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...

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at St. James Theatre

It's not often you see (or hear) a song cycle these days so lucky for all of us there is a new production of SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD by Jason Robert Brown which is currently playing at the St. James Theatre, one of the most uncomfortable theatres in the West End.

I must put my hand up right from the get-go and say that Jason Robert Brown's music leaves me rather cold, it strikes me as neither fish, nor fowl nor good red herring.  They aspire to profundity but the blandness of the cabaret-style lyrics offer no real 'moments of being'.  The tumbling words suggest Sondheim but with none of the audaciousness, or genius.  To paraphrase Virginia Woolf (again) 'he aims to soar but agrees to perch'.

What has stayed in my mind are the show's two female performances.  The male performers are Dean John-Wilson (last seen as Ninoy Aquino in HERE LIES LOVE) and Damian Humbley but they both seemed to be lacking heft in their performances.  They really should have given Humbley more to do than sit around looking depressed and rumpled in his suit.

Jenna Russell makes an impression with her solos as the sadder-but-wiser woman, although the lengthy, unfunny one she sings standing on a window ledge had me wishing she would jump.

However they were all outshone by Cynthia Erivo who lit up the stage with pure star wattage.  It is two years since we first saw her starring in the Menier's acclaimed production of THE COLOR PURPLE.  In my blog I said the production cried out for a transfer - well, it never made it to the West End but it is opening on Broadway later this year as Erivo is recreating her role of Celie opposite Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson.

That's a remarkable achievement for a performer who is not that well known outside of theatre circles but Cynthia Erivo is a remarkable talent.  I was delighted to hear that she had won the third prize in last year's Ian Charleson Awards for her performance in the Donmar's HENRY IV.

In SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, Cynthia simply stood and sang, her gloriously warm, honey-like voice filling the room along with her effortless charisma.  Winning and sympathetic, Cynthia Erivo gave this rather attenuated show a real heart and soul.

On Revival Day...

Once again I find myself in a Revival week... two shows I have seen before, but which did I enjoy more this time out?

 

The Menier Chocolate Factory has revived FORBIDDEN BROADWAY again, the theatre where it was last revived in 2009.  I missed that but made sure I saw this one as the intimacy of the Menier would suit this show well and it did, suggesting the cabaret atmosphere that was the original birthplace of the satirical show 32 years ago.

The brainchild of Gerard Alessandrini, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY takes a not too-savage swipe at current theatre shows as well as personalities past and present.  I have seen the show a few times before: in New York in the late 1980s, at it's first London incarnation in 1989 when it flopped at the Fortune and a later 1999 revival at the Jermyn Street Theatre which featured the great Christine Pedi from the NY version who as Liza Minnelli picked on me!  That's what you get for sitting in the front row.

The current show was enjoyable but at the end I was left oddly unsatisfied.  It might have been because I am over-familiar with a good portion of the material thanks to past visits or listening to the off-Broadway cast recordings.  The MISS SAIGON number is twenty years old while the afore-mentioned Liza number, Chita Rivera-Rita Moreno spat duet, the Sondheim "Into The Woods" song, the main section of LES MISERABLES and "Fugue For Scalpers" are all aged 23!  Yes, to newcomers, these will be new but by the look of most of the audience I suspect most ot them knew the songs.

Also - and not for the first time - some of the audience were *profoundly* irritating as they BELLOWED with laughter at the smallest, weakest pun as if to say "I GET this joke, you don't but I do because I know what they are referring to."  God save me from show-queens.  For the show to actually have a bit of real bite it would be nice if Alessandrini wrote a song about his audience.

When you have been writing parodies for 32 years you can pull readymade numbers out of the trunk to cover any revival that might be playing so a recent PAJAMA GAME Broadway production can be dusted down for our current one.  Is that another reason that I was less excited?  That there is obviously so little difference between London and Broadway?  Surely there should have been a number ripping up STEPHEN WARD to say nothing of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.

As with any revue, you can comfort yourself that if you are landed with a duff number then there will be another along in a minute, but some definitely outstayed their welcome - a LuPone/Patinkin number seemed to last forever, a MAMMA MIA skit was negligible, an Angela Lansbury number seemed rather lame, the ONCE pisstake outstayed it's welcome - and is it really necessary to have two Idina Menzel numbers?

What I DID enjoy however were the whirlwind performances of the four cast members: Anna-Jane Casey - who I saw at my first-ever Menier visit (nine years ago!) in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE - was great fun as the shrieking Menzel "defying subtlety" as well as a bored Éponine in LES MIS and even as Frankie Valli putting the boot into JERSEY BOYS; Sophie-Louise Dann gave me the biggest laugh of the night with an on-the-money Elaine Paige as well as a gurning Mme Thénardier in LES MIS - well aware that the role isn't funny while playing to half-empty houses.

Damian Humbley was huge fun as LES MIS' long-suffering Jean Valjean bemoaning "It's Too High", a demonic Miss Trunchbull and as a swift-tongued Rafiki in THE LION KING while Ben Lewis scored as Willy Wonka welcoming us to CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY's "Show Of No Imagination" and as the perpetually bored Guy in ONCE.  They also worked well together as MISS SAIGON's over-amplified soldiers and as the stars of THE BOOK OF MORON.

The last number raised an interesting conundrum - how do you satirise what in itself is a satire on the Broadway musical?  The show also addressed this in a SPAMALOT skit where they said that show had stolen from them.  Where does a satirical show go when the shows themselves are becoming self-reverential?  A special mention must go to the inexhaustible Joel Fram on piano.

Onto the Guildhall School of Drama and Music where the final year students have been appearing in a production of the sadly little-seen musical GRAND HOTEL.

It's been 6 years since I last saw a Guildhall production which is a shame as it's always interesting to see if you can spot which student may go on to success.  The last production I saw was CITY OF ANGELS and, of the four that I picked out, only Gwilym Lee appears to have gone on to major success, winning the Ian Charleston award for his performance as Edgar in KING LEAR at the Donmar as well as appearing as a regular in MIDSUMMER MURDERS.  Oddly enough CITY OF ANGELS beat GRAND HOTEL to the 1990 Tony Award to Best Musical!

GRAND HOTEL had a very stuttering genesis.  Vicki Baum wrote her original novel in 1928 then adapted it into a play in 1930 which, in translation, played on Broadway until 1931.  The year after saw the release of the classic MGM film which won the Best Film Academy Award that year.

Amazingly that was it's only nomination, it's stellar cast were all overlooked: Greta Garbo as Grushinskaya the fading ballerina, John Barrymore as the down-on-his-luck Baron, Lionel Barrymore as Kringelein the dying bookkeeper, Wallace Beery as Kringelein's former employer Preysing and Joan Crawford as Flaemmchen the ambitious typist.

In 1958, writer Luther Wright and song-writing team George Forrest & Robert Wright followed up their KISMET hit by choosing to musicalize GRAND MUSICAL, retitled AT THE GRAND. Berlin 1928 became present-day Rome, the ballerina became an opera singer (so KISMET star Joan Deiner could be cast) and Paul Muni was cast as Kringelein.  Characters were ditched so Muni's role could be expanded and it opened in 1958 on the West Coast. Muni however felt that the director Albert Marre (who was also Deiner's husband) was favouring her over him and refused to re-sign for Broadway and the show closed.

30 years later, the original writers tried again by offering it to the successful director/choreographer of NINE and MY ONE AND ONLY Tommy Tune.  His concept was to make the show more streamlined, more thematic and to play without an interval. The original team refused to accept his changes so Tune fired them and brought in NINE composer Maury Yeston to rewrite their songs and add several of his own.  The book was rewritten by Peter Stone who refused to take a writing credit.

Tune's sleek production ran on Broadway for nearly 2 1/2 years and won Tony Awards for Tune's direction & choreography, the set & costume design and Michael Jeter's scene-stealing Kringelein.  Still smarting from Tune sacking them, Forrest & Wright blocked the cast album for over two years but this ended in tragedy when David Carroll, who had originated the role of the Baron, died from a pulmonary embolism in the recording studio.  His replacement Brent Barrett sang on the album instead but Carroll was represented by a live track from his cabaret show.

Barrett played the Baron when I saw it in 1992 at the Dominion Theatre when Tune's production opened with Lilianne Montevecchi reprising her role as Grushinskaya, Lynette Perry was Flaemmchen and Barry James played Kringelein but the show closed ignominiously after only four months!  The show was not produced again professionally in London until 2004 when Michael Grandage directed a thrillingly memorable production with Julien Ovenden as the Baron, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Grushinskaya, Helen Baker as Flaemmchen and Daniel Evans as Kringelein.  Grandage's production won the Olivier Award that year for Best Musical Revival.

In the interim however I had seen the show again in 2000 when the Guildhall School of Music and Drama had staged a production for it's last year students' Summer show.  From what I can recall I enjoyed being reacquainted with the show but none of the performances stay in the mind.  That production was directed by Martin Connor - mainstay of the Guildhall productions - and he again directs this current version.

 

I thought this was an excellent production, adhering to Tune's tight, spare concept and thought, by and large, that the students excelled in delineating their individual roles well.  Sadly Simon Haines as the cynical semi-narrator was as wobbly singing as he was on his injured leg from the War and I was surprised how several of them seemed a bit breathless at the end of their numbers... stamina, darlings, pace yourselves.

Ceri-lyn Cissone was a creditable Grushinskaya suggesting the character's desperation at her fading career well and Jay Saighal, although a trifle shaky, partnered her well as the Baron, doomed by his inate decency.  Ben Hall was an agreeably sinister Preysing, he actually suggested that - similar to other characters in the piece - he is driven to extreme lengths just to survive.  Rebecca Collingwood was a delightful Flaemmchen, really socking over her big solo "I Want To Go To Hollywood".  As you have seen above, the role of Kringelein is the one that usually draws the most praise and Joey Phillips played him as a giddy, hypersensitive soul, maybe lacking depth of feeling but certainly playing up the pathos.

A special mention too for Emily Laing's vocally strong Raffaela, Grushinskaya's quietly devoted companion and Jordan Renzo handled Eric, the put-upon concierge's big moment at the finale with a quiet authority.

Bill Deamer has choreographed the numbers with great panache and invention, I particularly liked the ominous silent Charleston the chorus did when Flaemmchen was trapped by the lustful Preysing as well as a terrifically dramatic Bolero for the two featured dancers Leah Rolfe and Adelmo Mandia.  Indeed the whole company were excellent not only in the dance numbers but also in the stylised movement throughout.  Morgan Large's set and costume design also contributed to the show's success as did Richard Howell's lighting design.  It's just a shame the spot operators always seemed a few beats behind.

The production kept up the sense of creeping menace that is always reminding you that the comings and goings of the rich hotel guests is happening against a growing discontented proletariat that in a few years time will catapult Germany into Hitler's waiting hands.

The evocative score with it's balance of big solo numbers and show-stopping set-pieces is always a pleasure to hear and Steven Edis' excellent musical direction was another reason i enjoyed this revival so much.

From Shakespeare to Sondheim...

...it's not too far.  Not in the West End anyway.

Two productions bracketed last week and their only link was that I enjoyed them both!  Oddly enough it's always harder to praise than to critique but I will give it a go for you Constant Reader.

First off the rank was HENRY V, Michael Grandage's final production in his season at the Noel Coward Theatre (it will always be the Albery to me) which has proved successful by having plenty of lower-price seats allied to the wattage of theatre 'names' starring in the shows.

I was under-impressed by the first production PRIVATES ON PARADE despite Simon Russell Beale's star turn and haven't felt sad to have missed PETER AND ALICE (Ben Wishaw & Judi Dench), THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN (Daniel Radcliffe) or A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Sheridan Smith & David Walliams) but the thought of Jude Law giving us HENRY V proved too tempting.

Although I am not a fan of Law's screen work - he always seems too lightweight for any role - HENRY V marks the fifth time I have seen him onstage and he should be applauded for returning to the stage when he could be making money doing negligible films.  I feel he has got better each time I have seen him, LES PARENTS TERRIBLES (National Theatre), TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (Young Vic), HAMLET (Wyndhams), ANNA CHRISTIE (Donmar) and now HENRY V, but there is still the occasional choice that pulls the focus a bit - a certain way of delivering a speech, the way he stands (he couldn't stop a pig in a passage) and, in some respects, sharing the impression I always had when I saw Kenneth Branagh - good enough, but come back in a few years and he will be better.

 

But despite these moments, I enjoyed his performance very much and he rose to the challenge of Henry's big speeches with ease - the St. Crispin's Day speech was excellent.  Henry is a mercurial character with flashes of anger that show he is no longer the playboy prince that the French think they will be facing on the battlefield and Law encompassed all these moods very well.  The only time it faltered for me was the final wooing scene with Princess Katherine which was played so much for laughs that it broke the through-line of the performance up to that point but I suspect Grandage being at fault there.

 

The production was very Grandage - well-paced, non-flashy, nothing distracting from the text.  They are always slightly under-cast - so no one upstages the lead? - the worst offenders being Ben Lloyd-Hughes' Dauphin who was a bit am-dram and Matt Ryan's Fluellen outstayed his welcome every time he appeared.  Richard Clifford also seemed to let his costume's fluttery sleeves do all his acting for him as the King of France.

 

 

However there was also Grandage stalwart Ron Cook who was a delightful Pistol, conniving and making sure he saved his own skin in battle, and he was expertly partnered in the Eastcheap scene with Noma Dumezweni's Mistress Quickley.  Her richly-voiced description of the death of Falstaff was one of the highlights of the show and her palpable sadness as she watched Pistol and the ragtag army recruits leave for war was beautifully judged.  She also was delightful as Alice, the French princess' knowledgeable maid.    

Another fine performance was given by Ashley Zhanghazha as the Chorus who guides the audience through the plot.  Shakespeare's use of the Chorus to remind the audience they are watching a play on a stage is remarkable - his exhortations to the audience to use their imagination to see castles, the channel, ships, horses is to pinpoint the joy of theatre.  I had also forgot that the Chorus provides a sombre end to the play undercutting the humour of the wooing scene with the fact that Henry was dead within two years and that his son's ineffectual rule led to The War of The Roses - "so many had the managing, that they lost France, and made his England bleed".

 

Christopher Oram's standing set of wooden painted slats was fine but he really needs a new 'look' and Neil Austin's lighting was as evocative as always.

 

Despite all the petty peeves I think this was the best production of HENRY V I have seen.  Click here if you can get to see it before it closes on February 15th.

Then later in the week it was time to finally get to go to the St. James Theatre which opened on the site of the old Westminster Theatre in 2012 - it took a Sondheim show to lure me through the doors!

Let's get the kvetch out of the way - Foster Wilson Architects who designed the theatre should be booted up the arse.  Entering an L-shaped space with a garish marble staircase taking up the axis, attempting to get to the bar is hampered by not only three rows of tables taking up the space but by the waiters squeezing past you with full or empty plates. I wouldn't have minded but said staircase leads up to a restaurant!  They could at least take out one of the rows of tables to give people space to move.  Then you go into a theatre which is too steeply angled to the playing area with minimal leg room - I felt like I was going to be watching an anatomy lecture.

I think I was so thrown by the theatre's ugliness that it took me a while to get into what we had come to see, PUTTING IT TOGETHER a Sondheim revue that was originally conceived in 1992.

In 1992, eighteen years after SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, it was suggested that a sequel was due as in those years he had written SWEENEY TODD, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, INTO THE WOODS and ASSASSINS!  So Sondheim and Julia McKenzie devised PUTTING IT TOGETHER, it's limited engagement premiere cast including Diana Rigg and Clarke Peters.  The next year Julia McKenzie directed the show off-Broadway which marked the return to New York theatre of Julie Andrews.  Five years later the show finally made it to Broadway (briefly) with Carol Burnett, George Hearn, John Barrowman, Ruthie Henshall and Bronson Pinchot.

So 22 years after it's Oxford premiere it finally makes the West End.  The premise suggests a cocktail party given by an older couple for a younger pair with an intermediate servant type floating about.  It vaguely works as a construct but we know and they know that it's a device to have them sing all the different songs at each other, some fitting the concept better than others.

As I said, it took me a while to settle in to the show possibly because I know the songs so well from their original settings but luckily the cast had the charm and the talent to ease me into the show - although at one point the three men were lined up singing and I thought "George Clooney, Daniel Craig and John McEnroe have gone off haven't they"?

Janie Dee was the true star of the show, easy to do when you have the 'bitter woman' songs such as "The Ladies Who Lunch", "Could I Leave You", "Not Getting Married Today"and "Like It Was" but she also had her marvellous comic timing and unalloyed charisma.  Caroline Sheen was o.k. as the ingénue and scored best with Madonna's songs from DICK TRACY "Sooner or Later" and "More".

David Bedella has always had "something of the night" about him so as the lecherous older man came easy to him with songs like "Have I Got A Girl For You" and "Good Thing Going" while Damian Humbley, who I last saw mugging away as Charley in MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, here was much more restrained and therefore more affecting singing "Unworthy of Your Love", "Live Alone and Like It" and "Marry Me A Little".  I haven't seen Daniel Crossley in a lead role before but here he had ample opportunity to shine during "Everybody Ought To Have A Maid" and "Buddy's Blues".

A delightful show with a delightful cast, PUTTING IT TOGETHER is playing at the St. James until 1st February.