From Here To Eternity - Review

Charing Cross Theatre, London

****

Music by Stuart Brayson

Lyrics by Tim Rice

Book by Donald Rice and Bill Oakes

Based on the novel by James Jones

Jonathon Bentley and Desmonda Cathabel

This autumn is all about musical theatre based on movies that featured Burt Lancaster on a beach. Last month it was Local Hero at Chichester and now From Here To Eternity returns to London’s Charing Cross Theatre for a short residency in the run-up to Christmas.

This production marks the first UK revival of the Tim Rice and Stuart Brayson show, drawn from the classic film and set on Hawaii in the two weeks leading up to the Japanese attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbour in December 1941. The power of the story derives from the pressure cookers of passion building up on the island – love, cuckoldry and honour are all at play here – that are to be swamped by the tsunami of death and destruction that rained down upon the island on December 7th.

Brett Smock directs a literally well-drilled company that offers another glimpse of London’s musical theatre fringe at its finest. Jonathon Bentley is the principled Private Prewitt, a gifted boxer who’s hanging up of his gloves and who irks his company Captain, the misogynist Holmes (Alan Turkington). The Captain’s wife Karen (Carley Stenson) finds love in the arms of company Sergeant Warden (Adam Rhys-Charles) as Prewitt falls for local prostitute Lorene (Desmonda Cathabel).

The whole affair makes for a well observed tale of humanity, sung beautifully by the aforementioned leads. In equally fine support are Eve Polycarpou as brothel-keeper Mrs Kipfer and Johnny Amies as troubled soldier Maggio.

Tim Rice’s lyrics are as ever astute takes on life. Witty and perceptive, Rice teases out the characters’ strengths and weaknesses, with The Boys Of ’41, sung as the attack on Pearl Harbour is in full spate, proving a devastating summary of war’s brutality – marred only by the unfortunate, almost invisibility, of the show’s three women who deliver it.

Nick Barstow’s arrangement and direction of his 5-piece band is classy as are Louise Rhoades-Brown’s projections, effectively capturing Karen and Warden’s passionate clinches in the Pacific surf. Equally Adam King’s lighting and Stewart J Charlesworth’s set, make good use of the theatre’s compact space to create Hawaii’s various scenescapes. Cressida Carre's choreography and Renny Krupinski's fight direction (there's a lot of fighting!) are top notch too.

Beautifully performed, From Here To Eternity makes for a tragically gorgeous evening.

Runs until 17th December

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

Saturday Night Fever - Review

Richmond Theatre, London

***

Music and lyrics by The Bee Gees

Book adapted by Robert Stigwood and Bill Oakes

Directed by Ryan McBryde

The Company

When 'Saturday Night Fever' hit the screen in the UK in 1978 it had the country eating out of the palm of its hand. John Travolta's Tony Manero, powered by the Bee Gee's inimitable disco pulse had girls wanting him and guys wanting to be him. Robert Stigwood’s dance fuelled vision dripped with the illusory seduction of the 2001 Odyssey nightclub’s neon that offered a weekly escape from urban mundanity to Manero and his buddies. On the Richmond Theatre's stage however, Ryan McBryde's version of the show is perhaps a touch too dark and raw for a story that craves light and glamour.

In his programme notes McBryde describes Saturday Night Fever as "gritty, complex and uncompromising". With a plot that includes heartbreak, financial struggle and suicide all set to such a popular and uplifting score, its inevitable that a credible staging will prove challenging. That said, McBryde has assembled a strong company of actor-musician performers. The economy of the actor-muso format serves the show well, offering a strong sense of energy and vibrancy in the more up tempo numbers, while equally giving the darker songs a real raw and honest edge, notably in Tragedy sung by Alex Lodge as Bobby C.  

Saturday Night Fever demands a fine leading man and Danny Bayne's Manero provides the show's driving energy. Bayne's performance as the arrogant yet sensitive Manero, complete with flawless dancing is worth the ticket price alone and he handles his solo numbers with flair. Elsewhere, Bethany Linsdell as the love struck Annette whose early rendition of If I Can't Have You offers just a glimpse of the singer’s talent as she makes fine work of the Yvonne Elliman classic. 

Throughout, Andrew Wright’s well engineered choreography excites, suggesting both the glitzy pizzazz and the emotional turmoil of growing up in New York city in the last century.

Above all the show makes for an entertaining night out. Many of us remember the movie (it was my first ever sneaked-into "x certificate") when the Bee Gees’ sound defined an era. The middle aged will love the nostalgia – whilst a younger audience can absorb the sounds of a generation, performed magnificently by their peers.

Runs until 28th March 2015, then plays in Cardiff

From Here To Eternity

Shaftesbury Theatre, London

***

Lyrics by Tim Rice

Music by Stuart Brayson

Book by Bill Oakes

Director Tamara Harvey

A passionate wartime romance, a star studded cinema legacy and Tim Rice's lyrics all suggest a musical of grand ambition and spectacular promise. But whilst From Here To Eternity is welcomed as a new piece of musical theatre, as for so many shows or movies themed around Hawaii in that fateful 1941 winter, it proves to be heavy on Pacific promise but, like Soutra Gilmour's (effectively) minimalist set designs, light on artistic content. 

It's a grand canvas indeed that has a show climaxing with the USA being drawn into the second world war. Set around the American naval base at Pearl Harbour, we meet First Sergeant Warden, who is to fall for his womanizing Captain's wife Karen Holmes and Private Prewitt, a member of Warden’s company, who is to lose his heart to Island whore Lorene. Where one love interest is usually enough for most musicals, to be writing for a quartet of lovers is a potential distraction to both writer and audience. Rice's ambitions are noble, but his scope is just too broad to effectively support such romantic complexity.

The show is not helped through the star-casting of Darius Campbell as Warden. Chiselled looks and beautifully voiced for sure, he looks heroic but his acting lacks subtlety and depth and he fails to capture our belief. Robert Lonsdale's Prewitt is a performance that is West End worthy. His take on the song Fight The Fight is stirring and convincing as he grapples with his conscience over being required to fight in conflict. Two reprisals of any song is usually at least one too many and that this song re-appears so often, with other musical motifs returning throughout the evening, indicates that composer Stuart Brayson lacks the talent to match the scale of the show and the renowned wit of his lyricist.

The two lead women delight. Siubhan Harrison is Lorene, a character whose tough shell conceals a wise and tender heart and who inthe number Run Along Joe, gives two pleasing and well-crafted perspectives on the same song through its reprisals. It is Rebecca Thornhill as Karen Holmes who shines out amongst the cast. Her loveless marriage now worn threadbare through countless army flings, the poignancy of the love she craves with Warden is compelling. 

Harvey's direction and Javier De Frutos's choreography is sound throughout even if the constant carrying of metal beds on and off stage by the male ensemble intrudes at times, no more so than half way through the title song From Here To Eternity. The creative pair are at their best though with the routine for You Got The Money that becomes an exciting array of dance, lifts and beautifully timed rendezvous.

The story famously builds towards the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. A big event that in the West End demands effects that are state of the art. In an era of digital illusion and to audiences used to the best of CGI, the attack as presented here is a damp squib. If, on a fraction of this show’s budget the Southwark Playhouse managed to impressively sink the Titanic earlier this year, then it cannot have been beyond the wit of Rice and his co-producers to know that something spectacular was called for above and beyond the projections that we witness shone onto the Shaftesbury stage. 

Notwithstanding a closing nod to the human cost of war that is both respectful and moving, From Here To Eternity is much like the US Pacific Fleet, ill-fated and unlikely to remain afloat for long.

Now booking into 2014