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.

SIDE SHOW at Southwark Playhouse - Side by Side Sisters....

Last week we saw SIDE SHOW, the latest in the commercially-risky musicals that have become the forté of the Southwark Playhouse and while enjoyable - particularly the two leading performances - there is one rather large elephant in the room.  Balanced on an inflatable ball.  And twirling a hoop with it's trunk.

ALLEGRO, THE TOXIC AVENGER, XANADU, GRAND HOTEL, GREY GARDENS and TITANIC are the six musicals we have seen there and they all share an air of risk which might give a West End producer pause.  While they all have potential selling-points: Rogers & Hammerstein, an ELO juke-box musical, known titles thanks to films, and award-winning and nominated Broadway scores; none of them are obvious hits and that's where the Southwark steps in...

...and they don't come any riskier than the musical SIDE SHOW, with lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger.  It is based on the real-life conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hinton who were a side show and vaudeville attraction in the 1930s.  Now... can't you see THAT on Shaftesbury Avenue?  The show first opened on Broadway in 1997 and, although it received good reviews and some devoted fans, it closed less than three months later.

Fast forward nine years to the filming of DREAMGIRLS and director Bill Condon told composer Krieger that he was also a fan of SIDE SHOW and would like to have a go at reshaping Russell's book. After a revision with songs being dropped or re-shaped, Condon also directed this revival on Broadway in late 2014.  Again the reviews were very positive... but it closed after seven weeks!

SIDE SHOW is a show the critics admire but it cannot find an audience - will London be different?  I guess it helps that the Southwark Playhouse production is only running for two months but the night we went it wasn't sold out and despite committed performances and a solid production from director Hannah Chissick, the show is compromised by a frustrating book - the usual culprit when a show under-performs.

Russell and Condon's book aims to show us that the sisters were constantly taken advantage of and the musical ends with double betrayal in their personal and professional lives but even a cursory look at their real story shows that the writers have played fast and loose with them too.  First off, the twins were born and lived in Brighton until they were 8 so why have them played as American?

As the book suggests the sisters were controlled by a cruel 'owner' - the real-life case was even more bizarre than the musical suggests - but has them 'rescued' by two men who see them as their own meal-tickets, but these characters are so sketchily-drawn that at times it's hard to understand silly things like motivation or depth.

One of these characters is a gay dancer but his sexuality is so clumsily referenced you would think the book was written in the 1940s.  In reality, the sisters both married gay men at separate times but this all happened after the events of the musical, which culminates with the sisters belting out their killer 11 o'clock number "I Will Never Leave You" before setting off to Hollywood to co-star in Todd Browning's film FREAKS.  The book lamely suggests that this also exploited the girls but I doubt if they were ever under any illusions that they were going to be co-starring with Fred Astaire.

So the show ends in a vaguely upbeat way with the sisters setting out on their own to L.A.  But Russell and Condon are guilty of putting a Hollywood ending to the sisters' story which ended in a way that makes FREAKS look like a Disney film.  After 19 years, they made a second film, a b-movie called CHAINED FOR LIFE.  They were reduced again to doing exploitative personal appearances until 1961 when their manager left them destitute in Charlotte, North Carolina and they had to find work in a grocery store to make ends meet (no pun intended).

But life had one more cruel trick to play: in January 1969 their boss alerted the police that they had not come to work but they were found dead, victims of the American Hong Kong flu epidemic.  A gruesome fact was later revealed that Daisy died first, Violet dying a few days later.  I suppose we should be grateful Condon and Russell stopped short of ending the show with Violet singing "I Will Never Leave You" to her dead sister. but to neglect the tragedy of the sisters' lives feels like yet another betrayal - it's like doing a musical of Anne Frank and ending it with her listening to the D-Day landings.

But enough of reality, what about the show?  As I said Hannah Chissick drives her production on with a good momentum, it's only after you realize the book's many weaknesses.  She has elicited very fine performances from her two lead actresses: Louise Dearman makes Daisy the more dominant and ambitious sister while Laura Pitt-Pulford is a touching Violet, shy and showing the psychological wounds of her deprived upbringing.  Sadly Hannah Chissick should have found some way of possibly binding her two actresses physically together as more often than not it looked like they were only co-joined because they were wearing the same dress.

Jay Marsh is very good as Jake, a fake 'freak' in the side show who tries to protect the girls from all troubles but the rest of the cast barely make an impression.  Takis' standing set of the tawdry funfairs that the sisters' knew so well was also very atmospheric and evocative as was Howard Hudson's lighting design.    

What makes the musical memorable is Henry Krieger's score although frustratingly Bill Russell's lyrics never raise above the serviceable.  Krieger's music however is evocative: the opening number "Come Look At The Freaks" has a creepy spookiness and his pastiche songs for the sisters' onstage routines are very good.  As with his titanic "And I Tell You I'm Not Going" from DREAMGIRLS,  here he delivers with the climactic "I Will Never Leave You" which has been rattling about my head ever since.  As I said, it's a shame that Russell's lyrics sound so trite against his music.

It is thanks to the score that SIDE SHOW has built up a cult following and I can imagine that growing from it's London production - it's just a shame that the book is more sawdust than tinsel.  However, the production itself can be seen as yet another success for the Southwark Playhouse.

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.

 

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.