GUYS AND DOLLS - Following GYPSY from Chichester to London...

You can almost hear the owners of the Savoy Theatre when they realised that Imelda Staunton in GYPSY was such a massive success, calling up the Chichester Festival Theatre and saying "Um.. you don't have any more like that do you?"  Luckily for them they did, namely their 2014 revival of GUYS AND DOLLS - which is now playing the Savoy until next March.

There might still be someone in Buttkick, Idaho that does not know that the 1982 National Theatre production directed by Richard Eyre was the production that turned me into a huge theatre fan but it's true.  That production captured me and made me it's own, and while I have seen a few revivals since that have seemed almost cowed by the status of both the musical itself and the NT production, the good news is that I enjoyed Gordon Greenberg's Chichester production enough to want to see it again in it's London transfer.

Yes there are still times that I wonder how such an obvious laughline can be overlooked or mis-handled, yes I can wonder why the orchestrations are sometimes seeming to rush through the songs almost as if embarrassed at the score's riches and yes, sometimes I wonder why the performers sometimes attack the roles like a rugby prop-forward when if they could just relax into it the laughs will come, they just need to trust the material more.

In the transfer to London a key cast change has given the production a new lease of life, namely David Haig as Nathan Detroit.  He has invigorated it and given the scenes involving Nathan and Adelaide a new weight where as in Chichester the show was seemingly all about Jamie Parker's Sky Masterson.

Haig gives his man-nearing-the-end-of-his-tether routine a new shake of the dice and presents us with a Nathan that we can care for and he has a perfect foil in Sophie Thompson's Miss Adelaide. Although still not showing the vulnerable heart of the character, Sophie's performance prompted a huge ovation again at the curtain call which was lovely to witness!

Jamie Parker is still ruling the roost as Sky Masterson and he is now partnered by Siubhan Harrison who certainly captures the steel in Sister Sarah but - like Clare Foster in Chichester - doesn't quite show the girl beneath the Missionary uniform.

The supporting cast all work well with Neil McCaul excelling as a Gorbals Arvide Abernathy and Gavin Spokes certainly seizes his big moment in "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat" which now also pops up at the curtain call for a tambourine-friendly encore.

A major component of the show is Peter McKintosh's bright and colourful set of shards of Times Square billboards and Tim Mitchell's lighting design.  I must admit that I again found Carlos Acosta's much-vaunted choreography to be fairly uninspiring and lacking focus.

Coming away from the show I felt very proud that I had the good fortune to start my real theatre-going life with such a bona fide Broadway classic.  33 years on, it is a measure of Richard Eyre's production that while watching this revival, I can still half-close my eyes and see Ian Charleson, Julie Covington, Bob Hoskins, Julia McKenzie, David Healy, John Normington, Bill Paterson, Jim Carter, Harry Towb, Belinda Sinclair, Rachel Izen and that new doll to the London stage, Imelda Staunton.

However, even without those ghosts in the memory, you will have a great time at the Savoy...

OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD at the Olivier - Freedom Through Theatre

In 1990 I saw Timberlake Wertenbaker's OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD in it's last few weeks at the Garrick Theatre and was taken by it's simple production and the way Wertenbaker interpreted Thomas Keneally's book The Playmaker which dealt with the first convicts who were sentenced to be transported to Australia for a range of both petty and serious crimes and how an officer uses the prisoners to stage an amateur production of George Farquhar's THE RECRUITING OFFICER.

This originally opened at the Royal Court and won the Olivier award for Best Play and, by the time I saw it after it's transfer, it had an impressive cast of Julian Wadham as the well-meaning officer and his convicts included Amanda Redman as quiet Mary Brenham, Tony Rohr as volunteer hangman Ketch Freeman, Nigel Cooke as keen amateur actor Robert Sideway, Ron Cook as the Jewish prisoner John Wisehammer, Caroline Quentin as bolshy Dabby Bryant and Linda Bassett as loose cannon Liz Mordern.  It is now revived at the Olivier Theatre and while the performances rarely match these, it was interesting to see it again.

What I did not realise when I saw it first was that the characters - officers and prisoners - are all, by and large, based on the real people involved in the first ever transportation to Australia that resulted in the staging of the amateur production of THE RECRUITING OFFICER in 1789.  Yes, while The French Revolution kicked off and George Washington was made President, while Fletcher Christian led the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty and William Blake published "Songs of Innocence", a small group of prisoners performed Farquhar's popular comedy to celebrate George III's birthday - I hope the irony was not lost on them.

Wertenbaker' has written a fascinating play which looks at the subject from both the officers and the prisoners perspectives but the latter come out as the real heroes of the piece.  However I felt there were times when Nadia Fall's production looked too exposed on the expansive Olivier stage on Peter McKintosh's stylised set with it's Australian desert backdrop but Neil Austin's lighting design was as exemplary as ever.  However I think the Lyttelton would have been a better fit.

Admittedly we saw a preview so hopefully the production might bed in better when the cast have the measure of the piece.  Standouts in the cast were Ashley McGuire as the wonderfully gobby Dabby Bryant, all bolshy front while quietly yearning to return home to Devon, Lee Ross as Robert Sideway the eager actor-to-be who has seen David Garrick onstage, Tadhg Murphy as the convict who is despised by the others as he has volunteered to be the colony hangman, Matthew Cottle as the word-loving Jewish prisoner and in particular Jodie McNee as Liz Mordern, burning with anger and resentment who is the most transformed by being exposed to kindness and the chance to find her own voice.

Jason Hughes as Ralph Clark, the officer who is also the play's director and Caoilfhionn Dunne as Mary Brenham, the convict he fell in love with, should stand out more but their plot-line felt under-played as did the sub-plot of the scenery-chewing Paul Kaye as the mid-shipman slowly losing his mind over his love of the convict Duckling Smith.  The latter was played by Shalisha James-Davis in a barely adequate manner.

Nadia Fall has made a major change with her production by adding a sung score supplied by Cerys Matthews which I suspect was done to give it more of an epic feel in keeping with the Olivier auditorium.  Some times it was effective - the convicts would surely have sung to themselves to keep their spirits up - sometimes it felt a bit too obvious.

If you have never seen the play before I would recommend seeing it as it makes for a moving, thought-provoking experience.

SPLENDOUR at the Donmar - Women in Revolt

My favourite theatre production from last year was the Donmar's funny but devastating revival of Kevin Elyot's MY NIGHT WITH REG which was directed by actor-turned-director Robert Hastie so when it was announced that he would be directing the theatre's revival of Abi Morgan's SPLENDOUR I leaped at the chance to see it.  Could Hastie repeat his success with SPLENDOUR's all-female cast as he had with REG's all-male cast?

Abi Morgan's play, first performed in 2000, is a lesser work than Elyot's MY NIGHT WITH REG but Hastie again elicits strong performances from his four actresses.

The action takes place in the soulless elegance of a reception room in the palace of an unnamed country's dictator.  It suggests the adopted style of a 1970s hotel lobby with it's large windows and the heavy design of it's large, swirling light-fitting.  Unseen to the audience is a large abstract painting by a dead artist.  Surrounding Peter McKintosh's set is a circle of glittering, shattered glass which gives a suggestion of what is going on the other side of the windows.

Kathryn, a famous photo-journalist is waiting to take an officially-arranged portrait of the dictator of an un-named, possibly East European, country.  She waits with Gilma, her appointed translator who seems unsettled, nervously clutching her large shoulder-bag to her at all times.

They are finally joined by the dictator's polished and chic wife Micheleine who placates the photographer with news that her husband is running late and they are also joined by Micheline's best friend Genevieve, bedraggled from the pouring rain. And they wait, and wait.

Morgan's theatrical trick is that they, of course, all speak English but the photographer has to put all her questions to the two women through the translator, who is less than correct in what she translates.  Is she inept or does she have her own agenda?

And still they wait until slowly what is happening outside the palace is made clear - the photographer talks of the scary taxi ride through the agitated city, Genevieve talks of the rising tension on the streets, the translator reveals that she is from the same area as the rebels and we realise that the dictator's regime is in it's last hours.

As the realisation dawns that her husband's non-appearance could mean that he has fled the country, Micheleine lashes out at everyone and in particular at Genevieve, whose artist husband painted the abstract on the wall and whose death was sanctioned by the dictator.  In a harrowing exchange Micheleine chides Genevieve for being unloved by her children thanks to her continued friendship with the wife of their father's murderer while Genevieve reveals she only goes through the motions of friendship for the safety of her family.

Morgan's play is certainly interesting but ultimately it's deliberate obliqueness and showy theatrics cannot sustain it's ambition.  Several times during it's uninterrupted 90 minutes the play stops and starts from the opening scene again but quickly picks up from where the previous scene ended.  You would understand if it was to show the action from each character's viewpoint but it doesn't do this, just a fracturing of the timeline for it's own sake.

However the play's drawbacks are more than compensated by Hastie's taut direction and the excellent performances of Sinéad Cusack as Micheleine, by turns caustic, defiant, spiteful and haughty while finally facing her fate with a withering scorn, Michelle Fairley as Genevieve, worn-down by the constant pressure of knowing her dangerous former friend, and Zawe Ashton as Gilma, the seemingly inept interpreter who slowly reveals her disregard for Micheleine's authority by stealing and breaking objects in the palace.  In a nice final exchange, Gilma demands Micheleine's designer shoes as her people are barefoot but not before Micheleine wryly notices that they are just Gilma's size.

Genevieve O'Reilly had a harder time to impress as her character was the most colourless of all - photographer as observer - but she had an arresting presence on stage all the same.  While ultimately I felt that, stripped of the production and performances, the play is possibly not as good as it thinks it is, Morgan is still to be applauded for writing such densely-woven roles for four actresses.

"Guys and Dolls": Yesterday once more...

In 1982, I saw the greatest production ever staged of the greatest musical ever written.  There, Constant Reader, I have said it.  I can say it with confidence because there will never be a company assembled with such an array of talents to draw on, both onstage and off.  I am of course talking about Richard Eyre's now-legendary production of GUYS AND DOLLS.  As you are my Constant Reader you will have read my previous blogs where I have talked about my love for this production - oh ok... look here and here.

The importance of that production was that it turned me literally overnight into a theatre fan while making me realise the special alchemy that can happen between a company of actors and the audience watching them.  And it was a damn fine production.  I know I will never see it's like again but what of future generations?  They must be allowed to experience the joy that Abe Burrows & Jo Swerling's book and Frank Loesser's score combine to make so revivals must be staged.  You just have to hope that they are staged by talented people who understand what the show needs to make it flow.

The Donmar's 2005 revival has faded to a sepia memory but the current revival at the Chichester Festival Theatre left me dazzled, smiling and thoroughly happy - just what this show can do like no other.

Gordon Greenberg's production does nothing to stand in the way of the show's inner motor which powers along through it's plot derived from two stories by Damon Runyan.

Nathan Detroit needs $1000 to secure a place for his floating crap game which he has to hide from both the police and Miss Adelaide, his fiancee of 14 years.  He bets the legendary gambler Sky Masterson that he cannot take the strait-laced Salvation Army Sergeant Sarah Brown to Havana but when Sky pulls off the bet, the couple find themselves falling in love.  Once back on Broadway Sky and Sarah discover the gamblers have used her empty Mission for their crap game and Sarah breaks with Sky... how will we ever get to the happy ending that they and we deserve?

What must frighten any potential revival directors is the knowledge that the show just *works* so if something isn't working then it's your production.  Greenberg luckily has trusted in the material and by and large comes through unscathed although not without the odd audible sigh from me at a missed opportunity or two.

He has cast very well which fits his production just right with one surprising exception.  I have enjoyed Clare Foster's previous performances in CRAZY FOR YOU and MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG but here it felt like she still doesn't have a handle on Sarah, she certainly can play the righteous Sergeant but didn't convince at all that there was anything else to the character.  It is frustrating as it throws the quartet of lovers off-kilter, leaving Jamie Parker with not an awful lot to work with.

Parker is one of the production's big successes. Charismatic and likable, he also has a very good singing voice and I loved in particular how he worked his way through I'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE, really putting over Sky's own surprise at his feelings.  He also delivered a powerful LUCK, BE A LADY.  I will always compare any Sky against Ian Charleson's performance but Jamie Parker certainly delivers.

A major plus was also Peter Polycarpou as Nathan Detroit who suggested his put-uponess without making him a complete nebbish. He certainly made an excellent foil for Sophie Thompson's Miss Adelaide.  As bright and larger-than-life as Peter McKintosh's permanent backdrop of advertising signs, Sophie effortlessly got her laughs sliding up and down her vocal range and also delivered a delightful ADELAIDE'S LAMENT.  If she lacked that spark of lovability that Julia McKenzie had that made the part forever hers, Sophie still thoroughly deserved the huge cheer at her curtain call and her performance made me feel very proud for her.

Their supporting cast were also all worth the price of admission: Harry Morrison and Ian Hughes made a likable pair as Nathan's gophers Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Benny Southstreet with Morrison stepping up nicely-nicely to belt across the show-stopping SIT DOWN YOU'RE ROCKING THE BOAT with excellent help from Melanie La Barrie as the formidable General Cartwright.

I also liked the other double act of Nick Wilton as a pugnacious Harry The Horse and Nic Greenshields as Big Jule, a big noise from Chicago.  I should also mention Neil McCaul's resoundingly Scots Arvide Abernathy who sang a nice but shortened version of MORE I CANNOT WISH YOU.  Sadly, although all good, none of the chorus really stood out which is where Eyre's production will always trump other revivals as he cast such unique talents as his ensemble players, giving them all a back story and a definite personality.

As I mentioned before, Peter McKintosh's standing set of a rainbow of fragmented vintage ads worked much better than I expected and an unexpected treat was to be seated high enough to be able to appreciate the way the highly polished stage mirrored the action on it.

A major coup for the production is securing the services of fashionable choreographer Carlos Acosta in his musical staging debut but while his routines are a cut above the usual fare - especially for the male dancers - they didn't exactly strike me as being generic to this particular show.  What he is to be applauded for is staying away from any "dance" elements and keeping them all within the musical theatre tradition.  Kudos too for Tim Mitchell's eye-popping lighting and the always-dependable Gareth Valentine's steady music direction.

The cherry on my slice of Mindy's cheesecake - or was it strudel? - was seeing Sophie Thompson afterwards, alarmingly for the first time in 10 years!  I first met Sophie in sister Emma's dressing room in 1986 when she was in ME AND MY GIRL and have watched her successes with a paternal pride.  It was lovely to see her again, get a hug and tell her how much I loved her in this, my most favourite of shows.

I had been more than somewhat nervous about seeing this revival but Gordon Greenberg's production is a joy from start to finish and the thought did cross my mind that hopefully yesterday afternoon, someone was sitting in the same auditorium and had a similar life-changing experience that I had when I first made the acquaintance of these eternally wonderful GUYS AND DOLLS.