50 Favourite Musicals: 9: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1982) (Alan Menkin, Howard Ashman)

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: 1982, Orpheum Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1983, Comedy Theatre, London

Productions seen: three
  
Score: Alan Menkin / Howard Ashman

Book: Howard Ashman

Plot: At Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, Seymour has an unrequited love for his co-worker, the sweet-natured but dumb blonde Audrey.  In a desperate attempt to entice customers, Mushnik allows Seymour to display a weird plant, that appeared suddenly during a total eclipse, that Seymour calls Audrey II.  Seymour cuts his finger and discovers Audrey II responds to drops of blood.  Audrey II comes to life and offers Seymour all he has ever wanted in life as long as it keeps being fed blood.. anybody's blood...

Five memorable numbers: SUDDENLY SEYMOUR, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN, SKID ROW, DENTIST!

Back in the September of 1983 I was bereft as my favourite obsession - Richard Eyre's production of GUYS AND DOLLS at the Olivier Theatre - had lost most of it's glorious cast; G&D was the show that gave me the Pauline conversion to the glory of theatre and I was faced with that aching reality of loving a show... all things must come to an end.  No more Julia McKenzie, John Normington, Bill Paterson, David Healy or Harry Towb.  The good news was that Harry Towb was going straight into a new musical at the Comedy Theatre called LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.  Being a film buff I knew of the 1960 Roger Corman comedy-thriller film so I went along to see a preview with an idea what I was going to see but primarily to see 'Uncle' Harry.  I reeled out of the Comedy a few hours later, with a new musical obsession!

One of the pleasures looking back on theatre memories is you can identify great performances as they stand out down the years, and I am proud that I can say I saw Ellen Greene as Audrey onstage.  It was a truly remarkable performance - as two-dimensional as a cartoon, but played with sudden depths of feeling and emotion to make her a totally lovable, totally original creation.  And that voice... soft as a fake-fur coat when she sang her longing ballad SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN and the power seen during her moments in SKID ROW was let loose during the huge duet SUDDENLY SEYMOUR when poor Barry James as Seymour had to hang on to the set for his life when she released the full belt in the line "He don't condescennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd" was one of the great theatre moments I have seen (and felt).  Barry James was a delightfully endearing schlubb as Seymour, the thrillingly deep evil of Michael Leslie's baritone voice made Audrey II fully come alive and Terence Hillyer was a hoot in his various characters but mainly as Orin Scrivello - DDS - the sadistic dentist boyfriend of Audrey who deservedly became the first victim in Audrey II's jaws.  Popping up throughout the show were the holy trinity of Nicola Blackman, Dawn Hope and Shezwae Powell as Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette, three urchins who invited us into the show and sang us out to our doom as Audrey II's tentacles landed on our heads as their last note ended.  And 'Uncle' Harry?  He was glorious of course, holding the show steady with his stage experience and comic timing.  Howard Ashman's tight direction - tight as Audrey II's jaw-snap - his genuinely witty script and delicious 60s retro-score with Alan Menkin made the show absolutely irresistible.

Again the spectre of theatre-going descended as one by one the original cast left - and while the show was still enjoyable in itself, the magic of that original cast dissipated over it's near-two year run.  Memories of a naff touring production starring Su Pollard were luckily swept away by Matthew White's Menier production which gave Sheridan Smith a great showcase for her comedy and musical talents, and she was well partnered by Paul Keating as Seymour and, in a nice touch, Barry James as Mushnik.  I couldn't bring myself to see the recent revival which looked over-stated and under-cast, when you have seen the best you really have to curate your memories to keep them fresh.  Of course, Ellen Greene managed to preserve her Audrey in the 1986 film version, after a long wait when Cyndi Lauper was considered, but although it has a cult following - and the fantastic Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops voicing the killer plant - if you had seen the original stage production, it's pace is leaden and obvious.

Happily for posterity - and me - Ellen's rendition of SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN was filmed for the 1983 Standard Drama Awards show where the show won Best Musical, so here she is mixing the comic and the pathos for an unforgettable experience, attended by the trio of Nicola Blackman, Shezwae Powell and Dawn Hope.

50 Favourite Musicals: 37: CLOSER TO HEAVEN (2001) (Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe)

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: 2001, Arts Theatre

First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: two

Score: Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe
Book: Jonathan Harvey

Plot:  Shell meets her gay estranged father Vic again at the club he owns, where she also meets Straight Dave an Irish bartender and Billie Trix, the club's star performer who is a druggy former pop singer and actress. Shell and Straight Dave start a relationship just as he is offered a place in a new boy band, but when Dave also meets Mile End Lee, Billie Trix' drug dealer, he finds himself falling in love again...

Five memorable numbers: FRIENDLY FIRE, MY NIGHT, POSITIVE ROLE MODEL, OUT OF MY SYSTEM, SOMETHING SPECIAL

Right this is tricky... how can this musical beat some good competition to get this place in my list when it has such a bad book?  Any fule kno that a musical needs a good book to hold the show together, no matter how great the score, and Jonathan Harvey's book is truly one of the worst.  It clatters along without any regard for creating even remotely interesting characters - maybe Billie Trix and Straight Dave at a push.  The worst offence is that the last quarter of the musical DEMANDS we understand the pain of Straight Dave when his young lover dies from a drug overdose but the character has had only a few scenes and is fairly two-dimensional - it's difficult to feel a character's pain when he only appears to have met his lover twice.  No, CLOSER TO HEAVEN is here on the basis of it's original production, directed by Gemma Bodinetz which, though hampered by the afore-mentioned book, had the benefit of performers who managed to create depth through their own personalities into the characters that the script refused to do.  Paul Keating as Straight Dave, Stacey Roca as Shell, Tom Walker - aka Jonathan Pie - as Mile End Lee, David Burt as Vic - who, when CTH closed early, simply jumped ship to TABOO, the other gay pop musical set in Soho clubland - and primarily Frances Barber, gloriously over the top as the Anita Pallenberg-esque Billie Trix.  The original production was only meant to run from May till September 2001 but initial packed houses made The Really Useful Company extend it to January 2002, however the shaky reviews and declining audiences made them think again and it closed in October.  If proof be needed to the galvanizing presence of the original cast, a 2015 revival at the Union Theatre was appalling; without the benefit of strong, charismatic performers with good voices, the plot made even less sense and even the Pet Shop Boys score couldn't rescue it.  The cast recording of the PSB score remains a favourite with it's mix of PSB bangers for the club scenes and big ballads for the characters: it is very noticeable that any character development at all happens through the songs and not through the scenes in the book.     

Well I think I have found out one good reason why it closed... there is no video recordings of the original production anywhere apart from this 47 second clip of Frances Barber, Paul Keating, Stacey Roca, David Burt and Tom Walker singing the opening number MY NIGHT (although the cast recording is dubbed over it).  Indeed, Neil Tennant bemoaned the show's bad marketing after it closed.  There is a YouTube video of the same number filmed from the back of the Arts Theatre but it's an awful transfer.  Hunt out the casting recording to get a better idea of the PSB score.

KENNY MORGAN at the Arcola Theatre - art imitating art imitating life...

In June we saw Terence Rattigan's THE DEEP BLUE SEA at the National Theatre, the play that is acknowledged to be his masterpiece.  A reason for this could possibly be because the story came from an incident in his own life.  What Rattigan did however was to do something he could not do in real life... he could change the ending.

Mike Poulton does not have that luxury as his new acclaimed play KENNY MORGAN documents the incident Rattigan could only change in fiction.

Kenneth Morgan was a young actor who in 1940 won a Best Newcomer award for his role in the film of Terence Rattigan's stage success FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS but more importantly he met Rattigan during the filming and they became friends.

They met again after WW2 ended and started a relationship but this was the 1940s and Rattigan was terrified that his homosexuality would become common knowledge.  Not only was homosexuality a criminal act but he also was worried his aged parents would find out.  Rattigan's sexuality was known to his theatrical friends but that was all.  Rattigan lived at the Albany near Piccadilly Circus but he also had the lease for a small flat on another floor which was used for visiting friends and that's where Morgan had to stay when he visited.

Morgan's career had lost it's momentum and he was depressed by his life as the famous writer's secret affair so, while Rattigan was preparing his Alexander The Great play ADVENTURE STORY, Morgan ended the relationship and went to live with another actor Alec Ross in Camden.  Rattigan was upset but assumed Morgan would return.  He did not.  It soon became clear that Ross did not return Morgan's feelings and at the end of his tether, Morgan gassed himself.

Rattigan was in Liverpool with the play's director Peter Glenville when he heard the news and was profoundly shocked but by the evening he envisioned the start of a play where a body was found in front of a gas fire.  It's interesting that Rattigan immediately started to re-write Morgan's fate in theatrical terms as a way of dealing with it.

Poulton's play uses the plot of THE DEEP BLUE SEA as his template but changes a main fact: Rattigan was not in London when Morgan died but Poulton has him making three appearances.  Like THE DEEP BLUE SEA, the play covers the day and night after a suicide attempt with various characters coming and going, attempting to discover what drove the main character to that action, an action that in 1949 was in itself a criminal act; in Poulton's programme notes he estimates that in 1949, 300 people were charged with attempting to kill themselves.

It would appear that in real-life Morgan was successful at his first attempt but to fit the DEEP BLUE SEA narrative, Poulton has him being found in the morning slumped by the gas fire by a neighbour and the landlady and as in Rattigan's play, the neighbour calls a number in a found address book - in the play it's Hester's husband, here it's the playwright.  Also as in the original, Morgan is helped by another neighbour, a European former doctor, struck off under mysterious circumstances.

Also as in the original, Morgan attempts to hide his suicide letter from Alec but it is found which triggers the start of Alec's emotional cruelty and the end of their affair.  In the Rattigan's version, Hester finally sees a chance of redemption after a long talk with the doctor, in this version that chance is also offered through the doctor's appeal to life but one last twist of the knife by Alec destroys Kenny's optimism and he reaches for the gas tap again...

I am still in two minds whether it was a good thing to have seen THE DEEP BLUE SEA so recently: it was good to see how Poulton not only uses Rattigan's structure but also to see how he has referenced certain moments and individual lines in his own play but manipulated them to give it a new meaning.  However I also feel that having THE DEEP BLUE SEA so fresh in one's mind, Poulton's play can only come across as an inferior copy; surely Morgan's despair felt more painful than a copy of a well-constructed play?  It almost felt like a dramatist's exercise - can you write a new play based on the structure of an older one?  Occasionally I wished Poulton could have broken away from THE DEEP BLUE SEA to make us feel Morgan's distress more intently.

There is also a problem with the character of Kenny himself; by writing him as a self-pitying lachrymose gay victim, speaking in the clipped manner of a 1940s juvenile lead, Poulton does make it hard to feel any sympathy for him which is the play's chief failing.  The frequent traffic on the small Arcola stage also felt a bit too mechanical at times: it felt that Poulton was too interested in his characters to leave any of them offstage for long - did Rattigan really need to appear three times?

However I did enjoy the play very much, as well as Lucy Bailey's production which concentrated all the attention on that cramped living room like a pressure-cooker; the flat's design by Robert Innes Hopkins had just the right down-at-heel, drab feel.

Bailey also elicits nuanced performances from her cast: Paul Keating as Kenny had to struggle with the strait-jacketed character of Kenny but was very effective in his scenes in extremis especially when Alec destroyed his last chance of escape with his withering scorn, you could almost see the light go out in him.

As the men in Kenny's life, Simon Dutton was fine as Terence Rattigan, caring for Kenny in his own way but unable to get past his closeted outlook and Piero Niel-Mee was marvellously self-absorbed as Alec, retreating into his bi-sexuality when Kenny's love becomes too suffocating.

Circling these main characters were well-drawn roles that put gentle spins on Rattigan's own supporting characters: Matthew Bulgo was a delight as Kenny's upstairs neighbour, the mild-mannered Dafydd who works in an office job in the Admiralty, lives with his sister and who knows his life is quietly slipping by unnoticed, Marlene Sideaway was good as Mrs. Simpson, the spiky landlady who cares in her way but is suspicious of Kenny and his 'theatrical' ways.

Lowenna Melrose made an impression as Norma Hastings, a young actress friend of Alec who he sleeps with as if to prove to Kenny that he is not gay; Melrose nicely suggested that she was no fool where Alec was concerned.  Rounding out the cast was George Irving as the mysterious neighbour Mr Ritter, a man nursing his past with a quick, sly wit and canny understanding.  His accent strayed occasionally into Mittel-Europeanspeak but he was excellent in his arguments for life to be lived, even the bleak times.

Apart from the problem of Poulton's too-slavish adherence to the structure of THE DEEP BLUE SEA, this was well worth seeing and it would be nice if it had a life beyond it's current run.  It is also a telling reminder of the crushing strictures that the law imposed during that period on the lives of, what Tennessee Williams called "the fugitive kind".