Review: Meow Meow (Apollo Theatre)

I wonder how Meow Meow (alter ego of Australian singer/actress/performance artist Melissa Madden Gray) rehearses her exhilarating, chaotic and somewhat terrifying ‘kamikaze cabaret’ as so much of it depends on audience participation. Meow Meow isn’t a cabaret performer who gushes about how much she loves her audience – she pops up in the dress circle in a terrible state: the chorus boys have been held up in customs, she hasn’t warmed up and she has a broken heart. She’s really too distraught to perform, but has been forced on stage by the management.

Like many felines, Meow Meow is something of a tyrant; she’s desperate for attention and is constantly frisking around the auditorium. She resembles Liza Minnelli, but also has something of the zany, plummy schoolgirl quality of the stage Sally Bowles. She barks at the audience to throw flowers at her, get her dressed and undressed, and lift her around the auditorium (something everyone gets a go at) and yet she’s lovable enough for her audience and her three-piece band (led by composer Lance Horne) to be happy to indulge these demands. One can only marvel at her nerve. I found myself as part of a chorus line of high-kicking Barbie dolls (thankfully in a large group in front of the stage, rather than on it). It’s fortunate that her two main gentlemen ‘volunteers’ were accompanied as any photos taken could appear very compromising indeed.

Her comic prowess and extraordinary legs are matched by her remarkable voice that’s like rich dark chocolate (probably with a touch of something stronger) with a repertoire that includes Kurt Weill, Jacques Brel and modern pop numbers. Hardly any are sung all the way through, being interspersed with comic asides and banter, particularly from the homespun spectacle that includes a manual revolve and a handheld spotlight – showgirl on a shoestring.

Rapturous applause and a standing ovation ought to overturn any assumptions about British reserve. It seems woefully inadequate to label Meow Meow merely as a ‘femme fatale’ or ‘cabaret diva’; she’s a stunningly versatile theatrical creature who defies any kind of pigeonholing. As lovely as it would be to hear her sing uninterrupted (a concert dedicated to works from the Weimar Republic would be particularly blissful), this is a whirlwind of activity and explosion of talent that is an experience in every sense of the word.

Written for Exeunt

Review: The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (Finborough Theatre)

 As its rather long title suggests, The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd is a piece about inversion, exposing the dark side of theatrical archetypes and stock figures of the British class system.

This exceeding peculiar 1964 musical by co-composers, lyricists and librettists Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse (who also collaborated on the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), is reminiscent of a cross between Waiting For Godot, Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven and Charles Dickens at his most grotesque. With its Victorian setting, it draws heavily on the British Music Hall tradition, combined with a sense of Continental absurdism, and also features a cameo from a professional body-builder (Tahir Ozkan) in his stage debut.

Greasepaint has never had a West End run – it transferred directly from its UK tour to Broadway, where it played 231 performances and starred Newley himself as the protagonist, Cocky. The idea of Broadway snapping it up seems remarkable, as it’s the opposite of a lovable crowd-pleaser, being a satirical allegory of the British class scale with a distinctly unsettling feel. Several of the songs, including ‘Feelin’ Good’ (immortalised by Nina Simone) and ‘Who Can I Turn To?’, have become standards that have surpassed the show’s own fame – perhaps unsurprisingly, as many of them feel like stand-alone numbers due to the rather loose integration between the book and music.

The somewhat repetitive plot (if it can be said to have one) involves the perpetually subservient everyman, Cocky (an appealingly shabby Matthew Ashforde) and his master, Sir (Oliver Beamish), who are engaged in ‘The Game’, a subverted version of hopscotch. Sir, a jovial tyrant who consciously models himself on Henry Higgins and manipulates the rules to serve his own interests, naturally gets many of the most stinging lines. Cocky’s own brief flirtation with power, becoming a king with a chamber pot crown, is an aptly grotesque spectacle, as if tyranny and power are always synonymous. More jarring is ‘The Negro’ (a gorgeous-voiced Terry Doe), uninhibited by Sir’s rules and skips right to the middle of the board, who is written as a caricature that surely would have been patronising before Gone with the Wind.

The tiny Finborough possibly boasts the most creative designs on the London Fringe, and Tim Goodchild’s effectively childlike aesthetic is no exception. The circus-like atmosphere is enhanced by a roulette board painted on the floor, surrounded by ladders and lit with fairy lights. The all-female ensemble, dressed as Pierrots with white faces, exaggerated black eyebrows and button noses, further heighten the sense of otherworldliness, providing wry commentary on the bizarre proceedings.

Almost 50 years after it was written, the Finborough’s Celebrating British Music Theatre series seems a far more fitting setting for Greasepaint than the West End or Broadway. Under Ian Judge’s nimble direction (his next engagement is Romeo et Juliette conducted by Plácido Domingo at Los Angeles Opera) this is an eccentric and disturbing curiosity that makes a refreshing antidote to West End glitz and gaudiness.

Written for Exeunt

Review: She Loves Me (Chichester Festival Theatre)

 I always mean to see more theatre outside London, but find myself deterred by astronomical train fares, so I was delighted to be notified of Southern Rail’s 90% off sale. How fortunate, as Stephen Mear’s production of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s romantic musical She Loves Me is as perfect a piece of theatre as I have ever seen, delivering two and a half hours of the kind of theatrical bliss that’s absolutely priceless.


It seems unfair that She Loves Me (which premiered on Broadway in 1963) was somewhat eclipsed by Harnick and Bock’s smash hit Fiddler On The Roof a year later, being a masterclass of romantic comedy with intelligence. Its basic story – an epistolary romance between shop assistants who bicker by day and unknowingly exchange heartfelt letters by night– originating from Hungarian playwright Miklós László’s 1937 play Parfumerie, has been used many times over. As if it the fuzziness stakes couldn’t be raised any higher, it ends on Christmas Eve.

It’s as if She Loves Me was written to be a chamber piece, sitting perfectly in Chichester’s more intimate, horseshoe-shaped Minerva Theatre. Anthony Ward’s glass-fronted revolving design takes us right inside a bespoke parfumerie in a 1930s Central European fantasyland, full of jewel-coloured fripperies. Chic and beautifully cut costumes complete the picture of tasteful glamour.

Mear, perhaps the best theatre choreographer working today, shows himself to be equally assured as a director. As befits a choreographer, the timing is spot-on and the pace zips along. The two set pieces, ‘A Romantic Atmosphere,’ and ‘Twelve Days To Christmas’ are masterpieces of small-scale spectacle. The former takes place in a decadent café with tango dancers and the latter the frantic countdown to Christmas, both of which are executed with an extraordinary amount of control.

Dianne Pilkington is simply adorable as the klutzy, yet quick-thinking Amalia, displaying a shimmering soprano. Her poignancy is matched by her comic timing, particularly when hopping around on one shoe before accepting Georg’s peace offering of vanilla ice cream. Her leading man, Joe McFadden, is appealingly shy and eager and full of charm.

They’re supported by one of the most charming ensemble casts I’ve ever encountered. Annette McLoughlin is a total delight as the unlucky-in-love Ilona, entangled with the über-debonair Steven Kodaly (caddish charm personified by Clark Gable lookalike Matthew Goodgame). Steve Elias’s Sipos is full of bumbling charm and Jack Chisseck’s shop owner Mr Maraczek nimbly whisks us back to his waltzing days by the Danube. Credit also goes to Gavin McCluskey’s aspirational delivery boy and Lee Ormsby’s impeccable Head Waiter, providing a sardonically sympathetic shoulder to cry on in Amalia’s hour of need.

A divine treat that’s tied up with a satin ribbon. I wafted back to London on a cloud of vanilla ice cream with a memory that I’ll treasure for a very long time.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Into Thy Hands (Wilton's Music Hall)

Into Thy Hands begins with a speech about theatre and decay – very apt, considering that the future of the enchantingly distressed Wilton’s Music Hall is on shaky grounds after a major National Lottery grant recently was rejected.


This new play by Jericho House’s artistic director Jonathan Holmes (who also directs) illuminates the changing world of the early seventeenth century, full of a religious and scientific upheaval, through the eyes of John Donne, a maverick figure in Renaissance literature and religion. Whilst the play is packed with complex theological ideas that could seem rather remote, it’s personable, touching, and served with a generous amount of eroticism.

John and Ann Donne’s marriage ought to be counted amongst history’s great love stories; indeed, it is Ann who speaks out against the clergy on her husband’s behalf. In 1611, the Donnes and their growing brood of children are exiled in two rooms in a “Croydon craphole” as a result of their mixed marriage (his Catholicism and her Protestant background), scraping a meagre living by performing various favours for members of the court. The only escape route is an ecclesiastical position (which would presumably mean converting to Anglicanism), a transition that is fraught with self-doubt.

Donne’s belief in a more fluid and sensual approach towards scripture, in contrast to the austere Calvinism of court (yet this is also a place where noblewomen perform in masques with their breasts exposed), seems remarkably modern. Holmes takes a certain amount of creative license with history, presenting an overtly camp King James I (a scene-stealing cameo from Bob Cryer) and a Sapphic Lady Russell, but despite the play’s pro-Donne stance, Nicholas Rowe’s Lancelot Andrewes (the foremost cleric of the day) is presented with due gravitas and dignity.

Zubin Varla’s performance as Donne, though a touch overwrought, effectively conveys the torment of a man without a steady outlet for his extraordinary gifts. Jess Murphy’s Ann (remarkably nubile considering her constant state of pregnancy) reveals herself to be a worthy match to her husband’s intellect with her insight.  Helen Masters is warm and spiky as Lady Magdalene Herbert, the Donnes’ loyal friend and Stephanie Russell as Donne’s patroness Lucy Russell, an aging beauty at twenty-nine, offers an intriguing glimpse of sexual frustration and self-denial.

Holmes fully embraces the way in which Wilton’s, with its arched roof, balconies and panelling, is somewhat reminiscent of a bohemian church, and Filippo de Capitani’s wondrous lighting creates the most lovely chiaroscuro effects, as if the auditorium really is filled with candlelight. Lucy Wilkinson’s design, with painted screens and a painted silk backdrop (stripped away to mark Donne’s conversion to the visually plainer Anglicanism) and a cosmos of planets overhead, characterises the world of the play and an unknown existence beyond.

As Donne learns, much of earthly survival depends having enough money to live on. I hope that Wilton’s will be saved with all the good faith in the world, but its endurance ultimately depends on hard cash from rich donors. If decay and ruin really do unite us all, it would be an absolute tragedy if this exquisite building that inspires so much wonder and delight was to vanish.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: I Am A Camera (Rosemary Branch Theatre)

New company Cornelius Cooke Productions make a vivacious debut with a rare revival of John Van Druten’s 1951 play I Am A Camera.

It is based on Christopher Isherwood’s autobiographical novels set in Berlin during the rise of Nazism – which in turn inspired the musical Cabaret.

The play is set in the bedsit occupied by aspiring writer Christopher and nightclub singer Sally Bowles, and Van Druten excels at making these hedonistic characters likable. Director Owen Calvert-Lyons maintains a fast, farcical pace, rather like a sitcom punctuated with moments of bleakness, while Amy Yardley’s set beautifully evokes seedy bohemianism. These friends, preoccupied with partying and cultivating Americans with unlimited wealth, fail to realise that they are living in extraordinary times, the hideousness of the growing gangs of Nazis in the streets only hitting home when witnessed first-hand.

The heart of the piece is the somewhat one-sided friendship between Chris (Mark Jackson) and Sally (an entrancing Vicki Campbell), who talks faster than she can think and leaves others to tidy up the debris she leaves behind. Jackson is equally impressive as her less flamboyant counterpart, particularly when hinting at Chris’s ambiguous love life.

Caroline Wildi is deliciously clipped as Sally’s mother and arch-nemesis. Erika Poole also impresses as Fraulein Schneider, the ever-helpful landlady with a heart of gold who fortunately knows the local abortionist’s telephone number – alongside the fact that she also represents the brainwashed majority that helped Hitler rise to power.

This is a sparkling tribute to mark the 25th anniversary of Isherwood’s death, a captivating snapshot into another world that’s delivered by a remarkable team who have set themselves a very high standard.

Written for Islington Gazette. Disclaimer: the print version was really kind of savaged.

Review: Autumn and Winter (Orange Tree Theatre)

All things Scandinavian seem to be quite ‘in’ at the moment: Swedish crime drama is all the rage and there was a Woman’s Hour feature last week about how Nordic cuisine is currently the most fashionable in the world. In the Orange Tree Theatre’s latest production, Swedish playwright Lars Norén is given a rare English-language outing with this angsty and shrill family drama directed by Derek Goldby and translated by Gunilla Anderman.

Norén’s writing and emphasis on domesticity are somewhat reminiscent of the nervous hysteria found in Alan Ayckbourn (of whom I’m not a fan) and Mike Leigh’s mixture of character driven humour and gloom. This slice of middle class misery takes place after the two adult daughters drop in on their parents for a family dinner and all kinds of resentments are brought to the fore. The premise is perfect for the Orange Tree, where the audience is gathered around the perimeters of the living room (designed by Sam Dowson – the uncomfortable-looking sofa is a fitting touch), but it is let down by the clunky writing, with a sense of the characters competing as to who can be the most miserable and ‘issues’ being ticked off as if on a shopping list; abortion, divorce, eating disorders, etc.

The main perpetrator of the misery is the dungaree-clad Ann, a down-on-her-luck single parent obsessed with her supposedly horrible childhood, who blames all her misfortunes on her mother. In contrast, her elder sister, Ewa, is a linen-suited, French-pleated and frightfully smug corporate high flier, who chimes in with the cracks in her seemingly ideal life, and Mum follows suit by blaming her husband for everything. Everybody is keen to have their say but no one is willing to listen, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the same points go around in circles and no one reaches any kind of understanding by the end.

Lisa Stevenson, in the showiest role, is at times ferociously volatile as the ever hard-done-by Ann and Kristin Hutchinson is perfectly pinched as overachiever Ewa. Diane Fletcher’s Mum is harder to pin down, presenting an icily detached façade, but gradually reveals herself to be just as much of a drama queen as Ann. If Osmund Bullock (splendid in The Thunderbolt) as Dad spends much of the show blending in with the furniture, it isn’t really his fault as his ineffectual character has so little to do.


With six bottles of wine imbibed by the end of the evening, plus various nightcaps of port, whisky and brandy, it’s remarkable that anyone can string a sentence together – and no one bats an eyelid at Ewa driving Ann home. Ultimately, a fairly aimless wallow in Nordic angst.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Uncle Vanya (Arcola Theatre)

 

 Following on from their production of Anna Karenina (by Birmingham’s Piano Removal Company), the Arcola remains in Russia with Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (a co-production with Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre), a play, which like Tolstoy’s novel, also features a young wife in an unfulfilling marriage with a much older husband.

This new version by Polish-born director Helena Kaut-Howson and Jon Strickland, who plays the title role, aims to move away from the “fossilising reverence” often found in English translations of Chekhov, extracting the full potential of the farcical elements that run concurrently with the disillusionment of so many wasted lives. Kaut-Howson’s fluid approach, strong performances from the entire cast and the detailed period design offer a glimpse into a long vanished world of country estates and lace parasols, but much of it is universal, particularly the frustration felt by the characters whose purpose in life is to do supposedly cleverer people’s work for them.

Sophie Jump’s three quarters in the round design helps to break down some of the potential distance between the characters and the audience, perfectly evoking the clutter of a picturesque but slightly distressed country estate. Alex Wardle’s atmospheric lighting hints at the heady indolence of a balmy summer afternoon full of familial and erotic tensions that can only be hidden under a mask of ennui for so long. The use of incidental music (by Boleslaw Rawski) gives the busier scenes an effectively cinematic quality, but is a little overly emphatic in some of the more reflective moments.

The return of Professor Alexander Serebreyakov (a suitably curmudgeonly performance by Geoffrey Whitehead) and his beautiful wife Yelena to his country estate interrupts the order maintained by the estate managers, his daughter, Sonya and brother-in-law, Vanya. Vanya’s misplaced hero worship is perhaps what’s most hurtful of all, being deceived that dedicating his life to the service of a genius was a noble thing to do, and the devastation of discovering that his brother-in-law’s ‘talent’ was based on delusion. Likewise, the environmentalism of Sonya’s unrequited love Dr Astrov (a charismatic Simon Gregor) is equally in vain, in which pioneers of change, rather than making improvements, simply repeat the same mistakes of the past.

Jon Strickland’s nervy Vanya is not a repressed genius, but a man who, like anyone given the right opportunities, could have achieved more. Marianne Oldham is luminously languid as the “regrettably faithful” second wife with “mermaid blood.” She has the power to set all the male hearts aflame, initially appearing to be something of an unknowable ice queen, but provides one of the most emotional moments with the burst of joy when she and her stepdaughter fling their arms around each other and finally come to an understanding.

Most poignant of all is Hara Yannas’s Sonya, who seems unbearably young to have her dreams crushed so completely. She’s imbued with a grim determination to get on with the dull work she’s been sentenced to, which prevents her from appearing like a victim. On the contrary, there is something heroic about her refusal to give in to self pity, particularly when she is surrounded by pervading melancholy that seems almost contagious.

Written for Exeunt