Review: The Nutcracker (Pentameters Theatre)

 

 There are few things more quintessentially Christmassy than Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, based on the German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann’s frankly really weird sounding 1816 novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet’s fame has long eclipsed its source material’s and this quirky interpretation presented by young company Butterfly Wheels led by Alice Old and Kayleigh Allenby (who have written and directed the show) has returned to the original story and given it a contemporary flair. There’s no Land of Sweets in Hoffmann and the gracious Sugar Plum Fairy and her friends are replaced by the young heroine Marie’s creepy clown dolls who descend from their shelf and dance- truly the stuff of nightmares.

It’s always fun to explore a ‘new’ theatre for the first time and the Pentameters is a lovely and very friendly above pub affair about a minute away from the Hampstead tube station with velvet scatter cushions on the seats (like a Hampstead Rosemary Branch). Entering the auditorium is like walking into a secret grotto and chocolate is very kindly given out. The set (designed by Alice Old and Amelia Marchant) has a really exuberant home-made quality, offering an exaggerated version of a perfectly traditional Christmas scene.

It’s undeniable that this ‘multi-sensory’ company throws just about everything except the kitchen sink into the production, reflecting the cast’s very varied backgrounds. Early nineteenth century Romanticism meets the New Romantics of the 1980s and it combines story telling, music and dance of all different kinds, video and shadow puppetry. A haunted mechanical remix of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s suite creepily illuminates the nature of Marie’s eccentric godfather Drosselmeir’s clockwork works of art (not toys) and the violin playing is beautiful- it’s a pity that more of the music isn’t played live

Much of the show is pre-recorded (the sound is bit of a problem- the Mouse King’s rap is incomprehensible), which adds a layer of distance between the characters and audience and there’s an emphasis on developing the atmosphere at the expense of narrative and character. The shadow puppet re-telling of how the Nutcracker came into being (Katie Mitchell uses a similar device in her production of Beauty and the Beast) offers the kind of story that you can get immersed in, in contrast to the rather stilted writing that peppers the main narrative.

This love child of Tim Burton, Kate Bush and Sarah Brightman is definitely an avant-garde alternative to the usual festive fare. Butterfly Wheels clearly have a lot to offer and have created an excellent, striking aesthetic, but the dramatic qualities need quite a bit of fine tuning to really make the piece flow and feel complete. I can’t say that it’s the most lovable Christmas show around and it’s hard to pitch exactly what kind of audience it’s aimed at. It’s too scary and conceptual for very small children but the moody quality may well appeal to teenagers. An Amazon voucher has just turned up in my inbox and a copy of the original Hoffmann seems an excellent way of spending it.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Salad Days (Riverside Studios)

In some ways, it’s quite difficult to believe that Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds’s musical Salad Days is set in the present day of 1954 as there’s something about the perpetual sunshine that feels so Edwardian. The balmy summer in which our protagonists learn how to dance and fall in love is enchantingly brought to life in this revival of a production originally presented by contemporary opera company Tête à Tête and directed by Bill Bankes-Jones last autumn.

It’s no wonder that Salad Days was the longest running musical in grim and grey post war Britain (prior to My Fair Lady) with its abundance of charm and sunbeams, combined with utterly glorious music, erudite lyrics and skilfully bonkers yet emotionally truthful book. 

This is the silliest of silly musicals and the real magic comes from the way in which it is so cleverly done that the audience is more than happy to be swept away in a sea (or even a saucer) of whimsy. By the end, the songs and characters all feel like old friends.

 Bright young things Timothy and Jane are graduating from the idyllic bubble of university after three years of avoiding lectures and enjoying picnics on the quad and finding the real world rather more difficult to navigate. Jane’s mother wants her safely married off to an eligible young man (preferably a Lord) and Timothy finds himself with a degree but no qualifications to do anything useful (that’s certainly still resonant today) without the help of his assorted high-flying uncles. While mulling over their options, the pair are unexpectedly given the guardianship of a magical piano named Minnie who makes everyone who hears her want to dance, be it Charleston, foxtrot or tango (showcased by Quinny Sacks’s sprightly choreography). And why on earth wouldn’t they?

In many ways, this is the 1950s successor to Gilbert and Sullivan, but it very much has its own character and it’s a true delight to hear such clear unamplified voices fill the air. While a small concert hall isn’t really the ideal space for what’s essentially a chamber piece and some of the transitions between scenes are a little muddy, it is prevented from feeling cavernous by the traverse staging and the non-threatening audience-cast involvement. The cast dressed as university dons escort the audience to their seats and at the height of the celebrations, members of the front row are invited to dance. Despite usually being audience participation phobic, I rather envied the ones who were chosen.

Earnest young Timothy is charmingly portrayed by Sam Harrison as a thoroughly decent sort with lots of wide-eyed charm. He is beautifully matched by professional theatre debutante Katie Moore who makes an enchanting ingénue as Jane, with that particular kind of English Rose vocal purity reminiscent of Julie Andrews and lots of brisk common sense. The entire cast are on tip-top form, including Les Miserables’s original Cosette Rebecca Caine as Jane’s glamorous and glacial mother (a pity she doesn’t have more to sing) and Tony Timberlake as the twinkle-toed police inspector.

This is feel good theatre at its purest and a period piece that fully embraces the sweetness rather than trying to put an ironic spin on it. A real heartwarmer that sends one wanting to Charleston out into the snow.

Written for musicOMH

Review: Once Bitten (Orange Tree Theatre)

For the festive season at the delightful Orange Tree Theatre, Artistic Director Sam Walters offers a kind of grown up pantomime in the form of a totally lightweight French farce. I don’t think any kind of theatre makes me as nervous as, in my experience, farces tend to be either glorious or unbearable. Reggie Oliver’s translation of Alfred Hannequin and Alfred Delacour’s 1875 farce (a prototype in the genre) Once Bitten offers something in the middle: apart from some elements of snobbery that mark it out as very much of its time, the piece has its heart in the right place and the Belle Epoque costumes are delectable, but the writing isn’t consistently funny or frantic enough to sustain nearly two and a half hours.

As Reggie Oliver explains in the programme notes, farce developed in early nineteenth-century France as light entertainment for the emerging bourgeoisie who wanted to see elements from their own society on stage. I wonder if the new middle classes really were as rich and idle as the people who inhabit these plays and the attitude towards servants almost makes one wonder if the Revolution actually happened. I may be reading into something that isn’t there, but it did leave (to this reviewer at least) an aftertaste of smugness and snobbery.

The would-be lawyer Fauvinard is planning a rendezvous with his mistress Cesarine using his friend Tardivaut (a debonair Mark Frost) as his alibi, but nothing goes according to plan, especially when his interfering mother-in-law (played by Briony McRoberts with echoes of Endora from Bewitched) gets involved. An evil poodle also wreaks havoc and several hands have to be bandaged along with wounded dignities and egos.

David Antrobus’s high energy performance gives Fauvinard an appealing sense of an essentially decent man motivated more by a desire to escape from the home that his mother-in-law dominates than by lust (a pity that his wife Angele is such a nonentity). Michael Kirk has a small but rambunctious cameo as an officious Commissioner of Police and I liked Rebecca Egan in the brief role of a wronged wife in a potential divorce case, bringing a touch of stillness and poignancy amidst all the silliness.

Sam Dowson’s glamorous design makes full use of the Orange Tree’s unique space (I saw some children who seemed enchanted by the idea of being able to walk through the set at the interval) that acts as Fauvinard’s study, Cesarine’s boudoir and the study again. Sam Walters ensures that the cast embrace their characters’ one-note personalities and they mostly remain likable, which is no mean feat considering how limited they are. For frivolous escapism, it’s a show that’s mildly diverting, but not excessively so.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Quality Street (Finborough Theatre)

J.M. Barrie’s 1901 pre-Peter Pan romantic comedy invites a host of confectionary-related metaphors in this appealing production by Louise Hill, who recently directed Barrie’s What Every Woman Knows at the Finborough.

Quality Street enjoyed great success in London following on from its Broadway debut in 1902 and a film starring Katharine Hepburn was made in 1937, but hasn’t been seen on the British stage since 1946. In many ways, it is a gossamer thin piece that flirts with some ideas about the ‘Woman Question’ and ties everything up neatly with a rapturously romantic conclusion- which under the circumstances is exactly as it should be. 

Like Barrie’s most famous creation Peter Pan, Quality Street has a distinct air of whimsy and childlike innocence about it, but unlike Peter who makes a point of never growing up, it celebrates the process of growing into maturity. It is the stalwart heroine who is rewarded for her patience and is loved for the woman she has grown into, rather than the silly, giggling coquette she assumes that men want.

The play is set amongst a community run by widows and spinsters during the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century, the conflict that Jane Austen notably (or notoriously, depending on your perspective) never mentioned in her novels. Barrie’s writing has some Austen-esque observations, and the sister relationship, to me, provides the play’s real heart. Confirmed old maid Susan Throssel’s (Daisy Ashford) devotion to her younger sister Phoebe and determination for her to have the things that she was deprived of is gently touching.

This is a society not dissimilar from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, filled with knitting, tea and cards, where the arrival of a man- particularly a young handsome one like Mr Valentine Brown (James Russell) whom everyone expects to propose to Miss Phoebe Throssel (Claire Redcliffe) is the source of much excitement and speculation. His exciting news is that he is about to enlist in the army, leaving Phoebe heartbroken and she voluntarily enters premature spinsterhood. She and her sister have also lost their money through an investment recommended to them by Valentine, forcing them to earn their own living by starting a school for genteel children in their parlour, which they are ill qualified to run.

Phoebe’s response when Valentine returns from the wars (minus one hand) is to masquerade as her imaginary niece ‘Livvy’ and becomes the most sought after belle in local society. The extraordinary thing about her transformation is that it is believable that she wouldn’t be recognised. It isn’t just the physical embellishments, but the way in which her entire manner changes. Valentine Brown is dashing but tactless, an entirely clueless young man who never goes through the jolt of self awareness that convinces the audience that he is entirely worthy of Phoebe.

The production values are remarkably lavish but tasteful. Alex Marker’s elegant and airy blue and white set (beautifully lit by Phil Bentley) and the stylish Regency costumes (by Mike Lees) ensure that this fanciful confection is dressed up to its best advantage.

Louise Hill directs with great charm and sympathy and a light touch. Although I would have liked a little more insight into Barrie’s views about the changing roles of women in society, rather like comparing Georgette Heyer with Jane Austen, it’s a piece that’s best enjoyed for what it is, rather than what it isn’t.

Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Richmond Theatre)

 

Shakespeare’s Globe’s indoor tour of their highly successful and popular production of The Merry Wives of Windsor arrived at Richmond on the day of the first snow of winter and there couldn’t be a better pre-Christmas treat than Christopher Luscombe’s breezy and utterly charming staging.

Merry Wives seems to only occupy a very minor place in the Shakespearean canon, considered by many scholars to be too trivial to be interesting. I disagree- this isn’t exactly social realism about everyday Elizabethan life, but I think it’s fascinating to get an insight into the kind of provincial society that Shakespeare himself grew up in. Its semi-obscure status makes it doubly refreshing as, firstly, it hasn’t been done to death and secondly, it’s genuinely funny (humour becomes dated far more quickly than anything else) and full of good lines (“Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!”) and physical comedy.

Much has been made about this play as an argument for putting Shakespeare forward as the precursor of the modern domestic sitcom. Falstaff, perhaps somewhat like the great sitcom monsters Basil Fawlty or Hyacinth Bucket doesn’t have many redeeming features. He has an overly inflated sense of his own importance and attractiveness and thinks he’s much cleverer than he is, and yet he’s still lovable. What he has got is a huge amount of energy, something which is immensely appealing. Christopher Benjamin (Sir William ‘Capital, Capital!’ Lucas in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice) imbues this irascible rogue with deliciously fruity intonation and plenty of warmth as well as the oily charm.

As the wives themselves Sarah Woodward and Serena Evans are the most extraordinary sister act as Mistresses Ford and Page, with their razor-sharp timing in which they fully ham up the pretence that they’ve created and make it seem utterly natural. This is a town where these shrewd, acerbic ladies are very much in control. Andrew Havil’s Ford (who disguises himself in a wig much like his future son-in-law’s hairstyle) does an excellent line in outraged, in which the word ‘cuckold’ is worse than any kind of blasphemy.

Sue Wallace is a warm and motherly presence as the go-between Mistress Quickly who doubles up as Gloriana in the ‘fairy pageant.’ As Falstaff was apparently Queen Elizabeth’s favourite character, part of me wishes that Falstaff had proposed to her at the end. The slightly star-crossed lovers Anne Page and Master Fenton are sweetly portrayed by Ceri-Lyn Cissone and Gerard McCarthy, alongside Anne’s other suitors, the Frenchman Dr Caius (Philip Bird) and the sexually ambivalent Slender (William Belchambers), who ends up much happier with another man.

Costume and set designer Janet Bird offers plenty of vibrant outfits, which include lots of colourful doublets and hose and huge ruffs that make modern clothes seem so dull. The music by Nigel Hess is a joy, which everyone came out humming.  

Merry Wives doesn’t seem to appear on many reading lists and it’s true that the scope for essay questions is probably rather limited. However, I’ve never laughed at a production of, say, Twelfth Night or As You Like It (let’s face it, Feste and Touchstone are unlikely to ever bring about hysterics) nearly as freely as I fell about laughing over Falstaff’s misadventure in the laundry hamper. What a mercy public transport wasn’t cancelled due to the snow.

(Postcript: After my friend and I shivered and giggled our way back to the station, I found myself on the last Overground train home sitting opposite Falstaff himself (and several other cast members). Jane Austen’s Sir William Lucas couldn’t have hoped to have been portrayed by a finer gentleman than Mr Christopher Benjamin.)

Review: Alice In Wonderland (Little Angel Theatre)

 
Lewis Carroll’s much loved 1865 tale of trying to find logic in nonsense Alice In Wonderland provides the inspiration for one of the Little Angel Theatre’s most ambitious and perhaps most technically complex show to date.

Any adaptation of Alice In Wonderland has plenty of visual material to draw upon, from the splashy 1951 Disney cartoon to the overblown Tim Burton extravaganza earlier this year.

However, the prevailing imagery has to be the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations. Director and designer Peter O’Rourke (who has also designed the Little Angel productions of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox and The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me) achieves a sense of the surreal and epic nature of the story that is just right on a puppet-sized scale. He remains faithful to the essence of the original images while giving the production his own quirky visual flair.

The set is dominated by an array of sepia photographs, which prove to be very versatile indeed in manoeuvring set changes. They become the doors that Alice longs to go through, the playing cards in the Queen of Heart’s court and members of the jury when Alice is on trial. All the technical aspects are outstanding, demonstrated by David Duffy’s remarkable lighting and the flawless scene changes.

Carroll’s sprawling cast of Wonderland inhabitants is pared down to Alice, the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, a Cheshire accented Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and March Hare (accompanied by the Dormouse) and the Queen of Hearts (and her husband, who doesn’t usually get a look-in), all of whom are wonderfully well-defined. I particularly liked the great big yellow and orange striped monster of a Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit full of manic pomposity. Alice herself is alternately impetuous and prim and beautifully expressive. A particularly lovely moment is when she is transformed into a shadow (represented by a shadow puppet)- meta theatre for children?

The team of four puppeteers/actors (Jonathan Storey, Mandy Travis, Michael Fowkes and Seonaid Goody) are all extraordinarily multi-talented and hardworking as they have to manipulate the puppets, act, sing and adapt the scenery and props. The way that they act through the puppets is like a special double act, in which puppet and performer are reliant on one other.

One of the many joys of Little Angel productions is the use of original music (provided by Ben Glasstone, who also collaborated with Peter O’Rourke on the Roald Dahl adaptations). The songs include a puzzlement for Alice, a laid back bluesy number for the Caterpillar, and a show stopping music hall routine for the Cheshire Cat, all of which are wittily written and infectiously catchy.

While this may not be a definitive Alice adaptation from a literary perspective (I felt that a few more lines from the book could have been incorporated into Tim Kane’s script), the wonderful puppets and the ingenuity of the stagecraft, is, in classic Little Angel style, a thing of wonder. A highly inventive and enjoyable take on a story that’s every bit as delightful and bemusing for adults as it is for children.

Written for musicOMH

Review: The Cradle Will Rock (Arcola Theatre)

For the Arcola Theatre’s final production at Arcola Street, Artistic Director and founder Mehmet Ergen takes the directorial reigns for a rare revival of the 1936 musical The Cradle Will Rock, which was originally directed by Orson Welles and dedicated to Brecht.

Composer, lyricist and librettist Marc Blitzstein (who was murdered in Martinique in 1963) is best known today for his 1954 adaptation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, particularly the much misunderstood ‘Mack The Knife’, a song about a serial killer that has somehow turned into an easy listening standard.


While Blitzstein’s contribution to musical theatre was deemed ‘irreplaceable’ by his friend Leonard Bernstein, experiencing a full production of this piece makes it glaringly obvious as to why it has languished in obscurity. The idea of the original production, which was banned from being staged by The House Committee of Un-American Activities, and was performed from various points around the theatre (just not the stage) is a more striking image than anything in the show itself, in spite of the dedicated efforts of the cast (most of whom play multiple roles) and creative team.

New girl in town Moll (instantly identifiable as a lady of the night by her scarlet shawl that leaves one shoulder exposed) who is finding business a little slow is arrested for soliciting and finds herself in jail alongside the highly respectable members of the ‘Liberty Committee’ (who are in fact advocating the very opposite), carrying out the orders of the mysterious Mr Mister. A series of extended sketches that are clearly meant to be bitingly satirical (though I couldn’t explain most of them) follow, with varying success.


Much of the music is conversational, juxtaposed with acapella motifs and vaudevillian style sketches. An argument between and artist and a painter starts off quite amusingly, but goes on for far too long. Many of the political and social arguments embedded in each vignette are not at all clearly expressed, which makes for frustrating viewing. While comparisons generally aren’t helpful, there’s an overwhelming sense of how Brecht and Weill did it all so much better.

The atmosphere is somewhat lightened in the first act with a delightful performance by Adey Grummet as Mrs Mister, the essence of hypocritical matronly respectability, excited by the idea of war so that she can knit socks for the brave soldiers. Josie Benson is an impressive presence as a woman whose brother’s death was the responsibility of the Liberty Committee, but by the time she appears, it’s too late to turn things around. Alicia Davies’s tart is endearingly played, but apart from her solo at the beginning of Act II, she more or less disappears after the opening scenes, denying the piece a real emotional centre. If only The Threepenny Opera had been Arcola Street’s swansong instead.

Written for musicOMH

Review: Passion (Donmar Warehouse)

Apparently the reason why so many nineteenth-century heroines die of consumption is because having a fever supposedly heightens one’s sex drive. From that perspective, Violetta and Mimi are at the heights of their ‘powers’ when they’re at their most vulnerable. However, as we all know, sexually aggressive women, particularly ones who read, are dangerous (which coincidentally makes Passion an excellent companion piece to Breakfast With Emma). The sickly Fosca, suffering from some kind of consumptive hysteria, is another woman who feels too deeply and she uses books as a way to live through others without getting emotionally involved herself. She comments, “If you have no expectations/You can never have a disappointment”- there are few sentiments bleaker than that.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1994 musical Passion (inspired by a little known 1981 Italian film Passione d’Amore, which was in turn based on an equally obscure 1869 semi-autobiographical novel Fosca by Igino Ugo Tarchetti, written when the author himself was dying of typhus) is like being trapped a fevered dream cum nightmare. Jamie Lloyd’s chamber production (the intimacy of the Donmar needs no further comment) is very wisely played without an interval, in which the fever is broken with applause for the curtain call. It’s true that this is Sondheim’s most repetitive score (frequently labelled as ‘difficult’) and it doesn’t have the witty wordplay and humour of the other works. I firmly believe that ‘catchy’ and ‘memorable’ are two separate things. I find that the scores that take a little longer to get to know are often the ones that are the most rewarding.

In the crudest terms, Passion could be described as a sort of Beauty and the Beast story with the genders reversed, but the message (if there is one) is far more opaque than the idea of how “true beauty comes from within.” Sex, death, love, obsession and sickness are all so closely interlinked that they practically become interchangeable.

David Thaxton (who caused a fangirl explosion with his Enjolras in Les Mis that was practically unheralded for a show that’s been running for decades) excels in the extremely tricky role of sensitive literary soldier Giorgio, enjoying his matinees with his lovely married mistress Clara when he is transferred to a dreary provincial garrison where his superior officer’s scary cousin Fosca starts stalking him. His transformation from an ardent lover and military hero to an ‘alone and palely loitering’ wreck like the knight in Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci, who has succumbed to Fosca’s almost vampiric ‘love without reason’ is charted with supreme sensitivity and his gorgeous baritone voice is a joy.

Elena Roger’s Fosca isn’t made to look repulsive; physically, she’s more of a ‘Poor, plain and obscure’ Jane Eyre type in a suitably governess-y dress (she also resembles the famously reclusive poet Emily Dickinson). Roger’s diminutive stature works brilliantly, suggesting that the idea of her being sexualised is grotesque because of the unsettling juxtaposition of her haggard face and childlike body. Her voice may not be pretty, but it’s remarkably expressive (and contrary to other comments, her diction was absolutely fine). However, it’s her extraordinary eyes that truly make the performance- they devour her prey with her bitterness and grimly sardonic acceptance of her fate.

The third member of the triangle is less well served by the direction. Scarlett Strallen is beautiful floating around the stage in her corsets and crinolines and has a soprano like a dream, but her Clara is a rather remote figure. I don’t think that the Giorgio/Clara relationship needs to be downplayed in order to make Giorgio/Fosca as sympathetic as possible. Their relationship turning into ‘Just another love story’ seems an inevitability as soon as Fosca appears, which I think somewhat undermines the bewildering nature of this piece in which nothing is that predictable.

Amongst the ensemble of boorish soldiers, Simon Bailey stands out as the soldier constantly shooting jealous looks at Giorgio, as well as the abusive fortune hunter. It’s hardly surprising that Fosca is drawn to Giorgio for his gentlemanly manner and the simple kindness of lending her his books- a soldier with a bit of culture is a rare thing indeed in this society.

Having listened to the cast recording dozens of times, I had hoped that seeing the piece in its entirety would answer that elusive question- why exactly does Giorgio fall in love with Fosca? I still can’t quite articulate it. Perhaps it’s more important to question how it happens. Fosca muses about Rousseau’s heroine, “The character of Julie is a great mystery.” One could say the same thing about Giorgio. And indeed all the characters in this piece.

Review: Breakfast With Emma (Rosemary Branch)

One of the most telling lines in Fay Weldon’s adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary is when Emma Bovary’s lover Rodolphe remarks about their liaison, “If only Emma hadn’t taken it all so seriously.” This idea of scale and perspective is crucial to the story of the original desperate housewife’s triumphs and disappointments in a provincial French town in the mid nineteenth century. A black box above a pub is transformed into the Bovarys’ breakfast room (that transforms itself into various other locations) where scenes from Emma’s past are re-enacted on a scale that’s both intimate and operatic. Emma Bovary is a woman who is indifferent to her own daughter, and yet is doomed because she feels too deeply and invests too much in things that others regard as frivolous and inconsequential.

Breakfast With Emma was a flop for Shared Experience in 2003 but was given a second chance at the Rosemary Branch last year and was so well received (hailed as a revelation by the author herself) that it has returned briefly to the Rosie before a regional tour. This particular breakfast on the last day of Emma’s life when she decides to confess all is not in the novel, offering something a bit more spontaneous and unpredictable than a chronological scene by scene journey through the book.

Helen Tennison’s (a director with extensive physical theatre experience) highly creative and almost balletic direction is a masterclass in stagecraft that’s beautifully complemented by James Perkins’s set. An ordinary breakfast in which Emma tries to hide her unpaid bills from her oblivious husband Charles turns into something far more surreal as her past comes to life, turning the furniture upside down. Charles’s disapproving mother drops through the chimney to warn her little boy not to marry a convent girl with silly romantic ideas, Emma and Rodolphe’s riding lessons take place in the bookshelf and the slippery shopkeeper Lheureux manages to weasel his way in from all corners (and even the trunk). There are several exquisite set pieces, especially the high society ball that marks the pinnacle of Emma’s ‘career’, in which reality and fantasy collide in the breakfast room.

The cast of five deliver a host of passionate and sensitive performances. Helen Millar’s Emma could do with playing up the coquettishness and artifice a little more when trying to convince Charles that she’s the perfect wife, but she comes into her own when fantasising about dying a beautiful death as a martyr. James Burton brings out Charles’s oafishness as a man who sticks his spoon back in the jam after licking it and who kibitzes at the opera, as well as his vulnerability in his delusions that he is well respected in the local community. Jason Eddy is a virile and distinctive presence as the three gentleman friends who all embody aspects of Emma’s dream man- the dashing viscount who dazzles Emma at the ball, the idealistic young student Léon and the libertine Rodolphe. The minor roles are well filled by Georgina Panton as the maid Félicité who gets to answer back to her imperious mistress and James Hayward is a scene-stealer in his assorted cameos (I particularly enjoyed the verger in Notre Dame).

Fay Weldon’s Emma Bovary isn’t ruined by the insurmountable debt she’s built up; that’s almost an afterthought. She’s destroyed by the fact that she feels she’s unable to love anymore. This Emma takes the idea of being an incurable romantic to a new level, commenting “Disappointment is the difference between life and death.” And yet she has a point about needing to have a souvenir of something out of the ordinary to cling onto to make everyday life endurable- a worn pair of dancing slippers can be invaluable if they hold the memory of waltzing with a viscount.

Everything about this production is of the highest calibre and I feel it very much deserves a transfer to a small West End theatre. Flaubert might not have approved of all the liberties Weldon takes (the pharmacist Homais is only a very minor presence), but I don’t think even the most rigid purist could fail to be moved by Helen Tennison’s stagecraft. A beautiful achievement that’s simultaneously delightful and devastating. Rather like Emma Bovary herself.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Palace of the End (Arcola Theatre)

The Canadian playwright Judith Thompson’s 2007 triptych of monologues about the Iraq war (winner of Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression Award in 2009) makes for an extraordinarily harrowing yet mesmerising theatrical experience in this new production by Jessica Swale.

Like the Palace of the End of the title (the former 'Palace of Flowers' transformed into Saddam Hussein’s torture chamber), these pieces are simultaneously beautiful and appalling.

There’s a female soldier based on Private Lynndie England, the suicidal weapons inspector Dr David Kelly and an Iraqi lady Nehrjas, one of the many victims of Saddam’s reign of torture. These three characters are linked by the fact that they are all damaged from having seen so much brutality and Thompson’s script explores the divergent ways in which they respond to it.

First up is Jade Williams as a heavily pregnant trailer park girl from West Virginia turned soldier, awaiting trial for sexually tormenting Iraqi soldiers, claiming that she didn’t made her victims do anything that she hadn’t at some point done herself. This is a young woman given responsibility that she is far too immature and poorly educated to handle- she's more concerned about her image on the internet and place in popular culture than the consequences of her actions. Yet she isn’t a complete monster as she has grown up in a culture of bullying and has never been taught any differently.

The case of Dr David Kelly, the weapons inspector who killed himself in 2003 over the British government’s dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is a conspiracy theorist’s dream. Robin Soans portrays Kelly as a devoted and caring husband and father destroyed by the murder of his closest friends in Baghdad. The audience is placed in the awkward position of being asked to witness his death, as his family would try to revive him- you feel as if you should step in, but this is theatre. And it’s impossible to change what has already happened.

Thirdly, Imogen Smith delivers a highly dignified performance Nehrjas ('Daffodil' in Arabic), an elegant and well-educated widow in her fifties whose family was destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s secret police when they refused to divulge information of her husband’s whereabouts. Her unflinching descriptions of the torture that she and her sons endured juxtaposed with the anecdotes about day-to-day life in Baghdad before Saddam took over are narrated without losing control. It’s even more chilling that way.

Judith Thompson’s exquisite writing has a very welcome lightness of touch amidst the horror. Her attention to the little quirks that make characters human rather than archetypes is a delight. The poetic touches in the language never feel forced or overdone, but rather reflect the characters’ fragile state of mind as they slip further and further ‘Through the Looking Glass’ (a recurring motif). Jessica Swale’s direction is impeccably simple, letting the words speak for themselves.

All three monologues could be presented as stand-alone pieces, but as a trio, combined with three outstandingly sensitive performances, they make a remarkably powerful tour de force. While it deserves a larger audience than can be accommodated in the Arcola’s smallest studio, the intimacy is yet another one of the production’s greatest assets. The pieces may be miniatures in length, but there is nothing small about them. I haven’t seen anything quite so powerful this year. 


Written for musicOMH

Review: Me and Juliet (Finborough Theatre)

 It’s probably fair to say that there’s a professional production of at least one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Big Five” musicals (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music) running at any time in the UK. All of these musicals have gained iconic status and having triumphed last year with the European stage premiere of the duo’s only musical written directly for the silver screen State Fair (which earned a West End transfer), Thom Southerland returns to the intimate Finborough Theatre with the even more obscure meta musical Me and Juliet. Me and Juliet played for 358 performances on Broadway in 1953 and has (to my knowledge) never been revived since.

Me and Juliet is almost two musicals in one, dealing with the backstage intrigue (will the nice guy rescue the girl from her boorish boyfriend?) amongst the cast and crew of a frothy revue, probably not dissimilar from the ones that dominated Broadway when Rodgers and Hammerstein had the audacity to open Oklahoma! with a middle aged woman churning butter onstage, full of contrived lyrics, stock characters and songs and dance routines full of hats, canes, feathers and fans. The ‘real’ characters are fairly weak by Hammerstein’s standards, but what happens offstage is still more engaging than the revue numbers.

The original production boasted a cast of 74, which is scaled down to 15 on the Finborough’s compact stage (plus the pianist) and features some ingenious staging. Alex Marker’s set evokes the bare bones of Broadway grandeur and the less glamorous backstage and choreographer Sally Brooks does her best to make the show-within-a-show numbers interesting. It’s a parody of fluffy schmaltz and although Hammerstein was the real radical of the partnership, he wasn’t a writer of seemingly effortlessly punchy lyrics like Lorenz Hart or Cole Porter and these numbers fall rather flat (not that Rodgers’s music is much more inspired). However, the references to meta theatre with The Big Black Giant, about the changing nature of audiences and Intermission Talk, in which audience members lament the decline of theatre are cleverly done and show how little things change, even if front of house staff no longer sell cigarettes.

I think the greatest aspect of Hammerstein’s genius was being able to make ordinary characters and stories extraordinary and there are hints of this in the central romance. Jeanie and Larry’s exploration of their feelings for each other through rehearsing the show’s love ballad No Other Love is very much in keeping with the ‘love song with a twist’ pioneered by Hammerstein. It’s fun spotting all the little references to Carousel, most notably in Jeanie’s macho, commitment shy boyfriend Bob (John Addison) a Billy Bigelow type, but impossible to feel any real sympathy for because of the delight he takes in mocking his girlfriend. His crisis of masculinity with a bottle of scotch and attempt at redemption doesn’t tug at the heartstrings in quite the same way.

Laura Main, who was a lovely ingénue in State Fair, is just as endearing as the uncertain chorus girl Jeanie and sings with a beautiful purity. Her romance with the utterly decent, nearly middle aged ASM Larry (Robert Hands) is a bit like watching Julie Jordan marry the Starkeeper, but the very warm and sincere chemistry between the two makes it work. Jodie Jacobs also has fun as sassy Southern soubrette Betty, whose duet with Jeanie It’s Me, about being able to become a different person deserves to be better known.

While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to a Rodgers and Hammerstein newcomer (better to start with one of the meatier offerings), that is not in any way to belittle Thom Southerland’s lively and unpretentious production and the spirited cast. It offers a fascinating insight into a rarity and the scale is spot-on- to try to recreate it in its original lavish form would be slightly ridiculous. Perhaps Thom Southerland could be persuaded to give the same treatment to Allegro or Pipe Dream to complete his collection of Rodgers and Hammerstein rarities- I’m sure many Rodgers and Hammerstein groupies would appreciate that. And as his next project is apparently Carousel, the most glorious of the canon, I hope he casts Laura Main as Julie Jordan.

Originally posted on A Younger Theatre

Review: The Company Man (Orange Tree)

"You notice everything when you can’t move." So says the wheelchair bound wife and mother in Torben Betts’s play and, indeed, this theme of watching from the sidelines and being unable to communicate is central to the play which places human beings as mere micro-organisms in an infinitely larger and harsher sphere.

The word 'company' can refer to both business and friendship, and the eponymous Company Man's

decision to prize industrial success above everything is what ultimately isolates him from humanity at large.

Betts is a protégé of Alan Ayckbourn and the play is a rather bleak family drama with plenty of apocalyptic references. Betts portrays this family as embodying the best and the worst of this changeable world, in which anything can be achieved through hard work, but terrible illnesses can also strike anyone, regardless of privilege.

It's set in a lavish home in the leafy Home Counties, though Sam Dowson’s very simple set, consisting of a chintzy sofa, a garden table and chairs, a bedside cabinet and photographic prints of the play’s recurring motifs could belong to a family of any income. It is an oddly sterile and impersonal setting for a family home, perhaps intended to evoke the way in which the house is merely a gathering place, but like the play itself, only partially rings true.

The story is dominated by William Carmichael (Bruce Alexander), a self-made working class man, who endured a traumatic childhood and made his own way up to the top, which he never lets anyone forget. His resentment towards anyone who hasn’t had to overcome to same obstacles is what poisons his relationship with his son. It is difficult to feel much sympathy towards a character who is not engaging enough to earn it. His recurring catchphrases guarantee laughs from the audience, but although I appreciate that the repetitiveness of his lectures about cricket statistics, ornithology and capitalism are to illuminate his unwillingness to listen to others or connect with anything more emotionally complicated than bare facts, it is tempting for both his onstage and offstage audiences to grow restless during these tirades.

Isla Blair is excellent as his wife Jane, amongst the last of a ‘dying breed’ of women brought up to serve their husbands and under the death sentence of the horribly debilitating Motor Neurone Disease. Blair poignantly embodies Jane’s determination to maintain her dignity and sense of irony through the pain, and her resolve to make the final decision about her illness.

Nicholas Lumley has the well-meaning but unconvincing role of family friend Jim, who always wanted to be more than friends with Jane and has now found God, offering kindly meant but most unhelpful rhetoric about suffering being a blessing. Beatrice Curnew is nicely restrained in the underwritten role of the self-sacrificing carer daughter Cathy and Jack Sandle is appropriately volatile as prodigal son Richard.

The Company Man is well performed and full of ideas with some striking astronomical imagery, but it's somewhat let down by the characterisation. The permanently in-the-round Orange Tree Theatre is a wonderful space and although Adam Barnard’s direction (he previously directed Betts’s play The Swing of Things at the Stephen Joseph Theatre) is clear and unobtrusive, one rarely feels entirely absorbed in the proceedings.

Written for musicOMH

Review: The Rivals (Richmond Theatre)

 The Rivals is Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s homage to Bath, the city that was the height of fashion in the eighteenth century for its elegance, Palladian architecture and therapeutic waters  (all of which it retains today- just not the huge frocks and hairstyles found in this play), and where Peter Hall’s production appropriately originated. There can be no better place to see it outside of the Bath itself than in beautiful Richmond, which has to be London’s answer to Bath. I am an admirer of Peter Hall’s ‘straightforward’ style, and his absolutely traditional production of Pygmalion (also with Christopher Woods’s sets and Simon Higlet’s costumes) was a great favourite of mine as every single aspect was so perfectly spot-on. The Rivals is played against the handsome backdrop of the Royal Crescent and the cast play their roles very appealingly, but the production itself is a little slow and lacked a certain flicker of energy to keep the exploits of Mrs Malaprop and friends consistently sparkling.

Eighteenth-century sentimental comedies of manners are tricky things to revive nowadays as the very mannered, formalised society they portray and satirise almost seem to belong to another world. They also cannot fall back on the innuendo and bawdiness found in seventeenth-century works (if you find that kind of thing funny; I personally do not). The humour is gentle, rather than laugh-out-loud funny, the plots convoluted with lots of mistaken identities and misunderstandings and there are plenty of stock characters- a flighty ingénue and her lover, a ‘she-dragon’ of an aunt, a disapproving father, an outspoken Cockney valet and a naive country bumpkin. In sentimental comedy style, the emphasis is on talking about feelings, but moments of spontaneous emotion are rather rare (Sir Anthony Absolute’s outburst being the exception).

As the poor little rich girl Miss Lydia Languish, who is smitten with her lover Ensign Beverley as a penniless soldier but disappointed when he turns out to be the son of a baronet (played by a smooth-tongued Tam Williams), Robyn Addison (in her professional stage debut) plays her role with assurance, but not for laughs. Annabel Scholey is demure and poignant as her friend and foil Julia and Kieron Self gives an likeable performance as the harmless buffoon Bob Acres, who is completely out of his depth in fashionable society.

Unsurprisingly a great deal of the publicity surrounding the production has focused on the reunion of To The Manor Born (one of the most accomplished British sitcoms) co-stars Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles in the roles of Lydia’s guardian Mrs Malaprop and Ensign Beverley/Captain Jack’s father Sir Anthony Absolute. Fortunately, both fit their roles perfectly. The ever formidable Ms Keith gives Mrs Malaprop a graceful dignity and whose misapplication of words (“The pineapple of politeness” receiving the biggest laugh) seem to stem from a desire to appear educated, in spite of her disapproval of women reading. Her purple gown is also absolutely splendid. Bowles, likewise, is excellent as the hero’s stern father, a role that does not come altogether naturally to him as he himself married for love.

This production provides a pleasant diversion, but I feel that it could have been a bit more than that if a little less stately and cautious. Underneath the affected politeness, there is a sense of mischief that is rather lacking here.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Design For Living (Old Vic)

 This is probably as good a time as any to ‘confess’ to my fondness for watching bright young people in silk dressing gowns sipping cocktails and exchanging witty remarks. Anthony Page’s production of Noel Coward’s 1932 play Design For Living is lovely to look at and ought to satisfy my longings to escape into an artisan Parisian loft, a luxurious London apartment or a state of the art New York penthouse (designed by Lez Brotherton). Lisa Dillon’s blue-grey evening gown is also quite stunning. However, I never think it is a good sign when the design is by far the best aspect of a production. This is not to in any way devalue the designer’s work, but because I feel that the aesthetic ought to complement the play, rather than being the main attraction. It was quite a shock to discover that the man who is considered by some to be the greatest all-round theatrical talent Britain has ever had and whose plays I have very much enjoyed in the past could have written such an unrelentingly tedious piece.

It is easy to see why this play caused a stir in 1932: Gilda, an interior decorator, is living openly in Paris with her painter lover Otto, then Otto’s playwright best friend Leo (originally played by Coward himself) turns up and she runs off back to London with him. Eighteen months later, Otto returns and they sleep together as Leo is away at a house party in Surrey. Leo comes back early and he and Otto get drunk and share a kiss. In the meantime, Gilda has absconded to New York with old family friend Ernest. Not only is it all hopelessly dated nowadays, but (to this reviewer and her companion) not even at all witty. It employs the kind of visual and verbal humour found in bad sitcoms in which the audience knows exactly what is coming and laugh because their anticipation is vindicated when it inevitably happens.

Lisa Dillon (so good in Cranford) has the thankless task of trying to breathe life into a character who initially shows some promise, being a woman who has no intention of marrying because she doesn’t want children and has no need to obtain social position, but quickly becomes irritating beyond belief with her incessant rhapsodising about of a whole lot nothing. As her two gentleman friends, Andrew Scott certainly milks the frightfully affected camp mannerisms and Tom Burke looks quite good in a vest. It all comes to a head with the excruciating drunk scene that goes on forever. In real life, drunk people who think they are being so terribly amusing are the very opposite. It is no different on stage.

What was the point of reviving this? There was no doubt that a large percentage of the audience thought it was laugh-in-the-aisles hilarious, but there were also several seats that were abandoned after the second interval. I could have gladly pushed these narcissistic, vapid characters who nevertheless are adored and indulged by their creator out of the huge French windows of Gilda’s fabulous penthouse. It seems like rather an insult that the audience is supposed to root for them. It was hard not to be reminded of that ultimate dig in After The Dance (a superior play in every way imaginable)- “Don’t be a bore.” Well, Mr Coward, what an absolute bore you could be. I would much rather sit next to Terence Rattigan at a dinner party.

Originally posted on A Younger Theatre

Review: HMS Pinafore (Rosemary Branch)

Despite my intense, non-ironic love for the American Musical, I have always found the very British Gilbert and Sullivan harder to get along with and regarded their work as something to respect rather than love. There was always something a bit too fussy and cutesy about it that made me long to go home and listen to some Sondheim. However, the colourful and zany productions by young chamber opera company Charles Court Opera, who have produced over 20 operas in five years and feature some of the most talented young professionals in the business, have helped to change that. Having now seen several operas in the intimate Rosemary Branch Theatre (a perfectly formed black box theatre above a pub that seats about 60), it seems the best place in the world to experience the genre, especially comic operas. There is something that makes the entire experience so much more all-encompassing by being so close to the proceedings.

Director John Savournin (who also lends his rich baritone voice to a pompous Captain Corcoran with a touch of childlike naïveté) certainly extracts the full comic potential from this tale of entertaining naval nonsense about class, camp sailors and accidents of birth, in which Captain Corcoran's attempt to marry his daughter Josephine off to the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Joseph Porter KCB (a delightfully jaunty performance by Simon Masterton-Smith) is thwarted by her preference for lowly sailor Ralph Rackstraw. Sir Joseph Porter’s entourage of sisters, cousins and aunts are de-pluralized for the simple reason that a whole gang of them wouldn’t fit on stage  (keep an eye out for the aunt’s droll cameo). James Perkins designs with elegant economy with a few nautical props and Sullivan and Gilbert’s own faces in the sun and moon keeping a watchful eye on the action.

As the bumboat woman Little Buttercup, Rosie Strobel is a total delight with her powerful voice and expressive eyes in the way in which she manages to milk the sensuality of the role without sexing it up (subtle distinction). Georgia Ginsberg and David Menezes are both very winning and sing charmingly as star-crossed lovers Josephine and Ralph, perhaps the hardest roles to make an impact in amongst all the clowning. The cast are supported by the four hands of Wigmore Hall piano duo David Eaton and James Young, who play with exuberance and sensitivity.

I can’t help wondering if you’re supposed to question or even notice the inconsistencies in the plot: Ralph Rackstraw can’t be that young a lover if he’s Josephine’s father’s age and is it supposed to be at all creepy that Captain Corcoran in his reduced circumstances finds solace in the arms of his former foster mother? Probably not. The idea of Gilbert and Sullivan with the subtext laid bare is not a particularly appealing thought. This has to be a case of accepting the ‘topsy-turvydom’ for what it is.

A merrier, more beautifully sung show in London would be hard to find. I would particularly recommend it to anyone who is feeling a little disillusioned as it would be very difficult indeed to leave without succumbing to the infectious charms of this compact and uproarious production. Take along all your sisters, cousins and aunts (and all other friends and relations).

Originally posted on A Younger Theatre

Review: The Thunderbolt (Orange Tree)

Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934), a contemporary of George Bernard Shaw, is not exactly a household name these days in spite of being one of the most prolific and popular playwrights of his time with an oeuvre that included light farce, sentimental comedies, and ‘problem plays’ about contemporary society. Like Shaw and Ibsen, Pinero had a particular interest in the role of women in Victorian and Edwardian society, the most famous on the subject being The Second Mrs Tanquery, which was referenced by Hillaire Belloc in his poem about Matilda who told such dreadful lies (indeed, I never realised that it was a real play before doing my research for The Thunderbolt). The female characters in this play are shown to be grasping vultures (but no more so than their husbands), desperately nervy and almost too good and forgiving to be true. It is the illegitimate daughter who has far more class than any of her ‘legitimate’ relations.

The Thunderbolt could probably be best described as a family drama filled with unpleasant and desperate characters satirising greed, petty rivalries and the desperation of keeping up appearances in the fictional Midlands town of Singlehampton. At nearly three hours long, some of the long-winded passages could be trimmed, but it refrains from the tedious philosophising that certain Ibsen and Shaw plays suffer from and has an agreeable lightness of touch.

This play works beautifully from being presented in the round as the audience steps through the late Mr Edward’s library (designed by Sam Dowson) to get to their seats. Set changes are deftly handled by the cast re-arranging the furniture to create a whole new room. The dining room table in Act II is revealed to be three separate cabinets that form part of Mr and Mrs Thad’s drawing room. Very simple, but so effective.

The Mortimores have to be one of the most ghastly families in fiction. The sudden death of the eldest brother Edward Mortimore, a wealthy brewer who was estranged from the rest of the family has his three surviving brothers and one sister and their spouses descending en masse, calculating what they believe to be their rightful inheritance as next of kin to the last penny. The introduction of Edward’s lovely illegitimate daughter Helen (Grainne Keenan) temporarily complicates the celebrations. Helen refuses to accept an allowance from her newly discovered relations, determined to make her own living as an artist through the invaluable education that her father ensured she received, in spite of being deeply hurt not knowing whether her father meant to provide for her or not. The Mortimores are only too happy to respect her independence.

The acting amongst the entire cast is impeccable, including Geoff Leesley as bluff family spokesman and property developer Mr Jim and David Whitworth as local newspaper editor and insufferable pedant Mr Stephen. Brenda Longman and Julie Teal make the most of their roles as their sour wives. The sole sister Rose (Janet Spencer Turner) is an aspiring London society hostess and her husband Colonel Ponting (Osmond Bullock) might actually be the most avaricious of the lot.

The society of Singlehampton is one in which to be a grocer’s daughter is a fate worse than death, evidenced in the abuse that youngest brother Thaddeus’s wife Phyllis receives from her in-laws. Natalie Ogle excels in the role of this complicated woman who is deeply vulnerable and scarred from the years of cruelty. She is well supported by Stuart Fox as her husband. The very fact that Thad and Phyllis love each other and had the spirit to rebel by getting married sets them apart from the other Mortimores.

While I am not entirely sure if The Thunderbolt is a lost ‘masterpiece,’ it retains its power to expose the timeless themes of greed, hypocrisy and social snobbery in a quietly angry way. It is impossible not to feel indignant when Mr Jim grovels to Helen, stretching her generosity to the limit. It could hardly be better served by Sam Walters’s stylish production and the flawless ensemble cast. I am still not certain as to whom (or what) the ‘Thunderbolt’ of the title refers- perhaps it is the way in which the Mortimores’ smug complacency is suddenly threatened by public scandal. Of course they’ll never appreciate Helen’s compassion that protects them from this, but Pinero must be suggesting that she is the richest in the end, being the only one who can move forward with a clear conscience and build a life to be proud of.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Into The Woods (Open Air Theatre)

It is hard to imagine a musical and a venue more suited to one another than Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s witty melting pot of Grimm and Perrault fairytales Into The Woods and the gorgeously leafy Regents Park Open Air Theatre (the loveliest venue in London on a clear summer evening). The effect of starting the evening in partial dusk with darkness falling by the interval has rarely been so ideal. As there are few musicals that are more wordy, one can only imagine how difficult it must have been to get the clarity just right. Credit must firstly go to sound designer Mike Walker for his outstanding work. I only worry about how many people have missed the second act entirely, assuming that the ‘happy ever after’ that concludes the first act is the ending. The couple next to me certainly thought it was time to leave in spite of the lack of bows.

The episodic first act is a piece of theatre that is quite complete in itself, in which a childless baker and his wife embark on a quest to collect an array of items that will reverse the curse put on the Baker’s family by the witch next door, with the help and hindrance of assorted characters from other fairytales, who are all out to make their own wishes come true. The happy endings that ensue are then complicated when the murdered Giant’s wife (voiced by Judi Dench) wreaks her revenge. The lengths that people will go to in order to get their wishes through the manipulation of others or self-deception (often both) is one of Sondheim’s favourite themes, as are the subjects of parenting and self knowledge. By the time the last midnight strikes, everybody will have had to have lost something in order to move forward.  

This is the only theatre where you’re lucky enough to get wittily timed appearances from visiting pigeons. The set by Soutra Gilmour, an intricate network of wooden platforms linked by ladders resembles a giant climbing frame and evokes just how easy it is to get lost and trapped in these woods. Regents Park ought to be given a special award for assembling the most wonderful ensemble casts and this is no exception. Co-directors Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel’s (who also provides the expressive choreography) attention to detail ensures that even the most minor characters are well drawn, including Valda Aviks’s cameo as Little Red Riding Hood’s knife-wielding Granny and Alice Fearn’s transformation from a young woman hidden from the world to embittered alcoholic in the rather thankless role of Rapunzel.

As the Baker’s Wife (the best role in the show), Jenna Russell (who was recently a highlight of the Sondheim Prom) brilliantly illuminates that fine line between being cunning and conniving. Rather like Sondheim’s arch manipulator Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, the Baker’s Wife is an eminently practical woman of humble means who knows what she wants and sets out to get it, but also has an inclination to fantasise. While offering Jack a few ‘magic’ beans in return for his cow isn’t as extreme as turning unsuspecting customers into meat pies, the idea of twisting morality for the greater good, “If the thing you do is pure in intent/If it’s meant and it’s just a little bent/Does it matter?” isn’t entirely dissimilar. Russell beautifully embodies being smitten with the idea of royalty in her envy of Cinderella’s escapades at the ball and her yearning glances at the princes. When Cinderella’s Prince sweeps her off her feet with the least romantic chat up line ever, “Life is often so unpleasant, you must know that as a peasant,” it has never seemed so unfair that sex and death always have to be interlinked like that.

In the role of the Baker’s Wife’s husband, Mark Hadfield is not a natural singer, but he gives the character bumbling charm in the first act and poignant bewilderment when he loses the woman who has been the brains of the operation. Helen Dallimore is an endearing, dreadlocked Cinderella more baffled that charmed by the Prince’s attentions and grows in strength to become the matriarch of the new ‘family’ at the end. Maybe in the sequel to Act II she marries the Baker. Michael Xavier (doubling up as a Freudian rather than suave Wolf who seduces Red Riding Hood and granny too) and Simon Thomas provide excellent comic foils as the two narcissistic princes, who get some of the best lines in the piece in their comic lament Agony and whose aesthetic resembles Russell Brand crossed with something out of Tolkien. The ever so glamorous Hannah Waddingham is unrecognisable in her old crone disguise and she brings her characteristic regal flair to the beautiful but powerless Witch. Credit must also go to the costume department for the whimsical with a touch of grunge costumes.

Timothy Sheader’s fascinating innovation in his staging is to have a runaway child as the narrator who stage manages the events. “Children may not obey,/But children will listen”, has never seemed so poignant in the way in which very adult issues can cause damage by entering the consciousness of a child through the power of words.

This is certainly a blissful production for the greatest living (and in my opinion all-time greatest) composer and lyricist’s 80^th birthday year. My own wish is that the Donmar’s upcoming revival of Sondheim’s Passion reaches the same heights.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Shakespeare the Man From Stratford (Richmond Theatre)

Whenever I visit the pretty Warwickshire town of Stratford-upon-Avon to go to the theatre, it never ceases to amaze me that if one Will Shakespeare hadn’t hailed from there, it probably wouldn’t register on tourists’ agendas at all. It is hardly surprising that Shakespeare has been mythologised and put on a pedestal, but Shakespeare The Man From Stratford, a new play by world-renowned Renaissance scholar Jonathan Bate strips away the mystique to show us that Shakespeare came from a very ordinary background and yet was gifted with an extraordinary imagination and empathy with human beings from all walks of life, not to mention the hard work and intensive research.


The idea that his plays could not have been written by someone from a non-courtly background I think is similar to the ridiculous assumption that Jane Austen could not have written such incisive and heartfelt novels about love and marriage without having had a secret love affair of her own. Shakespeare’s upbringing as the son of a glove maker in a small provincial market town was not glamorous, but as Jonathan Bate comments ‘That’s the most remarkable thing of all’

The production is deceptively simple, skilfully directed by Tom Cairns and cleverly designed by Jeremy Herbert featuring some books, a mobile and a very special dog. Jonathan Bate bases the piece around the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech from As You Like It, peppered with anecdotes about Shakespeare’s life and Elizabethan culture. We follow Will Shakespeare’s early life as the first surviving child of the future mayor of Stratford John Shakespeare and his wife Mary, which was beautifully illustrated by the scene with the little prince Mamillius asking for a story from my personal favourite play The Winter’s Tale. Moving on to ‘the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,’ Bate argues that the education Shakespeare received in a newfangled grammar school (which taught only Latin grammar) where the boys learned how to acknowledge thanks when responding to a letter in 100 different ways as well as the language of the law and government was more than sufficient and indeed perfect to train him in the art of rhetoric. Conspiracy theorists can look away now.

Taking centre stage throughout, Simon Callow is delightful with his command of the stage and that extraordinary voice. He is charming company, like a favourite uncle sharing his stories. The way in which he offers snapshots of characters as diverse as Romeo and Juliet to Brutus to Falstaff, effortlessly capturing the essence of each one is astonishing. Let’s hope it is only a matter of time before we see Simon Callow as Prospero or King Lear.

I find that the one-person shows that work best are both entertaining and informative, which is why pieces about real-life figures work so well. This is beautifully written and performed and full of clever little touches in the staging. Shakespeare was the man from Stratford and the playwright from London- during his lifetime, he was only renowned in his hometown for the property portfolio he obtained in his forties. I wonder how he would feel about Stratford being the epicentre of performances of his works today. In the programme notes, Jonathan Bate asks ‘what was it like being Shakespeare? That is the question we ask in our play.’ I am still not certain what the answer to that is, but surely what matters most is the works themselves.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Not By Bread Alone (ArtsDepot)

A very wise actor acquaintance once told me, "Theatre should never be what you expect." When I go to the theatre, I usually have some kind of idea about the piece’s concept and subject matter, but I had absolutely no preconceptions whatsoever about Not By Bread Alone, a piece devised by Israeli company Nagala’at, in which all the performers are deafblind. It’s a predicament that seems unbearable to those of us fortunate enough to be able to see and hear. Perhaps the most famous deafblind person (or at least the only one I could name off the top of my head) is Helen Keller, who was taught a special sign language by her governess Anne Sullivan through touch. There are plenty of examples of that in this piece, as well as Hebrew, Russian and Israeli sign language, and the English subtitles. It’s slightly surreal, especially when the words are being translated amongst the performers themselves in more ways than is possible to follow.

Nagala’at is the only theatre company of its kind in the world and began life as a two month workshop led by the Swiss born actress and director Adina Tal, but was so successful that it has been running for ten years. The Nalaga’at Centre opened to the public in 2007 in Tel Aviv and this production has been three years in the making.

When entering the auditorium, the audience is greeted by the sight of ten people in a kitchen making bread and one typing away at a typewriter with cheerful music playing. It all looks quite idyllic. The bread itself acts as ‘the taste of nature’ and the purest way of sharing, and therefore communicating. We learn about the loneliness (like being in a foreign country and not knowing the language), the frustration of dependency on others and constantly being interrupted, but there is no self pity and plenty of humour.

I felt that some scenes, such as the Italian episode in homage to the company’s former member and friend Michael who died during the early rehearsal period at the age of 27, could have had a bit more narrative clarity. The simple stories are best, such as the lady who took refuge in fashion magazines when she could see and dreamed of having her hair styled by a famous celebrity hairdresser. This was taken away from her when she lost her sight.

I felt that the most poignant scene was when Genia, the matriarch of the group, expresses her wish to share her love of music and plays her favourite Russian folk song from when she was a little girl and before she lost her hearing. The fact that she can still hear the music through the vibrations seems remarkable and the way in which the performers are alerted to the scene changes through the vibrations of drum beats shows the most extraordinary sensitivity that I imagine most able-bodied people could never achieve.

I cannot praise the performers, director Adina Tal and the interpreters highly enough. I can’t imagine how challenging learning all the blocking must have been. In her extraordinarily emotional speech, Tal comments that “Nothing is impossible.” It is one of those sentiments that is used so often that it has become something of a cliché, but when watching this company, one can only agree.

The performance is accompanied by a pitch-black bar attended by blind waiters and an exhibition of artworks (including paintings, pottery, mosaics, collages, rugs and more) by blind-deaf artists. What I would love to know is how they choose the colours.

 Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: After The Dance (National Theatre)

As I am fascinated by the interwar period and am always intrigued by ‘lost’ novels and plays, this production of After the Dance by Terence Rattigan directed by Thea Sharrock was the most appealing looking item in the National Theatre’s summer brochure for me. Many plays and novels are forgotten for the perfectly legitimate reason that they aren’t very good, but there is also the matter of fashions constantly changing. It also must have been a lot easier for things to fade away in the days before the Internet. After the Dance was Rattigan’s second play after a making his name with a frothy comedy French Without Tears and opened in June 1939 to excellent reviews, but as the political climate grew ever more turbulent, it closed in the middle of August, two weeks before Hitler invaded Poland. Despite the fact that Rattigan’s reputation suffered from the fifties onwards and was perceived by many as hopelessly middle class and narrow in range, it was Rattigan himself who attempted to eliminate this particular play from his oeuvre by refusing to include it in his Collected Works, due to his discomfort with the fact that it was a financial failure (as Michael Darlow argues in the programme notes).

After the Dance tells us what happened next to the ‘Bright Young Things’ immortalised by Noel Coward’s ‘I Went to a Marvellous Party’ and Evelyn Waugh in Vile Bodies. These are people with no need to work, who thrive on alcohol and gossip about the good old days and live entirely for pleasure. It’s like an extended network connected by one big in-joke. The ultimate put-down in their world to avoid discussing anything serious is ‘Don’t be a bore.’ At the centre of the action are David and Joan Scott-Fowler, who married twelve years ago for the fun of it and are drinking themselves to death with no intention of stopping.

Observing this hedonistic lifestyle with disparagement are David’s earnest much younger cousin Peter and his fiancée Helen, the younger generation who do not drink before dinner and only engage in a few chaste kisses. This is the generation who will fight the war that may or may not be coming. Helen’s crush on her fiancé’s bad boy cousin and her plan to reform him are the catalyst of the tragedy that follows.

Apart from the cliff hanger between Acts II and III, there are few shocks or surprises in this play. It is very much a domestic character piece that builds up slowly. Without wanting to give too much away, I feel that the heart of the tragedy is the fact that the characters are unable to communicate with each other effectively. Joan is unable to tell her husband how much she really loves him in fear of being dismissed as a ‘bore.’ It is a classic example of English emotional repression, but also the obliviousness of people who never really grew up.

Thea Sharrock’s direction is clear and unfussy, letting the words speak for themselves rather than trying to make the piece ‘relevant’ to a contemporary audience. Hildegard Bechtler’s evoking a luxurious Mayfair apartment is spot-on and the performances are universally excellent. As the Scott-Fowlers, Benedict Cumberbatch is both debonair and compellingly tragic and Nancy Carroll is particularly powerful in her silent despair. John Heffernan is perfectly cast as Peter, the most sensible and level-headed character in the piece and newcomer Faye Castlelow is obnoxiously perky (I mean that as a compliment) as Helen, the young woman who thinks she is far more mature and knowing than she really is. Adrian Scarborough delivers one of the finest supporting performances I have ever seen as the Scott-Fowlers’ high maintenance hanger-on, delivering one wisecrack after another and eventually emerges to David’s shock as a voice of reason. There is also a fun cameo from Pandora Colin as Joan’s dreadful over the hill flapper pal Julia and Jenny Galloway milks every nuance she can find in her single scene. Only Nancy Carroll’s rather unflattering wig hits a false note.

After the Dance will never be considered cutting edge. I doubt it was avant-garde in 1939 either, but I suspect that one of the reasons why it failed then was because it hit too close to home. One of the most telling moments is when Joan is confronted with the reality of losing her husband to a younger model and comments, “When you know something is going to happen, it makes it seem further off to joke about it.” I think that this is the kind of sensitively directed, beautifully acted work that the National ought to encourage. The very fact that it was written before anyone knew whether there would be a war or not, let alone the outcome gives it an authenticity and poignancy in a way that a modern writer commenting on the era could never achieve.

Originally posted on A Younger Theatre