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.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD at the Donmar - dwindling into marriage...

The playwright William Congreve devoted only 7 of his 58 years to the theatre but he left us with a handful of plays that stand with the best of the genre of Restoration comedy: THE DOUBLE DEALER, LOVE FOR LOVE and his most famous work THE WAY OF THE WORLD, which gave the canon Millament and Mirabell, one of the most enduring and sparky of couples.

Under Josie Rourke's artistic directorship the Donmar has frankly overdone the gender-blind, non-traditionalist casting as well as modern-settings for classic plays so I was quietly worried what was going to be pulling focus from the text this time, but director James Macdonald puts no such hindrances in the way of Congreve the playwright and the production was a pure delight.

On Anna Fleischle's panelled dark wood set, we follow the twists and turns of Congreve's convoluted tale of love and money: Mirabell wants to marry the captivating Millament but there is a problem: to get her full dowry the match must be agreed by Millament's aunt Lady Wishfort - and she hates Mirabell for his licentious lifestyle (and more importantly, she is still smarting from him telling her that he wasn't in love with her when she believed he was).

It doesn't help that Mirabell was once the lover of Lady Wishfort's daughter who he helped marry off to his dashing if untrusted fellow man-about-town Fainall who, in turn, is currently having an affair with the sly Mrs Marwood.  If Mirabell's life wasn't complicated enough, he has plotted that his servant Waitwell is secretly married to Lady Wishfort's maid Foible and together they will arrange a plot: Waitwell will pretend to be Mirabell's rich uncle Sir Rowland who will then woo Lady Wishfort, marry her and then all Lady Wishfort has to do to stop any public shame in marrying a mere servant is to agree to Mirabell and Millament's marriage!  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Plenty.

Lady Wishfort has arranged for Millament to be married to the country squire Sir Willful Witwoud who arrives at the same time as Waitwell disguised as Sir Rowland but more disastrously, Mrs Marwood overhears Foible and Mrs Fainall discussing Mirabell's plot and she tells her lover Fainall who sees the perfect opportunity to enact revenge on them all and lay claim to the Wishfort fortune and Millament's dowry.

The plot spins so fast that I admit at times I sat back and waited for it to come round like a carousel and so jump on again but the ride made it all worthwhile.  James Macdonald keeps the characters spinning like giddy tops as everyone's plans fly up in the air only to land finally in a pattern that suits everyone; indeed there are so many resolutions to tie up in the final scene that the engine does finally run down as exposition tops exposition... and then a dance... and then another few lines... but coming so soon after his revivals of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, it's nice to see Macdonald turn his laser-like direction on an English classic.

Macdonald's cast has also had to face some twists since rehearsals: Linda Bassett had been cast as Lady Wishfort but dropped out of the cast for personal reasons a month before opening night and then shortly after the play opening, Alex Beckett who had been playing Waitwell died unexpectedly.  That is enough to throw any cast off-kilter but that they have banded together and are giving such a fine ensemble performance is to their credit.  Standouts included the very funny double-act of Fisayo Akanade and Simon Manyonda as the fops Witwoud and Petulant who excel at getting drunk, Sarah Hadland as the mischievous Foible and Robin Pearce who has taken on the role of Waitwell in such unhappy circumstances.

Jenny Jules and Tom Mison gave us a pair of very hissable villains as the icy Mrs Marwood and the conniving Fainall.  However one of the main joys of the evening was Haydn Gwynne as the aristocratic Lady Wishfort.  As I said she was a replacement during the rehearsal period for Linda Bassett - who I always thought an odd choice - but Haydn Gwynne rose to the challenge superbly.

Lady Wishfort could easily be played as a gorgon but Gwynne gave her a human dimension as well as being very funny - she was in her element in the scene where Lady Wishfort runs through her options in seducing Sir Rowland, should she lie seductively on the couch affecting a languid air or wandering around her room lost in her thoughts - all of which are acted out in increasing giddy desperation?

Mirabell and Millament are on a par with Shakespeare's Benedick and Beatrice - a couple you know will end up together but they have to get over the plot's hurdles!  I must admit it took a while for me to warm to Justine Mitchell's performance as Millament as she played it on a seemingly different beat to the rest of the cast; her slightly arch, hesitant delivery gave me the idea that she was commenting on a performance rather than actually giving one.  Her slight Irish lilt was intriguing too.

However she shone in the play's famous 'proviso' scene, Millament then Mirabell lay down conditions which must be agreed to before a marriage is contemplated. Millament will not get up early, not be addressed to as 'dear' or 'darling', not have her liberty curtailed because she is married, to have her own letters, to keep her tea table for herself.... if he grants them, then she may - in the play's most famous line - "by degrees, dwindle into a wife".  Mirabell then counter-offers that he wants a wife who will not keep company with scandalous women or fops, will not use excessive beauty products, won't partake in strong drinks etc.  It is a gloriously written scene - sparkling, teasing, well-argued, and utterly modern.

Luckily the wonderful Geoffrey Streatfeild was playing Mirabell, and he was a delight from start to finish; his Mirabell could play the dandyish man-about-town but he was also the cleverest man in the room, secretly holding all the cards and, although the final scene where all the subplots are resolved, was a bit long-winded, he pulled the surprise resolutions out of his hat with great style.  He is a class act and his dry, witty performance was excellent.

I am glad my first time seeing this Congreve classic was with such a fine production, one that any future versions will have a hard time measuring up to.

The THREEPENNY OPERA at the Olivier, National Theatre: Macheath's Back In Town...

Back in 1982 Richard Eyre's National Theatre company - when not owning the Olivier stage in GUYS AND DOLLS - also appeared in the Cottesloe in John Gay's THE BEGGAR'S OPERA and, again on the Olivier stage, they also appeared in Bertolt Brecht's SCHWEYK IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR.  Now add Bertolt Brecht to John Gay and you get THE THREEPENNY OPERA, now being revived on the Olivier stage - how cyclical is theatre life!

I last saw Brecht and Kurt Weill's savage musical in 1989 on Broadway in a Victorian-themed production directed by John Dexter with a lacklustre Sting as Macheath and it also marked the last time I saw Georgia Brown on stage as she played Mrs Peachum with her usual full-throated singing (Georgia had played Lucy Brown in a 1956 Royal Court production).  However I know the show best through the 1976 New York cast recording with Raul Julia as Macheath, Caroline Kava as Polly Peachum and Ellen Greene as Jenny Diver.

After the disaster that was WONDER.LAND I was worried what director Rufus Norris would do with another musical on the Olivier stage but we are on firmer ground here and I enjoyed his inventive and surprising production very much.  We saw it in preview and certain longueurs will hopefully tighten up.

The big surprise in the casting was that Rory Kinnear is playing Macheath. the murderous anti-hero at loose as London readies itself for a coronation parade.  I knew he would be able to play the part with ease but I was surprised how well he sang it too, although his way of hitting the consonants in the lyrics got a bit wearing.  However he was an excellent Macheath, a darkly evil focus for the show's action.

What Norris' production proved beyond all else is that the best roles go to the women in the cast - the poor men didn't stand a chance.  Like his namesake in THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, Brecht's Macheath may love the women but they constantly betray him or leave him confounded and here Kinnear has his hands full with four full-on performances from Haydn Gwynne as the vengeful Mrs Peachum, Rosalie Craig as her lovelorn but shrewd daughter Polly, Sharon Small as a very Scottish Jenny Diver and Debbie Kurup as Lucy Brown.

I blow hot and cold with Rosalie Craig as a performer - I found her a rather anonymous Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT on the same stage - but here she gave a sparky performance as Macheath's latest conquest Polly Peachum and was also in excellent voice with great renditions of "Pirate Jenny" and "Barbara Song".  She was also nicely bitchy in her "Jealousy Duet" with Debbie Kurup's Lucy Brown, her rival for Macheath.

Sharon Small was also very good as the prostitute Jenny Diver whose lust for Macheath doesn't stop her betraying him to the Peachums and Haydn Gwynne was almost unrecognizable as the tottering, unfaithful wife of the crime boss Peachum who runs all the beggars in London and who reveals that she too has been Macheath's mistress in the past.  Her whole look appears to be based on Otto Dix' famous portrait of the notorious Weimar German cabaret dancer Anita Berber.

Despite these heavy-hitting actresses, there was much to enjoy in Nick Holder's bulky but brutal Peachum - especially when he appears in a Louise Brooks bobbed wig - and there was excellent supporting performances from Matt Cross' wonky policeman Officer Smith and George Ikediashi - better known as the cabaret singer Le Gateau Chocolat - was in resonant voice as The Balladeer who ushers the show in with "The Ballad of Mack The Knife".

Simon Stephen's adaptation promised filthy language along with immoral behaviour but I was very disappointed in the swearing to be honest - I could have done with more!  Shepherd gives a particular gay spin to Macheath's relationship with the police chief Tiger Brown which actually worked within the dynamic of Brecht's original - Macheath will do *anything* to get away with his crimes - but Shepherd also changes the final moments of the play which sits less successfully.

Rufus Norris' production constantly surprised and used the bare Olivier stage well.  Vicki Mortimer's set mainly consisted of wooden frames and sheets of brown paper to be slashed or burst through - Norris said he wanted a set that looked cheap to stage - and the irony is it probably cost a fortune!  Paule Constable's lighting design is also hugely effective.

Kurt Weill's score might have been written in 1928 but it still sounds as cutting-edge as Macheath's machete, and is wonderfully vibrant under the musical direction of David Shrubsole and the seven other onstage musicians.

We are seeing it again in two weeks - what better recommendation can you have than that?  The production is currently booking up until October.

HEY, OLD FRIENDS! Sondheim's 85th Birthday Gala at Drury Lane

Now here is a something you don't see often these days... a Sunday all-star gala charity event.  Last Sunday we went to see HEY, OLD FRIENDS! an 85th birthday gala celebrating the career of Stephen Sondheim at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s it seemed there was one every other weekend, mostly fundraisers for AIDS charities.  The same faces usually were in the cast and one got used to the curate's egg quality of the shows but there were some that live long in the memory: the all-day THING-A-THON, the Ray Cook memorial concert A COOK'S TOUR which ended with Angela Lansbury and Beatrice Arthur singing their "Bosom Buddies" duet from MAME and SUNDAY WITH SONDHEIM, directed by Julia McKenzie at the Shaftesbury.

The good old days of charity events seem to have died out so it was fun to step back in time to see this one.  26 years before I had seen another Sondheim tribute show at the same theatre - and a couple of charity gala stalwarts were also in this one!  Step forward Bonnie Langford, Lorna Dallas and Robert Meadmore.  I am sure Ned Sherrin, Elaine Stritch, Denis Quilley, Martin Smith, Dursley McLindon and Eartha Kitt would like to have appeared again had they been able to.

But back to 2015... the show was well staged by Bill Deamer who also choreographed in his lively if slightly generic style and apart from the longueurs that always happen when Nicholas Parsons appears on stage, the show moved along at a good pace.  Unlike some of the old concerts there didn't appear to be a through-line, songs were dropped in next to others from all across Sondheim's career, only towards the end was there an obvious trio of comedy numbers followed by Julia McKenzie introducing the final selection of 11 o'clock numbers (although the Sondheimite in me noted that FOLLIES' "Broadway Baby" and "I'm Still Here" are more like 8.25 and 9.30 numbers).

Ah, Julia.  The woman who helped to make me a theatre fan thanks to her performance as 'Miss Adelaide' in GUYS AND DOLLS and whose status as one of the great West End leading ladies seems to be diminishing in some people's minds in favour of her television appearances.  She was one of the show's comperes tonight, teamed with her friend and SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM co-star Millicent Martin, and although Millie gamely picked her way through "I Never Do Anything Twice", Julia didn't sing.  I fear those days are gone now which is quite a sad thing to contemplate.  Deamer tweeted this rehearsal picture of him, Julia and Millie side by side, by side.

So... highlights?  Quite a few actually.  There was a rousing version from Joseph Shovelton of "Beautiful Girls" featuring a walk-down of the night's female stars but as we were in the vertiginous balcony seats I couldn't make out who half of them were!  Anita Harris used her tremulous tone to good effect singing the wistful "Take Me To The World" from EVENING PRIMROSE - it made me wonder if any theatre director would ever have the mad / brilliant idea of adapting this Sondheim tv musical to the stage as a one-act musical?  There was a surprising inclusion of INTO THE WOODS' "The Last Midnight" which was belted out to the chandelier by Rosemary Ashe who also had great fun with Laura Pitt-Pulford in the camp duet that is "There's Always A Woman" cut from ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.

There were other good pairings with Daniel Evans, Simon Green and Michael Peavoy singing "Pretty Lady" from PACIFIC OVERTURES and Evans was then joined by Anna Francolini for "Move On" from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE which was topped by them being joined by the Arts Educational students to sing a wonderful choral "Sunday".   I wasn't the only one a-blub as Julia McKenzie sounded very emotional after it too.  Inexplicably this did not end the first act but McKenzie introduced Sally Ann Triplet (who played the younger Julia in the '87 FOLLIES) for a lengthy "Lucy and Jessie" from the same show.  It outstayed it's welcome as did Triplett's slashed gown - I kept being reminded of the Forbidden Broadway lyric: "flashing some guy / with my Stubby Kaye thigh".

The second act highlights included Bonnie Langford - yes Bonnie Langford - dancing up a storm with Anton Du Beke from "Strictly Come Dancing" wherein she did the splits and hung upside down from him. Ms Langford is 51!  Charity gala veteran Lorna Dallas gave us a lovely version of "In Buddy's Eyes", she had been introduced by Anita Dobson who said Dallas had been off the scene for a while with personal issues, illness maybe?  She seemed genuinely touched by her ovation.

As I said earlier Millicent Martin sparkled in her solo number "I Never Do Anything Twice" which she first sang nearly 40 years ago in SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM and she radiated pure star quality.  Her number was only topped by Julia McKenzie watching her exit into the wings before saying "And she can still walk unaided" which brought the house down!  After that it was time for the afore-mentioned 11 O'Clock Number section - Tracie Bennett and Charlotte Page oversung "Broadway Baby" and "Losing My Mind" to an alarming degree but luckily Haydn Gwynne (supported by Daniel Evans) sang a lovely, rueful "Send In The Clowns" while Kim Criswell socked over "I'm Still Here".  Finally it was left to the marvellous Michael Xavier to give us an impassioned "Being Alive", all the better for being sung as in COMPANY with the rest of the cast chipping in little asides during the song's build-up.

All in all it was an enjoyable night which also raised money for the Silver Line charity and the Stephen Sondheim Society.

 

Screen To Stage: WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

I was in two minds whether I wanted to see WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN at the Playhouse.  I knew that, despite it's unsuccessful Broadway production, David Yazbek's score had it's admirers but there was one major problem with seeing it - I loved it's source material too much.

Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 hit film was the one that truly brought him to the world's attention although I had already fallen under his spell with his previous film LAW OF DESIRE (LA LEY DEL DESEO).  It confirmed to me how magnetic and talented his muse Carmen Maura was and marvelled at her emotionally true but luminous performance as Pepa which was the epicentre of the farcical action of the film with it's array of madcap characters.

So how did I end up seeing the musical?  Because after last Saturday's performance there was the particular thrill of Pedro himself being interviewed on the Playhouse stage joined by the show's director Bartlett Sher, star Tamsin Greig and Almodóvar veteran Rossy de Palma - like, wow!

So... how does it transfer?  I cannot say I am a big fan of Greig - I always feel she is standing outside of her character, 'commenting' on it rather than playing it - or Haydn Gwynne who played the dangerously sidelined wife Lucia, but by the end I was won over by the élan of Bartlett Sher's staging and the obvious respect for Pedro's work.

Actress Pepa is dumped by her lover Ivan which throws her into emotional turmoil and her attempts to contact him are frustratingly unsuccessful.  Pepa's despair is disrupted by ditzy model Candela who wants to hide in Pepa's flat as she has discovered her Arab boyfriend is a Shiite terrorist sought by police.  Both their traumas are disrupted by the arrival of Carlos and Marisa, a young man and his controlling girlfriend who are looking to buy Pepa's flat.  In the true spirit of farce, Carlos is revealed to be Ivan's son!  if that wasn't enough, they all have to contend with the arrival of Lucia, Ivan's deserted wife who is out for revenge... Oh did I mention the blender full of drugged gazpacho?

Despite committed performances from the cast and Bartlett Sher's smoothly stylish direction, the action cannot help but stop for the frequent musical numbers.  Yazbek's songs have a vibrant salsa vibe and are socked across by the onstage musicians, but it's difficult to keep the farce moving along like an express train when both female leads are given impressive but slow solo numbers.

Despite my misgivings I have to admit that Greig certainly held the stage as the distraught Pepa but never felt she really was ever out-of-control and Gwynne's Lucia was certainly a larger-than-life scene-stealer.  Anna Skellern was great fun as the hysterical Candela and Ricardo Afonso was very good as the sometime-narrator and Pepa's ever-ready taxi-driver.

I also liked Seline Hizli's bossy Marisa and Willemijn Verkaik's hissable solicitor Paulina, Ivan's new mistress, but Jérome Praden and Hayden Oakley were both a bit too anonymous as father and son Ivan and Carlos.

There was also a lot to like in Anthony Ward's economical set design of Pepa's split level apartment, Caitlin Ward's character-led costumes and Peter Mumford's bright and eye-popping lighting.

The after-show Q&A was a delight with Pedro being very gracious about the show and explaining where the inspiration for the show had come from while Rossy de Palma was great fun reminiscing about the filming of what was only her second film.  Bartlett Sher was insightful as to the show's creation and Tamsin Greig explained that the singing didn't come naturally!

I am already beginning to think that I might want to see it again,,,

Remembrance Of Things Past

Ooo catchy title... I must copyright that.  Oh.

Right, Constant Reader, now that I have found my voice again, time for a bit of a catch-up on productions seen.  But I have seen so many!  I will do it in bite-size chunks.

New plays, not too many.

The latest of Peter Morgan's factional musings on the reality lived behind lives in the public eye found him returning to the ultimate person who is known to all but known to none, our Brenda.  He hit pay-dirt with her in 2006 with THE QUEEN and THE AUDIENCE reunited him with the film's leading lady Helen Mirren.  La Mirren hasn't done too badly out of HRH either and here she was given the opportunity to give a tour-de-force performance as Morgan bounced hither and yon across the six decades of the Queen's rule giving her minutes to change costumes, wigs and playing age.

Indeed it was a remarkable performance with Mirren finding a quiet through-line amidst the skilful onstage quick changes and turning on a sixpence from the young Queen finding her feet with Churchill to the slow, slightly stooped Matriarch running rings around Cameron.

The problem I had with Morgan's play was also it's purported unique selling point.  As Morgan has as much idea as we do in what takes place when the Queen meets the Prime Minister in their private weekly meetings, each section settled into a pattern of the Queen playing Devil's Advocate with whoever she was meeting so ultimately Morgan's script played it safe and certainly did nothing to shock or provoke it's - ahem - audience.  His most controversial gambit was to have the Queen haunted by her teenage self which didn't really amount to anything that would have him dragged to the tower.

 A play by Peter Morgan about the Queen starring Helen Mirren on Shaftesbury Avenue is going to attract a certain public and they were out in force when I went.  EVERYTHING got a round, the curtains, the frocks, the set, needless to say the Corgis.  The only real frisson during the show was in the enjoyable sparring match between Mirren and Haydn Gwynne's basilisk Margaret Thatcher - you could almost feel a large section of the audience having to choose between two heroines.  Seeing it a week or so after the absurd blanket canonisation of the old bitch it was good to see Morgan's jaundiced view of her.

 

Morgan obviously has a soft spot for Harold Wilson as he appeared three times: as a gauche bull-in-a-palace at their first meeting (cute but quite far from the truth I suspect), a PM-out-of-water in Balmoral and his announcement of retiring.  Richard McCabe played him very well - not so much an impression as 'an impression' if you get my drift.  His performance in the final scene was particularly touching.  Paul Ritter's turn as John Major was very entertaining and Michael Elwyn was a silky, deceptive Anthony Eden.  Edward Fox was a last minute replacement for Robert Hardy as Churchill and it showed.

Stephen Daldrey certainly kept the traffic of the stage moving briskly and Bob Crowley's design was spare and elegant.  I just wish Morgan's play - apart from the Thatcher scene - hadn't felt so damn timid.

Mirren and McCabe won this year's Olivier Awards for Best Actress and Supporting Actor which just happened to be two categories that A CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME wasn't nominated in - lucky for them as it swept seven other categories including Best Play, Set, Lighting and Director.

Now, some history.
I have never read Mark Haddon's novel the play is based on as I spent a lifetime one evening watching his play POLAR BEARS and as that arsed me off so much I couldn't bear to set foot on him again.  I was aware of the basic premise but it was interesting to be one of the few in the packed Apollo Theatre who didn't know what was about to transpire.  By the way, we appeared to be sat in the designated American section - it was like being back on Broadway.

Luke Treadaway might have won the Best Actor Olivier award but the slacker doesn't do Monday or Tuesdays - they just don't have the range any more - so I saw Johnny Gibbon in his West End debut.  He certainly gave a relentless performance as the autistic teenager Christopher Boone who, when his neighbour's dog is killed with a pitch-fork, decides to find out not only who the killer is but the other mysteries in his life.  I am sure a long career beckons.

I must admit the plot itself didn't offer too many surprises, when the killer is revealed it was all a bit obvious - and was quickly dispensed with - the dead dog being the McGuffin to get us involved in Christopher's journey to find the missing mother he had been led to believe was dead. 

We experience his disorientating journey from Swindon to London through his eyes and this is where Marianne Elliott's production triumphs.  Elliott, set designer Bunny Christie and lighting designer Paule Constable combine to give us stage image after image which are haunting, delightful and exciting.  There were plenty of younger types in the audience and it made me wish that hopefully a good number of them will be excited by what the theatre can do in the hands of an accomplished team.

However, like a number of other productions this year, I came out thinking that I wasn't as blown away as I had been led to believe I would be.  The problem here was that the acting wasn't really all that.  Performances were either drawn larger-than-life or so muted as to be anonymous.  Even Niamh Cusack - so good recently in two productions at the Old Vic - here barely registers as Christopher's teacher.  We pride ourselves on the quality of British stage acting but more often than not, what you get are performances that have you wondering whether they bothered putting the understudy slips in the programme.  Just saying.

But as a work of theatrical possibilities?  Dazzling.

I have also had two dollops of Alan Bennett.  Earlier this year I had read his memoir A LIFE LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'S so I was curious to see the play UNTOLD STORIES which drew on part of it.

 

The play took two parts, the first half was a theatrical amuse-bouche called HYMN that was almost over before it began, a 30 minute reflection on the music Bennett remembers having an influence on him growing up.  More than anything it got us accustomed to Alex Jennings' unerring and affectionate interpretation of the author.

The main part of the evening was COCKTAIL STICKS in which Bennett turned his attention to the subject of his parents.  When I read A LIFE LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'S I had found it unbearably moving as Bennett gave us his recollections of growing up with his loving but socially embarrassed parents to whom the world seemed a party they didn't have the courage to attend.

They were played by Jeff Rawle and Gabrielle Lloyd with a gentle charm and as, in the book, Lloyd as his mother moved more centre-stage as she slipped into the twilight world of dementia.  Ultimately I think it works better on the page, especially the final section where Bennett turns his quiet anger on the institutionalised stripping away of any dignity his mother had at a pace with the dementia stripping away her identity.

After this it was natural to see Bennett' s latest play PEOPLE at the Lyttleton.  Now I had been one of the 8 people who saw THE HISTORY BOYS in the same theatre and not liked it.  Indeed I recently saw the screen version and again, found little to enjoy outside of Frances de la Tour's caustic performance.  So here was a chance to enjoy her playing the lead role for a change.  I presume it is what one could call a play of ideas, the trouble being that it is all ideas and no play.

A packed Lyttleton audience laughed itself through the play while I sat with the occasional half-smile.  Bennett has worked himself up into a right old state initially about the National Trust and on a larger scale, the idea of a culture, an identity that can similarly be shaped and packaged and sold back to you.  I have no problem with this argument and occasionally a point was made that shone through.  I just didn't buy the package.

Frances de la Tour played Dorothy Stacpoole, the heir to the crumbling stately home that has been in her family for years.  Now just she and her equally eccentric companion Iris live there so she is a sitting target for a beady-eyed consultant for the National Trust, played by Miles Jupp who was taking a break from being a panellist on innumerable quiz shows, and her Reverend younger sister (Selina Cadell).

The answer to Dorothy's problems appear to arrive in the bizarre twist of an ex-lover appearing who is now a porn director who asks for his latest film to be shot in the house.  We then had a lengthy scene of the filming which made laboured use of knob jokes, social embarrassment and the like to little purpose other than for Frances de la Tour to swish around in a 1960s style couture ensemble.

Ultimately Dorothy cannot keep the real wolves from the door and the house is taken off her hands and renovated fit for the paying proles consumption.  But she still had a trick up her sleeve...

Frances de la Tour was as watchable as ever (the cast even included her brother Andy as a vicar) and she found wells of sympathy for her improbable character and it was amusing watching Linda Bassett make bricks from straw as her bizarre cohort but otherwise it just seemed to ramble on taking a long time to get to an obvious pay-off.  The ubiquitous Bob Crowley's dark and cluttered set was obviously going to be given a make-over and it was Constant Reader, before your very eyes.

It was pointed out by director Nicholas Hytner to Bennett that the National Trust share more than just initials with the National Theatre and it was a peculiar sight to see the well-heeled audience hooting with delight as Bennett took less-than-veiled potshots at their ilk.

Ultimately it all felt rather like Bennett was having his cake and eating it too.

Still, always nice to hear Petula Clark singing DOWNTOWN.



Time to catch up on my last two theatre trips, both written by that promising Brummie William Shakespeare.

Both productions featured performances that had Must-See stamped on them but none more so than Kevin Spacey as RICHARD III - if ever there was a perfect marriage of actor and role this had to be it.This production marked the end of the highly-publicised - and pretentiously titled - Bridge Project which featured Sam Mendes directing nine plays over the past 3 years which toured the world with a yearly company of actors drawn from the UK and the US. However none of the productions I saw seemed to be that successful with some remarkably ropey performances - mostly from the Americans to be honest.

The production was stark - each scene started with the first word of the scene projected on a scrim - and had a clunky stylised air such as certain doors that enclosed the playing space being marked with a X as another of Richard's victims bit the dust - we were treated to Gloucester being graphically drowned while others made do with just having their eyes closed by another company member. All very odd. As with previous Bridge productions there were some remarkably dodgy performances - the prime suspects here were Chandler Williams as a Clarence who seemed to be channelling a bad Kirk Douglas impersonator, Michael Rudko as a dull Lord Stanley and Nathan Darrow as a dreary Henry, Earl of Richmond.

There were no particularly exciting male performers in the cast so let's move on to Spacey. As much as I enjoyed him I must admit that afterwards I felt a bit becalmed as he gave exactly the performance that I was expecting. The slithery delivery, the barnstorming theatricality, the glittering ambiguity... it was all there. To be honest though, nothing he did surprised me or made me see a hidden dimension to his character.

I must say Spacey's physicality was impressive with his twisted gait and calipered leg and, with his constant scampering around the stage, he had boundless energy.

In both acts Mendes and Spacey concocted indelible stage moments: in Buckingham's stage-managed attempt to 'persuade' Richard to accept the crown while he demurs to be left alone to his prayers, Mendes had him broadcast live on a tv screen seemingly shocked and tremulous to be interrupted praying, while at the same time surreptitiously pushing away the fake monks surrounding him. In the second act, as the Battle of Bosworth draws ever closer and Richard's paranoia increases he delivered his speeches in the ranting style of Gaddafi which really drove home the timelessness of the play.

His death scene - while physically impressive - rather defeated his performance. Mendes has the dead Richard hoisted aloft by his ankles, Mussolini-style, to sway above the stage while Henry delivers his speech to the glories of the Tudor age to come. All this did was to remind me of reports of Olivier's famous death scene in CORIOLANUS at Stratford in 1959 - and Olivier should never be allowed to enter people's minds when they are watching another actor play Richard III.Oddly enough, for once the women ruled the roost - Haydn Gwynne (not an actress I usually warm to) was an impassioned Queen Elizabeth, Annabel Scholey was a forlorn Lady Anne and, in the real performance of the night, Gemma Jones gave us a thrilling Queen Margaret, haunting the stage in a top coat and wild hair. Her big scene where she denounces the Yorkist Queens was, for me, the highlight of the evening.I guess any time this play is performed it will always seem to mirror whatever despot is ruling somewhere in the world but with Gaddafi shrieking his revenge in a hidden location at all those seeking to overthrow him it made this 420 year old play remarkably contemporary.