The Addams Family - Review

Curve, Leicester

*****

Music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa

Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice

Based on characters created by Charles Addams

Directed by Matthew White

Ricardo Afonso and Alexandra Burke

The Addams Family hail from back in the day when The New Yorker magazine offered some of the sharpest cynicism in the world and with few contributors sharper than cartoonist Charles Addams, as the gifted artist created a deliciously dysfunctional Gothic clan who resided in a haunted mansion beneath Central Park. The Addams Family’s values were as inverted as they were recognisable and their distinctive Manhattan chic was to spawn television series and a movie and lead to this beloved menagerie of deeply damaged individuals becoming one of 20th century America's cultural icons.

Translating such utterly ghoulish satire into musical comedy requires brilliant writing that demands to be matched by equally outstanding performances. Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice who penned the show’s book have an excellent pedigree behind them. Paired with songsmith Andrew Lippa, the show is based on fabulous foundations and in this iteration of the show that has just opened at Leicester’s Curve, the cast unite to deliver an evening of arguably the finest musical theatre this year.

The Addams Family musical has been around for a few years now – last reviewed by this site in 2017 -  however this production takes its excellence to the next level. Alexandra Burke and Ricardo Afonso head the family as Morticia and Gomez. Burke bringing the seductive contemptousness that her most fatale of femmes demands, while Afonso adds Latin authenticity to Gomez’s delightful despicability. The couple’s breathtaking flamenco-enhanced Tango De Amor that brings the show towards its conclusion is just joyous and the hallmark of Alistair David’s classy choreography

This production’s strengths however are bolstered not just by such strong leads, but by epic casting throughout. The legendary Clive Rowe plays the genderless Fester, enchantingly in love with the Moon. Rowe is a giant of his generation and his big number, But Love, is as tender as it is hilarious. Lesley Joseph steps up to the plate as the 102yo Grandma of the family. There are few performers who can nail the bittersweet comic delivery required of a wry centenarian, with Joseph delivering in spades. Dickon Gough’s Lurch is a demonstration of understated physical comedy at its finest, while Lauren Jones as Wednesday is all that this infernally rebellious teenager should be.

The musical’s plot revolves around a deliciously improbable romance between Wednesday and Lucas Beineke (Jacob Fowler) but it is the gem of a performance that Kara Lane delivers as Lucas’s mother Alice singing Waiting towards the end of the first half, that almost takes the roof off the Curve. Credit too to Dale Rapley as Alice’s husband Mal – a tough role with few, but nonetheless very dry, sweet spots of humour. Rapley nails them all. And a nod to Nicholas McLean who makes fine work of Wednesday’s younger brother Pugsley.

The Addams Family is more than just musical comedy. It is the finest, most acutely observed satire, that is delivered exquisitely. This tour needs to lead all the way back to the West End. Musicals do not get better than this!

Runs until 10th August, then on tour

Photo credit Pamela Raith

The White Chip - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

****

Written by Sean Daniels

Directed by Matt Ryan

Ed Coleman and Ashlee Irish

The White Chip (a reference to the Alcoholics Anonymous programme) is a meticulous exploration of one man’s journey through alcohol addiction. Following acclaimed USA productions, Sean Daniels’s play now makes its London debut under the sharp eye of director Matt Ryan and producer Danielle Tarento.

In a Herculean performance of physical and mental prowess, Ed Coleman is Steve, Daniels’s loosely autobiographical protagonist. Lee Newby’s simple yet effective designs create a space in which we follow Steve from his first beer (aged twelve) through his stumbling into the grasp of addiction and the ensuing college and workplace trauma and on into rehab admittances and despair.

Daniels’s script is relentless in its tracking of Steve’s tragic arc, with the extent to which we witness the denials and deceptions, to family, friends and co-workers proving harrowing and profoundly well written theatre.

Alongside Coleman, Mara Allen and Ashlee Irish deliver all the necessary supporting roles to flesh out the narrative, both giving performances that reflect the energy of the show’s leading man. Amidst an array of Tarento’s typically excellent production values, with the evening’s dialogue being so rapid-fire and intense, there are some disappointing moments when the usually excellent Max Pappenheim’s sound design wanders in its accuracy.

But for all this play's brilliance in its writing and its powerhouse performances and notwithstanding the story's uplifting endgame, at 100 minutes with no interval it all makes for an evening of tough drama that at times prove too exhausting to effectively digest. The breakneck sequencing of scenes and tableaux, all key points in the narrative that are lined up to demand our attention can feel overwhelming. 

The White Chip is an important play that demands to be seen. Tough gig though.

Runs until 16th August

Photo credit:Danny Kaan

Till The Stars Come Down - Review

 Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

*****

Written by Beth Steel

Directed by Bijan Sheibani

Dorothy Atkinson

The West End transfer of the National Theatre's Till The Stars Come Down sees this stunning new play evolve into a production that is as stellar as its title.

Powerfully perceptive and set in a northern mining village where the pit has long since closed, Beth Steel’s writing focuses on three sisters on the day of the youngest sibling’s wedding. Rarely does a narrative soar from brilliantly observed (and perfectly timed) hilarity one minute, to harrowing family despair the next as passions, secrets and lies merge to fuel a narrative that culminates in perhaps the most exquisitely performed heartbreak to be found in London today.

This is a story about love, desire, resentment, ageing, grief and bigotry with Bijan Sheibani’s company of 10 all delivering faultless expertise in their acting. The sororal trio comprises Sinead Matthews (as Sylvia, the bride) and Lucy Black (as Hazel) returning to the production from the National, with Aisling Loftus (Maggie) a newcomer to the transfer. All three are powerhouse performers. Also returning are Philip Whitchurch as the bride’s Uncle Pete and Alan Williams as Tony, the sisters’ widowered father. Williams in particular delivers a turn that is a masterclass in understated excellence.

The evening’s comedy moments are driven by Dorothy Atkinson’s Aunty Carol, a woman who is as monstrous as she is relatable and recognisable. Gifted most of the evening’s snappy one-liners, Atkinson is the definition of tragi-comical brilliance.

The show is a technical treat with Samal Blak’s ingenious revolve being perfectly lit as ever by Paule Constable.

Beth Steel’s writing was good last year on the South Bank. Performed by this company at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, it’s bloody brilliant and the capital's drama highlight of the summer!

Runs until 27th September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Evita - Review

London Palladium, London




***



Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Directed by Jamie Lloyd

The cast of Evita

Six years after bringing an outstanding Evita to London’s Open Air Theatre (click here for a review of that 2019 production) and amidst a blaze of well orchestrated publicity, Jamie Lloyd helms his show into the London Palladium. But what was once wondrous in Regents Park, fails to stun in the West End.

In 2019 it was Samantha Pauly, an actor relatively unknown in the UK who played Eva, delivering a performance that shone both in its excellence and its leading of her supporting company. Today however it is Hollywood’s wunderkind Rachel Zegler who heads the bill, a young woman who knows how to play to the camera but who lacks the chops to convincingly act through song on stage.

Familiar with delivering leading roles in starry close-up on the big screen, Zegler has amassed a following of millions. But with only a modest exposure to having performed in (let alone leading) a major show on Broadway or in the West End, it appears that much like Eva Duarte herself, Zegler has been hired for star quality over experience. 

Any production of Evita has to rest on the strengths of its leading lady, who in this production is sometimes found to be missing in action. As has been widely reported, Zegler sings Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, from the Palladium's outside balcony to a bunch of assembled passers-by, while the paying crowd *inside* the theatre are reduced to mere voyeurs, watching her via a big screen livestream. That the translucent screen barely shields the show’s upstage orchestra who remain visible throughout, is a distraction. 

Much has been made of Lloyd’s use of live-action video, notably with his 2023 take on Sunset Boulevard that saw Tom Francis careering around London’s Strand before winding up back on stage at The Savoy. But that of course was different. Francis was not the show’s main star, nor his song the evening’s biggest number.

At the Palladium we find Evita performing one of the most exquisite songs in the canon, from a remote location that is at best, acoustically compromised. Unlike previous on-stage Evitas, remove this Eva’s microphone and she doesnt just become hard to hear, she becomes completely inaudible, Lloyd's staging denying the audience the experience of hearing Zegler's natural tone and timbre as she delivers the classic number. It is not an unreasonable expectation that a live musical (and especially this musical, for which the money keeps rolling in at up to £245 per ticket) should deliver songs that are sung live on stage, all performed to the highest standard that the performers’ voices and the venue’s acoustics will allow. At the Palladium, the audience is being cheated. 

And while the outside throng of several hundred are no doubt appreciating the nightly free rendition of the show’s nine o’clock number, as Lloyd’s camera pulls back to reveal Soho’s mostly empty Argyll Street (including the distracting logo of the next door Pret restaurant that hoves into view), it all seems a little tacky and contrived and, both literally and artistically, many miles away from the narrative's intended romance of Buenos Aires and the Casa Rosada. Good theatre should suspend the audience's disbelief, transporting the audience to another place. When the only place that they are transported to is a grimy London side street, then that fragile bubble of imagination bursts.  

Back inside the theatre, Fabian Aloise’s choreography remains exciting and imaginative, equally Jon Clark’s brutal lighting designs heighten the violence of Peron’s fascism. But the production's sound design is ghastly, with too many songs coming across as though they are being shouted from the stage into an inaudible oblivion.

The Palladium balcony scene has proved a brilliant marketing gimmick, with the show having grabbed news headlines across the country and word of mouth spreading like wildfire. In reality however, the scene’s flaws see it amounting to little more than a modern interpretation of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Jamie Lloyd’s revived Evita proves that star quality is no substitute for talent.

Runs until 6th September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner