhere to hold his all-night crap game, the cops have their eyes on him and he is fending off the growing impatience of his fiancee, cabaret singer Miss Adelaide, after an engagement of 14 years. Nathan finds a location but needs to raise an advance payment of $1,000. Desperate for the dough, he bets legendary gambler Sky Masterson the same amount that he cannot take strait-laced Sgt Sarah Brown from the local Save-A-Soul Mission to dinner in Havana. There's no way he can lose the bet... is there?
Five memorable numbers: SIT DOWN YOU'RE ROCKING THE BOAT, LUCK BE A LADY, I'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE, ADELAIDE'S LAMENT, MORE I CANNOT WISH YOU
GUYS nearly lost out on a shared Number 1 spot simply because I have seen a few productions that I felt had
not done it justice but eventually I had to
overlook this as the first one I saw was definitive and I feel oddly protective of the show. GUYS AND DOLLS literally changed my life.
In 1950, producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin announced a new musical based on Damon Runyan's short stories THE IDYLL OF MISS SARAH BROWN and BLOOD PRESSURE and chose Frank Loesser to write the score, fresh from his debut Broadway success WHERE'S CHARLEY? and winning an Academy Award for writing "Baby It's Cold Outside" the previous year. The job of adapting the stories was given to Jo Swerling who was later replaced by Abe Burrows - however by that time, Loesser had nearly completed the score, so Burrows had the double chore of writing a new funnier script while also slotting in Loesser's songs. He succeeded wonderfully as GUYS AND DOLLS is judged to have one of the greatest books in Broadway history. The show was an instant hit when it opened, winning five Tony Awards and running for 1,200 performances. London first saw it in 1953 with Sam Levene and Vivian Blane repeating their Broadway roles of Nathan and Miss Adelaide. Two years later, Blane played Adelaide in the hit film version with Sinatra, Brando and Jean Simmons.
In 1971 Laurence Olivier was going to stage GUYS AND DOLLS for the National Theatre at the Old Vic with him as Nathan, Geraldine McEwan as Adelaide and Denis Quilley as Sky but his poor health at the time gave the NT Board a reason to cancel it; the thinking being should they really be staging an American musical? In 1982 when Richard Eyre was invited by Peter Hall to stage three shows at the National Theatre he still had to battle this opposition but successfully - and rightfully - argued that GUYS AND DOLLS was as much a classic of American Theatre as anything by O'Neill, Williams or Miller. He had the perfect team with David Toguri as choreographer, set designer John Gunter and lighting designer David Hersey's eye-popping sets featuring Times Square neon signs hanging over the stage and Sue Blaine's vivid costumes.
Before 1982 I went to the theatre to look at stars; Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, Tom Bell, Cheryl Campbell etc. and that was exactly why I wanted to see GUYS AND DOLLS at the National - Ian Charleson was my new acting hero after CHARIOTS OF FIRE, Julie Covington was a heroine from ROCK FOLLIES and I loved Bob Hoskins from PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. Of course the show sold out from the off and I was clueless how I would get to see it. The NT then announced they would have a Bargain Night - all seats in it's three theatres at £2 each to personal callers on the day, I was up for the challenge. I arrived at 7am to join one of the longest queues I had ever seen and when they opened, I slowly shuffled to the door, sure it would be sold out - I walked away with two front-row seats! And so it came to pass that at 7:15pm on August 6th 1982, my life changed. I suddenly experienced the alchemy that can happen between an audience and a cast of extraordinary performers, they generated pure stage electricity which we returned with loud excitement. I went back countless times after that performance, even sleeping overnight outside the box office door with other front-row regulars which was a wonderful experience where I made new friends. I went back to relive that magical first time, sometimes it happened, but each experience made me realise that I was now a theatre fan.
'A good cast is worth repeating' was frequently seen at the end of old films so here they are - William Armstrong, Mark Bond, James Carter (equally memorable as Chicago gangster Big Jule and a Havana drag queen!), Ian Charleson (unforgettable as Sky, wry and laid back but singing in a glorious tenor voice), Sally Cooper, Julie Covington (a perfect steely Sgt. Sarah), Irlin Hall, David Healy (winning the SWET Award for Best Musical Supporting Performance as the jovial Nicely-Nicely Johnson), Fiona Hendley, Bob Hoskins (delicious as the exasperated Nathan Detroit), Rachel Izen (giving some serious face as a jaundiced Hot Box Girl), Julia McKenzie (winner of the SWET Award for Best Musical Actress as the definitive Miss Adelaide, hilarious but wistful, a real belter with a bawdy laugh), John Normington (touching as Sarah's protecting grandfather and always able to make me blub singing "More I Cannot Wish You"), Robert Oates, Bill Paterson (a great conniving Harry The Horse), Kevin Quarmby, Robert Ralph, Barrie Rutter (a shuffling Benny Southstreet straight off Runyon's pages), Bernard Sharpe, Belinda Sinclair, Imelda Staunton (a sour-faced Hot Box Girl and a hilariously short Cuban dancer), Harry Towb (a perfect blustering Lt. Brannigan), Larrington Walker, Richard Walsh, Norman Warwick and Kevin Williams (stealing each scene he was in). Stars all, some shining from afar now. This wonderful cast came together one last time in November 1990 to play a matinee and evening performance to honour the memory of both Ian Charleson and Norman Warwick who had both died in the past year: a very special memory.
Needless to say I have yet to see a production to match this although the subsequent revivals of Eyre's prodution gave us a sizzling Sky Masterson from Clarke Peters, Imelda's feisty Adelaide when she took over from Julia, Betsy Brantley's sweet-voiced Sarah and a memorable Nathan Detroit from Bernard Cribbins. The 2005 Donmar production that played at the Piccadilly Theatre couldn't really compete with the show ingrained in my mind but had nice performances from Jane Krakowski as a sexier Miss Adelaide and Jenna Russell as a dry-as-dust Sgt. Sarah. It ran for two years however, The recent 2014 Chichester revival and subsequent West End transfer directed by Gordon Greenberg made me happier though as did the neon-bright performance of Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide, Jamie Parker as Sky and David Haig as Nathan Detroit; I remember thinking as my fellow audience members in the Chichester auditorium lapped up Frank Loesser's classic score and Abe Burrows' great gags and sympathetic characters that hopefully there was a young theatregoer who would discover the magic of theatre through this glorious show.
There was only one choice for a video... THE SOUTH BANK SHOW did a profile on Richard Eyre and his company in rehearsal so here is a wonderful chance to savour the pure pleasure they gave me - Ian Charleson singing "Luck Be A Lady", the opening number "Runyonland", Julia McKenzie and the Hot Box Girls singing "Bushel and A Peck", Julie Covington singing "I'll Know" to Ian, Bob Hoskins with James Carter, Bill Paterson and Barrie Rutter in the crap-game scene, Ian singing "I've Never Been In Love Before" to Julie, and finally David Healy stopping the show as he always did with "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat".
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...
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...
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Sorry about that delay in blogging... life, you know...
Our second exposure to the Bard showed the truth in the old phrase of the mountain coming to Mohammad.
Sometimes you just gotta get out of town... so a few Saturdays ago found Owen and I sitting on a train chuffing merrily out of St. Pancras International to ... wait for it.... Sheffield. Sheffield yet! So what could get me to up sticks and venture north? Well, it was the news that the thrilling partnership of Clarke Peters and Dominic West which proved so successful in the epic US tv series THE WIRE was to be made flesh at the Sheffield Crucible in OTHELLO. There was no mention of a London transfer so a day-trip to the home of The Human League was a must. It was also good to finally see inside the famous Crucible auditorium so beloved of the World Snooker Championships and it makes you understand how, with the right match, the atmosphere must be tense.
The theatre itself isn't all that exciting - it's form seems to echo so many regional late 20th Century builds, all concrete and large windows overlooking either the main road or the car park! But the place seemed very buzzy and busy, no doubt down to the excellent reviews the production had garnered the week before.
The actor Daniel Evans has landed the Artistic Director role at the Crucible and he made his Shakespeare directorial debut with this production. Surprisingly he made an excellent job of it - while playing up the - ahem - black comedy of such a hissable villain as Iago, Evans also gave us a thorough, uncluttered reading of the play with a momentum which moved smoothly but relentlessly ever-onward, like a shark honing in on it's prey.Oddly enough, the play's final scene did dissipate this momentum but Shakespeare did rather prolong the end of his play - how many times *does* Desdemona have splutter to life after having been smothered? However by then Evans and his talented cast had done enough to deserve the ovation that they genuinely deserved.
Evans gave us a fairly traditional setting for his version of the play with doublets, jerkins and wide skirts a-plenty against Morgan Large's set comprising a large functional brick wall with central doors which with Lucy Carter's subtle lighting worked well in exterior and interior scenes.
I guess the best Shakespearean productions should seem to introduce the play to you afresh and this it certainly did. I can't remember laughing so much at the tale of the tragic Moor but I suspect a lot of that was down to the inspired central casting. It's a shame that the exciting performances of Dominic West and Clarke Peters will not be seen by a wider audience but I feel very lucky to have done so. The chemistry revealed in THE WIRE was built on here and their scenes together fizzed and sparked as Iago teased and wheedled Othello from his benign married state into a jealous murderous husband.
Dominic West was the true star of the show, using a broad Yorkshire accent to suggest a hail-fellow-well-met character who secretly relishes the carnage his malicious lies provoke. No one is safe from him including his wife Emilia and here West was perfectly matched with Alexandra Gilbreath who brought an earthy wisdom to the role. As with the best performances, it was her a pleasure to watch her silent reactions to others as well as speaking her lines - her slow realization that she was an unknowing contributor to her husband's scheme was heartbreaking.Clarke Peters came in for some unfairly critical reviews in the press but he gave a fine performance, becoming more and more unravelled as his jealousy took hold until his mania was scary to see. Peters is an actor who you instinctively can trust on stage and this performance proved again his wide-ranging versatility and powerful presence.
Desdemona is a sticky role but Lily James made a good fist of her inherent innocence and her scenes with Peters and Gilbreath gave her ample opportunity to show her versatile playing. In a small but impressive cast, special mention should go to Gwilym Lee as Cassio, Luciano Dodero as Montano and Leigh McDonald as the courtesan Bianca.
C'mon someone, film this production and give these fine actors the wider acclaim they deserve. Oh and well done HMV Sheffield for stocking the dvd of Vanessa Redgrave in ISADORA which the HMV Piccadilly Circus haven't done!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Before I get down to cases with blogging about my recent vacance to Athens I need to keep you up to speed with my theatre trips - the last was to see the revival of the Louis Jordan tribute show FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE which is again playing at it's original home at Theatre Royal, Stratford East.Ah, happy memories of the 1990 production which I saw at Stratford East in the Prompt side Box with Molloy and Miss Suzanne Golden who memorably held the show up because she didn't have a lyric sheet in her programme. I also saw it several times when it transferred to the Lyric - Guy in Rio recently reminded me that when we went to see the show on his last night in London before leaving to work in Brazil, we were seated next to Ben and Tracey from Everything But The Girl!
This time Owen and I were ensconced in the dress circle which was surprisingly not as busy as one would expect but what we lacked in punters was certainly made up for by the noise of those there - rather annoyingly at times from a large bunch of women out on a jolly.
The big selling point for me was the show again stars the rather fab Clarke Peters who wrote the book for the original production as well as co-starring as Four-Eyed Moe. Well it was twenty years ago so Clarke now plays the more reflective role of Nomax.
Nomax has been dumped by his girl Lorraine and is drinking himself into a stupor in a cheap hotel room listening to his favorite records - and wouldn't you know it - he falls into his record-player. As you do. Once inside he encounters his musical guardian angels, the Five Guys Named Moe with their rather nifty house band, who give Nomax the schooling he deserves in getting his life back on track through the music of 1940s jazz giant Louis Jordan. The show is an all-out fun event - the plotline is as sharp and thin as the creases on the Moe's zoot-suit trousers but with the non-stop parade of Jordan's classics such as SATURDAY NIGHT FISH FRY, CHOO-CHOO-CHA-BOOGIE, I LIKE 'EM FAT LIKE THAT, SAFE SANE AND SINGLE, CALDONIA and IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN' T MA BABY keep feet tapping and the spirits soaring.
If I have a criticism it's that the Moe's aren't up to the standard set by their predecessors - Kenny Andrews, Paul J. Medford (who has choreographed this production), Peter Alex Newton, Omar Okai and Clarke all gave really individual performances while today's crop seem fairly amalgomous. However Christopher Colquhoun, Horace Oliver and Ashley Campbell made a real impression. Clarke Peters was of course the star of the show as Nomax as well as giving us a great EARLY IN THE MORNING at the top of the show. After the show I had the opportunity of nabbing Clarke and finally being able to thank him for so many fine performances on stage and of course as Lester in THE WIRE and he was as charming and gracious as one could wish. What a fine man he is.
The good news is that FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE has been extended a week at Stratford East so get yourself over there by October 9th for a real good time!
