REVIEWS
WEST END - MAJOR THEATRES
(We are happy to provide reviews free of charge by email for shows not listed on this page)
NOTE: REVIEWS (UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED) ARE "ORIGINAL CASTS"
REVIEWS: (to find a specific production use the "find/search" facility on your Internet server, and enter the title)
LOVE
NEVER DIES – Adelphi Theatre; PRIVATE LIVES –
Vaudeville Theatre;
GHOSTS – Duchess Theatre; JERUSALEM – Apollo
Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue;
REALLY OLD, LIKE FORTY FIVE – Cottesloe Theatre (NT); WAITING FOR GODOT –
Theatre Royal, Haymarket;
ENRON – Noel Coward Theatre; THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED
– Garrick Theatre; SIX
DEGREES OF SEPERATION – The Old Vic; LEGALLY BLONDE – The
Musical – Savoy Theatre;
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF – Novello Theatre; NATION – Olivier
Theatre (NT); THE
HABIT OF ART – Lyttelton Theatre (NT); THE POWER OF YES –
Lyttelton Theatre (NT);
AN INSPECTOR CALLS – Wyndham’s Theatre ; OUR CLASS – Cottesloe
Theatre (NT);
DREAMBOATS AND PETTICOATS – Savoy Theatre; SISTER ACT – London
Palladium; THE OBSERVER
– Cottesloe Theatre (NT);
WAR HORSE – New London Theatre; PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE
DESERT – The Musical – Palace Theatre; OLIVER! – Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane;
JERSEY BOYS - Prince Edward Theatre; HAIRSPRAY - Shaftesbury Theatre;
GREASE is the word -
Piccadilly Theatre;
DIRTY DANCING - Aldwych Theatre; THE 39 STEPS - Criterion Theatre;
WICKED - Apollo
Victoria Theatre; AVENUE Q
– at the Gielgud Theatre until 13/03 re-opens at Wyndham’s Theatre
19/03; BILLY
ELLIOT - The Musical - Victoria Palace Theatre; LES MISÉRABLES - Queen's
Theatre; STOMP -
Ambassador's Theatre; WE
WILL ROCK YOU - The Dominion Theatre; Disney's THE LION KING -
Lyceum Theatre; MAMMA MIA - The
Prince of Wales Theatre;
CHICAGO - Cambridge Theatre
LOVE
NEVER DIES
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lyrics
by Glenn Slater
Book by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Ben
Elton with Glenn Slater and Frederick Forsyth
Now playing at the Adelphi Theatre
Lord
Lloyd Webber has always been strong on marketing and developing his musical
brands so perhaps the major surprise is that he has taken so long to write a
sequel to one of his earlier hits.
Since
there is little doubt that Love Never Dies will prove lucrative, both in its
own right and as a marketing tool for its progenitor The Phantom of the Opera,
the only question is whether we can now expect Dogs or Herod the Hero to
follow.
Love
Never Dies has much to praise and a fair amount that does not come off so well.
On the plus side, the design is so good that at times it can overshadow the
show's main attractions.
Bob
Crowley has mixed sensational, dreamlike computer graphics with more old
fashioned props such as a haunting, centaur-pulled carriage; and magical
illusions to create a Coney Island funfair and House of Horrors that is
unforgettable.
The tale
that this design so spectacularly embellishes is of old flames reigniting. Ramin Karimloo as The Phantom is given
ample opportunity to exercise his powerful tonsils, while his leading lady,
American import Sierra Boggess gets her moment of
glory, threatening any passing chandeliers while hitting the high notes in the
title song.
Coney
Island is the place to which the sadder, older Phantom has fled from Paris
after losing the woman with whom he is still obsessed ten years later,
Christine to bitter Raoul the handsome but profligate
Viscomte, now played by Joseph Millson.
In an
effort to replenish the lost family fortune, Christine agrees to play a gig at
the funfair bringing hubby and their 10-year-old son Gustav along for the ride
(pun intended).
There,
they encounter not only the dreaded Phantom, who still fantasises wildly about
his lost love, but other old friends too.
Liz
Robertson's stony-faced Madame Giry and her lovely,
intellectually-blonde daughter Meg have been keeping the show alive for a
decade selling bland, end of the pier variety, exemplified by a rip-off Salome
seven veils song perhaps inspired by Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.
The
daughter, the only character anything like fully drawn, is for whatever reason
driven by a constant desire to please their never seen mentor and portrayed
with spirit by the peppy, winning Summer Strallen
In
true melodramatic style, predictable skeletons emerge from the cupboard, none
anything like as interesting as the evening's best illusion from Scott Penrose,
a woman with shapely human legs but a skeletal upper half.
All
builds to a series of showdowns and a death scene so prolonged that it might
rank an entry in next year's Guinness Book of Records.
It
does not help a limp plot to have an evening of trite lyrics that seem written
purely to rhyme rather than emphasise the beauty of what we see and hear, as
not only is the design of the highest quality but much of the score shows
variety and imagination.
While
the title song may be sub-operatic, the three best tunes Devil Take the
Hindmost, The Beauty Underneath and Heaven by the Sea are respectively Kurt
Weill pastiche, heavy rock and musical standard.
So
what to make of a flawed classic? On balance, for anyone that loves Lord LW and
more particularly Phantom, this is a must see. That should also extend to
musical fans who are not looking for too much
intellectual stimulation. In other words, Love Never Dies is an inevitable hit
that is bound to prove popular and triumphantly travel the globe in the wake of
its Parisian parent.
Buy
tickets: http://www.loveneverdies.com
Reviewed
by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
PRIVATE LIVES
By Noel Coward
A Theatre Royal, Bath production...
Now playing at the Vaudeville Theatre until 1st
May, 2010
Never one to waste a
moment, Coward reputedly used his time recovering from a bout of ‘flu to
write the draft of Private Lives in only four days and, although the dialogue
is extensive, not a word is wasted either - every one
pertinent, to the point, and written with a biting wit pointing out the
absurdities of life, love and morality. Never more so than in this
enjoyable tale of two couples honeymooning in Deauville where Amanda and Elyot
discover that the partner they divorced five years previously is on the
adjoining balcony, each now married to another.
Kim Cattrall
of TV’s Sex and the City fame is Amanda - and what a revelation.
This is her third foray onto the London stage and sadly I missed the first two
but she certainly doesn’t give herself an easy ride (not since Samantha
anyway and make what you will of that remark!). Her first role, in
2005, was as a bed-bound quadriplegic, only able to move from the neck
up, and the second a year later was David Mamet’s disturbing
psychological play The Cryptogram. This time, in another total contrast,
her character is mercurial, volatile, flighty and, with Coward’s script
and Richard Eyre’s expertly timed and paced direction, totally enjoyably
laugh-out-loud funny. Although the sex appeal is still evident, gone is
the deep, seductive, caressing drawl, to be replaced with a higher, lighter
tone of voice, and a capriciousness in complete
contrast to the blatantly single-minded, predatory Samantha. There is no
vestige of an American accent and her sense of comedy is superb, but there are also some touching moments to almost
bring tears to the eyes as she quietly and haltingly sings “Some Day
I’ll Find You” with a feeling of loneliness and a yearning
for something lost.
She is well matched by
Matthew Macfadyen’s Elyot, confident of his
manly superiority and sure he can control this wildly irresponsible woman.
Doesn’t he remember their marriage? Coward himself played
this role when the play premiered in 1930, with Gertrude Lawrence as
Amanda, but Macfadyen is no carbon copy
preferring to replace ‘The Master’s’ carefully enunciated,
clipped tones with his own version of superiority and hauteur. An
extremely talented actor, he first came to prominence as Mr. Darcy in the 2005
film version of “Pride and Prejudice” and we will be seeing a lot
more of him this coming year with no fewer than four film and TV productions to
be screened.
The two hapless spouses,
who are soon deserted by their heartless partners, are Sybil and Victor,
seemingly insipid and clinging contrasts to the main protagonists, but they
have their moments too, and all expertly performed.
Amanda’s dismissive “Heaven preserve me from nice
women” stings Lisa Dillon’s Sybil to shoot back “Your
reputation ought to do that”, and Simon Paisley Day’s Victor has a
quite inventive method of dealing with his trousers overnight.
In Act Two
Amanda’s Paris apartment is a dream of stylish thirties unconventional
elegance, and it must really hurt designer Rob Howell to see it trashed in the
volatile, destructive fight between the lovers, but comedy is still high on the
agenda and ‘Casting’ have managed to find a real French maid - well
a true Parisian anyway (Caroline Lena Olsson) - who enters to the scene of
devastation and, with a Gallic shrug, says “Ah, Les Amoureux”
as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
I enjoyed every single
moment of this thoroughly entertaining production, superbly presented and
performed to perfection. Highly recommended.
Reviewed
by Sheila Connor for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
GHOSTS
by Henrik
Ibsen
A
new version by Frank McGuinness
Now playing at the Duchess Theatre,
West End
Once you begin on the slippery slope of keeping up
appearances there is no turning back, as Mrs. Helene Alving
finds to her cost, yet would her life have been better if the truth had been
known from the start?
Ibsen’s play covers so many issues of morality that
it’s difficult to take them all on board, and bringing them into the open
certainly scandalised a hypocritical late nineteenth century self-righteous
society which preferred to cover up anything it considered distasteful.
Matters of the sanctity of marriage, incest, infidelity and (horrifyingly)
venereal disease and euthanasia, as well as the plight of women living in a
male-dominated world, are all considered, and should the right to personal
happiness be sacrificed in the name of
‘duty’?
Building an orphanage to the memory of her late husband is
Mrs. Alving’s final act of duty, still
perpetuating the myth that he was an upright and honourable man and she can now
dismiss his memory and look forward to a life of freedom with the beloved son
who has just returned home from his life as an
artist in Paris - but ‘the sins of the fathers are visited on the
children’ and the ghosts of the past come back to haunt her.
Characters are well drawn and well represented with
the delicate-featured, socially ambitious maid Regina (Jessica Raine) an unlikely offspring of the rough and conniving
carpenter Engstrand (Malcolm Storry)
alerting our suspicions from the start. Lesley Sharp as Mrs. Alving breezes in like a breath of spring, attractive,
elegantly gowned and eager to begin life at last, throwing off the yoke that
has been her duty for so many years, but the hope and excitement in her eyes is
soon dashed to depression and unease as history seems to be repeating itself
and finally turns to total anguish and despair with a momentous decision to
make. Should she help her son to end his life as he begs her to do?
The very question which has gained so much media
attention recently - still not resolved.
Harry Treadaway gives a fine
interpretation of a young man in pain and suffering from a disease he does not
understand, managing to look gaunt and wracked with pain and anguish, before
sinking into a coma as Sharp agonises over her decision.
Duty is the main preoccupation of Pastor Manders played by Ian Glen (who also directs) as the total
embodiment of a sanctimonious, self-satisfied minister who casts a dubious eye
on the radical books chosen by Mrs. A. and picks them up with thumb and
forefinger as if they were contaminated, at the same time lecturing her on the
superiority of men. One wonders how she could have had any amorous
feelings for such a character. So sure of his God-given right is
he that he blames the lack of insurance for the destroyed orphanage on anyone
but himself and, in the final irony, agrees to fund Engstrand’s
euphemistically named ‘sanctuary for sailors’ as a fitting
memorial for Mr. Alving - as indeed it is!
Click here to
book tickets for Ghosts - From £34.00
Reviewed by Sheila Connor for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine
The Royal Court Theatre production of ..
JERUSALEM
A new play by Jez Butterworth
Now playing at the
Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue until 24th April, 2010
A young girl, dressed as
a fairy and alone on stage, sings the song ‘Jerusalem’.
Suddenly the peace of England’s ‘green and pleasant land’ is
shattered by the wildest most raucous party imaginable. As day breaks
(or perhaps it’s nearer noon) the scene is revealed as a clearing in the
woods where a large trailer caravan is surrounded by the detritus of the party
and where two members of the local constabulary are trying to serve an
eviction notice - not for the first time.
It is St. George’s
Day, the day of Flintlock village’s annual fair, and in the caravan is
St. George in the shape of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron about to fight
the dragon of bureaucracy, but this is no knight in shining armour. An
inveterate teller of outrageously tall stories, a drug dealer who attracts
under-age girls and plies them with booze - you wouldn’t want him living
in your back garden and you’d warn your kids to keep clear, yet somehow
Mark Rylance manages to present him as a likeable,
harmless rogue and our sympathies are with him as he ignores the efforts of
authority to move him on. From our safe, comfortable
homes, cushioned by the ‘Nanny State’ and suffocated by the
denizens of ‘Health and Safety’, isn’t there a little
envy and admiration for someone who is refusing to conform and living life in
his own way.
Butterworth and director
Ian Rickson have created a hilarious comedy, but look
a little deeper and there are more issues being addressed here than simply
whether or not Johnny will win the battle. The erosion of rural
England to provide more housing estates, the suppression of individuality, the
fact that life must move on but basically nothing much changes are all slipped
in beneath the laughter, and there is regret that the rebellious spirit of Old
England seems lost.
Practically the entire
original cast have transferred from the Royal Court and there are some very
young and inexperienced actors among them, but no one puts a foot wrong and
under Rickson’s direction new ideas, thoughts
and stories come at you in waves keeping the pace and energy flowing.
The three hour performance doesn’t seem a second too long.
Johnny’s most outrageous story, and hilariously illustrated by actions,
is the time he met a forty foot giant who had built Stonehenge, and who gave
him a drum to beat if he needed help, told so convincingly it almost seemed
possible.
A
strange assortment of characters come and go throughout the day. There is Mackenzie
Crook as loyal but woozy wannabe DJ, Alan
David’s professor living in the distant past, Danny Kirrane’s
xenophobic slaughter-man “If I leave Wiltshire my ears pop”,
Gerard Horan’s reluctant Morris dancer, Tom Brooke’s Lee -
his last day in Flintlock before leaving the country, and two very young girls
(Jessica Barden and Charlotte Mils) who crawl out from under the caravan where
they have spent the night.
Ultz’ set is amazingly real with massive beech
trees towering over the site, birdsong in the trees, and distant sounds of
preparations for the fair provided by Ian Dickinson. All performances
are so superb that it doesn’t seem like acting at all, with Rylance emerging as very probably the greatest actor of our
time.
At the end he almost
seems to be giving in, appearing dressed conventionally and looking old and
beaten. It takes a vicious physical beating to restore his spirit and,
covered with blood and hardly able to crawl he hauls himself upright and begins
to beat the drum calling up - maybe not the giants - but the gigantic
indomitable spirit of his ancestors.
Performances: Monday
– Saturday at 7.30pm
Saturday
and Thursday matinees at 2.30pm
Box
Office: 0844 412 4658 www.nimaxtheatres.com
or
Website: www.jerusalemtheplay.com
Reviewed
by Sheila Connor for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
REALLY OLD,
LIKE FORTY FIVE
by Tamsin
Oglesby
Now playing in
repertory at the Cottesloe Theatre
Tamsin
Oglesby’s latest play about the perils of growing old is a bizarre hybrid
of EastEnders for the elderly and Friends
set in an English care home.
The
story, directed by Anna Mackmin, revolves around
three ageing siblings, well played by Judy Parfitt, Gawn Grainger and Marcia Warren, and a motley crew of
unconvincing offspring: a badly coping daughter (Amelia Bullmore),
an adopted grand-daughter (Lucy May Barker), who becomes pregnant, and a
computer gaming obsessed grandson (Thomas Jordan). Over the course of the drama,
the three oldsters end up in the Arc, the officials’ ground-breaking
hospital for the “vulnerable“, while the rest are left to cope - or
not.
The
best thing about this play is none of the above, but two fabulous scene
stealing characters, Michela Meazza’s
robot nurse, and Paul Ritter’s NHS policy official.
Meazza plays a
freshly minted androgynous mannequin from whose sexy white dolly nurse uniform
sprout long, angular plastic looking arms and legs which twist and turn to a
syncopated robotic soundtrack. As she strokes her patients, her red lips
alternate between crazy fixed expressions of joy, or lost misery as she
mechanically parrots whatever sorrow is imparted to her. It’s a brilliant
performance with echoes of the world according to Matthew Bourne in whose many
productions Meazza has starred.
Paul
Ritter’s disillusioned bureaucrat also likes to posture and parade as,
from a raised podium, he shows us screens featuring redesigned station
platforms for the future, with three lanes, one for the elderly, the next for
the middle aged movers, and the third for younger sprinters. When he discovers
he has early onset dementia, he gives a tour de force of a speech and a
performance, mounting hysteria laced with snatches of random nursery rhymes.
The
programme is full of information about the
liabilities of an ageing population, suggesting that this is a play inviting us
seriously to consider our future decline. There are a few moments of tenderness
as the siblings relive moments from their shared pasts, but they lie buried
under the weight of an unsurprising plot and comic, but essentially trivial,
dialogue.
The
playwright works best when she marries her ear for the surreal with the
everyday as in her earlier, and much better play, My
Best Friend. Really Old, Like Forty-Five celebrates
the surreal but consigns the everyday, along with its patients, to banality.
Reviewed by
Charlotte Birkett for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
WAITING FOR GODOT
by Samuel Beckett
Now playing at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Ends: April 3rd, 2010
The ‘Waiting For
Godot’, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket is a revival of the hugely
successful production of Samuel Beckett’s 1952 play, starring Ian McKellen as Estragon (Gogo) and
Patrick Stewart as Vladimir (Didi) that was in the
West End last season. Roger Rees has taken over the Stewart part.
One of the first of the Theatre of the Absurd
genre, Ionesco and Pinter were to follow, you won’t find dramatic form,
plot development and coherent dialogue in great supply during the course of the
play. What you do find is a theme played and replayed that although
life may be meaningless, love, or hate or even perhaps an identifiable sense of
purpose, give people the strength to carry on. In this case, the
characters are, of course, waiting for Godot, a mythical character who, of
course, never appears.
In a dystopian post apocalyptic world, the
characters survive in the remains of a theatre. If all the
world’s a stage, the set by Stephen Brimson
Lewis definitely is one. The destroyed theatre’s arch is collapsing
although the empty boxes remain upright, but everything is covered in white
dust, a bit like after 9/11. A tree has grown up through the floor
boards. All sense of time and place has totally vanished. The characters
flounder in search of meaning. Neither is well; both are in pain. It
would be heartbreaking if it weren’t for the laughs.
Waiting for Godot is in the acting as much as
it is in the writing. In fact, this is probably the ultimate
actors’ play, as while a bemused audience listens to what is often
complete non-sequitur or even gibberish, it’s all so compellingly
performed, they are both riveted and engrossed.
Sean Mathias, Artistic Director of the
Theatre Royal Haymarket for the 2009/10 season directs his superb cast in an
interpretation that ekes every drop of meaning from every line. There are
heart-tugging bits of business. Estragon and Vladimir can’t survive
without each other. The continuity of their existence in the barren
post-holocaust landscape has created a bond between them. Bonds like that turn
into love, although often times never acknowledged. Estragon’s feet
are too big for his boots and at the start of the play he takes them off.
The boots are laceless and worn, with tongue and
sides flapping in despair, if boots can convey despair. Vladimir picks one up,
spits on it and rubs away with his sleeve trying to create a shine. It’s
an act of love and very moving it is too.
Matthew Kelly plays Pozzo
where his largeness serves him well. Towering over Lucky, Ronald Pickup, who
obediently trudges ahead of him as on a lead, his neck in a noose, the two
wander to no purpose through land laid waste for no reason. Lucky is totally
dejected and accepts his lot. Pozzo postures and commands, trying to uncover who he was.
The two make a second visit in Act II. The singing and dancing
Lucky is now mute. The blustering Pozzo has gone
blind. The suitcase Lucky lugs about turns out to be full of sand.
Time plays either an important role or none
at all. A lot of time might have passed, which would explain changed
conditions, or no time might have passed, which would explain why so much has
remained the same.
With masterful acting and direction, you
can’t go wrong with this production. Whether Theatre of the Absurd suits
your taste or not is irrelevant here. One should see at least one production of
Waiting for Godot in one’s theatre going life.
If you haven’t yet, don’t miss
this one.
Book online: http://www.trh.co.uk
Reviewed by Judith M. Steiner for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
ENRON
by Lucy Prebble
Now playing at the Noel Coward
Theatre, St Martin’s Lane
Enron is a vastly-ambitious morality play charting the rise
and catastrophic fall of the Texan energy giant which grew from nothing to
reach top-ten US company status in just 15 years. Employing 21,000 staff in
almost 50 countries, its success was due to a seductively-presented fantasy
based on lies, the shadiest of dealings and the most elaborate of cover-ups
with a murky trail of duplicity leading right up to the very steps of the White
House and the Bush administration.
Lucy Prebble’s lucid play
reveals every element of ‘life in the bubble’ as it was lived by
the people in the loop at Enron and its effects on those who trusted them and
shared a common belief that their judgement was infallible – even though
it was predicated on the assumption that future
income streams could be written down as current earnings from the moment a new
deal was signed. Who wouldn’t be tempted to invest in such a company
when confronted with a rise in share price from a meagre dollar to a peak of
some $95 at the height of its fame and before global debts of $38bn (small beer in comparison to today’s vast
septic debt pits) eventually brought down the whole house of cards and its
ingenious originators.
Jeffrey Skilling became Enron's top
executive and principal villain by Machiavellian
manipulation, creating a mythically-wealthy company
by following the quixotic principles of his newly-promoted
Chief Financial Officer, Andy
Fastow,
that launched shady shadow companies in which Enron's escalating debts
could be manipulated and presented as assets. As long as this ploy worked, it
was allowed to continue with the tacit blessing of company founder, Kenneth Lay
and the apparent compliance of fellow executives and a coterie of highly-paid
accountants, lawyers, analysts and investors.
The actors inhabit their real-life
fantasy world with chilling conviction and Samuel West's fine performance as
Skilling brings out both his innate nerdishness and
his master-of-the-universe self-belief.
Tim Pigott-Smith
as Lay creates a riveting portrait of a hail-fellow, well-met devout Christian
who sanctions Skilling’s business methods while largely distancing himself from their inevitable repercussions. Tom
Goodman-Hill manages to keep at bay the predatory red-eyed debt-devouring
‘raptors’ – ancillary companies created to swallow
Enron’s ever-growing debts – until the unprecedented scope of
the company’s indebtedness can no longer be concealed.
Rupert Goold’s glittering
direction brings Enron’s universe to hubristic life through a series of
stunningly-staged boardroom coups, ritualised male rites of passage, high-level
corporate schmoozing (from the President downwards), stock manipulation, sex
(between dissolute and highly-motivated, but frequently insecure, executives),
drugs (surprisingly few, apart from a few fragrant cigarettes) and rock’n’roll (some slickly choreographed dance
routines by Scott Ambler highlight particularly frantic moments on the Trading
Floor and elsewhere). All combine to create a hugely-involving multi-media
spectacle that exposes the staggering mis-use of
power as the sweet smell of success gradually turns into the fetid stench of
rotting corporate power abuse, made even more nauseating to a contemporary
audience by its relevance to recent disclosures - corporate and
political - on both sides of the Atlantic.
So, what lessons have we learned from
Enron? Very few, it would seem: bankers’ bonuses remain at the contentious
heart of our discredited financial system and corporate duplicity and political
ineptness continue unabated.
Knowing how to bend the rules for
personal, corporate and political advantage remain at the heart of our business
and political ethos - however strongly it may be denied by those in power.
Those ‘in the know’ still make their own rules and believe
themselves to be invincible and largely unaccountable to the rest of society,
their particular morality at odds with the people who (used to) trust them. As
Lord Goldsmith was reported as saying before he faced the Chilcot
Enquiry the morning after Enron’s West End opening: “people
don’t understand how the system works.” But if the system isn’t working in
a way that ‘people’ can understand, then perhaps it is time to look
at ways of changing it to become more readily transparent?
Tickets
£50.50 to £12.50
Concessions
available to Seniors/Students on day of performance
Booking from
16 January 2010 to Saturday 8 May 2010
Monday to
Saturday at 7.30pm, Wednesday & Saturday at 2.30pm
Box Office
0844 482 514
Reviewed for Theatreworld Internet Magazine by Clive Burton
TWO REVIEWS:-
The Little Dog Laughed
Garrick Theatre, Charing Cross
Road
If few Hollywood stars
have played gay men on screen, even fewer have come out as gay themselves,
despite persistent rumours about the true sexuality of many of the biggest
names.
So it is with Mitchell, a young actor whose “slight recurring case of homosexuality”
threatens to scupper his career just as he could be about to hit the Hollywood
jackpot with a star movie role. But, instead of reining in his homosexual
tendencies and, you might reasonably ask these days, “why
should he?” (but that’s how the game is
still played in Tinseltown) he sticks to his guns to continue a
nascent affair with a young New York male
prostitute, Alex.
His loudmouth lesbian agent, Diane, insists that he choose
between his burgeoning career as a hetero heartthrob and his new
‘relationship’ - smitten after a one-night stand, where both men
are in denial about their homosexuality? -
I don’t think so… Tamsin Greig plays her as a relentlessly stentorian Jewish motormouth whom we first see Vogueing
to the brutally-loud disco tracks that have been shaking the theatre to its
foundations for a full quarter-hour before the curtain rises on this inept
series of brittle vignettes and monochrome monologues.
For audiences raised on the quality scripts, tight plots and dry
humour of Will and Grace’s four-handed
format, the jokes and situations in Douglas Carter Beane’s
play are painfully thin and Diane’s banter with the audience quickly
becomes wearisome: frequently breaking the fourth wall convention, each
character explores his/her situations or, even more annoyingly, those of absent
third parties, within the confines of a rectangular white set whose props
mysteriously disappear without explanation as the evening progresses. (Why
sleep on the floor in an empty apartment/hotel room where there was once a
bed?)
Gemma Arterton
plays Alex’s long-suffering girlfriend Ellen as a mopey loser who eventually falls pregnant by her
promiscuous rent-boy friend and, in one of the most ineptly-directed (and
written) scenes of its kind, when she tries to broach the subject of her recent
visit to the doctor, Alex petulantly jumps to the mistaken conclusion that it
is because she has given him AIDS!
It is largely down to the personal charm of
Harry Lloyd’s puppyish sex worker that his character remains as appealing
as he does despite such obnoxious behaviour: curious though that, although he
makes around $800 a day as a hustler, he nevertheless feels compelled to ask
his new best friend Mitchell, Rupert Friend, for a loan to cover his
girlfriend’s abortion. But that is presumably only so that the plot can
be neatly resolved and everyone live happily ever.
The adult themes (though nothing that would
shock a sophisticated metropolitan theatregoer), a
little discreet rear (male) nudity and a sprinkling of profanities seem so
passé today that, after two long hours, I still could neither see
– nor care about - why The Little Dog Laughed. A bit of a bummer all
round, then...
Reviewed for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine by Clive Burton
THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED
By Douglas Carter Beane
Now playing at the Garrick Theatre
It seems that The
Little Dog Laughed must be one of those shows that visitors either love or
hate. After all, this lightest of light comedies made it to Broadway and has
now crossed the Atlantic. Alternatively, it is possible that Jamie Lloyd's
British version has lost whatever made the original a draw.
There is an early
suggestion that its writer might wish his baby to be seen as a gender-bending
remake of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the movie. However, it lacks Audrey Hepburn,
George Peppard and the unique charm injected into
Truman Capote's story by director Blake Edwards.
What we are left
with is a comedy with a subtlety bypass in which almost every joke is telegraphed
and the actors compete for who can shout loudest.
To be fair to Green
Wing's Tamsin Greig, a
really stage good actress who works ridiculously hard to get laughs here, she
wins that contest hands down in the role of a lesbian actors' agent from LA
having a few problems with what appears to be her sole client.
Rupert Friend,
whose biography suggests that, like Keira Knightley, he is making his stage debut in the West End, is
Mitchell. He is a pretty film actor with gay tendencies on the way to superstardom,
who decides to come out at just the wrong moment for his career, not to mention
the infuriated Diane's 10% in perpetuity.
Mitchell's undoing
is Harry Lloyd's boyish, vulnerable Alex, a male tart with a heart of gold and
the integrity of a priest. You know - the type that might protest, "I only
have paid sex with men to make money and really I'm straight and a veritable
angel" and believe it.
To complete the set
we have St Trinian's graduate turned Bond Girl, Gemma Arterton as Alex's squeeze,
Ellen. She is confused by the goings on and in turn confuses all and sundry,
though she is part of a convenient happy ever after ending that will probably
appeal most to ardent devotees of Hello magazine.
There are some very
sharp lines along the way and Douglas Carter Beane
clearly sets out to have some fun at the expense of the movie industry but this
is no Speed-the-Plow. Unless you are desperate to see
these screen stars in the flesh, this may be one to miss out on.
Tickets:
£52.00, £47, £42, £30
Evenings at 7.45pm with Wednesday and Saturday
matinees at 3.00pm
Booking:
0844 412 4662
Reviewed by Philip Fisher for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Now playing at the Old Vic until April 3
Just what is
reality? Is it what we see – or
what we choose to see? When the line between actuality and imagination is
blurred, it can distort a situation to such an extent that it is increasingly
difficult to distinguish between the two states of perception. The imagined
becomes the actual, however far-fetched the situation may logically appear.
That is more or
less the premise of Six Degrees of Separation: this latest movie- to- stage
show (a new production representing the play’s first London revival in
almost two decades) is inspired by the real-life story of a flamboyant con
artist who manages to convince wealthy Manhattan socialites that he is Paul
Poitier, the son of actor Sidney Poitier.
Although his life
eventually turns out to be no more than an exhilarating cocktail of
winningly-told anecdotes, initially no one doubts the bona fides of this young charmer. Certainly not Ouisa and Flan Kittredge who allow the injured Paul into
their home when he seeks succour after a neighbourhood mugging. They
quickly fall for his plausible stories and all-too-plausible charm, especially
when it turns out that he knows so much about them, their children, their
children’s education and their inner circle of friends, and fits so
effortlessly into their comfortably-cosseted world.
As John Guare’s play unfolds, the scale of Paul’s
deceit becomes clear – as does its effect on the people it involves, each
of whom has a tenuous connection with the other (the ‘six degrees’
in the title). While it initially provides the source of the harmless, post-prandial anecdotes circulating among the charmed upper
East-side set, the plot grows darker and deeper as the fatal repercussions of
his fantasy life on the people he meets gradually unravel.
As Paul, the
charismatic Obi Abili (a serendipitous anagram of
‘alibi’), expertly extricates himself from every potential disaster
that threatens to break his thrall on his new ‘best friends’. Even
when caught being buggered by a naked hustler on the Kittredge’s sofa, he
manages to placate his horrified hosts by suggesting that surely
‘everyone has sex when they are happy?’ – a
sentiment that Lesley Manville’s Ouisa
all-too-grimly wishes she could identify with.
Ms Manville’s
whippet-thin socialite is a whirlwind of surface self-confidence – she
even fills in the crossword in ink! – and
clearly enjoys the frisson that Paul and his unbridled lust for life brings to
her own monochrome existence. Anthony Head’s fraught husband Flan,
fighting against the financial turmoil of the ‘80s (during which the play
is set) brings a steely-suave determination to the role and Director David Grindley subtly cements a believable relationship between
this engaging couple.
But many of the
supporting characters are sketchily-written and too lightly played to convey
much depth: the Kittredges’ friends (with the
exception of the South African, Geoffrey, brought to gruff life by Ian Redford)
are little more than ciphers and their teenage children are too stereotypically
bratty to be engaging. And the less said about the naif
young stage-struck couple from Utah, or the improbable manner in which Paul
acquires his insider knowledge and learns to clothe it in such an intriguing
persona, the better.
It is also
difficult for Jonathan Fensome’s abstract
Rothko-esque single-set-and-sofa design to convince
as everything from an upmarket New York apartment to Central Park, Boston or
anywhere else the action demands. And, while many of the central issues of
race, the iconography of celebrity and the commercialisation of art still
resonate with a 21st century audience, they have lost some of the
white-hot appeal they may have exerted
when Six Degrees first appeared two decades ago.
Performances:
Monday to Saturday evenings at 7.30 with matinees at 2.30 on Wednesday and
Saturday
Tickets: £10-£47
BoxOffice: 08700 606628
http://www.old-vic-theatre.com
Reviewed for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
by Clive Burton
LEGALLY
BLONDE – The Musical
Now
playing at The Savoy Theatre, Strand
The only excuse not to go to Legally
Blonde, the musical, is if you are dead.
And even then, this show is so uplifting that it makes a good case for
resurrection.
Elle Woods is a Californian blonde in the
Paris Hilton mould (complete with Chihuahua) who follows her Ivy League
childhood sweetheart, Warner Huntington III to Harvard where she is determined
to gain an internship with Professor Callahan’s top law firm. By
abandoning her partying lifestyle for a rigorous routine of study, she succeeds
in achieving her aim and overturns everyone’s previous misconceptions of
her as an airhead - finding herself, true love and her purpose in life along
the way.
Awash with sets and costumes in every
conceivable shade of pink (David Rockwell and Gregg Barnes), this is an undeniably
‘girlie’ show. But the secret of its wider appeal lies with an
energetically-eclectic score and engaging lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and
Nell Benjamin. Reminiscent of the very best of Wicked, it also includes a Riverdance parody (courtesy of one of many far-fetched,
revised-since-Broadway, sub plots by book writer Heather Hach),
lashings of Hairspray’s tuneful rock energy and more than a dash of
Avenue Q’s sharp, positive-thinking, homilies.
Although the score pays homage to other
shows, it also works spectacularly well on its own well-crafted terms and has
much to commend it - including a hilarious second act showstopper.
As Elle, Sheridan Smith sets the
standard: pretty in pink, she is equally irresistible when dressed to impress
in her ‘corporate’ wardrobe. Vocally and physically, she is
MTV-perfect for the part.
The rest of the buff cast ranks with the
very best the West End currently has to offer. Ex-Blue singer, Duncan James
adopts the sleepy-eyed look of Robert Mitchum to foxy
effect as Warner Huntington III, Peter Davison is a convincingly controlling Professor
Callahan and Jill Halfpenny shines as unlucky-in-love crimper Paulette Buonufonte, while Chris Ellis-Stanton as her hunky squeeze
the UPS messenger Kyle, makes the most of a knock-out cameo role delivering a
life-changing package to her.
But this is one of those shows where it
really is invidious to mention only a few individual performers: if space
permitted, everyone - including the band - would get a mention for making Legally
Blonde such fluffy fun. You might not need to check your brain at the door, but
it certainly helps to adopt a blonde attitude to enjoy this frothy new musical
to the full.
Performances: Monday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7.30pm
Thursday and Saturday at
2.30pm Sunday at 3pm
Box Office:
0844 871 7687
Ticket prices:
£20.00 - £62.50
Website: www.legallyblondethemusical.co.uk
Reviewed for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine by Clive Burton
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
by Tennessee Williams
Now playing at the Novello Theatre
Before it came to
Broadway, habitués of the New York Theater District cannot have believed
that Debbie Allen's idea of translating Tennessee Williams' tale of the most
dysfunctional of redneck families into an African-American setting could work.
Now, the whole of the
backstage team has flown over to London to recreate the show, along with
Hollywood veteran James Earl Jones and The Cosby Show’s Phylicia Rashad reprising their
performances as Big Daddy and Big Mama.
They are joined by
fellow American, Sanaa Lathan
plus some of Britain's finest black actors to present a superb entertainment
that fully justifies the experimentation.
The action has been updated
to the 1980s and takes place in a luxurious bedroom complete with fourposter bed. This is created in a
characteristically American style by scenic designer, Morgan Large, who gets
good support and a magnificent additional colour palette from his costume
colleague, Fay Fullerton.
The bedroom is
occupied by Miss Lathan's Maggie the Cat, a woman
clearly devoted to her wayward husband Brick as they return to the family home
for the 65th birthday of his father, Big Daddy.
In the early stages,
Adrian Lester playing taciturn ex-football star Brick is almost silent, giving
off an air of sourness as he imbibes more and more bourbon in a search for the
click of oblivion and gives up any attempt to humour his wife.
As the play develops,
and particularly in a pivotal scene with his father, Brick is forced to face up
to his own weaknesses and by the end of the play, like the old man with whom he
has so much in common, begins to accept the cards that fate has dealt him.
The relationship
between the younger couple is mirrored a generation up by the fearsome, doomed
Big Daddy and his devoted Big Mama, played by the Broadway transferees.
James Earl Jones with
his deep bass voice initially seems unfailingly tough but as soon as the
self-made plantation owner is released from the wife whom he has hated for 40
years, he shows depths of humanity that are exacerbated when he discovers a
series of familial secrets.
The third pairing,
Peter de Jersey playing elder son Gooper and Nina Sosanya as his grasping wife Mae whose sole talent is for
childbearing, have the opposite effect to the one that they desire. The
more that they show off their sweet little brats the less likely it is that the
rich patriarch will favour them, in life or thereafter.
Miss Allen is particularly
good at the two-handed scenes, first between Maggie and Brick, then Brick and
his father, both of which had a ring of absolute authenticity. She also
ensures that the final family scene is simultaneously comic and tragic, leading
to a satisfying finale.
In addition to the
leading actors, Play School veteran Derek Griffiths gives a lovely comic cameo
as a timid preacher who gets a laugh every time that he appears.
There is no question
that this translation works perfectly and it begs questions as to what else
might work. While this year's Streetcar Named Desire starring Rachel Weisz was a runaway hit at the Donmar you begin to see how
it too could work perfectly with a similarly staging.
In any event, this Cat
should be a runaway hit in London so do not miss out.
Reviewed by Philip Fisher for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine
NATION
Based on a novel by
Terry Pratchett, Adapted by Mark Ravenhill
Now playing in
repertory at the Olivier Theatre (NT)
Melly Still showed her talent as director/designer
with a wondrous vision for Jamila Gavin's Coram Boy
on the same stage four Christmases ago. That was the start of a tradition that
has subsequently seen the National Theatre welcome adaptations of His Dark
Materials and War Horse, the latter still playing at the New London.
She
works similar magic with Nation, a novel directed at youthful readers by
popular fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, re-worked for
the stage by that reformed darling of the In-Yer-Face
generation, Mark Ravenhill, who does at least
occasionally allow his wicked sense of humour to peek out.
The
parable of colonial conquest has echoes of The Tempest, as shipwrecked visitors
a century and a half ago are washed up on assorted South Sea Islands and divide
along class lines.
An
aristocratic father desperately seeks his lost daughter, while she goes native
in a tribe of "noble savages" led by a well-muscled man-boy, whose
community has been lost to a scarily realised tsunami. This young couple
periodically save the Nation and each other before an ending that is
overly-romantic to the extent that it could draw tears from the unwary.
Pratchett uses this underlying plot to consider the
theme of parallel worlds where our dreams and nightmares can be explored before
ultimately, we must return to grown up reality.
This
production owes a vast amount to Miss Still's clever design concept, aided by
Mark Friend. The action takes place on the top 10% of a globe. Behind it are
three offset screens, through which characters can ascend to the stars or join
dolphins and sharks in the vasty deep.
Again
and again, she creates unforgettable images whether it is articulated
Grandfather birds, computer generated images or just
singing, dancing natives filled with innocent exuberance and songs some of
which sound uncannily like early Rice/Lloyd Webber.
It
is hard on the leading actors but Jason Thorpe playing Milton a naughty parrot
steals the show. Not only is his movement close to perfect but this excellent
actor's comic timing gets a laugh every time.
He
complements two talented young actors. Gary Carr makes a good fist of mixing innocence
with growing experience as Mau, the teen chief who has greatness thrust upon
him while Emily Taafe plays his plucky British
counterpart, 13 year old castaway Ermintrude Fanshaw, who inexplicably prefers Daphne to her given name.
The
young couple endure a series of adventures from childbirth through an Orphean visit to the underworld and a battle with Paul Chahidi's crazed former butler Cox who suffers from an
unfortunate grudge and is one of numerous embodiments of Locaha
or death.
By
the end, they have both come of age in time for what should be a happy ending
but turns out to be bittersweet, as the pair have to
choose between duty and love.
The
script probably includes a few too many random ideas, which allows the drama to
lose focus on occasion and may confuse younger audience members. Overall
though, it will grip all fans of adventure stories and should prove to be yet
another seasonal success for the National.
Reviewed by Philip
Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
THE
HABIT OF ART
by Alan Bennett
Now
playing at the Lyttelton Theatre (NT)
Since Alan
Bennett's last play at the National was The History Boys, one of the theatre's
greatest moments, the expectations for this Stoppardian
exploration of artists and their sexual foibles were inevitably high.
Reminders of that
earlier play were everywhere on opening night. Not only were the main people
behind that success brought back together, Nicholas Hytner
directing Richard Griffiths (due to Sir Michael Gambon's
withdrawal) and Frances de la Tour plus set and lighting designers but a bevy
of the original History Boys were present in the kind of starry audience that
only this venue can attract.
Bennett has
specialised in dissecting the minds of mildly eccentric loners for a long time
and in The Habit of Art features a pair of them, drawn like George III or his
Single Spies from history.
On one level, the
play is a double biography of a poet and a composer who decades before we meet
them had worked together, WH Auden and "Benjy"
Britten.
In looking at these
creative, homosexual men, who meet for the first time in twenty years towards
the end of their lives in Auden's symbolically junk-filled Oxford rooms, the
playwright also bravely takes on a subject that was still taboo in 1972 when
the play is set.
Bennett cleverly
frames his main story using the ever effective technique of a play within a
play, or at least within a rehearsal in the bowels of the National Theatre,
recreated by Bob Crowley. This allows a team of actors to comment often
comically or critically on what happens to the main characters.
With the director
missing, it is left to Miss de la Tour's touchy feely Kay, the hard working
Stage Manager to massage gigantic egos.
Richard Griffiths
is well cast as the forgetful Fitz, who plays a prematurely senile Auden; while
an equally delicious Alex Jennings creates camp Henry, an actor with a hidden
secret playing Britten, a composer ditto.
They are strongly
supported by Adrian Scarborough's Donald, a wounded nightmare struggling to
find his character, Humphrey Carpenter, who was the biographer of both men.
Before the
interval, most of the fun comes from the (onstage) actors rather than their
characters. In true Noises Off fashion, they struggle with lines and
relationships, while battling Elliot Levey's precious
writer, a man whose ego is as difficult to accept as his doggerel.
The comedy is rich,
with wonderful one-liners piling in as regularly as ever but there is far more
to this sensitive drama than a wry backstage look at actors behaving badly.
Apart from working
together and more widely the nature of artistic creation, the main common
interest of the two great men was boys as objects of desire. For Auden, the
type is typified by Steven Wight's Stuart, a rent boy with rather more heart
than might be expected.
The attractions of
boys are explored in greater depth and become a pivotal subject, since Britten,
who prefers to set his youngsters on a pedestal than abuse them, is composing
his operatic version of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. Its protagonist, Aschenbach has elements of Thomas Mann but possibly also
his son-in-law Auden, while Britten identifies with a worshipper of boyish
beauty too.
By the end, both
men's painful loneliness despite great success becomes fully apparent. This
helps to make The Habit of Art a highly thoughtful appreciation of both art and
the people who expose themselves in creating it and ensures that it will
resonate in viewers' minds long after they leave the South Bank.
This is one of
those occasions where it would be unfair to single out one actor from such a
great cast, helped by Nicholas Hytner's ability to
move a potentially complex play smoothly through its phases. He skilfully takes
us from comedy to human interest and artistic homage culminating in a somewhat
gratuitous but welcome final tribute from the playwright to the theatre that
has inspired so many of his finest days.
Tickets have been
selling like hot cakes and unless they might be offended by the gay theme or
fazed by artistic types reminiscing, readers are urged to plunge in as soon as
the new booking season opens as it will not stay open for long. Failing that,
they may have to await the national tour next autumn to catch a play that may
not be The History Boys re-run but is still one of the best new dramas of the
year.
Reviewed
by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
THE POWER OF YES
by DAVID HARE
Now playing at the Lyttelton Theatre
“The people who pay the price are never the ones who get the
benefits”. So opines a wise financier at the end of David Hare’s
latest narrative on the fickle world of finance.
A crumpled looking Anthony Calf plays the author as he shambles his way
through numerous interviews with industrialists, bankers, journalists and the
FSA. His mission is “to seek to understand the financial crisis”,
and en route we learn about toxic debt, sub prime, quantative easing, and algebraic formulae which pinpoint
the ratio of risk to profit.
The Power of Yes is not so much a play as an account of
what happened, and after nearly two long hours without an interval, I
can’t help feeling it would present better as television documentary.
However, the piece works best when animated with drama: an illustration of
how toxic debts spun out of control features a row of suited men self
importantly swapping and dropping pieces of paper deep into their own black
folders - in this seemingly harmless transaction, the fate of millions of
unwitting Americans was sealed.
Hare ruminates on the psychology behind the bubble: no banker wants to blow
the whistle on the naked emperor for fear they’d look stupid. At the end
of the play, the likeable hedge fund manager and philanthropist, George Soros,
marvels with the playwright on the ruthlessness of the unstoppable,
expansionist power of greed.
Hare’s access to many City secrets is also interesting, such as
the Financial Times journalist’s account of Frank Goodwin only agreeing
to apologise for the size of his pension versus the losses sustained by his
shareholders because he was told: “If you don’t, you’ll look
like a cunt.”
Angus Jackson directs an enormous cast on Bob Crowley’s vast bare
stage in which facts, figures and the movements of the markets shift around tantalisingly on screens above the actors’ heads.
In Via Doloroso, Hare’s monologue on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, it took one man to take us to places we’d never been to before.
Here it takes twenty seven to tell us something that’s already been
fairly extensively mined on Newsnight and a string of
TV documentaries.
Reviewed by Charlotte Birkett for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
AN INSPECTOR CALLS
by J.B.Priestley
Reviewed at
the Novello Theatre – now playing at Wyndham’s Theatre
It is a delight to report that
almost two decades on from Stephen Daldry's original
production at the National Theatre, his version of J.B.Priestley's
1945 classic is still as close to perfect as ever.
Watching it again after eight years,
Daldry's vision seems even more impressive with its
Chekhovian overtones of an affluent society on the brink of collapse and its
inherent response to the underlying ethos of Thatcherism's rejection of society
and by extension responsibility.
At a simpler level, it is a cracking
mystery play that repeatedly toys with viewers until its highly satisfactory
ending with the wealthy Birling family brought to
account for their individual misdemeanours.
The combination of Ian McNeill’s
Hopper-like set featuring a miniaturised house that feels symbolically close to
disaster from the start with stormy weather and the lower classes at the gates,
Rick Fisher's eerie lighting and Stephen Warbeck's alternately stirring and chilling
music takes some beating. However, the ambience would be nothing without a
superb play well performed.
The central figure of Inspector
Goole (Ghoul?) has been here before in the person of Nicholas Woodeson who enjoyed the role in the West End and on Broadway
fifteen years ago. The actor may not quite match the unforgettable Alastair Sim on film but he gets the balance of nonchalance and
menace just right as the unsettling Inspector cajoles and interrogates the
family of David Roper's Arthur Birling, a financier
and local bigwig.
The unsuspecting group are
obliviously celebrating a diplomatic marriage worthy of royal houses, let alone
Yorkshire's industrial finest.
Then, An Inspector Calls and not
only are their lives changed forever but so it is suggested is society, which
with a setting in 1912 is inevitable.
First, following the death of a
young woman, the old man is in the spotlight. Birling
is upbraided for his selfish arrogance but soon enough, his haughty wife,
Sandra Duncan doing an Edith Evans Lady Bracknell impression, their wayward son
and son-in-law and even decent daughter Sheila all have to face the music.
Indeed, though Gerald, the young
intended of Sheila is proclaimed as the most honest of the group, it is
Marianne Oldham as the caring and genuinely contrite daughter who comes out
best, the actress really excelling in a strong cast.
By the end of an emotional
roller-coaster, one can't help but feel emotionally ragged but it is well worth
it. If there is a criticism, it might be that Associate Director Julian Webber,
who has presumably taken responsibility for rehearsing this cast, makes them a
little too deliberate and stagey.
That is not really a great concern
in a glorious 1¾ hours that cannot be bettered on the London stage at
the moment, though Enron is a close contender. This run may be short but cannot
be recommended strongly enough.
Reviewed
by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
OUR
CLASS
By Tadeusz Skobodzianek
Now
playing in repertory at the Cottesloe Theatre (NT)
There
are depressingly few surprises in Polish playwright Tadeusz
Skobodzianek’s new play.
OUR
CLASS follows the lives of a racially mixed group of children in a school in Jedwabne before half of them are humiliated and then
murdered, mostly, it would seem, by their fellow Poles, under Nazi occupation
in 1941.
What
happened in Jedwabne has become emblematic of the
tragic stories of so many Polish Jews in World War Two, and is potentially
interesting fodder for anyone taxed by questions of emotional and political
accountability.
Played
out on Bunny Christie’s bare square stage, surrounded by the audience as
witnesses, the ten strong cast recount, sing and
relive their childhood games which, over time, darken into adult atrocities.
The latent anti-Semitism at play among the Catholic children culminates a few
years later in the Poles, not the Nazis, beating the men to death before
setting the women and children alight in a barn.
Bearing
witness to these disasters is, in theatrical terms, problematic. On the whole,
the perpetrators of violence in the play are sadistic, and their victims,
hapless. So, in the absence of a successful underground resistance, or a non
Jewish Pole we can sympathize with in spite of his or her actions, then we are
on a grimly familiar journey to places of torture and extermination, but
no-where else.
Is
that enough? The production is impassioned and lively, and as theatre in
education, a gripping lesson in the history of the Holocaust but, if
you’re looking for dramatic engagement, moral dilemma or an enriched
understanding of what happened, this history lesson is not for you.
Reviewed by Charlotte Birkett for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
DREAMBOATS
AND PETTICOATS
Now
playing a the Playhouse Theatre
It’s 1961 and
everyone’s caught the rock’n’roll
bug. A hit song can bring fame and fortune and the chance to score with the
opposite sex. Nothing new there, then. And, indeed,
there is nothing new in this hit-packed compilation musical featuring around
three dozen classic toe-tapping favourites from Del Shannon, Bobby Darin, Roy
Orbison, The Platters, Dion and the Belmonts, Neil Sedaka, The Crystals, Chubby Checker and The Shadows to
name but a few.
The simple premise of
this unsophisticated show revolves around the rivalries of a group of youth
club kids keen to win a song-writing competition that will bring them the
aforesaid fame and fortune.
Setting it in an Essex
youth club is a clever ploy that enables producer Bill Kenwright
to keep the costs down – poster-covered walls, a few sticks of furniture,
a ping pong table and some dodgems for the club’s seaside outing: you get
the picture.
Bobby (played by a 21-year-old
X Factor contestant, Scott Bruton) auditions for a
local rock band beating ‘some singer with big lips from Dartford’
but losing out to a cocky looker called Norman (the
abs-tastic Ben Freeman). Mousey Laura (West End
debutante Daisy Wood-Davis) sings up a storm, writes music and faithfully
follows Bobby around hoping to catch his eye, inevitably losing out to one of
the more forward girls in the group, ‘good time’ Sue (played by
Jennifer Biddall, Hollyoaks’
Jessica Harris).
But, unlike Laura, Sue
can’t cut it in the song stakes - everyone agrees that Laura gives great
middle eight: her collaboration with Bobby eventually wins him over and jointly
wins them the national song competition.
As a home-grown
musical of the ‘Summer Holiday’ variety it works well enough with a
lively young cast and well-played hit songs for every occasion, including the
eponymous Dreamboats and Petticoats, co-written by Jason Donovan. It is,
unfortunately, the least successful of any of the songs in the show and simply
doesn’t stand a chance in comparison against such solid classics as Shakin’ all over, Runaway, Do you wanna
dance, Teenager in Love and Great Pretender. Which is a great
pity because, as Bobby and Laura’s ‘winning’ song, it has to
close the show. Although somewhat of a limp anti-climax, it is quickly
redeemed by the obligatory final mega mix of Let’s
twist again, C’mon Everybody and At the hop.
The show scores more
highly than it perhaps should, largely thanks to the writing skills of experienced
TV sitcom hands Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. The slender story has the ring
of truth about it - in no small measure because they draw upon their own shared
personal experiences to create a nostalgic evening that will certainly touch a
nerve with audiences of a certain age and give their kids a peek into an
altogether more innocent age.
Reviewed by Clive
Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Times: Mon-Fri 7.30pm, Sat
8pm, mats Thu 3pm, Sat 4pm
Prices:
£25-£50
Phone:08701648787
Website: www.ambassadortickets.com/Savoy-Theatre/Information
SISTER ACT
Now playing at the
London Palladium
Performance times: 7.30pm
Mondays to Saturdays, with 3.00pm matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Tickets: from
£17.50-£60.00 available from the London Palladium Box Office on 0844 412 2704 and online at www.sisteractthemusical.com.
When two jazz
musicians were caught by mobsters witnessing a brutal gangland execution in Some Like It Hot, how
better to escape a similar fate than by dragging up to join an all-girl band
and fleeing to Florida? An equally
bold transformation is required in Sister Act, where - catching her gangster
boyfriend in a comparable situation - raunchy on-the-run disco diva Deloris Van
Cartier is forced by a Police Protection squad to seek sanctuary in a convent
until the perpetrator is caught.
Our heroine adapts
valiantly to cloistered life, quickly making her mark by taking over the
reticent choir and honing it to such an extent that the Sisters attract a visit
from the Pope and wow him (and us) with a disco finale that guarantees a
standing ovation from the Holy Father himself.
Along the way we meet
an enjoyable array of (albeit) fairly stock characters in a neat book by
“Cheers” writers Cheri and Bill Steinkellner
that brings the simple story to life and has some very
smart one liners - especially for Sheila Hancock’s droll Mother Superior
- in a not-always-convincing and somewhat episodic plot.
The successful film
original plundered a generation of disco hits for its soundtrack and although a
new score has been created by Alan Menken (whose writing success goes back to
the 60s’ hit Little Shop of Horrors) some of the show’s musical
numbers appear to be primarily included to garner applause - which, to be fair,
they do.
Apart from the rousing
disco anthem of the reprised title number, some of the songs are little
more than serviceable, often hinting nostalgically at Menken’s own
considerable back-catalogue. Nevertheless, they whip the show along and are
blessed with heavenly lyrics (by Glen Slater) that are a joy to hear,
especially in such sly parody numbers as Lady in the Long Black Dress (for the
mobster’s henchmen) or ‘Sweaty’ Eddie’s fantasising
about being Deloris’s lover in I Could be that Guy.
Eddie, (Ako Mitchell) is a kind-hearted wuss
of a cop who has had a crush on Deloris since their College days together: he
eventually saves her life by apprehending and shooting her wayward boyfriend,
Shank, who has broken through her cover to confront her in a tense “I am
Spartacus” standoff where each of the nuns puts her own life on the line
in an act of sisterly solidarity.
In the Whoopi Goldberg
role, American newcomer Patina Miller is unquestionably star material. She
sings her heart out and is a 24-carat talent, whether sparring with the Mother
Superior, standing up to her bullying boyfriend, belting out her spunky solos,
sharing dreams of stardom with her
backing singers or urging her recalcitrant fellow ‘sisters’ to find
their collective voice.
Among a large
contingent of nuns, she receives particularly ebullient support from Claire
Greenway as a portly Beryl Cook-ish Sister Mary
Patrick, and a rapping nun, Sister Mary Lazarus (Julia Sutton), whose rabble-rousing vocalising could raise the dead.
The set is one of the
busiest in the West End, rising and falling, whirling and dipping to provide
constantly-changing backgrounds to accompany the well-directed action (Peter
Schneider) and choreography (Anthony Van Laast). So,
while not exactly a godsend, Sister Act should perform minor miracles at the
Palladium’s Box Office for some time to come.
Reviewed by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
WAR HORSE
Based on Michael Morpurgoe’s novel, adapted by Nick Stafford
Now playing
at The New London Theatre, Drury Lane
'A
powerfully-touching universal experience'
As the surviving combatants
of WWI return to England to rebuild their shattered lives in a home fit for
heroes, an ungrateful government callously sells off the horses
that had served and suffered alongside them - many eventually ending
up in the Middle East or on dinner tables in France and Belgium.
In 'War Horse', we witness life and death on the
front-line through the eyes and emotions of Joey, a farm horse from Devon and
his young master, Albert, an under-age soldier who enlisted in the hope
of being re-united with his beloved charge in war-torn Europe.
Like his human counterparts, Joey did the bidding of his
masters without question but, unlike the million other horses that died in
combat, Joey was one of a small number of survivors. ‘War Horse’ is
his story.
What is remarkable
about Joey is that he is a puppet of quite extraordinary verisimilitude, three
operators being required to manipulate every aspect of his stylised
larger-than-life-size anatomy. He and the other horses do the everyday things
that every horse does - snort, twitch, breathe, whinny, react to the
environment around them and bond with each other - with such complete
naturalness that it soon becomes possible to believe that they are
‘real’ thanks to the unparalleled skill of their manipulators.
These remarkable artists not only animate Joey’s head,
heart and hindquarters from foal to the magnificent full-grown creature
he eventually becomes, they also imbue him with a soul and manage to
become as one with the truly remarkable creations at the heart of this piece,
conceived and executed by Handspring Puppet Company as a collaborative venture
with the National Theatre.
‘War Horse’ is based on a novel by Michael Morpurgo (adapted by Nick Stafford) who found the key to
his story of the WWI horses in the reminiscences of a war veteran whom he met
in the Devon village where the action begins on a carefree pre-war
summer’s day with swallows swooping over the placid pre-war fields of
rural England.
Caught in the emotional crossfire between a strong-minded reconciliatory
mother and a feckless, dipsomaniac father, young Albert (an empathetic Kit
Harington) channels his repressed passions into nurturing and protecting Joey:
the trust between the two blossoms when Joey is subjugated beneath a
harness that will briefly turn this proud animal into a shire horse and
thus win the bet that will enable him to remain with Albert.
As war arrives, Albert’s father sells the horse to the
Army as an Officer’s mount and Joey is summarily shipped to the
front where his willing submission to the harness eventually saves his life.
The vast acreage of the New London’s open stage adds
considerably to the scenes of carnage that largely constitute the second half,
literally drawing the audience into the heart of the action as Rae
Smith’s animated monochrome sketches in which elements of the
action mirror or augment the on-stage action are projected onto a giant
strip of ragged blank paper arcing over the back of the acting
area: at one particularly sombre point they are temporarily obliterated
by a relentlessly suppurating blood-red tide.
Gun carriages rumble past pulled by ghostly platoons of
emaciated horses, officers and men ride recklessly into un-winnable
battles where the once-invincible power of the horse is now
a vulnerably-dispensable anachronism against the indiscriminate slaying power
of the machine gun or the ubiquitous, eviscerating barbed wire which maims man
and beast alike.
In War Horse, we experience all this and more:
the camaraderie of men (many, like the under-age Albert, hardly more than boys
themselves) led by shockingly young Officers, the fear and the bravery
and the blind love for King and country that is all
but unfathomable these days.
A tribute to the National’s ability
to mount such a boldly epic piece, this engrossing transfer is directed in
exemplary fashion by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris. That our lives have been
so signally enriched by such a powerfully-touching universal experience is
a tribute to all concerned.
Reviewed by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Performance
times
Monday – Saturday evenings 7.30pm
Thursday and Saturday matinees 2.30pm
Ticket prices
Monday - Thursday £15, £25, £35, £45
Friday, Saturday matinee and evening
£15, £25, £37.50, £47.50
Under-18yrs discount: £10 off top two prices,
Monday - Thursday.
PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT – THE MUSICAL
Now playing at The Palace Theatre
' gay Oz on a stick '
Thanks to the classic
movie, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, everyone knows the story of the three Australian
drag queens on a bus journey across Oz in search of the men behind the make-up:
the bi-sexual Mitzi, briefly re-uniting with his estranged wife and their young
son, the restless young queen (Felicia) with the world at his feet and the
ageing, recently-widowed, trans-sexual Bernadette (the Terence Stamp role)
tentatively seizing her last chance for love.
The combined skills of
the joint book writers, Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott (who also co-produces)
brilliantly embroider the original story into a full-blown stage musical and,
where some situations have been condensed, it is only to make room for what
this fabulous juke box show does best: song, dance and sumptuous spectacle on
an unprecedentedly lavish scale.
The show’s
direction (Simon Phillips), design, wigs and choreography are beyond praise and
a phenomenally catchy score whips the large ensemble into a glorious frenzy of
song and dance to produce an essence of gay Oz on a stick.
By the time the show
ends you have enjoyed an evening of unalloyed bliss in the company of the
eponymous Priscilla, the charabanc par excellence that carries the boys on
their trans-continental adventures while remaining resolutely the centre of
attention throughout, thanks to the brilliant use of graphics and state-of-the-art
technology (bus concept and production design by Brian Thomson).
The film version
worked so perfectly because the trio of drag queens at its brittle heart were
such believable characters and, on stage, that same testy triumvirate should make
Priscilla, the musical, practically perfect. But it isn’t (quite) - at
least, not yet.
For some elusive
reason, there is little tangible chemistry between the three star leads. Yes,
Oliver Thornton has the looks and legs to make the most of Adam (Felicia) and
can mince and whine with the best of them. And, yes, we can accept that behind
Tony Sheldon’s occasionally diffident facade lies a woman who once had
(quite literally) balls of steel. Curiously, then, it is Jason Donovan’s
resolutely heterosexual creation of the flamboyant Mitzi that
ultimately fails to take flight. Despite his fetching drag alter ego, several
strong songs, a touching scene with his young son and a clutch of wicked Kylie
jokes - including one at the expense of his own former Neighbours’
persona, Scott - his performance remains grudgingly, rather than gloriously,
gay.
The madcap invention
of the sumptuous costumes (Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner) knows no such bounds and they are so
breathtakingly OTT that it seems they cannot possibly be trumped (but, of
course, they invariably can): at one point, dancing paintbrush crinolines
remove the obscenities on Priscilla’s flanks, while a retinue of
illuminated cup cakes accompanies a later rendition of MacArthur Park that
finally makes sense of the song’s obtuse lyrics.
Each of the familiar
songs (many to a pounding disco beat) more than earns its keep - from the touching standard
‘A Fine Romance’ (when Bernadette recalls her heyday as one of the
Les Girls drag troupe and acknowledges that she may be falling in love with
Clive Carter’s bluff Bob) to the lyp-syncing
extravaganza that is ‘Colour My World’. Not to mention the stunning
contributions made by the muscular male ensemble (in or out of drag), three
flying Divas (Zoe Birkett, Kate Gillespie and Emma Lindars) and a roof-raising rendition of ‘Sempre Libera’ that brings
the house down. Musical theatre doesn’t get any better than this and, if
you are looking for a world-class, life-enhancing show to lift your spirits in
these uncertain times, ‘PRISCILLA’ has
got to be the one.
Reviewed by Clive
Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus, London W1
Performances:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 7.30pm
Fridays
at 5.15pm (from 8 May) & 8.30pm
Saturdays at 2.30pm & 7.30pm
Box Office: 0844
755 0016
Website:
priscillathemusical.com
Ticket prices: Monday to Thursday &
Friday at 5.15pm
£60.75, £40.75, £25.75, £20.75
Fridays at 8.30pm & Saturdays at 2.30pm & 7.30pm
£65.75, £45.75, £25.75, £20.75
“OLIVER!”
by Lionel Bart
Now playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Lionel Bart’s musical (premiered in London
in 1960) and this production of Oliver!, based on
Charles Dickens’ novel comes under the heading of a really, really good
night out. It’s a terrific show; not one of the top 5 musicals of all
time, but a very good example of the genre. This Sam Mendes production,
directed by the new Sam Mendes, the very talented Rupert Goold,
is full of star turns, great talent, and, most importantly of all, a world star
in Rowan Atkinson.
I had forgotten what a huge international
personality Mr. Bean had made of Rowan Atkinson until I sat down and found
myself surrounded by people speaking every language under the sun except
English. They are there to see Atkinson, and some to take photos of him as he
performs as well. The ushers patrol the aisles like the Gestapo trying to spot
the culprits. But never mind, everyone is having such a good time, a wave of
joy suffuses the audience.
There
is not a dud performance in the evening. The orchestra, under the direction of Graham Hurman, is very good, neither under powered nor over
powered. Whoever is in charge of the mike-ing
of the singing has got the sound just right. The voices all sound
completely natural without that objectionable tinny sound that often defeats
the purpose of the amplification.
Goold has done a fabulous job with all the
children. There are three different lots of them, and that is a lot of
children to direct. Likewise, there are 3 Artful Dodgers and 3 Olivers. On the night I was in, the Dodger was played by
the most unbelievably talented 10 year-old I have ever seen on a stage. There
was nothing he couldn’t do. Mickey Rooney reborn, except there is
no vaudeville any more, so I doubt Eric Dibb-Fuller was born in a trunk and treading the boards by
the time he could walk. Dibb-Fuller is a terrific
show-off performer, which is exactly what the role requires. Oliver, a
reticent, shy character was ably played by Laurence Jeffcoate,
a boy soprano with a lovely voice. His renditions of “Where is
love” and “Who will buy this wonderful morning” were very
beautiful.
Atkinson’s entrance is well timed. It happens about half an hour into the show, after a lot of
good material has warmed up the audience. Oliver has run away from
the workhouse, “Food, glorious food”, been recaptured by Mr.
Bumble, Julius D’Silva, “Boy for
Sale”, been sold to Mr. Sowerberry, Julian
Bleach, “That’s your funeral, and met the Dodger, “Consider
yourself at home”. Then, in Fagin’s den, out from behind a
curtain, slithers Atkinson, like a demented python, all legs and long fingers
to warm applause from an audience packed with his fans who have come not so
much to watch Lionel Bart’s seminal musical but to see him.
I was fascinated to see what he did with Fagin
because of the American history of the role. When Ron Moody played it
originally, he did what Bart, an East End Jewish prodigy, had written, and sung
in Yiddish cadences to what sounds like Klezmer
music, exaggerating hilariously Fagin’s Jewish-ness.
When the show went to New York, the Anti Defamation League of B’Nai Brith decided this
was blatant Anti-Semitism. The result was Fagin was played straight, no
accent, no gestures, no nothing, which made no sense
at all. It didn’t seem to occur to the Anti-Defamation people that Mr.
Bumble and the monster Bill Sikes were infinitely more evil that loveable
Fagin, whose thieves’ den was, in fact, a loving home to countless
destitute street urchins who picked a pocket or two to keep them all alive.
Atkinson is indeed loveable in the role. He can sing well enough, and his
comic skills take the audience anywhere he wants them to go.
The great surprise of the evening is the Musical
Talent Search winner, Jodie Prenger, as Nancy.
Not being a fan of these programmes, I feared the worst at the idea of a talent
show winner starring in the West End. Has it all come to this? Fear
not. When you read her credits, she has a lot of training and a good career
behind her. She is 100% professional, has a good voice, clearly has the
stamina for a starring role, and deserved to be discovered and turned into a
star. The excellent Burn Gorman has the perfect misfit, psychopath’s face
to play Bill Sikes.
Anthony Ward has reproduced 19th
century London for us with all the atmosphere and poverty. The set for Oliver
has always been complicated, relying on hydraulics and moveable
platforms. The original was a watershed in set design. Ward’s works
superbly and his costumes are splendid and bringing George Cruikshank’s
original illustrations for Dickens to life. The choreographer is the much
awarded Matthew Bourne whose successes include Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady,
South Pacific and the groundbreaking male Swan Lake.
Oliver! is packed with
great songs, most of which are very familiar to the audience. How can you go
wrong? This production has gone very right? As I said at the
beginning, for a really, really good night out, this is the show for you.
Don’t miss it.
www.theatreroyaldrurylane.co.uk
Reviewed by Judith M. Steiner for Theatreworld
Internet Magazine
JERSEY BOYS
Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise
Music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob
Crewe
Now playing at the Prince Edward Theatre
I
approached Jersey Boys with some misgivings - yet another musical tribute and a
nostalgia trip for the fans - but the writers are adamant that they have not
written a musical, they have written a play about four guys who wrote music.
The result is a fascinating tale of "revenge and betrayal and crime and
punishment and family and women" and tells the truth about what went on
behind the squeaky clean image that Frankie Valli and
the Four Seasons presented to the public.
Truth
is hard to define, with every character giving their version of how they
remembered it, and the writers had the resourceful idea of giving the narration
to each one in turn throughout the show, but aside from that they also had the
difficult (and dangerous) problem of presenting the whole truth while being
careful to avoid upsetting any of the Mafia who were keeping a watchful eye on
proceedings. They must not be 'disrespectful' to any of the bosses - warnings
were issued - and here Gyp DeCarlo (Stuart Milligan)
appears as an emotional avuncular figure sentimental about his mother (probably
true) and with the boys' welfare at heart (possibly not!)
The
curtain rises and we are blasted with sound, light and colour "Oh, What a
Night" (a bit heavy on the base boys), and constant frenetic movement
which continues almost throughout the show, with the more or less obligatory
set of steel scaffolding, spiral staircase and raised walkway, giving the
performers an extra challenge as they are frequently up, down and along while
singing and playing. The breath control and energy necessary is awe-inspiring,
not to mention the exceptional quality of the acting and singing!
The
story begins with the swaggering bravado of Glenn Carter as guitarist Tommy DeVito, a man who had been imprisoned for criminal
offences, but sees himself as one who "takes raw clay and makes like
Michael Angelo" - the raw clay in this case being a scrawny kid called
Frankie Castelluccio. Not a name which trips easily
off the tongue, so he becomes Frankie Valli.
"With friends like yours" he is told, "maybe you should change
your name to Sinatra", and Ryan Molloy does have a slight resemblance to
another Jersey Boy who made the big time.
With
bassist Nick Massi (Philip Bulcock)
they began their musical journey in the fifties, were later joined by young
musical genius Bob Gaudio (Stephen Ashfield), and in
1962 had their first big hit "Sherry", closely followed by "Big
Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like a Man".
Their music was for the people - ordinary people with ordinary lives - and
Crewe's lyrics appealed to them. "My Eyes Adored You" was sung with
deep feeling after Valli's marriage fell apart, and
"Can't take my Eyes off You" brought spontaneous applause and cheering.
I was surprised to discover how very many songs were so familiar.
After
many trial names for their group they finally settle on The Four Seasons - a
name not inspired by Vivaldi (Who?) but by the bowling alley where they were
playing at the time, and it is here that a legend is born.
In
New Jersey nobody locks their doors - there is honour among thieves - and the
honour extends to Valli loyally insisting the group
must pay Devito's astronomical gambling debts, and to
a contract sealed with a handshake lasting over forty years.
The
show concludes with a "Where are they now?" scenario. Valli, in his seventies, is still performing, Crewe (here
played by an effete Simon Adkins), still writing the lyrics, and Gaudio still writing the music. DeVito,
by an ironic twist of fate, is in Las Vegas working for Joe Pesci,
the kid he used to knock around back in New Jersey and expertly portrayed with
a cheeky charm by Jye Frasca.
Massi, however, died in 2000 on Christmas
Eve….. "For a Catholic, is that style or what!"
With
the original creative team from the hit show in New York, and an extremely
talented British cast (Molloy re-creates Valli's
soaring falsetto perfectly), this is a show that should go on and on - like the
originals. Judging from the enthusiastic reception - standing ovation and an
audience who didn't want to leave - it probably will. "Oh What a
Night!" says it all.
Reviewed by Sheila Connor for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
"HAIRSPRAY - the Musical"
Now playing at the Shaftesbury
Theatre until March 28th
'Show of the year'
In
'60s Baltimore, all a girl needed to keep her company was a can of hairspray
and her 'trannie' radio. And teenaged Tracy Turnblad was no exception - except that in Hairspray, her 'trannie' is her mother.
As
played by Michael Ball, his drone-into-diva Edna shows a side of this musical
theatre genius we have never seen before: he has not only created a believable
trailer-trash persona, he has found a whole new voice - spoken and sung - to animate
his gloriously kitsch creation. (So convincing is he, that
apocryphal stories about fans demanding their money back because their
idol 'wasn't in the show' hold more than a shred of credibility.)
Ball
brings Edna to full-figured (larger than) life before our eyes. Never once
tipping over into parody - despite the fabulous wigs (Paul Huntley), dresses
and makeup - his star performance remains seamlessly integrated within the
large ensemble.
Holding
her own as daughter Tracy, fleet-footed newcomer Leanne Jones engages attention
from the start, while as Link - one of several love interests -'Joseph' TV
dropout and fellow West End debutant Ben James-Ellis, makes an
increasingly-strong impression as the evening zips by.
As
Edna's raunchily adoring spouse Wilbur, Mel Smith is
an engaging physical cross between W C Fields and Sid James and their smoochy vaudeville-style duet 'Timeless to Me' stops the
show (as does the gospel number sung by a blonde and bewigged Johnnie Fiori as Motormouth Mabel).
The
Technicolor 60s settings provide an excuse to showcase a gorgeous array of
over-the-top costumes (William Ivey Long), set against David Rockwell's wittily
eye-popping cartoonish flats, with moves authentically choreographed by Jerry
Mitchell.
Marc
Shaiman's award-winning score pastiches the songs of
the era so successfully that you believe they really could be genuine 60s
classics: by staying true to the conventions of the time, the music and lyrics
(by Shaiman and Scott Wittman)
mirror some of pop's greatest hits but mint the genre afresh for a new
generation.
The
glorious book (Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan) contains a liberating quota of
non-PC jokes that heighten our understanding of the deeper issues touched on by
the show. Such fulsome doesn't leave any space to acknowledge the rest of the
amazing cast or precis the storyline of 'larger
girls' overcoming adversity to win the love of their unlikely beaux in a
newly-integrated US of A.
And how great it is to hear a 'live' pit band playing real
instruments with such style. Show of the
year? You bet!
Reviewed by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Paul
Nicholas and David Ian
by arrangement with
Robert Stigwood present
"GREASE"
is the word
Now playing at the Piccadilly Theatre
Over acted, over amplified and over here
If 'Grease'
is to satisfy, it needs a 'perfect couple' at its heart. And,
in the words of David Ian the show's producer, Danny and Sandy are that perfect
couple.
But, on
stage, this TV-cast revival not only lacks a heart, the dream couple trying to
fill the vacuum are signally mis-matched (despite
being voted into their roles by a panel of 'celebrity' judges including David Gest - with his own recent track record, surely the
least-qualified man on the planet to choose the 'perfect couple'? - Sinitta, Brian Friedman and David Ian himself.
The recent
searches for 'Joseph' and 'Maria' showed how a TV format can come good with
West End casting, so who knows what happened on this occasion?
With so many
of the viewers who voted now claiming 'ownership' of the project (as Mr Ian's
marketing-speak puts it in a self-congratulatory programme note) Grease should
guarantee bums on seats at The Piccadilly for months to come: what a shame that
so many will belong to first-time theatregoers who will leave the show under
the impression that 'live' musical theatre is all about over-acting, under-casting,
cheap sets and a ferociously over-amplified on-stage band.
The couple
that most of the audience are 'Hopelessly Devoted' to are Danny Bayne (as Danny
Zuko) and Susan McFadden (as Sandy Dumbrowski) - despite there not being any discernable spark
between them during the whole evening, let alone in the uncomfortably 'stagey'
final number where they never manage to convince us that they were right for
each other all along.
They both
sing and dance as if their lives depend on it, while surrounded by other
energetic, noisy, hyper-active kids whose annoying over-use of the rebellious
'finger' gesture and interminable pelvis-grinding quickly grate and, while it
would be invidious to single out any particular cast member as an example of
the show's universally-broad playing style (direction is by David Gilmore) a
strong contender must be Tim Newman's nerdy Eugene. His relentless mugging
would have earned him an ASBO anywhere other than in a theatre and he even
managed to pip at the post three (very) camp followers doing a tacky turn as
backing singers in a shower scene that had me longing for a Psycho moment.
The dynamic
musical staging and choreography is by West End veteran Arlene Phillips, who
has galvanised her manic dancers into action with an eclectic variety of styles
ranging from West Side story 'dance in the gym' to a retro, sub-Busby Berkeley
routine for 'Beauty School Dropout.'
Grease may
be the word, but it's not the word that comes most readily to mind to describe
this tawdry production whose success is assured thanks to healthy advance box
office sales by the TV viewers who voted for the 'stars' they helped to create:
they loved every ear-splitting minute.
www.greasethemusical.co.uk
Reviewed
by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
"Dirty Dancing"
by Eleanor Bergstein
Now playing at the Aldwych
Theatre
There
have been two important measures of Dirty Dancing's sensational success in the
week of its opening. First, the morning news on Radio 4 has told the nation
that this show has had the biggest advance sales ever seen in the West End.
Secondly, to prove the point, our old friend the ticket tout
has made a reappearance on Aldwych, doing uncanny impression of George Cole in
the St Trinian's movies.
In
dramatic terms, Eleanor Bergstein's book and dialogue require the suspension of
an awful lot of disbelief. One suspects that the story is semi-autobiographical
but the schmaltzy romance of an innocent seventeen-year-old's
coming-of-age has the intellectual depth of an underdeveloped fairy tale.
At
times, one also wonders whether the writer has been challenged to create
dialogue that is entirely formulated from clichés.
However,
this is not what this show is about. Dirty Dancing is really about sex
presented with a romantic veneer through the paradigm of dance; and at its
best, that is where this production excels.
On
the basis that it will give fans exactly what they want, it is destined for a
long and happy stay in the West End and an incarnation on Broadway must be a
racing certainty.
Like
the National's latest sensation, Caroline, or Change, Dirty Dancing is set in
1963 as the Civil Rights Movement begins to excite American youth. The
exploration may be tame here but at least sweet, seventeen-year-old Baby is a
naive idealist who hates the see people downtrodden.
Georgina
Rich once again proves herself to be a talented actress building on the
reputation that she created with her performance in Honour playing Dame Diana Rigg's daughter.
Baby
joins her family in the land of Hi De Hi at an American equivalent to Butlin's in the Catskills. Fascinating Aida's Issy van Randwyck is mum, while
all-American Doctor dad is played by David Rintoul. He is perfectly cast, having spent so long as
Doctor Finlay that he could probably carry out an operation in real life. He
also turns his hand pretty capably to song (especially in a nice duet with his
wife) and dance, as well as flexing acting muscles honed at the RSC.
We
also have the misfortune to come across Baby's boringly vain older sister Lisa
played by Isabella Calthorpe, who presumably under
the instructions of her director James Powell, mugs madly throughout, either to
the amusement or intense irritation of viewers.
The
plot contrasts rich Robbie, to be honest a rather gay looking waiter who thinks
nothing of "knocking up" the odd girl or two, with the incredibly
muscular dance teacher Johnny Castle. The latter is played by Josef Brown, a
man who was once a principal with the Australian ballet and dances brilliantly
but whose acting talents, showing all of the emotional range of Arnold
Schwarzenegger on a bad day, look wooden next to his female lead.
The
show takes a bit of time to get going but really takes off when Johnny and his
normal dancing partner, Penny "the blonde with the legs" played by
the lithely brilliant Nadia Coote, strut their stuff
to Eric Carmen's Hungry Eyes. This is a Meatloaf-style power ballad that the
unkind would suggest comes from a much later era. From that point onwards, Kate
Champion's choreography and her well-drilled crew provide a feast for the eyes.
Penny's
unwanted pregnancy causes all kinds of problems but it does throw Baby into the
massive arms of Johnny, with the aid of a legendary watermelon. After lots of
loving and a little dancing, the heroine is eventually enabled to shuck off her
childish nickname and become a real woman, Frances.
The
show builds to a tremendous finale, first as Johnny at his sexiest dressed in
black and a biker's leathers announces to general glee that "nobody puts
Baby in the corner" and then drags her on to the dance floor to lead the
night's big number (I've Had) The Time Of My Life sung live by Shonagh Daly and Ben Mingay.
By
the time that the team of dancers move into this best routine of the evening,
the weaknesses have ceased to matter. The audience is going absolutely wild and
has returned to those innocent days of youth that have marked Dirty Dancing as
a formative part of their lives and Patrick Swayze as a superhero.
This
may not be as good as the original but it has enough life, allusion and well
choreographed dance routines performed by beautiful people to guarantee that
the nostalgic will keep the touts in business for years.
Reviewed by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
"THE 39 STEPS"
by John Buchan, adapted by Patrick
Barlow
Now playing at the Criterion
Theatre
These
days, as Scotland launches its National Theatre (and a very fine one too), it
is easy to forget that territories even more serious about their culture got
there long ago.
A
quarter of a century ahead of the Scots, The National Theatre of Brent was
unveiled when the inimitable, irrepressible Desmond Olivier Dingle (or Patrick
Barlow) proudly launched his company with The Charge of the Light Brigade and
soon after, the Charge of the Jim Broadbent.
The
NToB title may not be there for this adaptation of John
Buchan's stirring novel of spying and double crossing but the spirit and ethos
are present, thanks to its founder, who has adapted John Buchan's tale of an
ordinary chap saving his country from disaster.
The
recipe has remained the same. Take a famous story and milk it for every gag in
sight. This relies on a talented cast, in this case an ensemble of four, each
of whom plays their part capably, their timing honed by actress turned director
Maria Aitken.
Charles
Edwards is hapless hero Richard Hannay, stiff upper
lip topped by a pencil moustache and suavity oozing from every pore.
He
is pitted against a presumably Nazi professor after picking up a dark lady with
a terrible accent at the Palladium. She tells him of The 39 Steps but before
she can do more than set him off on a dangerous chase, she reappears groaning
with a dagger in her back.
She,
like reluctant heroine Pamela and several other glamorous ladies is played by
film star Catherine McCormack, clearly relishing her chance to ham it up on stage.
One
hundred or so other characters from coppers to train guards, baddies and old
ladies are represented by a versatile pair billed as clowns in the programme.
Simon Gregor and Rupert Degas provide energy and
talent well beyond the call of duty.
Patrick
Barlow's adaptation mixes verbal and physical humour and even chucks in a
little shadow puppetry. There are many memorable images such as the famous
chase along the top of a racing train, with Hannay
then jumping onto and then off an entirely convincing Forth Bridge, all
reproduced with minimal budget and props.
Like
the train, the two hours flash by amid quick costume and persona changes, some
trite plotting and corny jokes. The evening is inconsistent but at its best, very
funny and should do well in this small West End house in the run-up to
Christmas.
Reviewed by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
'WICKED'
(The untold story of the Witches of Oz)
Music
and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Book
by Winnie Holzman
now playing at the
Apollo Victoria Theatre
BEWITCHED BY A FRIEND OF DOROTHY
Whether you
view Wicked as a charming fairy story or a parable for our own troubled times
depends on your personal 'take' on this prequel to The Wizard of Oz.
Inspired by
a book written by Gregory Maguire some 90 years after the original, this
brilliantly-cast new Broadway show traces the back story of the protagonists in
the original (1939) MGM movie.
In this
latest incarnation it is basically a tale of two college girls attending a
Hogwarts-style Academy presided over by Miriam Margolyes'
bustling, pneumatically-bustled, Madame Morrible (a
disarming cross between the steely gentility of Barbara Cartland
and the appealing vulgarity of Mrs Slocombe).
The girls, Glinda and Elphaba, start out as
rivals and end up bosom buddies, overcoming numerous misunderstandings,
romantic entanglements and personal tragedies along the way until their roles
as good and bad witches are reversed.
Wicked's monolithic Heath
Robinson-style set extends into the auditorium and sandwiches a proscenium
dominated by an animated, winged dragon and a map of Oz which is whisked away
(to excited anticipatory applause) to reveal the skeletal insides of a giant
timepiece.
Yet, despite
its many disparate narrative threads (expertly woven together by Winnie Holzman), the key to the
show - and its obsession with time - may perhaps be found in a line spoken by Elphaba, the wicked, green witch during her eventual
encounter with her nemesis, The Wizard: 'I wanted to put back the clock.'
As Elphaba, Idina Menzel has been imported from Broadway to play the role she
originated. Green, geeky and gauche, she is a be-spectacled outcast from the
outset, rejected by her father and lacking the social and physical graces needed
to succeed in the competitive college environment into which she is thrust with
her crippled younger sister, Nessarose (affectingly
played by Katie Rowley Jones, a fragrant worm who eventually turns).
Ms Menzel has a gloriously powerful voice which conveys every
nuance of the hurt wariness and self-protectiveness the role initially demands,
before assuming a manic mantle of absolute power to end the first act with a
stunning vocal and visual coup de theatre - one of many in this enchanting
show.
Her complex
story is told in flashback by Glinda the Good, who
arrives on stage on a pendulum surrounded by a cloud of bubbles. Helen Dallimore plays this egocentric airhead with winning charm
and, like the rest of the perfect cast, is given every opportunity to shine by
Director Joe Mantello (including a wonderfully
tongue-in-cheek homage to Evita in the second-act
balcony scene).
Glinda quickly finds her
Prince Charming in an equally-vacuous and self-absorbed Fiyero,
whose philosophy of 'dancing through life, skimming the surface' immediately
marks him out as a fellow spirit; the dashing Adam Garcia establishes himself
as a major star in this show, grabbing every opportunity in a role he helped
develop in the 2002 NY workshop of the show.
Wicked has
been tweaked considerably since it garnered mixed Broadway reviews on its
opening: Wayne Cilento's sympathetic musical staging
helps each actor develop a truly individual character through movement, while
the use of standard English - and Scottish - pronunciation (as opposed to
faux-American) is universal by everyone except Ms Menzel
and Nigel Planer (an excellent Presidential-style Wizard).
As neither
Harry Potter nor The Lord of the Rings exerts any personal fascination for me,
I feared that Wicked might exhibit a similar tweeness.
But, while teenage audiences may latch on to Wicked's
obvious tunefulness, the accessibility of its lyrics (both by Stephen Schwartz)
and its appealingly-drawn and extravagantly-costumed, characters (scenic design
by Eugene Lee and costumes by Susan Hilferty), others
will take pleasure in pursuing such deeper elements as the nature of truth and
the place of the thinking individual within a thoughtless, hostile environment.
On the night
I visited, the audience was roof-raisingly vociferous
in its appreciation of this dazzling show and its generous and
universally-talented performers. I only wish that, as the next generation of
theatregoers, they could have enjoyed the frisson of hearing Schwartz's
beautiful and melodic score played by a Broadway-sized pit orchestra with a
full string section and a preponderance of non-synthesised instruments.
The
performance lasts approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes, including a 20 minute
interval.
Reviewed
by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
AVENUE Q
Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
Book by Jeff Whitty
Directed by Jason Moore
Reviewed at the Noël Coward Theatre (now at the GIELGUD
THEATRE until March 13th then re-opens at Wyndham’s Theatre on
March 19th
'A Canterbury Tales for the Noughties'
By
its own admission, Avenue Q is a musical for people who don't like musicals
(and there can't be many left who fall into that category in either London or
New York these days).
So,
the talented Tony Award winning team of Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx (music and
lyrics) and Jeff Whitty (book) have created a
relentlessly zany puppetfest whose sense of the
zeitgeist should convert a hip, young, new audience to the genre.
Engaging
the emotions every bit as deftly as the singing actors/puppeteers manipulate
their cutesy charges (who include Princeton, an impoverished graduate,
straight-laced, do-gooder Kate, closet gay merchant banker Rod and an
erotically-charged blonde chanteuse simply known as Lucy The Slut, who is so
full-on sexy as to raise the disturbing question as to what extent it may be
possible to be turned on by a marionette) Avenue Q also takes stage nudity and
sex to new heights.
Of
course, we've seen simulated sex on stage before but seldom performed so
uninhibitedly as here - and, surely, never between puppets? (It was probably at
this juncture that the Henson organisation, from whom
the authors had originally sought backing, began to distance themselves - a
process that has now resulted in a full-blown disclaimer in the programme.)
But,
although Avenue Q should be given a distinct 15 rating (Lion King it ain't),
mid-teens and young adults will relish the bawdy nature and catchy songs of
this Canterbury Tales for the Noughties.
Set
among a stereotypical clique of angst-ridden, New York wannabees,
has-beens and might-have-beens, the plot revolves
around finding your 'purpose' in life.
Although
the musical excursions into pornography and racism inspire two of the show's
best numbers, no matter what the 'issue' is, there's a song that fits it as
snugly as the glove puppets cleave to their human alter egos.
The
lyrics are knock-out brilliant: Lopez and Marx have
thrown everything in the book - or, rather, rhyming dictionary - at them to
achieve their impact.
The
tunes are memorable too - at least in the moment - and the young actors are
hugely endearing, each characterising their other halves with such vocal and
physical dexterity that it is sometimes virtually impossible to tell where one
ends and the other begins. The small band rocks and the show looks and sound
great.
And,
while the choice of Schadenfreude as a song title is undoubtedly tempting fate,
by the second half of Avenue Q the audience has been led further down the path
of platitudinous personal discovery than some may have felt inclined to go. A fun show? Yes. But perhaps not quite up
everyone's street.
Reviewed by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
BILLY ELLIOT -The Musical
Book and Lyrics by Lee Hall
Music by Elton John
Now playing at the Victoria Palace
Theatre
Being
possibly the only person in the whole of the British Isles - or even the world
- who was not totally blown away by the film version of Billy Elliot, and
knowing that this show is also directed by STEPHEN DALDRY, I was prepared to
dislike this musical. Also so many films have been adapted for the stage
recently, could yet another one succeed?
Well
- try as I might to find fault - I just loved it - totally captivated from the
beginning when 'The Stars Look Down' and destiny beckons, to the soulful 'Dear
Billy', sung with his dead mother, when Billy sets off down the aisle on his
long journey to the future.
For
one thing I had not expected it to be so funny, and I found myself crying with
laughter through most of the first act. There is a serious side to it, of
course, the story of a young boy from a poor working class family longing to
express himself creatively, a story which coincidentally mirrors the lives of
both Elton John and Lee Hall, a Geordie lad himself, which could explain the
feeling and emotion in both the exceptional lyrics and the music - best that
Elton has ever written in my humble opinion.
TIM
HEALY is 'Dad', a rough and ready, down to earth (or even down in the earth)
miner, and the time is the mid eighties - the time of the miners' strike when
there was the threat of pit closures and they would all be out of work - so he
has quite enough on his plate without a son wanting to be a poncey
ballet dancer, but he too has a soul - and a surprisingly strong and good
singing voice - with a sentimental side which brings tears when he and son
Billy sing of his dead wife. HAYDN GWYNNE is magnificent as a disillusioned
dance teacher at last finding an exceptional talent to encourage, and her
troupe of ballet girls were really great little dancers, a fact which they
disguised well.
ANN
EMERY is a delightfully comical 'grandma' who may be suffering from senile
dementia, but remembers her dead husband well in the song which begins 'I hated
the sod for thirty three year' - not the sentiments expected. Be warned - there
is swearing throughout - not always in anger but part of general conversation. (There
is a translation of the Geordie in the programme, if needed)
PETER
DARLING's choreography is outstanding is every scene - the line of riot
policemen had their own comic routine, even chubby dance pianist STEVE ELIAS
strutted his funky stuff, and there is a delightfully humorous dance with Billy
and his gay friend Michael (RYAN LONGBOTTOM - showing terrific comic potential)
both in drag.
Sets
and sound complimented each other perfectly particularly in the scene where
Billy shows his frustration in a frenzied and athletic clog dance which wrecks
his bedroom, while the sound of rioting is heard from outside.
It
took two years to find the ideal Billy and the long search paid off - on the
night I attended this was LIAM MOWER, and this 12 year old was absolute
perfection and thoroughly deserved the ecstatic standing ovation that he
received - twice! An extremely versatile dancer, actor, singer, gymnast and
very likeable - I am astounded that anyone so young could not only be so
talented, but had the strength and stamina to carry such a demanding role. The
ballet scene where he danced with ISAAC JAMES as his 'older self' to the music
of Swan Lake was incredibly beautiful.
This is a musical by which all
others will now be judged!
Reviewed by Sheila Connor for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Les Misérables
based on the book by Victor Hugo, produced
by Cameron Mackintosh
Music composed by
Claude-Michel Schonberg
Original concept and
French lyrics by Alain Boublil
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer
Production design by
John Napier
Reviewed
at Palace Theatre - cast changes will apply
An impressive
17 years after its opening in October 1985, Cameron Mackintosh's production of
Victor Hugo's epic masterpiece 'Les Misérables'
is still running like a Duracell long-life battery at the Palace Theatre
a familiar London landmark on Cambridge Circus.
The piece
follows the engaging plight of Jean Valjean,
imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's child. When finally
released after 19 soul-destroying years, he is relentlessly pursued by his
nemesis, the unforgiving Inspector Javert. While Valjean initially seems
irreversibly embittered by his experiences in prison and headed for a life of
ongoing crime and punishment, a moment of kindness towards him shortly after
his release inspires him to aim towards better things. As he reinvents himself,
we follow his progress, from the French provinces to the backstreets,
barricades and dank sewers of still-revolting mid-19th century Paris. Hugo's
consideration of universal themes including the hypocrisy of society,
tolerance, courage, religion and love add gravity along the way.
The
production looks undeniably spectacular, with no-frills but highly effective
sets by John Napier (his revolving, outsized, industrial-style barricades are
especially good), and wonderfully evocative lighting by David Hersey. The cast,
which has been given a revamp, is huge, and it would be impossible to note
everyone here. Of the leads, however, several stand out: Valjean
is played with gentle authority by Michael Sterling; Hadley Fraser is well
suited to the young romantic lead of Marius (his West End debut), thanks to his
handsome looks and sweet voice; and Sophia Ragavelas,
who for me was the best singer in the cast, makes an attractive Eponine feisty yet sympathetic. Jerome Pradon is good as the duty-bound tough guy, Javert. An injection of naughty humour is given by the
rough-living Thénardiers, played in this
production by a charismatic Stephen Tate and Rosemary Ashe - listen out for
their lively version of 'Master of the House'.
With the
above excepted, I was on the whole quite disappointed with the quality of
singing, with some characters unfortunately being fairly inaudible or even out
of tune. This was counterbalanced by the orchestra, however, who played
wonderfully throughout - no small achievement for this 3-hour-long show.
This musical
has been seen by over 50 million people worldwide so far, and there are plenty
of positive aspects in this new production for the show to seem likely to run
and run. One would hope that Victor Hugo, in the 200th anniversary of his birth
this year, would be proud; musicals fans - the small number who haven't already
seen this show, will, I'm sure, not be disappointed.
Reviewed
by Clare Peel for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Glen Henderson and Yes/No Productions present:
STOMP
Reviewed at The Vaudeville Theatre
playing at Ambassador's Theatre (from 27/09/07)
In
the West End for the first time - and set to take the capital by storm - is
STOMP, a unique, energy-fuelled combination of percussion, movement and visual
comedy, with - unusually - the dustbin as its central theme. The show launched
in Brighton in 1991, following a 10-year collaboration
between percussionist Luke Cresswell and
actor/singer/ musician/ writer Steve McNicholas. It
has since won a host of awards and played in locations as diverse as Athens,
Melbourne, New York, Scandinavia and South Africa. This baby has even featured
on 'Blue Peter' and in a Coca-Cola commercial (the one with the ice-pick...).
Intrigued?
I was. Being a virgin to the phenomenon that is STOMP, I was admittedly
slightly fearful of an hour and 40 minutes of bin-lid banging, followed by
several painkillers and early to bed. I couldn't have been more surprised.
These guys are AMAZING.
Wearing
workman's boots, STOMP's immensely talented eight performers mostly
trained drummers - stamp (or stomp) and tap their way around the stage in a
series of sketches, although there is no apparent plot and no underlying
message to be learnt (this is pure visual and aural entertainment). The beats
they create with their feet are accompanied by rhythms and sounds produced
using impromptu instruments, all connected with garbage (from waste piping and
empty plastic bottles to buckets, brushes and dustbin lids). The result is an
achingly clever cacophony-cum-symphony of funky rhythms, complex sound patterns
and surprisingly toe-tapping tunes, and proof that there is beauty in
everything.
It's a spellbinding
performance.
The
hip, urban backstreet set and the lighting design by Neil Tiplady
and Steve McNicholas further enhance the ambience.
The
performers work in impressive union - keeping time, interacting with one
another and even, in amusing moments, endearingly teasing their
less-than-rhythmic audience. Plus - enviably - they look like they are having
the absolute time of their lives.
On
the evening I attended, there was a standing ovation - something that bodes
extremely well for the rest of the run.
Creative,
captivating, compulsive and utterly cool. Ten out of ten.
BOX
OFFICE: 0870 890 0511
Reviewed by Clare Peel for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
We Will Rock You -
(The Musical)
by Queen and Ben Elton
now playing at The Dominion
Theatre
Instantaneously
catapulted into the mesmeric futuristic world of We Will Rock You, the audience
at the Dominion Theatre experience a wonderful roller-coaster ride through Ben
Elton's vision of The Brave New World. That's to say, A Brave New Pop World
where musical instruments are banned and manufactured pop bands thrive.
Our
hero, Galileo, is a freak of nature in this planet of homogenous
"Gaga" girls and boys, who furiously strives to bring back rock music
to an all too pop-dominated world. With the aid of his sidekick, Scaramouche (yes, the humour is all very obvious but it
strangely works), they venture underground and uncover a group of Bohemians who
share the aim of bringing the world back to its former glory. Believe me, this
is really great stuff. The plot pales into insignificance once the singing and
dancing gets going. For someone not overly keen on Queen's songs, my toe really
was tapping.
The
cast work their way through all the favourites...Under Pressure, It's A Kinda Magic, We Are The
Champions...songs which are cleverly interwoven into the plot with ease. They
alternate between rigid robotic movements, brilliantly displayed in Radio Gaga,
and free flowing head banging during the closing Bohemian Rhapsody. Visually,
the costumes excel because of the sheer variety, with the futuristic cyberbabes scantily clad in silver spandex whereas the Bohos opt for a grungy yet glamorous punk ensemble
reminiscent of Adam Ant and Boy George.
The
Production Designers, Mark Fisher and Willie Williams, famed for innovative
tour set designs for Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones, pulled out all the
stops. The revolving screens which create a swirling backdrop to the entire
play understandably cost £1 million. They bombard you with a technicolour display of eye-catching images and adverts.
The quality of this show is undeniable as from start to finish you are
captivated by the stunning visual effects and lavish displays of lighting that
are so startling they practically sting your eyes.
As
with all the West End musicals, there is the obligatory overly sentimental part
which in We Will Rock You is dedicated to all famous rock legends who died
young and left beautiful bodies(!), the focus being
mainly on Freddie Mercury. Its slush but rather good slush.
As
far as the acting is concerned, it is first class. Despite a multitude of great
performances, Hannah Jane Fox who plays Scaramouche
stole the show. For such a waif of a girl she has a gutsy voice, which is
breath-taking at moments. Nigel Planer plays Pop, the long-haired loveable
hippy character with zeal and is loved by the audience.
When
the West End is plagued with some really dire musicals, We Will Rock You is a
real breath of fresh air. There is no need to be an ardent fan of Queen to
appreciate this amazing spectacle. To a certain extent it will become dated as
references to Britney Spears and Hearsay will have less of an impact in months
to come. Yet these anachronisms must be overlooked. Go along, surprise yourself
and I will guarantee you will come out humming all the tunes.
Reviewed by Charlotte Seales
for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
Disney
presents
THE
LION KING
The
Award-Winning Broadway Musical
now playing at LYCEUM
THEATRE (Wellington Street, WC2)
“THE LION KING” ROARS IN TRIUMPH !
In almost 50
year’s connection with the Theatre, and four years as Editor of
THEATREWORLD INTERNET MAGAZINE, I have to confess that this is the most
difficult review I have ever undertaken - there are simply not enough
superlatives in the English language to describe “THE LION KING”
From the
moment the curtain rises on the assembly of animals at sunrise at Pride Rock
for the ‘presentation’ of the heir apparent (Simba)
- the audience is totally silenced, mesmerised, by the unbelievably realistic
display of wild-life! Huge Elephants, enormous Giraffes, graceful
Gazelles - the procession seems to go on and on. It is not until the final drum
crash at the end of “Circle of Life”, that
the audience whoops with delight and the applause is deafening!
Perhaps I
should confess that this review is totally biased - the reviewer being an
utter, unashamed Disney fanatic! However, all the hype, and the brilliant
marketing of this (former) animated feature pays off in abundance with the most
spectacular and stunningly clever musical we have seen in London’s West
End for three decades!
Disney’s
first venture onto the Broadway, London and other stages around the world began
with ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Many critics dismissed the work as
just another piece of ‘Disney escapism’. Whilst
‘Beauty’ was relatively simple to translate to the stage, being a
familiar ‘folk-tale, and containing ‘human’ characters - THE
LION KING with its ‘cast’ consisting entirely of animals should
have presented Disney’s ‘imagineers’
with an almighty headache.
Enter
Director AND designer JULIE TAYMOR who, with the addition of the
most stunning head-dresses, costumes and make-up INSTANTLY AND BELIEVABLY
transforms the actors into the characters they portray. These creatures are no
‘Cats’ in leotards and painted faces! Ms. Taymor
is an astoundingly brilliant creator, in as much as she has a concept which
weaves its’ way throughout the entire production. The choreography (Garth
Fagan) is perfect for the piece, the lighting (Donald Holder) ... vividly
conjuring up the sights of Africa ... but above all the brilliantly effective
design of the characters costumes and masks - all bear her hallmark! Small wonder that she was the first woman to win a coveted
“Tony” award for ‘Best Director of a Musical’ for THE
LION KING on Broadway.
All of your
favourites from the movie are here -
Rafiki (the wise baboon), The wicked hyenas, Scar (the evil uncle), Pumbaa (the wart-hog), Timon (the
wise-cracking meercat), Zazu
(the major-domo), Nala (Simba’s
bride to be!), Mufasa (Simba’s
father), and of course, Simba - the Lion King!
But there
are many, many more delights - which to reveal, would be to spoil your
enjoyment. Ms. Taymor uses every trick in her book -
but wisely and sparingly. She draws on techniques not seen in this country for decades .... shadow puppets .... soaring birds which fill the auditorium ... a beautiful
‘flying ballet’ ... animatronics ... the use of lighting and an
extremely simple ‘device’ to depict the death of The Pridelands once Scar has murdered Mufasa.
All so simple - yet it takes the mind and imagination of a genius to come up
with such effects - the Genius of THE LION KING is Julie Taymor.
I have
deliberately NOT singled out any member of the (HUGE) cast - since they all
played (I suspect as they were directed to?) as an ensemble. Each member of the
cast has his or her own chance to ‘shine’ and they do so with a
brilliance that is not evident anywhere on the London stage at present.
Acting-wise,
for them to even approach the ‘voice-overs’ in the animated feature
(which were such luminaries as James Earl Jones, Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy
Irons) might be considered impossible. However, they don’t need to. The
sheer size and spectacle of this stage version totally eclipses the
two-dimensional movie and brings ‘The Pridelands’
to life before your eyes.
The original
score has been expanded for the stage and now features fifteen musical numbers.
South African composer Lebo M has created an evocative blend of African rhythms
and chorales, with additional material by Julie Taymor
and Mark Mancina. Elton John and Tim Rice have added
three new numbers to the five they wrote for the animated film. The resulting
sound of The Lion King score is a fusion of Western popular music and the
distinctive sounds and rhythms of Africa, embracing the Academy award winning
“Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and the
haunting “Shadowland”
Any
‘critic’ who pours out their usual ‘bile’ after seeing
this production has clearly lost the ‘inner child’ which exists
within us all - they should seek a good therapist..
What they will not realise is that audiences have now ‘grown-up’ -
and yet not (there’s a child deep down inside all of us!) Audiences
are now demanding what they want - entertainment. Barricade scenes, riots,
falling chandeliers and helicopters are a thing of the past.
Disney’s
THE LION KING gives you what you pay for, and as always with Disney - you get
VALUE FOR MONEY !!
Last
night’s prolonged standing ovation from an enraptured audience said it all !!!!!
THEATREWORLD
cannot recommend this production more highly than to rate it as it’s new Number one in the
Top Ten Musicals and Plays in London!
You’ll have to wait in line for a long
time for a ticket,
THE LION KING will ‘reign’ for
years at the Lyceum Theatre -
but be patient and, take
my word -
it will be something
you tell your Grandchildren about -
you’ll have been part of
“The Circle of Life”.
THE LION KING
is produced by Walt Disney Theatrical Productions under the direction of Peter
Schneider and Thomas Schumacher.
Reviewed
by Graham Powner - Theatreworld Internet Magazine
MAMMA MIA
featuring a hefty 27 songs by Europopsters ABBA !!!
now playing at Prince of
Wales Theatre
This is a review of the original production cast changes will
therefore apply
Let’s
face it, the idea of sitting through a musical based on over twenty-seven Abba
songs could be, for some of us, a form of Japanese torture, for others, an
eagerly anticipated night of frivolous fun, happily overdosing on all the great
classics.
The
main problem lies in deciding on a plot which can be successfully merged with
obscurely titled songs such as “Chiquitita”,
“Voulez-vous” and “Mamma
Mia.” The writer, Catherine Johnson, opts for the typical cliched story about a girl’s search for identity,
self discovery and the difficulty of relationships. The story is
straightforward. Sophie, a bride to-be, has invited three men, any of whom
could be her long lost father to her wedding on a quiet, Greek island. Two of
Sophie’s mother’s friends arrive, Tanya and Rosie. These two characters
contribute a great deal of humour to the play. Tanya is a glamorous,
nymphomaniac “Abs Fabs” Patsy-esque character who towers over Rosie, the archetypal dumpy
yet aimable middle-aged woman, like a giant. They add
much colour to “Mamma Mia” and their “Dancing Queen”
scene involving Sophie’s mother Donna is great. Hairbrush in hand, the
trio sing and dance along to their favourite teenage anthem in a natural,
spontaneous manner.
Concerning
the choreography in general, the upbeat, energetic performances to “Money,
Money,Money” and
“Does your mother know” were excellent. More of these and less of
the mediocre duets were needed. It seemed as though all the classic Abba songs
were crammed into the first half, causing the second part to be slow paced and
too static. Nevertheless, a nice alternative to costume was provided by the
wetsuit and flipper clad backing dancers in some of the songs, rather fitting
to the Greek island setting.
The
set design, consisting of two curved walls representing a taverna,
allowed fluid change of scene. However, its minimalism was taken a bit to the
extreme, the taverna looked more derelict than
idyllic, too much was left to the imagination.
Despite
these few disappointments “Mamma Mia” redeems itself with its witty
dialogue, a combination of double entendre and funny banter. Siobhan
McCarthy’s role as the single mother Donna is brilliant, unfortunately
casting quite a shadow on Lisa Stokke’s debut
in the West End as Sophie.
Although Abba will always be
remembered for their electric turquoise blue lycra
outfits and white platform boots rather than for an array of songs with deeply
moving and thought provoking lyrics, their genre of music is ideal and a real crowdpleaser for this West End musical at the Prince Edward
Theatre.
Reviewed by Charlotte Seales for
Theatreworld Internet Magazine
CHICAGO
Reviewed at the Adelphi Theatre transferred to Cambridge Theatre from 28 April 2006
“CHICAGO” IS A SMASH !! -
‘The Second Time Around’
Original produced in 1975, this Kander & Ebb (of ‘Cabaret’ fame) show set in the ‘roaring twenties’ show was billed as “a musical vaudeville”, and was loosely based on a play (subsequently filmed twice, the latter version starring Ginger Rogers).
The original Broadway production was a smash hit running for well over two years. It starred legendary Broadway Musical performers Chita Rivera, Gwen Verdon and Jerry Orbach in the lead roles - and they were perfect - as was the show - with its’ ‘quirky’ style. It had master choreographer Bob Fosse whose genius for dance was the ticket to a successful Broadway show way back then. It was snappy, sassy, and written totally with tongue in cheek. The characters were given pastiche songs to sing in true vaudevillian style almost impersonating people like Eddie Cantor, Sophie Tucker, Bert Lahr etc.
Unfortunately, when it made its way across the Atlantic to London via Leicester Haymarket Theatre it got ‘waterlogged’ - the show was horrendously re-vamped and presented in a totally differing style to the original concept as was originally written. It was this and this alone which condemned the show in the UK, and when it finally transferred to London’s West End, it was inevitably a flop. One can only imagine that the Leicester producers assumed that British audiences wouldn’t recognise the vaudevillian performers pastiched in the show and decided to go for a totally new look - but “Chicago’s” original fame had preceded it and it was the original production which audiences wanted to see. Would that the original Broadway stars had been able to bring the show to London - it would most certainly have been the sell-out success it was at the 46th Street Theatre, New York.
However, that is history. “CHICAGO” IS BACK - and this time - TO STAY!!!
Times change - we now live in a far more CYNICAL society (another very potent ingredient of the original musical) - a society which sees nothing wrong in making a media circus out of a murder trial (O.J. Simpson springs to mind!). This is basically what “CHICAGO” is about.
Roxie Hart has just shot her lover after he threatens to leave her for another (presumably younger broad) - she tries to get her husband to take the rap - but Amos (the ‘Mr Cellophane’ man) - a nobody, a nothing “you can see right through me, walk right by me, and never know my name!” - at first agrees thinking Roxie is telling the truth when she proclaims ‘rape’. However he soon wises up and Roxie is arrested, charged with murder and thrown into Cook County Jail. There she meets up with her fellow murderesses, including Velma Kelly - who is the toast of the jail have secured the services of lawyer Billy Flynn (a pastiche character based on the legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow) - he never lets his clients swing!
On hearing Roxie’s story, he takes her on too and explains that she can be a ‘star’ through his court ‘performance “Razzle-Dazzle ‘Em”. This, of course, is right up Roxie’s street - she has always been in the chorus - this is her big break. The Courtroom scene is hilarious - and, of course Roxie gets off.
In 1997, this seems nowhere near as cynical as it did in 1975 and it is the cynicism which has been brought to the fore for this brand new working of the musical. It most certainly is NOT the “Chicago” of yesteryear - but a fascinatingly brilliant re-working of the original with the same feel which the original contained. What is on offer on the Adelphi Stage is something just as exciting and zappy - especially with ANN REINKING’s wonderful choreography “in the style of Bob Fosse”. Mr Fosse could have no better epitaph than Miss Reinking’s ‘loving’ tribute - the dancing is nothing less than dazzling and brilliantly executed.
RUTHIE HENSHALL has once and for all lost her ‘goody-two-shoes heroine’ image with her sensual, sexy and totally believable wicked portrayal of murderess Roxie. It is almost unbelievable to think that this summer she was playing the heroine in Sandy Wilson’s ‘Divorce Me Darling’ - THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I HAD TO PINCH MYSELF TO REALISE IT WAS THE SAME PERSON! She was magnificent. UTA LEMPER as Velma Kelly was wonderfully brash and possessed a strong voice and personality, though I did feel that some of her dance numbers could have been a little more varied in their execution.
HENRY GOODMAN was a perfect smoothy lawyer (Billy Flynn) - though it has to be said that this is a ‘womens’ show - the male characters have to fight hard to keep up with the ladies - however, Mr Goodman held his ground. NIGEL PLANER as Roxie’s cuckolded husband was absolutely brilliant - his deferential ‘Mr Cellophane’ number bringing a moistness to the eye just as it should. One must also mention C.Shirvell’s marvellous voice as ‘Mary Sunshine’ - the radio reporter - though to say more would be to spoil the ‘surprise’.
EVERY SINGLE ACTOR deserves a mention since they all performed to a peak of perfection which hasn’t been seen on a London stage in a ‘real’ Broadway musical for decades. This also includes the fabulous band under the direction of GARETH VALENTINE. How many shows have you seen an audience sit in their seats until the ‘play-out’ music has finished in order to applaud the band?
Under the tight, taut, tense direction of WALTER BOBBIE - I think it is safe to say that the Adelphi Theatre will have Kander & Ebb’s melodies resounding through the building for a couple of years AT LEAST!
Thank you Broadway for giving us a taste of what fun musical theatre was
- and still can be like!
Reviewed by Graham Powner - Theatreworld Internet Magazine
SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE - EXHIBITION AND EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES REMAIN OPEN YEAR ROUND ! - WELL WORTH A VISIT
The Globe Café - with an all-day menu with main dishes from £5 and open from 10am, last orders 11pm. Menu also served on the outside terrace in fine weather. No booking required.
The Globe Restaurant - Main dishes from the Grill starting at £8 and two courses with coffee from £12.50. Open for lunch from 12 noon - 2-30pm, supper 5.30pm to 11pm last orders. Special pre and post theatre menu available during the season. Booking advisable.
The Globe Balcony - Situated on the third floor, with panoramic views of the river, St. Paul’s and the City. Available for private bookings throughout the year.
For reservations and enquiries telephone: 020 7928 9444
Open all the year round except December 24 & 25.
For more details or individual advice/help - email: GPowner@aol.com