50 Favourite Musicals: 18: CITY OF ANGELS (1989) (Cy Coleman / David Zippel)

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: 1989, Virginia Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1993, Prince of Wales Theatre, London

Productions seen: three

Score: Cy Coleman / David Zippel
Book: Larry Gelbart
Plot:  1940s Hollywood: the crime novelist Stine is trying to adapt his novel "City of Angels" for dictatorial film producer Buddy Fiddler but fact and fiction feed off each other and Stine soon discovers his worst critic is his fictional private eye hero Stone...

Five memorable numbers: WITH EVERY BREATH I TAKE, LOST AND FOUND, YOU CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON ME, FUNNY,  IT NEEDS WORK

By the time Michael Blakemore's production of the musical CITY OF ANGELS opened in the West End in 1993. after playing two years on Broadway, I was word perfect with Cy Coleman and David Zippel's score having bought the Original Cast Recording cd soon after it was released.  I immediately loved Coleman's mix of lush film noir music and snappy 1940s big-band jazz along with David Zippel's cynical and tart lyrics.  Blakemore's marvelously detailed production deftly handled the intricacies of Larry Gelbart's book, seamlessly moving from the black and white fictional world of private detective Stone who is hired by the glamorous Mrs Kingsley to find her wayward step-daughter, and the Technicolor world of 1940s Hollywood where we see the film script being written by the increasingly disenchanted screenwriter Stine.  A wonderful cast was headed by Roger Allam and the late Martin Smith as Stone and Stine, Henry Goodman stealing scenes as the egotistical producer Buddy Fiddler, and an array of fine West End actresses playing double roles : delicious Susannah Fellows as the seductive Alaura Kingsley and as Fiddler's actress wife Carla, Fiona Hendley as Stone's long-lost lover Bobbi and Stone's estranged wife Gabby, Haydn Gwynne as Stone's trusty secretary Oolie as well as Fiddler's secretary Donna, and Sarah Jane Hassell as the very-much alive missing step-daughter Mallory and the starlet Avril.  CITY OF ANGELS was seen as going toe-to-toe with Lloyd Webber's SUNSET BOULEVARD which opened a few months afterward which was, of course, also a film noir tale of the Los Angeles film world.  Sadly, despite it being a better show with better reviews, CITY OF ANGELS closed after eight months - it's closure started again the eternal debate about how do you get audiences in to a totally new show which requires a little work from them intellectually, opposed to a show that they know from a previous film.  There was some sort of revenge however when CITY OF ANGELS won the Olivier Award for Best Musical over SUNSET BOULEVARD.

You cannot keep a good show down though: I saw a Guildhall Drama School production 15 years later and then in 2014, it finally received another West End production at the Donmar in a production which suffered from the underwhelming performances of the three male leads and director Josie Rourke's sometimes sluggish pacing.  The show however was wonderfully designed and lit and starred a fine bunch of broads - Katherine Kelly (Alaura / Carla), Rosalie Craig (Bobbi / Gabby), Samantha Barks (Mallory / Avril) and the wonderful Rebecca Trehearn (Oolie / Donna) who stopped the show with the glorious "You Can Always Count On Me".   The show can be accused of having characters that are hard to like and it can be said that Gelbart's second act gets bogged down in the collision of plot lines (both onscreen and off) but owing to Coleman and Zippel's wonderful score it's a show I would love to see again.  And again.

I have chosen the following press-reel video for the original Broadway production of CITY OF ANGELS as it features two favourite songs, powerfully performed, "Lost And Found" and "You Can Always Count On Me" but it also serves to give you a flavour of Coleman and Zippel's standout score.

SWEET CHARITY at the Donmar - The Thin and Thick Of It...

They say you should never judge a book by it's cover - but sometimes it saves an awful lot of time.  My issues with Josie Rourke's production of SWEET CHARITY began right at the top of the show and fluctuated throughout the evening.  I suppose any show is open to be re-imagined but when the production constantly gets in the way of the material then you know the director probably has no understanding of the original's worth.

Musicals don't have a continuous life for over 50 years because of the concepts visited on it, and while I am sure SWEET CHARITY will survive Rourke's attempts to make it 'relevant', she might walk with a limp for a while.

As I said the sinking feeling started before a note was sung.  For some reason Rourke and designer Robert Jones have decided that the defining stage image for their SWEET CHARITY is the silver and metallic world of Andy Warhol's Factory.  Showing crashing obviousness they must have surmised that as SWEET CHARITY premiered in 1966 they should look for images of New York in the mid-1960s and the first thing they found was The Factory.

The production starts with the cast all in black on black outfits, sitting around in icy hauteur while a film of the Empire State Building is projected on the back wall and The Velvet Underground's whacked-out VENUS IN FURS blares out.  I would dearly love to know what this has to do with SWEET CHARITY and it's sleazy world of neon-lit dance halls, blaring car horns along 42nd Street, and shadowy men smelling of cheap after-shave?  This world is wonderfully conjured up in Cy Coleman's exciting Overture - which, of course, Rourke dropped.

As I said any production where the Concept takes precedence over the material's internal logic is bound to fail - with Rourke it reaches the height of stupidity when Helene and Nicky, Charity's fellow-dancehall hostesses, sing BABY DREAM YOUR DREAM after Charity quits the business to seek happiness with boyfriend Oscar.  They sing cynically about Charity's future, but ultimately it dawns on them that her hopes will probably never happen to them and the song ends on a sad, wistful note.  So what does Rourke have them doing while they sing it?  Walk on with large Brillo boxes - a la Warhol - and unpack smaller Brillo boxes from inside, Russian doll style... which end up all over the stage... and which are swept away in the scene change.  So a nothing idea meaning nothing which results in... nothing.

The always wobbly end to the show again plays right into Rourke's cack-handed Concept. The original production has Charity alone again, her happy dreams collapsed, but she admits that at least he didn't steal her purse like the guy before did so picks herself up and heads off as titles appear saying "And she lived - hopefully - ever after".  Bob Fosse shot two endings to the film version - one truthful, one happy - but went with the truthful version.  But Rourke isn't dealing with characters, she is dealing in Concepts and worse, an Agenda.  So she ends with Charity and the Fandango Dance-Hall girls lined up reprising THERE'S GOTTA BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN THIS like so many Times Square Miserables.  Needless to say, Rourke's attempt to claim Charity for the #MeToo movement just comes across as crashingly Obvious.  Hamlet famously says "The play's the thing.." but sadly thanks to the oppressive Director Theatre climate of today, the Agenda's the thing.. no matter whether it serves the material.

One of the disappointments of the show was Wayne McGregor's choreography.  In a show so famous for it's dance numbers - especially Fosse's moves - McGregor's choreography is either remarkably basic or remarkably absurd: HEY BIG SPENDER is choreographed with about six step-ladders for the Dance-Hall divas to clamber up or lounge on then descend to move somewhere else on a revolve.  Because they are not busy enough singing one of the show's great standards.  The RICH MAN'S FRUG number was more successful with a stage full of quaking Andy Warhols look-a-likes.

So where do we find the positives?  Anne-Marie Duff can certainly act the role - and her honeyed rasp of a voice did finally grow on me - but something seemed off about the performance, as if she didn't really commit to the wide-eyed optimism of Charity.  Whether the fact that she is the oldest actress to play Charity in London or New York has anything to do with that is open to conjecture.  She is always likeable however.

It's an odd CHARITY where the most memorable performance is from the actor playing Oscar but Arthur Darvill was excellent in the role.  He gave us a totally believable character who was ready to commit to Charity but ultimately unable to leave her past behind.  The Donmar has hit on the odd idea of having a regular guest performer play Daddy Brubeck for short periods - we got Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, fresh from his Olivier Award-winning Ike Turner in TINA.  His sparkly silver shirt made the biggest impression sadly.

Lizzy Connolly and Debbie Kurup were ok as Nickie and Helene but - along with Martin Marquez as Italian matinee idol Vittorio Vidal and Stephen Kennedy as Herman the grouchy manager of the Fandango club - everyone seemed to be acting on a fairly low-light.  It's almost like they are all using 40w bulbs instead of iridescent neon.

SWEET CHARITY currently sits on my list of favourite musicals and there was still enjoyment to be had thanks to the combined excellence of Cy Coleman's music, Neil Simon's book and Dorothy Fields' lyrics but they had to fight hard to get through the vacuous trappings of Josie Rourke's Concept.  Oh I didn't mention the lifesize plastic-ball pit that doubles as Central Park lake...

Never mind Charity, you will survive till the next time we meet...

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.

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.

THE LIFE at Southwark Playhouse: Livin' The Life In Southwark...

While walking around the long-gone Tower Records in 1998 I picked up a cast recording for THE LIFE, a new Broadway score written by musicals veteran Cy Coleman.  The only cast member I had heard of was Sam Harris, a big-voice belter who had appeared in a few one-off benefits in London - ah for the days of the Sunday evening benefit events... they appear to have gone the way of Tower Records too.

What made me buy it was Coleman's previous show was CITY OF ANGELS which had been a big favourite of mine.  The score presented an intriguing dichotomy as although the show was sent in the sleazy world of 1980s Times Square, Coleman's score sounded from an earlier era - more late 1950s/1960s showbiz with big ballads which would not have been out of place on a Streisand album.  So I sat and listened and waited for a London production.  And waited... and waited... and waited...  for 20 years!

THE LIFE certainly fits the recent niche that Southwark Playhouse has discovered and does so well - the risky musical or revival that might scare off West End producers: TITANIC, GRAND HOTEL, THE TOXIC AVENGER, XANADU, GREY GARDENS, SIDESHOW etc.  What is remarkable is that Michael Blakemore, the show's original director, has directed this version too - not bad for an 88 year-old!  His love of the material is obvious as it is directed with a sure hand, it's pace moving like a NY hooker trying to escape arrest!

Blakemore has also revised the book - originally by Ira Gasman, Coleman and David Newman - but there is still a disconnect between Cy Coleman's "Musical Theatre" score and the story that it is illuminating - the dangerous life of those in the sex trade around Times Square in the early 1980s.  There is the occasional nod to the the post-disco sound which would have been the show's characters 'obvious' music of choice but Coleman's 1950s/1960s score still surprises with cheeky, bouncy songs such as the opening number of "Use What You Got"; it's jazz-hands rhythm suggesting a Sammy Davis Jnr number rather than the credo of a two-faced hustler who will sell anyone down the river.  Ira Gasman's lyrics also are not quite a match for Coleman's music in the ballads where cliché always wins in the end...

1980s 42nd Street (before the tsunami of AIDS hit): Queen is released from jail after being arrested for soliciting which she does to make enough to get her and her Vietnam veteran lover Fleetwood away from New York forever.  However Fleetwood has a cocaine habit and she finds he has spent half their savings on it while she was inside.  She meets up again with her friend Sonja, an older streetwalker who is finding it harder to get through a night on the game.  Sonja is kept turning tricks by her powerful pimp Memphis who views Queen as a worthy addition to his girls.

Double-dealing Jojo tells Fleetwood he needs to have a fresher face working for him and they single out Mary, a young girl just arriving in NY from Minnesota.  Jojo finds her a job as a go-go bar waitress which she soon turns into being a dancer.  Mary proves to be a natural at parting men from their money and Fleetwood moves her into the apartment much to Queen's anger.   She and Sonja get arrested again and on her release Queen discovers that Fleetwood had sex with Mary; Memphis is standing by with a kindly word and at the annual Hooker's Ball, she snubs Fleetwood for the triumphant Memphis. But Queen soon discovers that Memphis' protection means her hitting the streets for him and it is left to the watchful and resourceful Sonja to help Queen in her dreams of escape...

The hidden band made their presence more than felt by BLARING the score out to the detriment of the lyrics being heard when the cast with weaker voices were singing - luckily there were some seriously good singers in the cast. 

Cornell S. John was very good as Memphis, his rich deep voice establishing his authority for all to feel and I also liked Joanna Woodward as Mary, the new girl in town who is not as dumb as she looks.  She certainly outshone David Albury who played Fleetwood with all the conviction of an X-Factor contestant and John Addison's Jojo suggested Trafalgar Square more than Times Square.

THE LIFE is blessed however with two stand-out performances: newcomer T'Shan Williams as the elegant Queen and the spectacular Sharon D. Clarke as the man-weary Sonja.  T'Shan Williams sang Queen's big ballads "He's No Good" and "I'm Leaving You" with such style and power that it is hard to believe she only left drama school in 2015 - she would make an excellent Deena Jones if and when DREAMGIRLS re-cast at the Savoy.

It is always a pleasure to see Sharon D. Clarke - even more so when it's in an intimate space like the Southwark Playhouse - and she was a fabulous Sonja, yes the concept of a tart with a heart of gold has been done to death but Clarke filled her character with such raging life that all critical bets were off.  Her big number "The Oldest Profession" is placed quite early on in the show but our Sharon don't care where she stops the show honey!  She whacked that song out of the Playhouse and got a huge round for it and deservedly so.  Queen is too busy being virtuous to truly win the audience's affections but Sonja is on hand to keep you engaged in the show - as well as having the best frock at the Hooker's Ball, a blue-sequined caftan that Gloria Gaynor would give her eye-teeth for.

Their voices also melded very well in the duets "You Can't Get To Heaven" and the climactic "My Friend" and it was great to see them take their bow together and, as Owen said after, T'Shan couldn't have a better co-star than Sharon.

Despite all the niggles I have about the show, I would recommend a walk on the wild side down to Southwark Playhouse as it is still a great tribute to Cy Coleman's talent in writing a show-tune and in Williams, Clarke and John it has three performances to savour - but hurry, it's only on until April 29th.

The 7 Shows of Xmas 5: CITY OF ANGELS

Finally, here it was... the one I had most been looking forward to seeing this Christmas. One of my all-time favourite shows, CITY OF ANGELS at the Donmar was bound to fall short of my high expectations - but by how much, Constant Reader?

CITY OF ANGELS, directed by Michael Blakemore, opened on Broadway in 1989 where it ran for over two years, in the process winning the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical, Best Book for Larry Gelbart and Best Score for Cy Coleman & David Zippel.

It appeared in London in 1993 but, despite Blakemore again directing and with the great cast of the late Martin Smith, Roger Allam (perfect as the private eye Stone), Henry Goldman (also perfect as the manipulative film producer/director Buddy Fiddler) and the dazzling Film Noir siren quartet of Susannah Fellows, Haydn Gwynne, Sarah Jane Hassell and Fiona Hendley, the show managed only 8 months at the Prince of Wales.  However it still won the Olivier Award that year for Best Musical.

A loving celebration of Film Noir thrillers, Gelbart's wonderfully witty book tells of Stine, a NY crime writer who is lured to Hollywood - against his editor wife's wishes - to write the script for a film adaptation of City of Angels, the latest novel to feature his private eye hero Stone.  However once there, he finds it difficult to remain faithful to his creation with the constant meddling of his tyrannical producer/director Buddy Fiddler - to say nothing of remaining faithful to his wife.  Eventually even his hero has to make his feelings known...

Even without Coleman & Zippel's delicious score, Gelbart's book would be a joy as he switches the action constantly between Stine writing the script and the fictional world he is creating for his hard-bitten private eye alter-ego Stone amid an array of Film Noir characters: the mysterious wife of the decrepit wealthy man, the night-club singer that broke Stone's heart, the lovelorn Girl Friday, the nymphet jailbait daughter, the mysterious quack doctor etc etc.  The actors playing the film characters also double up as the actors and crew of the film Stine is working on and the fun is seeing how life imitates art and vice-versa.

I had a chance to see the show again in 2008 at the Guildhall Drama School where it was proven that you really do need actors who can sing to make the show a success.  So the news that Donmar Artistic Director Josie Rourke had chosen the show to be the first musical she would direct had me cock-a-hoop: who would be cast and how on earth could they stage this complicated show on such an intimate stage?

The answer was: quite easily actually!  Against a towering backdrop of piled up manuscripts, Robert Jones has designed a show that uses minimal set dressing to conjure the mood required and it is aided immeasurably by Howard Harrison's Noiresque lighting and the witty use of Duncan McLean's video projections.  It was a pleasure to see the show coming to life on that small stage.

The casting I have a bit more trouble with.  Countless plays of the original Broadway cast recording have spoiled me as the double act of Gregg Edelman and James Naughton (who won the Tony Award) as Stine and Stone are matchless, closely followed by the London pairing of Smith and Allam.

I am not sure whether it is symptomatic of the calibre of West End leading men at present but although Hadley Fraser could certainly belt out the last notes of DOUBLE TALK and FUNNY - and clamber like a mountain goat over the vertiginous backdrop - I felt he was too lightweight as Stine and Tam Mutu also seemed to lack the real grit needed for Stone, the tough dick hiding a bruised heart.  I was hoping for Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon" and got George Segal in "The Black Bird". 

I hasten to add that the two theatre groupies who were sitting next to me more than made up for my muted applause for Fraser as they couldn't keep still when he was on stage.  Bless.

Also disappointing was Peter Polycarpou's Buddy Fiddler.  The perfect scene-stealing role, this Fiddler growled rather than roared.  I don't know whether he was playing down to match the size of the stage but this tyrant of the sound stage came across as some guy from the front office.  Where the production did score big however was with the female cast.

Larry Gelbart wrote four excellent roles which give the actresses playing them a real opportunity to show their versatility.  There is Donna, Fiddler's secretary who helps Stine rewrite his script while seducing him over the typewriter, who also doubles as Oolie, Stone's dependable but lovelorn secretary; there is Gabby, Stine's practical editor wife, who doubles as Bobbi, a cabaret torch singer who Stone loved when he was a cop and who vanished after he took the rap for her shooting a man.  

There is Avril Raines, the dumb blonde 'protegée' starlet of Fiddler who knows plenty when it comes to advancing her career who doubles as Mallory Kingsley, a teenage heiress whose unexplained disappearance is solved when she turns up very much alive in Stone's bed; and there is Carla Haywood, Fiddler's none-too-faithful but no-nonsense actress wife who also doubles as the seductively mysterious Alaura Kingsley, wife of a sickly industrialist who might or might not know more than she lets on.

Josie Rourke has the good fortune to be blessed with Rebecca Trehearn as Donna/Oolie, Rosalie Craig as Gabby/Bobbi, Samantha Barks as Avril/Mallory and Katherine Kelly as Carla/Alaura.  Luckily my two favourite songs in the show were wonderfully performed: Samantha Barks turned up the heat as the seductive Mallory without losing Zippel's delicious lyrical double-play in "Lost and Found" and Rebecca Trehearn stopped the show with Oolie/Donna's "You Can Always Count On Me" - her good-natured but worldly-wise performance suggesting Jane Russell at her brunette best.

Cy Coleman and David Zippel's 40s jazz-style score contains so many great songs that should either bounce off the stage like bullets from a .44 or wrap around you like the smoke from a Femme Fatale's cigarette that at times it was frustrating that they were sometimes too plodding in their arrangements.  The innuendo-drenched "Tennis Song" between Stone and Alaura should feel like a bracing rally but here felt like a full 5-set match (with rain delays).

So... there you have it.  Yes there were things I was disappointed with but would I see it again?  In a hot minute.  All they have to do is whistle...

...you know how to whistle don't you Donmar?  You just put your lips together and... blow.

MUSICALS - from stage to screen and back again...  A trip to the theatre & cinema and a viewing of a dvd have made me brew on the subject of the musical.

On Friday Owen, Angela & I went to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama to see the final year students in a production of the great musical CITY OF ANGELS. Not seen in London for 15 years, this hugely enjoyable show won Tony Awards for Best Musical and also for the three writers: composer Cy Coleman, who wrote among others SWEET CHARITY, lyricist David Zippel who went on to Disney's HERCULES and MULAN and for the book by Larry Gelbart, the writer of A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM and TOOTSIE. It was a good opportunity to see the show again and do a bit of future star-spotting.

The show is a challenge to any production team as it tells two stories consecutively with the same actors doubling up across them. Set in 1940s Hollywood, in one story we follow Stine, a New York writer, adapting his gritty crime novel CITY OF ANGELS into a script for an interfering and tyrannical producer/director while at the same time we see the story taking shape with private eye Stone hired by the glamorous Mrs. Kingsley, wife of a rich and infirm man, to find her missing step-daughter.

 The production needs to find a way of clearly defining the two stories so they can co-exist side by side and occasionally bump into each other at crisis moments in Stine's mind. The Guildhall team managed this ok with the sliding 'train carriage' set behind a film screen that raised for the 'film noir' story with the 'real-life' scenes played on either side of it. There were occasional longueurs during the scene changes which broke the rhythm but apart from that it was ok.


The actors certainly put their all into it although some were noticeably vocally strained by the Coleman's jazz-influenced score. Sadly the most vocally unsure was Rhys Rusbatch as Stone. Although fine playing the hard-talking, broken-hearted gumshoe he just got through most of his numbers but his climactic duet with his long-lost love was a bit all over the place, a shame as this scene is particularly affecting with Gelbart dropping the gags and writing with a bruised sadness worthy of Chandler. Leila Farzad as the fatale femme Alauara Kingsley was also a bit wobbly when singing in her upper register however she was very impressive as the wordly-wise actress wife of the producer/director in the 'real life' scenes.

The inherent problem with this productions is that every one is the same age so when a role calls for an older actor a lot has to be taken on trust. This was the case with Peter McGovern as Buddy Fidler the cut-throat producer/director who always has his eye on the Oscar. McGovern was out of his depth and although there were young executives aka Irving Thalberg, you can't help feeling that it was the one role that needed experience to get the jokes across.

The two stand-out performances were from Robin Steegman and Natalie Irene. Steegman played Oolie the archetypal private eye's secretary with a crush on the boss in the 'film noir' scenes and Donna in the 'real life' scenes, the producer/director's hard-working secretary whose affair with Stine leads to trouble. Irene played Stine's editor wife Gabby who hates what the west coast is doing to her husband's ideals and Bobbi in the 'film noir' story, Stone's cabaret singer fiancee who vanished out of his life when he took the rap after she shot a film producer. Both had fine voices and put their big solo numbers across with great style - Oolie/Donna's rueful song of the singleton "You Can Always Count On Me" and Bobbi's great torch song "With Every Breath I Take".

Catching the eye also were Daisy Keeping and Gwilym Lee. Keeping played ingenue-on-the-make Avril and 'film noir' jailbait teen Mallory and did a good job with the character's innuendo-laden "Lost & Found" while Lee as Stine's embittered ex-colleague Lt. Munoz also made the most of his big number "All You Have To Do Is Wait" with Seamus Maynard, Daniel Rose & Julian Pinder. The students in the pit band were also great.


The next night Owen and I went to see the film version of MAMMA MIA! Now a brief personal history. Yes I did used to be an ABBA fan back in the day - before you ask I was a Frida person - but then I worked with Ann for 5 years at her actor's agency where ABBA was played 24/7. I grew SO familiar with every single note of their product that it means ABBAsolutely nothing to me anymore. Sadly this realisation happened just as they started getting reassessed, their naff image seemingly banished for ever and the impossibility of escaping the music anywhere.

So how come I have seen MAMMA MIA! three times on stage? Well the first time was accompanying my Ma on free tickets, the next time was again free at a dress rehearsal when Susannah Fellows took over as Tanya and finally was in Toronto as a birthday present for Owen who hadn't seen it. So I feel I am in a good position to review it.

Let's say that it won me over in the 'second act'. For most of the time though I was totally gobsmacked at how bad it looked. In a rare occurrence the film is produced, directed and written by the same three women behind the stage show, Judy Craymer, Phyllida Lloyd & Catherine Johnson, none of them with any previous big screen knowledge. And that is where the danger lies.

The film's opening has Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) setting up the plot by telling two friends that she has invited three of her mother's ex-lovers to her own wedding to find out which of them is her unknown father. She found their names from her mother's diary and she reads them entries from the diary: cue song: "Honey Honey".

All the film's problems can be found in this brief segment. The cinematography is appalling, at one point Sophie stands in front of a sunlit blue sea which glares so badly you cannot focus on her. I have no idea if this is the fault of the cinematographer or director Lloyd just having no idea where to put the subjective eye of the camera on the three chattering, mugging, jumping-up-and-down actresses so she relies on the editing of Lesley Walker to cut it in such a way to give it a sense of urgency. All it does is throw so many bad angles and bad shots at you that the mind reels. This opening works ok in the theatre where you are focused on the stage and ready to take in the set-up while looking at three actresses within a well-lit stage set but on a massive screen it just clicks straight into over-edited overkill.

The same misjudged tone bedevils the first section of the film with the musical numbers over-edited to within an inch of their lives, the actors registering emotions as if the camera was at the back of the balcony and always, that awful camera work. For some unknown reason during the first scene where Meryl Streep confronts her ex-s Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellen Skarsgaard, it is filmed in a shaky point-of-view shot of the three men explaining their motives for being there - it's just all so wrong!

Another thing that struck me as odd is how a major balls-up in the script is made worse on screen. Sophie quizzes the three men about the summer 21 years before when they met her mother and Harry (Firth) says he met her during the punk days referencing his Johnny Rotten t-shirt while Bill (Skarsgaard) says it was the summer of hippy love! Now on stage this wonky timeline barely registers - it's spoken it's gone - but here the camera lingers on snapshots of them in appropriate punk and hippy outfits. Now there has already been play on the fact that Donna (Streep) wants her Greek hotel to be online so being generous and dating the film from 1999 when the show opened in London, that would make it 1978 which could *just* accommodate a punk reference - but the summer of love?? It's just so lazy.


Despite the clueless cinematography and unsure tone remarkably the film calms down in the second half largely in part to the actors who all appear to be having the time of their lives. The men, having the most under-written roles, hit their marks and do little to rock the boat - I must say of the three I liked Colin Firth the most, not a phrase I am given to saying a lot.

I was a bit worried that Julie Walters would use the film as a mug-fest but she was quite restrained for her and Christine Baranski was a real hit as too-rich and too-married Tanya. The good thing about the plot of MAMMA MIA! is that it identifies that the most interesting relationship is between Donna & Sophie, the free-spirited mother and the daughter who wants marriage - and a father figure.

Despite being a bit annoying at the start with her over-reactions, Meryl Streep gave a fine performance as Donna and was in good voice for her two big moments in the second act: the little-known song "Slipping Through My Fingers" is used perfectly in the scene where Donna helps Sophie dress for her wedding day and then turns on the emotion for "The Winner Takes It All" confronting Brosnan as the actual father.

But again this scene triggered something in my mind that it never has in the theatre. As an 11 O'Clock Number it works fine - the opening line of "I don't wanna talk..." being a great lead-in for any song - but what exactly do the lyrics have to do with the actual character singing them? It's more likely that it's a big weepie ballad that fits where a big weepie ballad is needed, the characters certainly haven't had enough scenes together to warrant it. This probably troubled me having seen CITY OF ANGELS the night before where the lyrics *have* been written specifically for the situation and the character and where Stine's lacerating climactic number "Funny" fits perfectly.

Later on we watched Owen's dvd of XANADU which he bought after we saw the stage version earlier this year in New York. Now it's been years since I have seen it but I had forgotten how grindingly naff it was. It's so vapid it practically vanishes while you are watching it just like Kira the muse from Zeus played by Olivia Newton-John has a habit of doing.

Of course what it does have is a couple of great songs by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar but after refreshing my memory of the film I can now fully understand the jaw-to-the-floor amazement when it was announced that a stage version was going to skating into the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway. But luckily the script was entrusted to gay writer Douglas Carter Beene who went to town taking the piss out of the original plot and the whole premise, leading to a stage musical that was hugely entertaining.

Which brings me back to where I came in!