White Rose The Musical - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

**

Music by Natalie Brice

Lyrics and book by Brian Belding

Directed by Will Nunziata

The cast of White Rose

White Rose is a musical with its heart in the right place but sadly, not much else.

Based upon the real life group of Munich-based student activists who in the 1940s took a stand against Hitler’s regime, the show lacks the humbling genius of the brave young Germans who were its inspiration.

Other musicals have brilliantly tackled the ghastliness of the Third Reich, with Cabaret, The Sound of Music and The Producers (to name but three) all drawing on differing combinations of wit, irony and pathos to describe that darkest period of Europe's 20th-century history. White Rose however barely gets beyond repetitive, shallow, expositional numbers (which annoyingly, are not even listed in the programme), mostly set to jarringly forgettable rock rhythms. The impressively gifted and accomplished cast representing the best of young British musical theatre talent, are wasted on these mediocre melodies.

The show ends with the noble students singing “We will not be silenced” . If only…

Runs until 13th April

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Farewell Mister Haffmann - Review

Park Theatre, London

***

Written by Jean-Philippe Daguerre

Translated by Jeremy Sams

Directed by Oscar Toeman

Nigel Harman and Jemima Rooper

Blending history with fiction, Jean-Phillipe Daguerre’s narrative explores Paris under Nazi occupation in the early 1940s.

Alex Waldmann is the titular Parisian jeweller, a Jew who transfers the ownership of his business to his Catholic employee Pierre (Michael Fox) to avoid it being seized by the Nazis. Haffmann also requests of Pierre that he and his wife Isabelle (Jennifer Kirby) move into the flat above the jewellery shop, with the hope that the couple will provide sufficient decoy to enable the jeweller to avoid deportation to the concentration camps. Not long into the establishment of this ménage-a-trois, we learn that Pierre is infertile and that a bizarre deal is to be brokered in which Haffmann is to impregnate Isabelle. This is an improbable storyline at best, which for the audience’s disbelief to be effectively suspended, requires actors of the highest calibre. Unfortunately the hard-working trio lack a convincing chemistry and so the first hour or so of this 90-minute, one-act play makes for soggy and unconvincing drama.

However - much like the way Steven Spielberg made the audience wait 80 minutes before revealing the shark in his movie Jaws, the evening’s final third is electric, as Otto Abetz (Nigel Harman), Hitler’s real-life ambassador to France together with his wife Suzanne (Jemima Rooper) arrive as the dinner guests of Pierre and Isabelle.

Harman’s Nazi is clipped and manicured and in a performance that must surely be up for an Offie nomination, his manifestation of the Third Reich’s evil proves as mesmerising as Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Rooper’s drunken Suzanne is equally entertaining.

There maybe moments when Farewell Mister Haffmann feels like a long-haul but hang in there, Nigel Harman is sensational!

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Il Trovatore - Review

Royal Opera House, London

****

Music by Guiseppe Verdi

Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano

Conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti

Directed by Adele Thomas

Agnieszka Rehlis

Il Trovatore, one of  Verdi’s greatest compositions hails back to a golden age of fabulous  storytelling. By todays’ standards this yarn of passion, jealousy, a gypsy’s curse and suicide - not forgetting the misogyny - would not even make it past a first draft. But Cammarano’s lyrics and Verdi’s music lift this melodramatic narrative into an evening of beauty that is driven by a spectacular cast.

Michael Fabiano is Manrico, Aleksei Isaev is his rival in love, the Count di Luna. Rachel Willis-Sørensen sings the role of Leonora, the object or both men’s desires, while Agnieszka Rehlis sings Azucena. If you are familiar with the story, you will understand the interactions of those characters. If you’re new to the tale - just head to the Royal Opera House to discover them for yourselves - you won't be disappointed!

While Giacomo Sagripanti conducts magnificently and Adele Thomas’ direction is assured and perceptive, the curiously clad Chorus prove a dystopian distraction.

Playing on a handful of dates until March 22nd - and with the Anvil Chorus too, what’s not to love about this operatic treat?

Photo credit: Camilla Greenwell

A Knock On The Roof - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

*

Written by Khawla Ibraheem

Directed by Oliver Butler

Khawla Ibraheem

Khawla Ibraheem is Mariam, a young widow in Gaza and mother to the pre-teen Nour. The play's title refers to the sound made by small projectiles dropped by the Israeli military to signal an impending attack and to allow individuals to run for cover.

In her 75-minute one-act monologue Ibraheem offers little considered analysis of the Gazan conflict. Understandably, Mariam dreads the incoming missiles and bombs, and outlines in verbal detail the images of the region’s destruction that have already saturated Western media. However she makes no comment at all on the possible embedding of Hamas militia amongst Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and communities, a practice that exposes vulnerable non-combatants to lethal harm. Similarly, while we know that Hamas had constructed a network of tunnels underneath Gaza, Ibraheem is again silent when it comes to pleading for these tunnels to be deployed as air-raid shelters.

One can only ponder as to why the Gazan authorities appeared to have been so content to risk the lives of their citizens, and equally why Ibraheem is so reluctant to criticise their stance?

Culminating in a predictable ending, A Knock On The Roof is more melodrama than message.

Runs until 8th March

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

The Last Laugh - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written and directed by Paul Hendy

Bob Golding, Damian Williams and Simon Cartwright

An imaginary dressing room shared by Tommy Cooper, Bob Monkhouse and Eric Morecambe is the setting for Paul Hendy’s new play that makes for an 80-minute one-act wonderland of a tribute to these three legends of late 20th century British comedy.

Damian Williams, Simon Cartwright and Bob Golding make up the trifecta (their names in the same order as their characters are listed above) in this superbly scripted drama that not only revisits countless, gloriously familiar comedy gems but also offers a briefly poignant analysis of how their acts evolved, as well as a glimpse of the sadness that lay behind the three perfectly honed comic masquerades.

It’s not just the script, the three actors nail their characters to a tee. And for those of us fortunate to have grown up in television’s golden-age, the evening is as if we are in the actual presence of these giants of light entertainment.

No spoilers here but be assured that some of the trio’s most loved gags are played out on stage. More than that, the actors truly inhabit the comedians’ personae delivering one of the best shows in the West End.

Hendy also directs with a perfectly nuanced touch, coaxing the gentlest manifestations of genius from all three amidst Lee Newby's immaculately designed set.

Only on for a month before touring - Unmissable!

Runs until 22nd March, then on tour.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Backstroke - Review

Donmar Warehouse, London

***

Written and directed by Anna Mackmin

Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie

Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig are Beth and Bo, mother and daughter in Anna Mackmin’s Backstroke, a play that explores womanhood, memory and the end of life. Coming fast on the heels of the autobiographical The Years' recent transfer to the West End, this Aga-saga (for there is such an onstage stove) similarly spins its yarn through a company of 5 female actors.

The drama opens around Beth’s hospital bed. A now elderly former hippy, she has recently suffered a stroke. That her relationship with the middle-aged Bo has been unconventional and strained is made clear from the get-go, with Bo addressing her mother by her first name rather than one of the more typical maternal salutations.

This is a narrative that plays fast and loose with timeframes. As the play unfolds, Beth leaps from her hospital bed into the  kitchen of her former years. Bo's past memories are portrayed as an immaculately photographed short film, flashes of which are projected on to an upstage blacked-out backdrop. As we explore Bo’s complex relationship with her mother, further emotional emotional intricacies are revealed that outline the younger woman's infertility together with her journey to adopt daughter Skylar.

This is a story that could have made for a sensational evening in the theatre. As it is, aside from Imrie and Grieg’s outstanding performance skills, Mackmin’s self-directed dialogue creaks, with the whole endeavour feeling far too tedious. In what is (essentially) a two-handed piece, Bo's occasional interactions with healthcare professionals around Beth’s hospital bed appear implausible and unconvincing. 

Lez Brotherston’s set proves surprisingly low-key given his usual hallmark of design genius.

Ultimately Backstroke is a brilliant idea that has been fashioned into a lacklustre script and delivered by world class actors.

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Years - Review

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

***

Based on Les Années by Annie Ernaux

Adapted and directed by Eline Arbo

Romola Garai

There are moments in The Years that make for some of the finest drama to be found in London. Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical writings, translated here from the French by Eline Arbo who also directs, offer a vivid glimpse into a womanhood spanning from the 1940s through to the early years of the 21st century.

Five women, who all opened the play last year at the Almeida prior to this West End transfer, capture Ernaux through the decades, and all with sublime performances. Seamlessly, the quintet also perform all the play’s supporting roles.

At its best The Years delivers the Nobel-winning Ernaux’s depictions of her own emotional and sexual development. From the highs of the excitement at the discovery of the secret adolescent thrills of masturbation, through to the depths of fumbled painful humiliation experienced during her teenage defloration, (credit to Anjli Mohindra for playing those chapters). The pain is worsened as Romola Garai plays out the backstreet abortion that Ernaux chose to undergo in her twenties. It is a credit to Garai that with nothing more than her outstanding acting skills and a judicious amount of stage blood - but no nudity whatsoever nor any other props or special effects - that her portrayal of such an horrific event is delivered with such harrowing impact.

Gina McKee picks up the emancipated Ernaux in in her fifties, having separated from her husband and enjoying not only parenthood but the joys of passionate sexual liaisons. Again - fine sensitive work from McKee. Deborah Findlay plays the writer’s endgame with equal perception and wisdom. A nod too to Harmony Rose-Bremner who takes up another of the author’s youthful personages.

Aside from speaking of her feminine evolution, Ernaux also offers historical comment on the world’s global and political evolution through the years. Her historical analysis however is crass, barely getting beyond schoolyard Marxism such is her bias. Billy Joel’s song We Didn’t Start The Fire achieves more accurate historical context in five minutes than Ernaux and Arbo can muster over nigh-on two hours with no interval.

Technically, the night of this review was a disaster blighted by not one, but two show-stops. The first was understandable with an audience member who having fainted at Garolai’s depiction of the aforementioned abortion, required assistance in leaving the auditorium. The second however was an inexcusable and appalling fault of the sound system. With tickets selling at close to £200 a pop, paying punters are entitled to expect flawless technical standards at a West End show.

The Years is a curate's egg, albeit brilliantly acted, that is 30-minutes too long. 

Runs until 19th April

Photo credit: Helen Murray