FOLLIES at the Olivier, National Theatre - We're still here...

At the start of FOLLIES, the aged Broadway producer Dimitri Weismann welcomes his guests with "Welcome to our first - and last - reunion"... well Dimitri, we all had such a great time in 2017 that another one is being thrown on the Olivier stage.

Dominic Cooke's Olivier award-winning production was the theatrical sensation of 2017, and in my original blog I found it "...nigh-on perfect; an American classic given the production it deserves on our leading stage." (click on the link to read my 2017 blog) and, by the end of it's run, I had seen it four times, plus when it was screened to cinemas as part of NT Live.

And now it returns in a revival with some key cast changes: Joanna Riding and Alexander Hanson are now playing Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin Stone while Harry Hepple, Ian McIntosh, Gemma Sutton and Christine Tucker play the ghosts of younger Buddy, Ben, Sally and Phyllis; the ex-Weismann Girls now feature Claire Moore belting out "Broadway Baby" while Heidi Schiller is being shared between two 1980s opera divas: Felicity Lott until April then taken over by the production's original star Josephine Barstow.

The interesting thing was to see how the show has been tweaked for the new cast and also to bring out some hitherto hidden moments.  The ghosts of the showgirls and the younger principals seem to be interacting with their older selves more pointedly, and in Joanna Riding's "Losing My Mind" and Alex Hanson's "Live Laugh Love" there are noticeable changes to the originals.  All in all, there are enough new touches to warrant another visit - needless to say I was clapping like a mad thing at the curtain call.

I had been most worried by the casting of Joanna Riding as Sally as Imelda Staunton had been so extraordinary in the role in the production's first incarnation, making Sally's mental breakdown shockingly real and painful.  Joanna Riding started slow, not having Staunton's immediate galvanizing onstage wattage, and played in a softer style.  To be honest, I have found her at times to be an anonymous actress; she has given performances I enjoyed while watching - THE PAJAMA GAME and a concert performance of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (with FOLLIES co-star Janie Dee) - but nothing really stays in the mind.  However by the time, she hit her big moment "Losing My Mind" she gave an intriguing interpretation which I found oddly riveting.  Imelda Staunton sang it with an unbearable painful desolation but Riding, with some extra business swallowing a handful of pills, ends the number almost catatonic in isolation and on the last note pulling her blonde wig off as if to reveal the reality behind the artifice of her Harlow-esque costume.  She also played Sally's unrelenting despair in the final scene well so I guess she got there in the end.  I must admit I also liked her 'look' - like a suburban Dusty Springfield.

She was matched in a more subdued tone by Alexander Hanson as Ben Stone - and how nice it must be for both of them to have standing ovations and wild applause at their curtain call after their last show together, the Lloyd Webber flop STEPHEN WARD.  Philip Quast was a great physical presence on stage as Ben, singing the songs with a bruised masculinity which fitted his role as a jaded former-politician so his breakdown at the end was all the more affecting; here Hanson plays him with an exhausted ruefulness so Ben's final breakdown suggests more of a relief than anything else, I did enjoy his performance however.  There is also a change to his faltering in "Live Laugh Love" - whereas Philip Quast brought the number to a standstill while the chorus line kept looking around, attempting to feed him his next line or trying to kick-start the number, Hanson goes straight into the breakdown.

It's interesting to see how Janie Dee and Peter Forbes have recalibrated their performances to fit the playing styles of their two new co-stars; there is always the possibility that Janie Dee will just go large as the bitchy Phyllis but she keeps her character's pain grounded in frustrated anger.  Forbes' performance has grown on me now and his Buddy is also paired down to fit Riding's playing style.  The performances of Gemma Sutton, Christine Tucker, Ian McIntosh and the always-watchable Harry Hepple as the shadows of the leads' younger selves were all very good.

13 years ago I saw Claire Moore give a psychologically bruised performance as Sally in the unique experience which was the Landor Theatre's above-a-pub production of FOLLIES so it was nice to see her pop up here as Hattie, using her 1980s West End belt voice to punch across "Broadway Baby" to a huge cheer.

The role of Heidi Schiller, the oldest Weismann 'girl' at the reunion is played - and more importantly - sung by Dame Felicity Lott, who is playing the role until the production's original Heidi, Dame Josephine Barstow, again joins the show in April.  The soaring "One More Kiss", sung by Heidi and her younger self is one of my favourites and again it hit home for me - Young Heidi is once again wonderfully sung by Alison Langer - but Lott just missed out on the majesty that the richer-voiced Barstow brought to the song.  The returning star-turns were as good as before - and I even liked Tracie Bennett as Carlotta now she appears to have toned down the Judy Garlandisms.

Bill Deamer's choreography still sparkles with inventiveness and out-front flash, while Paule Constable and Vicki Mortimer's lighting and design still provide the perfect setting for Dominic Cooke's wonderful production.  We just had the one slip-up: during the "Loveland" number - where the chorus girls raise their glittering trains to spell out L-O-V-E-L-A-ND - the last one had her train fixed on her costume the wrong way round so we got L-O-V-E-L-A.... instead!

But once again what Dominic Cooke, his crew and cast have done more than anything else is to fill the National's Olivier stage with the sheer glory that is FOLLIES by treating James Goldman's book and Stephen Sondheim's score with the respect and love it deserves.  How wonderful it must be for people to see this version of FOLLIES as their introduction to the show.

FOLLIES is running until 11th May - if you didn't see it last time BOOK NOW... if you saw it last time STILL BOOK NOW!

Hats off... here they come...those Beautiful Girls...

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC: 40th Anniversary Concert

...sort of.

The show premiered in New York in 1973 but the semi-staged concert we saw at the Palace Theatre on Monday was to celebrate 40 years since it's first London production.  It opened at the Adelphi with the deliciously characterful cast of Jean Simmons, Joss Ackland, Hermione Gingold, David Kernan, Maria Aitkin and Diane Langton and their cast recording is still my favourite version.

Owen took great delight in pointing out that, for all my ranting about the current trend of adapting films into stage shows, that A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC was based on Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles On A Summer Night".  Indeed Sondheim also did the screen-to-stage PASSION and is said to be working on a stage amalgamation of Luis Bunuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL.  A subtle but important difference to MADE IN DAGENHAM and KINKY BOOTS. 

Meanwhile, back to the Palace (sounds like INTO THE WOODS eh?)  The Palace really is a frightful barn with a particularly gloomy auditorium but it was good to see it so busy for this one-off event.  By the end of it I was aching to see a full revival of the show!

We were treated to a cast that most producer's would chew their leg off to have - namely Janie Dee as Desiree Armfeldt, Anne Reid as Mme. Armfeldt, Jamie Parker as Count Carl-Magnus, Joanna Riding as Countess Charlotte and Laura Pitt-Pulford as Petra.

I felt David Birrell as Frederick Egerman sang well but was a bit anonymous when acting opposite Dee or Parker while Fra Fee as Henrik made the oddest noise when singing in his higher register (which his character does), he sounded like a gurgling drain.

What was enjoyable was getting reacquainted with Hugh Wheeler's exquisite book, the perfect setting for the jewel of Sondheim's score.  A great book should give you the impression that, stripped of it's songs, it can stand alone as a play and when original director Hal Prince described the show as being like "whipped cream with knives" that is exactly what Hugh Wheeler wrote, he mixes comedy and drama to perfection.

Even in the semi-staged setting, the best performers sparkled.  Janie Dee was a lustrous Desiree with her trademark champagne-dry wit and she sang SEND IN THE CLOWNS with a resigned sadness.  Yes, she muffed the final moments during the CLOWNS reprise but by then she had won us over.

Jamie Parker and Joanna Riding were marvellously paired as Count and Countess Malcolm, both finding their laughs with ease.  In his solo number IN PRAISE OF WOMEN, Parker showed off his considerable singing skills as he had in last year's GUYS AND DOLLS at Chichester and was huge fun too in the duet IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WONDERFUL with Birrell. 

Joanna Riding had the audience in her hand with her cutting lines and also duetted well in EVERYDAY A LITTLE DEATH with Anna O'Byrne's Anne.  It would be a lovely change for Anne not to be played as a hysteric but O'Byrne was on firmer territory when singing.

As the all-knowing Madame Armfeldt Anne Reid was enormously enjoyable, her withering put-downs were as dry as dust and apart from a tiny stumble during her solo number LIAISONS she sang it well and it would be great to see her in a proper production, if only for her to have a proper setting for her performance.  Madame Armfeldt actually has the very last moment of the action which was lost in a concert setting.

However the best performance was Laura Pitt-Pulford's Petra, the sly and sexy maid who knows exactly what she wants out of life and love.  What is interesting is how her solo number THE MILLER'S SON comes straight after SEND IN THE CLOUDS, two songs of great self-awareness, but the latter gives a supporting actress a real moment to shine.  Diane Langton's titanic version lives on through the London cast recording and I have seen Sara Weymouth and Kaisa Hammarlund seize that moment to shine and now I can add Laura Pitt-Pulford to that list. She was quite electrifying.

The onstage orchestra sounded great under the musical direction of the curiously-bouncy Alex Parker and although Alastair Knights' direction kept the show moving along nicely, Andrew Wright's choreography was a trifle redundant.

When one thinks of how often theatres are dark it would be nice to think that they could be utilised for similar semi-staged productions or for a seasons of them such as Broadway's acclaimed Encores productions where classic or little-seen musicals are presented.

Well done Duncan Bell for the photographs that capture the event.

14 years later...

Yep, for the first time since May 2000 I found myself sitting in the splendid auditorium of the Shaftesbury Theatre!  It's a nice place - although, for all it's much-vaunted renovation. the stalls seats were still a bit low to the ground and uncomfortable.

The last show I saw there was the flop LAUTREC and since then it has had the odd hit - HAIRSPRAY, ROCK OF (ugh) AGES - but it has also had an embarrassing history of duds: FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, FLASHDANCE, DADDY COOL, THE FAR PAVILIONS, BAT BOY, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, NAPOLEON...  oy.  At times the Variety wartime gag "In case of a bomb attack, seek shelter at the Nora Bayes Theatre as it's never had a hit" has been applicable to the Shaftesbury.

But there I was on Tuesday to see the Chichester Theatre's successful revival of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross' THE PAJAMA GAME.  Not a musical I am overly keen on but it had 5 star reviews and any musical directed by Richard Eyre must be seen as his production of GUYS AND DOLLS in 1982 at the National Theatre started me on a new life as an ardent theatregoer.

I think my anathema to the show is down to the woeful production by Simon Callow that played for 3 months at the Victoria Palace in 1999 with Leslie Ash, Graham Bickley, Anita Dobson and John Hegley.  It just lied there and died there, it's jolly but dated book's jokes landing with a thud about 3 rows from the orchestra pit.

Despite the several charms of this production I must again say that on the whole I am baffled at the acclaim.  George Abbot and (original source material writer) Richard Bissell's book is still dated while most of the score is fairly routine.  Luckily in 1954 it was still the era of show tunes being covered by pop acts so there are four big hits within the score - HEY THERE, ONCE-A-YEAR DAY, STEAM HEAT and HERNANDO'S HIDEAWAY.

Two of the lesser-known songs - THERE ONCE WAS A MAN and A NEW TOWN IS A BLUE TOWN - stand out from the others for a good reason, they were 'donated' to the show by Adler and Ross' mentor Frank Loesser.  What I found so lame about the book is that it sets up it's at-odds hero and heroine only to dismiss that and plunge straight into the love story with no reason other than it's 25 minutes in and time for them to fall in love.  The songs too also have a by-rote feel to them - opening ensemble number, hero solo, heroine solo, comedy number, hero love song, ensemble number etc.  True not every show can be GUYS AND DOLLS but it's also true that what was funny in 1954 isn't necessarily what's funny now.

It deserves snaps however for being a sympathetic show about Unions!  The Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory workers are threatening to strike as their tyrannical boss Hasler is refusing to give them a 7 1/2 cent pay rise that other factory workers are receiving.  Union rep Babe Williams has to negotiate not only with Halser but also with the over-zealous time & motion man Hines and the factory superintendent Sid Sorokin, newly arrived in the job and trying to stamp his authority on his mullish co-workers.  Babe and Sid of course fall in love but when she persists in leading her team in a go-slow he fires her.  Interval.

The second act is an exercise in treading water until the inevitable reuniting of Babe and Sid with the supporting characters getting a lot of attention namely Hines and Hasler's secretary Gladys, of whom he is obsessively jealous - the writers give him a previous job as a knife-thrower for no other reason than he can chuck a few blades about when roused.  Yeees.  There is also a further sub-plot between Sid's secretary Mabel and the Union boss Prez that hangs around going nowhere.

However what this production does have is Eyre's direction - in his enjoyable programme notes he explains that, when he was young, he became word perfect with the score because his sister had the London cast recording which she played constantly although he never saw it onstage until he finally directed this production.

The show also has Stephen Mear's energetic choreography which certainly make the dance numbers one of the show's successes and while his STEAM HEAT steps cannot equal the original, amazing Bob Fosse moves, they still make it a memorable set-piece that starts the second act on such a high.  I suspect Eyre's hand in the reprise of I'LL NEVER BE JEALOUS AGAIN in Hernando's Hideaway as it descended into a Latino riot which heavily echoed the 'low dive' from GUYS AND DOLLS - even down to the butch transvestite. 

Tim Hatley's set is rather pedestrian - although I liked the neon parrots in Hernado's Hideaway.  His costumes however evoke the period well.  Although it was a joy to hear the orchestra belting it out to the balcony, the sound was so off that at times they drowned out the performers.

 

Luckily the show's problem areas were kicked to touch by the perfomances of Joanna Riding and Michael Xavier.  Joanna Riding, a surprisingly unstarry musical leading lady, sings so well that it does make you realise that Babe could do with a few more songs.  It must be nice for her to be out front in a star role again after her thankless one-song-and-a-cough as Valerie Hobson in STEPHEN WARD.

No such problem for Michael Xavier who oddly has his two big numbers within minutes of each other but he delivered excellent renditions of A NEW TOWN IS A BLUE TOWN and HEY THERE.  Xavier radiates charisma and although there is a slight mis-match in their ages, he and Riding made a winning couple. I have not seen him since his Olivier-nominated turn in the Regent's Park INTO THE WOODS and I am sure another nomination will be his next year.

Gary Wilmot was an energetic Hines and made what is a rather dubious character interesting.  I also liked Colin Stinton as Hasler the sneaky boss man and Claire Machin certainly made the most of Mabel the secretary although the character would benefit from a rewrite.

The 1954 Broadway production is famous conversely for launching Shirley MacLaine's film career.  MacLaine was in the chorus and understudying Carol Haney who was a sensation as Gladys and in particular for STEAM HEAT.  A month after the opening, Haney broke her ankle and MacLaine, who was delayed getting to the theatre after dropping off her c.v. for another chorus job, arrived with minutes to spare to find directors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins, choreographer Fosse and producer Hal Prince anxiously waiting by the stage door.

Barely rehearsed she went on, dropped her bowler hat in STEAM HEAT - becoming the first person to say 'shit' on a Broadway stage - and was still playing the role when producer Hal Wallis saw the show.  He signed her to a film contract which led to her first film, Hitchcock's THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.  Although winning a Tony Award and recreating her role in the THE PAJAMA GAME film, Haney developed stage fright so badly she switched to being a choreographer.  Sadly personal demons led to alcoholism and six weeks after choreographing Barbra Streisand in FUNNY GIRL she was dead aged 39 from pneumonia.  She is seen here in ONCE-A-YEAR DAY with MacLaine seen at the left. 

I mention this because, bizarrely, both times I have seen the show I have seen the understudy play Gladys!  This time Helen Ternent was on and although I suspect a huge Oscar-winning film career is not in the future, she certainly gave a nice performance and danced up a storm in STEAM HEAT.

In 1955, Adler and Ross' next musical DAMN YANKEES was just as successsful, again winning the Tony Award for Best Musical but tragically, Jerry Ross died six months after the opening from lung disease.  Adler never had another successful musical.

But in their musicals, there was always a happy ending...

Well I would, wouldn't I?

My first theatre visit of the year is one that might surprise you Constant Reader, but then no one is more surprised than me either!

An Andrew Lloyd Webber musical?  The last time I saw a Lloyd Webber show in it's premiere run was SUNSET BOULEVARD, a mere 21 years ago!  WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, THE BEAUTIFUL GAME, THE WOMAN IN WHITE and LOVE NEVER DIES have come and gone in that time and much is being made of this show being smaller in size and more of a standard book musical than is usual with his love of the dreaded recitative.  Yes it's smaller in scale and has definite book scenes but the show is a curate's egg that leaves an odd taste in the mouth.

I have always been fascinated by the whole Profumo scandal, that very English Molotov cocktail of showgirls, mendacity, politics, sex, deference, espionage, black drug-dealers, film stars, stately homes, mews flats, rich men in masks, police harassment and chequebook journalism, all exploding just as social attitudes were changing in 1963.  How many fall-from-grace stories in the past 50 years have referenced "Profumo" without quite coming close to the uniqueness of it all.

 

The case has any number of permutations with which to tell the story but Lloyd Webber has focused on the perceived patsy of the case, his titular anti-hero Stephen Ward, the society osteopath who was charged with living off immoral earnings but killed himself the night before sentencing.

 

Yes, Ward was hung out to dry by those who he thought he could rely on and the case against him was based on tainted evidence, but while John Hurt made him a sadly pathetic figure in SCANDAL yet the queasy nature of the musical can be traced to that despite all this, he is too obscure a character to be the focal point for the show.  For all his patsydom - and given his sympathetic treatment by book-writers Christopher Hampton and Don Black - Ward remains a frustratingly unlikeable and unknowable character.  He wasn't the pimp that the trial painted him to be but his vaguely unsavoury nature and slavish devotion to "his betters" means that the musical's attempts to make him a tragic hero slide off like Teflon.

 

I felt sorry for the ever-urbane Alexander Hanson who plays Ward as a charming social butterfly in the first act but who seems to fade away in the second act and become almost a supporting character in his own musical.  His eleven o'clock number - sung while sitting on a low couch upstage while gulping down sleeping pills - is a curiously bloodless affair which climaxes with the famous press photograph of Ward, being stretchered out of his flat in a coma, projected onto Rob Howell's curtained set.  This moment was held for an eternity as if to make the audience fully understand the tragedy of his suicide but as Ward has remained a slippery, opaque character that it has been impossible to understand, it just makes for a rather obvious stage 'moment'.

 

With such a large group of characters to introduce, some suffer more than others.  Daniel Flynn's Profumo barely registers and his fall from grace, after lying to the House of Parliament over his relationship with Christine Keeler, is quickly glossed over.  Joanna Riding as Valerie Hobson also contributes to the show's imbalance.  Riding is a fine musical performer but is given nothing to do but waft through several brief scenes then in the middle of the second act she is given a huge ballad called "I'm Hopeless When It Comes To You".  Yes she sings it well but it went on & on and as no time had been invested in her as a character, it simply hung around for a while signalling to us "Big Love Song That Has To Be In A Musical".

 

 

Other casualties are Anthony Calf who has next-to-nothing to do as Lord Astor but does it with charm and a deftness of touch and while Ian Conningham plays the Russian attaché Ivanov like the Russian Meerkat from the CompareTheMarket.com ads he comes into his own as the thuggish police Inspector Herbert.  Something the show does spotlight is the way the prostitutes Ronna Ricard and Vickie Barrett were forced into making confessions by Herbert corroborating the Crown's case against Ward which gives Kate Coysten and Amy Griffiths respectively nice moments to shine in the court scene.

 

Of course the show should be titled CHRISTINE KEELER as she really is the catalyst for the events of the play and the show certainly showcases two Charlottes.  Charlotte Spencer has the right look for Christine and gives an eye-catching and wilful performance.  I wasn't too keen on her high-pitched singing which occasionally jarred but then she also suffers from not having a defining song for the character.

 

 

Charlotte Blackledge was excellent as Mandy Rice-Davies, but then she is the best character in any retelling of the story!  One of nature's survivors, Mandy was the original good-time-girl and of course set her own indelible stamp on the events when giving evidence at the Old Bailey.  Her statement saying she had not only had sex with Lord Astor but that he had given her money was read back to her by the Prosecuting Council who added that Astor had denied all knowledge of knowing her, to which the 18 year-old Mandy coolly replied "Well he would, wouldn't he?"  The sheer sarcastic cheekiness in the face of the might of the establishment is to be applauded.

 

I have made references to Lloyd Webber's score and I was surprised that for most of the first act I liked it.  Three good songs for Ward and Keeler get the show moving although "This Side of The Sky" is really only there because it's time for a Falling In Love song, which doesn't ring true for these characters.  These are followed by a slinky tango called "Manipulation" and then Keeler's "He Sees Something In Me".  Then it takes an embarrassing turn with a faux "Ascot Gavotte"-style ensemble number which takes place during Mariella Novotna's notorious orgy.  It's coy, juvenile and twee style is horribly old-fashioned and, for me, the score never recovers it's earlier promise.  Symptomatic of this is the first act closer "1963" which is sung by an exuberant Christine and Mandy - it's the only time the actual time period is referenced with a couple of desultory Beatles-style "Yeah yeah yeahs" thrown in.

 

 

The direction by Richard Eyre is certainly brisk and I can honestly say that for most of the show I wasn't bored but two long scenes rather stop the show dead: the police grilling their innumerable suspects which is followed by the lengthy courtroom scene.  Rob Howell's noticeably modest set was interesting to watch with it's use of semi-circular curtains that suggested the secret and shrouded world lived in by the onstage characters and Peter Mumford's lighting was as atmospheric as usual.

 

The muted response at the end was echoed by a seemingly hesitant curtain call from the cast, all symptomatic of a show that doesn't seem to know what it actually wants to say or how to say it.

 

What niggles me though is that while Lloyd Webber clamours his insistence of Stephen Ward being a victim of the establishment, he is also a vocal supporter of the self-same Conservative Party that sought revenge on his titular anti-hero.

Another thought that occurred to me after leaving the theatre was that none of the songs in Lloyd Webber's score were as evocative or as haunting as NOTHING HAS BEEN PROVED written by the Pet Shop Boys for the film SCANDAL and sung by Dusty Springfield.