The Distance You Have Come - Review

Cockpit Theatre, London


****


Music, lyrics and directed by Scott Alan

There is a parable of a jeweller who was given a magnificent diamond to work on but which had nonetheless sustained a deep scratch. The craftsman set to work on the gem and atop the blemish he carved a rosebud, using the scratch as the flower’s stem and delivering a diamond of unparalleled beauty.

So it is with Scott Alan’s The Distance You Have Come, a song cycle drawn from Alan’s work to date. The writer has been magnificently brave over the years in speaking openly of his battles with depression and there are songs here that have been written from his darkest depths. And yet, fashioned together in this two hour gig, they meld to create an event of uplifting beauty and hope.

Set in the round the scenery is simple yet stylish. Suspended branches overhang a park bench, a swing and, ingeniously, a pond too. It says much for Alan’s reputation that he has drawn a cast from amongst the finest musical theatre performers who all leave their own distinctive imprimaturs on the writer’s work, both old established numbers as well as his newer compositions. Alexia Khadime offers up a gorgeous re-working of Anything Worth Holding On To, as Emma Hatton takes At All, a song composed by Alan for a leading lady, with Hatton passionately claiming the work in a re-written, re-imagined style. The writer’s devotees will be pleased with inclusion of old favourites such as Kiss The Air, I’m A Star and of course, Never Neverland (Fly Away).

Alan directs with a soft sensitivity and credit to Sarah Evans and Krystal Lee for having the vision to produce the project. The Distance You Have Come makes for a moving and thoughtful evening. 

Runs until October 28th

Hamlet - Review

Cockpit Theatre, London


***


Directed by Emma Blacklay-Piech

Predating the UK's entry into the EEC/EU (and quite possibly outlasting it too!) the Cambridge University European Theatre Group has over the years amassed a fine degree of cross-Channel cultural integration. To some extent, this year is no exception and having just completed a Swiss tour via Belgium the group bring their 2016 production of Hamlet to the Cockpit Theatre for one day only.

The play has clearly been an ambitious project as director and adapter Emma Blacklay-Piech (herself a Third Year student of Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic no less) has seen fit to trim out much of Shakespeare's original word count and, setting her show on board a boat, replace the chopped out prose with musical numbers under the dubious pretext of calling them sea shanties. By such a decision has the whole ear of Switzerland been rankly abused. But students will be students and to be fair, it can take time to learn that it is nigh-on impossible to improve on Shakespeare's verse.

But while Blacklay-Piech may have erred in her decisions of style and theme, she’s cast the play magnificently. Sam Knights (Third Year, studying English - and it shows) plays Hamlet, making a fine job of it. The role is vast and the speeches (even truncated) are long and unwieldy. Whilst Knights may not have uncovered anything new in the part, he displays impressive potential. Likewise Tim Atkin's Claudius. A PhD student and noticeably that bit older than most of the company, Atkin brings a plausible contemptibility to the scheming King.

Some of the casting has been gender-blind and again, credit to Blacklay-Piech for her impressive choices of Amy Malone as Horatio and Lucy Dickson and Ashleigh Weir as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respectively. Malone creates a wise and sensitive friend to Hamlet - while Dickson and Weir live up to the incongruous staging, by not only convincing as Hamlet's bungling (ex) buddies, but also putting in a fine shift on some of the song and dance numbers. The pair have impressive biographies in musical theatre – it’s not often that such experience comes in useful in Hamlet

Colin Rothwell makes fine work of the comic potential of both Polonius and the First Gravedigger, as Bethan Davidson offers an elegant Gertrude alongside Ed Limb's energetic Laertes a mention too to Benedict Flett who pops up well as both the Ghost and Fortinbras.

Perhaps the key moment in Hamlet where tuneful melody is called for, is in Ophelia's mental decline and despair following her father's murder and in this, one of Shakespeare's most complex, fragile roles Matilda Wickham is remarkable. Bringing a beauteous youthful wisdom to the part, with a heartbreaking interpretation of Ophelia’s drowning, Wickham underlines the classic story's tragedy.

27 - Review

Cockpit Theatre, London

**

Music, book and lyrics by Sam Cassidy

Music by Matt Wills

Co-directed by Arlene Phillips and Sam Cassidy

Cassie Compton

The premise behind 27 is both noble and tragic. Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin all died at that age and Sam Cassidy's musical seeks to explore some possible greater satanic force that robs the world of gifted talent at such a tender age.

It's a brave and ambitious venture from Cassidy and his co-tunesmith Matt Wills and of course the sheer hard work in writing a new musical is to be saluted. But whilst their show is glitzy, containing some stunning performance, dance and movement, the narrative for the most part is execrable and arguably, exploitative. When even the show's own programme spells Joplin's first name as Janice, the fates don't augur well.

The plot follows a fictitious rock star, stage named Orpheus who is the lead singer of his band The Argonauts. Notwithstanding some insultingly unsubtle hints that connect the story to Greek and other mythologies (act one could almost be re-named Orpheus On The Underground), we are invited to follow a Faustian pact that Orpheus signs with the Devil. He is granted world fame but it comes at the cost of uncontrollable substance abuse. 

A show that could potentially have been a beautifully heartbreaking study into untimely death, in fact becomes a hybrid of Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus and Disney's Hercules but with less memorable songs. Oh, and there's just a twist of The Exorcist sprinkled over act two for good measure.

To be fair there's a moving epilogue that tantalisingly hints at the emotional depths that could have been plumbed - but for the most part 27 doesn't so much mark the loss of 4 rock legends as dance upon their graves in which they are quite possibly spinning.

There are some good bits. Greg Oliver battles with his ridiculously clichéd role, turning in a convincing and harrowing performance as the drug-addicted Orpheus. Ryan Molloy steals every scene as the Hades/Devil character, with an unbridled energy and that sensational voice. Cassie Compton who also only knows excellence shines as Amy, Orpheus' true love, whilst understudy on the night Erin Bell was fabulous in the Mephistophelean role of infernal temptress Ms. M. There's also eye-candy for all, with an ensemble clad for the most part in lashings of lingerie or spray-on leather. Brava Lucy Alexander for the stylish costume design.

The dance work choreographed by Ryan-Lee Seager and Lucy Martin is sensational and imaginative, perhaps to be expected with Arlene Phillips co-directing alongside Cassidy. Notwithstanding the story's flaws, the routines complement its outrageousness perfectly being cleverly conceived and meticulously rehearsed as Matt Nalton’s band produce a rock infused beat throughout. 

The gifted Jodie Jacobs plays one of The Fates and that at times her voice was inaudible does not speak well of the show's sound design. Likewise the lavish lighting and set design (someone has invested a fortune in 27) failed to pick out the three Fates high above the action. Smoke and fancy spotlights, (hell, this Hell even has hydraulics) are all well and good, but when key characters can neither be seen nor heard, money's been wasted.

27 doesn't need work, so much as a total re-write. There may well be a beautiful show crying out to be written here, but this ain't it.

Runs to 22nd October

Photo credit: Nick Ross