The Dame - Review

Park Theatre, London


****


Written by Katie Duncan
Directed by Ian Talbot

Peter Duncan

In an impressive Duncan double-act, The Dame transfers from the Edinburgh fringe to London’s Park Theatre and makes for compelling theatre. In her first play, Katie Duncan writes, for father Peter to enact, the fictional story of Ronald Roy Humphrey a decaying dame in the twilight of his career, whose working life has revolved around winter pantomimes and summer seasons in end of the pier music hall.

Well researched, Duncan (junior) has delivered a text that captures Humphrey’s melancholy, contrasting it with a beautifully composed paean to Britain’s crumbling Victorian seaside towns. Places that were once home to frolicking fun palaces, now reduced to rusting and often burnt-out relics.

The writing is perceptive but in a 70-minute solo performance, Peter Duncan’s acting is masterful. Opening with a whirl of corny-gags and panto numbers, he takes us through Jack’s (from the Beanstalk) Mother, Widow Twankey and Pierrot, even throwing in a Punch and Judy routine too. But it is as he slowly strips off the gowns and make up, revealing the tortured soul that lies beneath the greasepaint carapace, that Duncan-pere excels. Through snatches of old music-hall numbers, we catch glimpses of his fractured mind and in a master stroke of both writing and performance, the Duncans deploy There’s A Hole In My Bucket as a discordant backdrop to the horrific physical abuse the young Humphrey suffered at the hands of his father.

The Dame is uncomfortable theatre, movingly performed. Under Ian Talbot’s assured direction, the Park Theatre have unearthed another gem.

Runs until 26th January

Photo credit: Robert Workman

Million Dollar Quartet - Review

Royal Festival Hall, London


*****


Co-authored by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux
Directed by  Ian Talbot

The cast of Million Dollar Quartet

At the Royal Festival Hall over the Christmas season and then on tour, Million Dollar Quartet offers up some of the finest cuts of vintage rockabilly and rock n roll procured from some of the most legendary names in the history of music.

Inspired by the true story of the famed 1956 recording session where Sun Records’ Sam Phillips, brought together icons Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, the show peels back the pages of the calendar. This was a time when the airwaves went from strictly black and white to Technicolor in a musical fusion ignited by some white guys playing black music in a way that had never been heard before. And it set the world in motion.

Phillips is played by Martin Kemp (of the 1980’s Spandau Ballet fame) who heads a remarkably talented cast. Martin Kaye’s reprisal of Jerry Lee Lewis is brilliant in both performance and music, oozing a charming yet hilarious southern charisma that brings a comedic element to the show alongside an electrifying piano ability.

Matthew Wycliffe embodies guitar virtuoso Carl Perkins both in performance and an uncanny visual resemblance, delivering tenfold with his solo riffs on the guitar.

Robbie Durham does a great job as the Man in Black, bringing some sweet signature guitar mannerisms and playing styles, as Ross William Wild takes on the hefty task of playing the King. Making all the right moves, Wild also takes time to offer a touch of vulnerability, showing a side to Elvis that is not often portrayed.  

The show includes more than 20 legendary rock ‘n’ roll hits, including Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, I Walk The Line and Great Balls of Fire. Whilst celebrating the talents of the on stage characters Million Dollar Quartet also respectfully tips its hat to their fellow southern musicians and African American contemporaries including Little Walter and Chuck Berry who were recording north of the Mason Dixon line at Chicago’s Chess Records. 

A juke box musical maybe – but Million Dollar Quartet is quite simply a stunningly performed tribute to a pivotal episode in the history of rock n roll.

See it before Elvis leaves the building!

Runs until 2nd January 2017, then tours. Tour dates here.

Reviewed by Josh Kemp (no relation...)

Eugenius! - Review

London Palladium, London

Music, book and lyrics by Ben Adams and Chris Wilkins

Directed by Ian Talbot and Michael Jibson

For one night only Eugenius! played at the London Palladium in a concert premiere production of this new musical. As the (lavishly workshopped) show is now entering its final phase of development there is no star rating here, rather an assessment of the performance.

Eugenius! makes for a curious tale. Tracking an implausible yarn of two brothers separated at birth, this ain't no Blood Brothers, nor, with its focus upon geeky adolescents is it much of a Loserville either. Dipping in and out of a fictional world dreamed up by Eugene, there's a bizarre science fiction twist that sees (co-producer) Warwick Davis also play the Evil Lord Hector, who has now evolved into an extra-terrestrial bad guy out to wreak revenge on his earthling brother.

There's a love interest too, but overall, much like Lord Hector's return from across the galaxies, it's all a bit far-fetched, with the show lacking the ribald pantomime humour of I Can’t Sing!, (another show endowed with an exclamation mark in the title...) the last new British musical to play the Palladium. Is Eugenius! aiming at the 30/40-something audience for whom the 80s references maybe spot-on but who might expect much more meat in the narrative? Or is it aiming at a much younger audience, in which case some of the adult nuance is at best inappropriate, and at times mildly offensive? Either way, Eugenius! is a very lightweight offering with a story that needs some serious treatment and a running time crying out to be trimmed by at least 30 minutes.

Aside from a ghastly ticketing glitch that led to a 30 minute delay, the production values on the night were impressive. A stellar cast led well drilled ensembles from Laine Theatre Arts and Arts Ed, with Aaron Renfree choreographing some slick routines.

David Bedella as a cynical TV producer was his usual infernally wonderful self, with Amy Lennox and Summer Strallen sharing the honours as leading ladies in the show's real and fictional worlds. Fine work too from Norman Bowman, Daniel Buckley and Samuel Holmes in support, with Louis Maskell (in strong voice) leading as the eponymous Eugene.

Ian Talbot and Mike Jibson directing made decent use of the modest staging constraints imposed upon the production and credit to Andrew Ellis whose lightning designs throughout were consistently stunning.

Last night Eugenius! was well endowed with one of the finest companies in town, both acting and creative, but as it stands it has simply been rolled in glitter. This is a show that needs careful polishing.

The Perfect Murder - Review

Churchill Theatre, Bromley


****


Adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Ian Talbot

Jessie Wallace and Shane Ritchie

There really is such a thing as the perfect murder, so the audience is informed by a gleeful Victor Smiley near the beginning of this play: it's the one you've never heard of.

The Perfect Murder is a stage adaption of Peter James’ novella of the same name, itself inspired by a conversation that James had had with a chief constable in which the policeman had suggested that “we all, at some point in our lives, consider killing someone.”

And so begins a tale of premeditated murder. Victor (Shane Ritchie) plans to murder wife Joan (Jessie Wallace), in the perfect solution to a dead marriage now filled with resentment and endless arguing. There's a familiarity to the set up; a childless couple, married for 20 years, with nothing to entertain them but each other. 

James' story moves between a small 1960s house in Saltdean, just outside Brighton and a room at The Kitten Parlour, a brothel in the town. Michael Holt’s set is beautifully crafted, allowing seamless transitions between the various elements.  

The story may be a bold premise but it is tackled with heaps of comic effect predominantly through the script, but also through well-timed physical humour. The play is, after all, dealing with murder – in a very black comedy.

Ritchie and Wallace are outstanding, bringing to the stage elements of the television relationship that they are most well-known for. Throughout, their interactions deliver plenty of laughs. Ritchie is particularly brilliant, switching between monologues – in which he explains his grand ideas – and dialogue with Wallace, delivered with a dry acknowledgement that the audience is aware of the true meaning behind his words. 

Completing the line-up are Simona Armstrong, Stephen Fletcher and Benjamin Wilkin, who plays a young Roy Grace, the star of James’ internationally best-selling crime thriller series. 

The full house attests to the crime genre's perennial appeal. While some in the audience may have been drawn by the leads' star appeal, the strength of this production stands on its own.  

Runs until 13th February, then on tour. 

Reviewed by: Bhakti Gajjar

Photo credit: Honeybunn Photography