Vincent River - Review

Trafalgar Studios, London


**


Written by Philip Ridley
Directed by Robert Chevara

Louise Jameson and Thomas Mahey

Philip Ridley as a playwright is a theatre producer’s. The vivid scenes-capes that he creates tend not to require lavish casting nor expensive sets, being instead fleshed out by way of lengthy, descriptive monologues - windows onto the dysfunctional dystopia that Ridley perceives around him. The disappointment to the audience however is that when you’ve heard one Ridley monologue, it can feel like you’ve heard them all.

Vincent River is a two-hander that revolves around Anita, grieving for her dead son Vincent and Davey, a young man who, we come to discover, was connected to the dead young man. Lasting 90 minutes, the one-act piece never leaves Anita's flat.

Louise Jameson is magnificent as the mourning mother, with a subtlety of nuance and tone in her performance that sits alongside the raging howls of her unimaginable grief. Notwithstanding the tortuous convolutions that Anita is subject to through Ridley’s prurient projections, Jameson remains masterful throughout. Thomas Mahy’s Davey however, even this long into the role (the production has transferred from a run last year at the Park Theatre) is too stilted, too often.  Contrasted with Jameson's genius, Mahy is found to lack credibility and heft in delivering his complex and occasionally unpleasant character.

The circumstances of Vincent’s death were a brutal homophobic hate crime, with the show’s programme notes making  worthy reference to the prescience of Ridley's writing (the play premiered in 2000) amidst the "otherings" of today, and the violence of prejudice that exists across the world. Sadly however such hateful violence is nothing new to mankind, with history telling us that it has been here forever. Ridley’s tawdry words, at times offering little more than a virtual peep show into graphic descriptions of verbally violent torture porn, tell us nothing new.

Runs until 22nd June

Photo credit: Scott Rylander

Rumpy Pumpy! - Review

Union Theatre, London

***

Music, lyrics and book by Barbara Jane Mackie

Directed by Simon Grieff

Linda Nolan and Louise Jameson

The true story behind Rumpy Pumpy! is both noble and remarkable. Jean Johnson and Shirley Landers, two stalwart Hampshire grandmothers and pillars of the WI no less took it upon themselves to try and right the conditions of the county's sex workers. Their research saw them travel the world in a pursuit of dignity and safety for the women. Barbara Jane Mackie has taken their tale and transformed it into a musical, first seen last year and now making a brief re-appearance at London’s Union Theatre before a hoped-for national tour and possible movie treatment too.

Likened to "Calendar Girls meets London Road", Rumpy Pumpy! actually falls short of both. The performances may well be flawless throughout, led impressively by the trio of Louise Jameson and Tricia Deighton as Johnson and Landers respectively alongside Linda Nolan's Holly, a Portsmouth Madam - but that’s about it. Aside from occasional gems (act one's Red Bull and Cigarettes is particularly punchy), the songs lack depth. Likewise Mackie's book, for all its truthful bedrock, reverts too often to clumsy cliché. The baddy female cop, DC Hecks (a good effort from Basienka Blake) is more Keystone than the Javert / Frollo nemesis that Mackie may have had in mind and none of the writer's verses match the caustically poignant wit that Boublil and Schoenberg imbued in Lovely Ladies from Les Miserables or that Kander and Ebb were able to capture in their work. The evening's numerous numbers that are performed in fishnets and lingerie hint at a show that is more of a "Chicago Lite" than innovative new writing.

Paul Smith's solo hard work on the piano offered a fluid accompaniment and if Gregor Donnelly's costumes were a little unimaginative, at least the money spent on shoes wasn’t wasted - the heels on display were stunning! There may yet be an entertaining film to be made here - the locations themselves from Pompey's grime to New Zealand via Nevada are potentially mouthwatering. But this worthy homage to the working girl needs work.

Runs until 19th November

Photo credit:Scott Rylander

Gutted

Theatre Royal Stratford East

*****

Written & directed by Rikkie Beadle-Blair



Louise Jameson and Frankie FItzgerald

On entering the Theatre Royal Stratford East, you immediately notice that the plush curtains have been removed from the stage and in their place a mirrored wall, which like a safety curtain, rises as the play begins. Rikki Beadle-Blair who directs as well as writes has a clear message. Gutted will mirror parts of society and that however hard it may be, watching his play is to take a look at either ourselves, or at components of our communities alongside whom we live.



This is a strikingly innovative piece of drama. The four Prospect brothers, their mother Bridie and their relationships with their partners, are tracked from twenty-something years ago, to the present. The writing is gritty and very coarse. Eye-wateringly funny knob-gag humour, never once gratuitous nor out of context, sits side by side with deeply harrowing revelations of abuse. This is a story of damaged people trying to find their way in the world and more often than not making wrong decisions along their journeys.  Through Beadle-Blair's text, in which nearly every character with only few exceptions is damaged goods, we watch how over the course of lifetimes, decisions are made, that are often at best no more than shoddy compromises and at worst a series of blind-eyes being turned to horrendous acts of evil.

The performances are all flawless and several are outstanding. Louise Jameson is the widowed Bridie, a loving, supportive and feisty mother and grandmother. She is the rock of the Prospect clan albeit with a complex past and it is not until her spectacular, raw,  denouement scene towards the end of act two, that we understand how she has hardened herself to have survived a life of continued misery, mixed with a surprising combination of profound understanding of what has occurred around her and also encompassing a mind  boggling talent for denial. Rarely has one character earned in turn not only our sympathy but also our contempt.

Frankie Fitzgerald shines as middle son Mark Prospect, most notably when, acting as his younger self and as a child who has not been subjected to the sexual abuse that his siblings have endured, expresses his own low self-worth and inadequacies as to why he is not attractive to the abuser. Through snatches of such distressing dialog does Beadle-Blair reveal a world that is fatally flawed. Later in life when Mark learns that his own infant children are being abused, the horror of his comprehension combined with the manner in which he speaks to his terrified damaged kids, is deeply moving. The performance is all the more astonishing given that there are in fact no children up on stage and Fitzgerald is speaking to empty space. Sadly, his performance is so good that we can painfully conjure up the images of the youngsters in our minds eye.

James Farrar and Jennifer Daley

Jennifer Daley's Lucy Lockwood is another fascinating and ultimately morally bankrupt character. She is a young woman drawn to brother Matthew Prospect (played by James Farrar) and so in love with him that not only is she accepting of his damaged sexual history, she is prepared to support his warped cravings, offering to "breed lovers" for him. She portrays her character so un-sensationally that when we hear her make that hellish offer, one that so rails against the basic precepts of maternal love and protection for a child that rather than be shocked, we weep. Lucy is one of the most complex and profoundly selfish characters created for the stage in recent years

Beadle-Blair's writing is a requiem for Britain's victims of moral depravation, though he does sow some seeds for hope and redemption, via youth, in the final scenes. The Prospect family are a brood who have learned to satisfy their craving for love and respect via football, drugs, religious fundamentalism and abusive behaviour. Their sexualities are ambiguous, and any sexual respect for others that they might have had, was lost years ago. The play is uncomfortable, searching and also downright bloody brilliant. It deserves a transfer to a more central stage for a longer run. Soon.

Runs until May 25