The 13th ANNUAL CHRISSIES - I liked 'em, I really liked 'em

The Chrissies are now in their 13th year...  I don't think 2019 was the most spectacular year in theatre-going it must be said but all worthy winners...

BEST DRAMA (Original/Revival) - A GERMAN LIFE - Christopher Hampton  
(Bridge Theatre)

Nominees:

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURIOUS CHILD (Palace) / NINE NIGHT (Trafslgar Studios) / THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE (Dorfman, NT) / PRESENT LAUGHTER (Old Vic)

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BEST MUSICAL (Original/Revival) - GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY
  - Bob Dylan / Conor McPherson (Gielgud Theatre)

 Nominees:

BLUES IN THE NIGHT (Kiln) / BRIDGES OF MADICON COUNTY (Menier) / 

 COME FROM AWAY (Phoenix) / FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Playhouse)

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BEST CLASSICAL PRODUCTION - GISELLE (Sadler's Wells)

 

 

 Nominees:

MANON (Covent Garden) / THE RED SHOES (Sadler's Wells) /
ROMEO AND JULIET (Covent Garden) / THE SLEEPING BEAUTY (Covent Garden)

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BEST ACTOR (Drama) - ANDREW SCOTT - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

 

Nominees:

ROGER ALLAM (Rutherford & Son) / JONATHAN HYDE (Gently Down The Stream) /
ALEX JENNINGS (Hansard) / DENIS O'HARE (Tartuffe The Imposter)

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BEST ACTRESS (Drama) - MAGGIE SMITH - A German Life (Bridge Theatre)

Nominees:

LINDSAY DUNCAN (Hansard) / NATASHA GORDON (Nine Night) / 
 JUSTINE MITCHELL (Rutherford & Son) / MARTHA PLIMPTON (Sweat)

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BEST ACTOR (Musical) - ANDY NYMAN - Fiddler On The Roof (Playhouse)

 
Nominees:

ARTHUR DARVILL (Sweet Charity) / ALEXANDER HANSON (Follies) / 

DONALD SAGE MACKAY (Girl From The North Country) / LAYTON WILLIAMS (Everybody's Talking About Jamie)

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BEST ACTRESS (Musical) - JENNA RUSSELL - The Bridges of Madison County (Menier)

Nominees:

CHRISSIE BHIMA (Once On This Island) / KATIE BRAYBEN (Girl From The North Country) / SHARON D CLARKE (Blues In The Night) / JOANNA RIDING (Follies)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Drama) - JONATHAN CASE - Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (Palace)

 

 Nominees:

JOE ARMSTRONG (Rutherford & Son) / JOSHUA HILL (Present Laughter) /

JUSTIN SALINGER (The Ocean at The End Of The Lane) / LUKE THALLON (Present Laughter)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Drama) - SOPHIE THOMPSON - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

 Nominees:

MICHELLE GREENIDGE (Nine Night) / DOROTHEA MYER-BENNETT (While The Sun Shines) / INDIRA VARMA (Present Laughter) / ANJANA VASAN (Rutherford & Son)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Musical) - DALE RAPLEY - The Bridges of Madison County (Menier)

 Nominees:

PETER FORBES (Follies) / ROY HAYLOCK (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) / 

ROBERT HANDS (Come From Away) / JACK McBRAYER (Waitress)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Musical) - RACHEL JOHN - Girl From The North Country (Gielgud)

 

Nominees:

REBECCA McKINNIS (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) / CLAIRE MOORE (Follies) / 

GLORIA OBIYANYO (Girl from The North Country) / RACHEL TUCKER (Come From Away)

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BEST CLASSICAL MALE - VITTORIO GRIGÓLO - Tosca (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

ADAM COOPER (The Red Shoes) / HERMAN COMEJO (Trio ConcertDance) / 

STEVEN McRAE (Manon) / BRYN TERFEL (Tosca)

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BEST CLASSICAL FEMALE - STINA QUAGEBEUR - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

Nominees:

CORDELIA BRAITHWAITE (The Red Shoes) and (Romeo & Juliet) / 

ALESSANDRA FERRI (Trio ConcertDance) / ERINA TAKAHASHI (Giselle)

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BEST DIRECTOR - MATTHEW WARCHUS - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

Nominees:

JONATHAN KENT (A German Life) / CONOR McPHERSON (Girl From The North Country)  / JOHN TIFFANY (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / ROY ALEXANDER WEISE (Nine Night)

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BEST DESIGNER - ROBERT JONES - Fiddler On The Roof (Playhouse)

 

Nominees: 

LEZ BROTHERSTON (The Red Shoes) / ANNA FLEISCHLE (A German Life) / 

CHRISTINE JONES (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / TAKIS (Ain't Misbehavin')

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BEST LIGHTING - MARK HENDERSON - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

 Nominees:

NEIL AUSTIN (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / JON CLARK (A German Life) / 

PAULE CONSTABLE (Romeo + Juliet) / TIM LUTKIN (Fiddler On The Roof)

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BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Musical) - OTI MABUSE - Ain't Misbehavin' (Southwark Playhouse)

Nominees:

MATT COLE / JEROME ROBBINS (Fiddler On The Roof) / STEVEN HOGGETT (Harry Potter and The Curious Child) / LEE PROUD (Once On This Island) / SAM SPENCER-LANE (Maggie May)

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BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Classical) - AKRAM KHAN - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

Nominees:

MATTHEW BOURNE (The Red Shoes) and (Romeo & Juliet) / 

KENNETH McMILLAN (Manon) and (Romeo & Juliet)

PRESENT LAUGHTER at the Old Vic - Coward's 1940s Fizz in New Bottles...

This production of Noel Coward's PRESENT LAUGHTER marks my 45th production seen at the Old Vic Theatre.  Constant Reader, this occurred to me when faced with the frustrating front-of-house building work that the Vic is currently doing during this sold-out run and made me realize that it is a theatre that I have never felt comfortable in.  There is always *something* to irk me about the experience of seeing plays there - oh I have enjoyed productions - it's just the constant tsouris while inter-acting with the theatre.  Was it this awful even during Olivier's National Theatre days? 

The main foyer has been configured again and again and it still feels unwelcoming.  The Dress Circle is always like the Black Hole of Waterloo - and now they have crammed tables and chairs into the central space, while the basement area is given over to a bar/restaurant space that's open to all - of course an earner for the Vic - but again, the audience for the actual show is left with no space due to the non-theatre-going table-hoggers... and of course there is the notorious lack of loos for patrons.

But now the Old Vic is addressing this latter issue by rebuilding the basement while the run of PRESENT LAUGHTER is happening.  Couldn't they wait until a gap in their season?  Temporary portaloos are in the road next to the theatre while the balcony loos are also closed - so the 1,000+ patrons all have to use these, mostly during a 20 minute interval.  At the end of the show, we were only allowed to leave down the back stairs... which of course took forever because the exit doors lead out - you guessed - straight into the queue for the toilets.

Believe me, it would have to be an exceptional production that managed to transcend this frustrating visit.  Luckily it was.

Noel Coward wrote the play in 1939 but it's premiere was cancelled at the outbreak of WWII so it waited until 1942 before being staged with Coward in the blazing star role of Garry Essendine, an unashamedly self-centered West End leading man.  Over the years it has been revived frequently with actors who have lent towards the showy - O'Toole, Sinden, Callow, McKellen, Kline - and I first saw it played by Alex Jennings in the National Theatre's 2008 production.  Although Jennings was fine as Garry it wasn't a production that particularly grabbed me.  So I leapt at the opportunity to see it again and also to see how it worked with a younger than usual actor in the lead.

Director Matthew Warchus says that he had shied away from taking on a Noel Coward play before but when he and star Andrew Scott hit upon the idea that, by changing the genders of a married couple in the play, it could open the play up in a vibrant new way while keeping the shape and, more importantly, the essence of Coward's vision intact.

Another morning in West End star Garry Essendine's Mayfair apartment and his staff - secretary Monica, valet Fred and cleaner Miss Erikson - go quietly about their duties while their temperamental employer sleeps off his hangover - and as usual, there is a 'guest' who has stayed the night having somehow 'forgotten their latch-key'.  This time it's gushing starlet Daphne who Garry - when he eventually wakes up - has to quote his most romantic Shelley verse to before he can get rid of her.  Garry's hope for a quiet day to prepare for an overseas tour is interrupted by appearances from his closest associates - his manager Morris, his producer Helen and his estranged wife Liz - who, along with Monica, is the only one that Garry feels he can fully trust.

Liz is worried however: she has heard that Helen's husband Joe is having an affair with Morris - who vehemently protests his innocence - but Liz knows that if Helen finds out, Garry's protective bubble will be broken.  Added to all this, there is a forgotten appointment with young Roland Maule, a new playwright who has asked for Garry's opinion of his play.  They clash when Maule reacts badly to Garry's criticisms and he belittles the shallow West End star vehicles the actor appears in - before confessing that he actually adores Garry and wrote the play just to meet his hero.

Later that night, finally alone in his apartment, Garry is visited by the suave Joe who appears to have "forgotten his latch-key".  Garry tells his unwanted visitor exactly what they all think of him and warns that gold-digger Joe will be cast out of the golden circle if he keeps seeing Morris - but Joe has his eye on a bigger prize than Morris... needless to say, the narcissist in Garry cannot refuse the offer of more adoration and they spend the night together.

Warchus has done his gender-flip on the characters of Joe and Helen - as written by Coward the characters are predatory actress Joanne married to manager Henry.  But the change works wonderfully well, staying true to Coward the writer and more importantly, Coward the man.  It also works well within the plot: having seen Garry ruling all around him as a spoiled star, here he is confronted with someone who refuses to be cowed by his imperious manner; Joe knows Garry's Achilles heel and he strikes...

Once again Garry's staff quietly go through their morning chores only now they have the boastful presence of Joe to contend with rather than some airhead starlet.  Garry has to finally face up to his actions but not before all the characters descend on the apartment and end up being thrown in kitchens, spare rooms and bathrooms as Garry finds himself in the middle of a French farce situation.

Warchus has saved another change for the end of the play - echoing the end of the first half - where Garry is alone in the apartment with someone close to him calling his bluff.  The original has a more obvious curtain-line and business, but Warchus has the play end on a more uncertain note, playing up the feeling of sadness and ambiguity that runs beneath the surface of what has gone before.

Matthew Warchus handles the material wonderfully, letting both the verbal wit and physical comedy shine but always keeping that undercurrent of Garry's loneliness flowing just below the surface.  If there is a problem with the show it's that some of the supporting performances fail to rise - the characters of Morris and Helen are particularly ill-served.

But there are several which contribute wonderfully to the show's success: Enzo Cilenti has just the right air of calculating brazenness for the character of Joe and his big scene at the end of the first act was very well-handled, seductive and menacing at the same time.  Luke Thallon was great fun as Roland Maule the writer in love with Garry's glamour and I particularly loved Joshua Hil's laconic, deadpan valet Fred, indifferent to the artistic temperaments exploding around him.

Sophie Thompson was in delicious form as Monica, the seen-it-all Scottish secretary who is always one step ahead of Garry's demands and who keeps a big sister-like eye on him for his own good; her knowing one-liners were delivered to perfection.  I also liked Indira Varma as Liz, the poised and cool ex-wife might not be a particular stretch for her but she made an excellent counterpoint to the shenanigans around her and she hit the right sensible tone throughout.

PRESENT LAUGHTER cannot work without an actor who can be the outrageous temperamental star and also suggest the emptiness behind the glittering mask and Andrew Scott was sheer perfection.  Watching him soar in this role, it dawned on me that here finally is an actor who comes close to the quicksilver quality that the late Ian Charleson brought to his theatre performances: the same graceful physicality, effortless charisma and the ability to hold a moment between comedy and despair, revealing all you need to know about his character that is hidden underneath the lines he is saying.  He was that good.

The run is now sold out but NT Live are filming it for a November screening - click on the picture below to book your seats - just think, you probably won't have to queue for a portaloo at the cinema...

FANNY AND ALEXANDER at the Old Vic - life and death on stage....

Ingmar Bergman, one of the handful of visionary directors whose surname can sum-up a genre of film, was also a renowned theatre director so I suspect he would be bemused that some of his most intensely cinematic works have been adapted for the stage.  Unsurprisingly Ivo van Hove has directed three Bergman adaptations - CRIES AND WHISPERS, PERSONA, AFTER THE REHEARSAL - while there have also been stage versions of THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY and SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE.

The most well-known Bergman adaptation was in 1973 when Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler transformed his 1955 film SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT into the musical A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.  Now Matthew Warchus' tenure at the Old Vic gives us a new stage version of Bergman's 1982 epic family drama FANNY AND ALEXANDER which won four Academy Awards, a remarkable feat for a non-English language film.

When I heard about the stage play I did wonder how on earth they were going to make Bergman's highly cinematic semi-autobiographical family comedy-drama which is shot through with themes of supernatural and haunting magic realism work on stage.  What Stephen Beresford - who wrote the wonderful Matthew Warchus film PRIDE - has done with his adaptation is to make it a highly theatrical production with stage effects, jokey front-cloth warnings about the play's length, and choreographed movement replacing realistic playing. 

This immediately makes Beresford's adaptation it's own entity - the original cinema release was shorter than the play - but it's three and a half hour running time swept by thanks to Max Webster's involving production; no mean feat when one considers there are roughly 23 roles.in it. 

Fanny and Alexander are the young children of a theatrical family; their parents Emilie and Oscar Ekdahl own a theatre in Uppsala, Sweden and also are the stars of the theatre company.  Their extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins all live in a large townhouse which is presided over by their Grandmother Helena, a former lead actress who now condescends to playing featured roles such as mothers and queens.  Attended by devoted servants, the Ekdahls gather to celebrate Christmas and plan the upcoming production of HAMLET, also at the table is Helena's old friend and admirer Isaak Jacobi, a puppetmaker.

It takes a while to keep track of all Fanny and Alexander's housemates but through some sharp playing one soon got to know that Uncle Gustav Adolf, although married with a daughter also has designs on the maid Maj - to which she happily complies - and Uncle Carl who is always complaining about his chatterbox German wife Lydia. 

Alexander's worrying visions of a cloaked figure tragically portend Oscar's sudden death from a heart attack which leaves Emilie worried what the future holds for her and her children.  Not long after the funeral however, she announces to Fanny and Alexander that the local bishop Edvard Vergérus has asked her to marry him and she has accepted.  Vergérus, a seemingly gentle if overly-pious man, insists that Emilie and the children move with him to start their new life in his own home where he lives with his infirm aunt, his spinster sister and a maid.

Emilie and her children discover their new home to be a cold and emotionless one, ruled by Vergérus with a puritanical iron fist.  He forbids them from seeing their former family and singles out Alexander for punishment.  When locked in their bedroom, Alexander sees the ghosts of two drowned girls who tell him they are the drowned daughters from Vergérus' first marriage.  The spiteful maid Justina reports this to the bishop who beats Alexander mercilessly.  Emilie manages to escape to see her former mother-in-law Helena to confide her unhappiness but also that she is now pregnant.

Emilie confronts Vergérus and asks for a divorce, he refuses and tells her that if she leaves he will claim custody of Fanny and Alexander on the grounds of desertion.  But there is a greater power than Vergérus' chilly morality... Helena asks her old friend Isaak to help the children escape from their pious prison through his magic illusions and hide them in his puppet workshop.  While there Isaak warns them about his strange nephew Ishmael, who is locked in his own room for safety.

A defiant but weary Emilie tells the angry Vergérus she will never return her children to his house and tricks him into drinking a glass laced with her sleeping powders so she can escape... at the same time as Alexander is drawn to the locked room and meets the mysterious Ishmael who illustrates how thoughts can become reality... 

As I said Max Webster's production remained fast-moving and involving at all times, managing to balance the bleak Vergérus world with the more emotional Ekdahl one; he also knew how to vary the tone from Vergérus' abuse of Alexander to the hilarious scene where Uncles Carl and Gustav Adolf attempted to meet the bishop to try to resolve things only for Gustav Adolf - who had been warned to hide his anger - to explode in foul-mouthed disgust at Vergerus' hypocrisy.  His linking device - of having the servants narrate the events, while putting great emphasis on the different menus served for dinner in each household - was a clever one.

Tom Pye's stylish but simple set designs conjured up Fanny and Alexander's different environments superbly as did Mark Henderson's nuanced lighting.  From a rotating cast of four pairs of child actors, Zaris Angel Hator as Fanny and, in particular, Guillermo Bedward as Alexander were very good.

Among a strong cast, there were fine performances from Thomas Arnold as the mournful Uncle Carl, Karina Fernandez as the drab maid Justina (although not outshining Harriet Andersson in the film), Vivian Oparah as the life-affirming maid Maj, Lolita Chakrabarti as the icy Helena Vergérus, Catherine Walker's passionate Emilie and Sargon Yelda as the fated Oscar.

In a trio of excellent performances, special praise to Jonathan Slinger as the fun-loving and volatile Uncle Gustav Adolf, Michael Pennington as the genial but mysterious Isaak and Kevin Doyle as Edvard Vergérus, who while making you hate him, suggested the emotionally-scared man behind the monster.

But ruling the stage - as well as her character ruled her family - Penelope Wilton was a glorious Helena: it was all there, the former stage leading lady irked at no longer getting the glamorous roles, the indomitable matriarch, and the woman who realizes she is still able to love and be loved.  It was a role made for her to play as it echoed the strong no-nonsense women she has played in THE SECRET RAPTURE, ...BERNARDA ALBA, TAKEN AT MIDNIGHT and THE CHALK GARDEN.

An excellent choice to celebrate Ingmar Bergman's centenary, and his wonderful all-too-human characters, and the perfect production to do it with.  After all, Bergman himself said that film "was the costly, exacting mistress" but theatre was "the faithful wife".

I want to see the film again now!