Brigadoon - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Music by Frederick Loewe

Book & Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner

In a new adaptation by Rona Munro

Directed & choreographed by Drew McOnie

Chrissy Brooke as villager Maggie Anderson

Written in the 1940s, Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon is a love letter to Scotland. In Rona Munro’s new adaptation, Tommy (Louis Gaunt) and Jeff (Cavan Clarke) are the crew of a US Air Force bomber that has crashed into the Scottish hills on its return from a bombing run over Germany in the Second World War.

It’s a tale of enchantment, conceived and written by Alan Jay Lerner, that sees the American airmen stumble across the magical village of Brigadoon that only appears through the Highland mists once very 100 years. Munro has sought to give the narrative an edgy contemporary message, but thankfully her tweakings pale into insignificance when set against a show whose core imagery is as much of a Scottish cliché as a tin of Walker’s Shortbread or a dram of a fine Scotch whisky. Back in the day, the Broadway audiences must have found it charming!

But you know what? For all of Munro's meddling, this is still a delightfully whimsical fairytale. There’s a love story that emerges (no spoilers here) along with a gorgeous treatment of some of Lerner & Loewe’s lesser known smash hits. The Heather on the Hill and Almost Like Being In Love are perhaps the show’s most famous numbers - both handled fabulously at Regents Park by Gaunt and Georgina Onuorah as the Brigadoonian Fiona. It is Nic Myers as Meg however who steals the show with her sensational take on The Love of My Life in the first act and My Mother’s Wedding Day after the interval.

Some of the cast’s Scottish accents need some work, but credit to the producers for casting a fair few authentic Scots in the show, not least the always wonderful Norman Bowman who plays Brigadoon’s patriarchal figure Archie Beaton.

Drew McOnie directs and choreographs with an array of swirling Scottish routines that are a delight. Basia Bińkowska has fashioned an intriguing stage design that cleverly suggests Scotland’s hills and streams.

There's an impressive kickstart to the evening as with an impressive backing of drums, pipers David Colvin and Robin Mackenzie skirl through the audience, setting the scene and the tone for a magical night of theatre.

Runs until 20th September

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Shucked - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally

Book by Robert Horn

Directed by Jack O'Brien

The cast of Shucked

Deliberately corny and for all the right reasons, Shucked arrives in London bringing this gag-fest of a show to the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park.

The plot may be wafer-thin, but this is a show that doesn’t set out to be anything other than a homage to Broadway wrapped up in an old-fashioned sugary love story.

The delight in this show is not just its rapidfire gags and puns, but rather the outstanding cast and fabulous direction that Jack O’Brien can bring to a simple narrative, O’Brien being a proven master in distilling and extracting the entertainment from the everyday. He is helped by a gifted company that includes the vocal skills of Steven Webb, Monique Ashe-Palmer, Georgina Onuorah, Matthew Seadon-Young, Sophie McShera and Ben Joyce together with the comic talent of Keith Ramsay. Add in the cast's exquisite harmonies and Sarah O’Gleby’s immaculately delivered choreography and it all makes for a technically fabulous evening of new musical theatre.

The narrative sags a touch in the second half. Perhaps there's only so far that such a corny plotline can reach? Equally Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally's musical numbers rely too much on corn rather than Country, leaving them proving sometimes unsatisfying.

But bravo to the producers of Shucked for having the cojones to bring this show over from across the pond. It deserves a longer London run.

Runs until 14th June

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

***

Adam Dannheiser

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Much like the village of Anatevka itself, Jordan Fein’s production of Fiddler On The Roof is a microcosmic melting pot, not only of the marvellous but also of the mediocre. It gives a curious message that the show's producers have decided that its main publicity image promoting and celebrating the show, should be of Chava (played by Hannah Bristow), the one daughter of Tevye and Golde who deserts her Jewish heritage to marry outside the faith, rather than upholding 'tradition'. Notwithstanding this unusual bias, Fein’s interpretation has managed to retain the show’s cultural essence.

This is of course the first Fiddler On The Roof to play in London since the horrors of October 7 2023. The pogrom that befalls a community of dancing, celebrating Jews and which closes the first act, leaving Anatevka in flames, chills in its identical ideology of hatred that led to the massacre at Israel’s Nova Music Festival last year.

Hannah Bristow as Chava in the show's main publicity image

Fein makes gorgeous use of Raphael Papo as The Fiddler. His violinist serves as a musical interpretation of Tevye’s (Adam Dannheiser) Jewish conscience, and intriguingly is rarely offstage. This is a beautiful touch, for Jerry Bock’s melodies written for the Fiddler deserve the centre-stage attention given to them by Fein.

Dannheiser himself (last seen by this reviewer as an outstanding Lazar Wolf on Broadway) is an adequate Tevye. Vocally strong, but occasionally disconnected, particularly in his brief exchanges his God, that feel as though they are played more for laughs than for sincerity. Lara Pulver is Golde, in possibly the worst miscasting to have been seen in years. Pulver is one of the more gifted musical theatre performers of her generation but her Golde lacks a shtetl-based warmth. Clipped and reserved, she appears more Lucille Frank (her outstanding 2007 role of an Atlantan Jewish spouse subject to horrific antisemitism) rather than Tevye’s loyal wife of 25 years.  Vocally strong, but with barely any detectable acting through song, her Golde disappoints. Similarly Dan Wolff’s Motel fails to convince us of the sincerity of his love for Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel. The show however is in its early days and both of these flaws can yet be remedied by Fein.

Tom Scutt’s set is enchanting, a roofed canopy across much of the theatre’s stage, itself topped with fields of corn. It is a visual that works stunningly. Tevye’s Dream too is a comic delight that has been cleverly conceived. Upstage, Dan Turek’s 11-piece band are a delight. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s songs are timeless works of genius and for the most part, especially in the company numbers, are worth the price of the ticket.

Runs until 21st September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

La Cage Aux Folles - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman

Book by Harvey Fierstein

Based on the play by Jean Poiret

Directed by Timothy Sheader

Carl Mullaney

In a beautifully created revival, Jerry Herman’s La Cage Aux Folles played under a (thankfully) balmy summer’s evening at Regents Park.

Billy Carter plays Georges and Carl Mullaney, Albin, in the famed story of family, identity, sexuality and love. Harvey Fierstein’s book is given an intelligent treatment by Timothy Sheader in his swansong at the Open Air Theatre. The comedy is immaculately timed and the moments of powerful pathos, sensitively handled. As the evening’s twilight darkens across the stage, Colin Richmonds’ evocative set is brought into a gorgeous relief by Howard Hudson’s lighting plots. Equally, Ryan Dawson Laight’s costumery of both the dancers at the La Cage Aux Folles nightspot, and the surrounding characters is delightful.

The strengths of this show however lie in its outstanding performances. Carter and Mullaney are magnificent in their middle-aged, decades long romance, with the act one treats of Carter’s Song On The Sand and Mullaney’s I Am What I Am proving sensational. Both men imbue their numbers with sensitivity, in the case of Mullaney’s first-half closer, a perfectly weighted power too. As the (albeit implausible) plot plays out, there is an outstanding turn from Debbie Kurup as restaurateur Jacqueline.

Aside from the show’s magnificent vocal work, Stephen Mear again turns in a marvellously choreographed dance creation. The imaginative moves, perfectly drilled, are a joy to behold. Craig Armstrong was called upon on press night to cover the role of Edward Dindon and did so with finesse. Ben van Tienen conducts Herman’s score with verve, his 9-piece upstage band offering a musical treat to accompany the evening.

There is much to enjoy in La Cage Aux Folles, one of London’s most enchanting nights of musical theatre.

Runs until 23rd September

Photo credit: Mark Senior

 

Jesus Christ Superstar - Review

Open Air Theatre, London


*****

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Directed by Timothy Sheader

Tyrone Huntley and Declan Bennett

In what is unquestionably a Superstar for the 21st century Timothy Sheader's Jesus is no long haired prophet. In an electrifying performance that captures both Christ’s charisma and his flawed vulnerability, Declan Bennett's Messiah is a powerfully charged hipster. Played out against Tom Scutt's rusted-steel framed set (that interestingly evokes the Angel Of The North in its unpretentious simplicity) and with hand held mics throughout, this production places the emphasis as much upon Andrew Lloyd-Webber's rock-driven score, as it does upon its sensational cast.

Bennett brings an energy to the title role that is moving and credible. Vocally he is perfect and as act one sees a momentum gather, it is in the second half with his remarkable Gethsemane (opened beautifully by Bennett himself on acoustic guitar) that the actor soars. His performance is as harrowing to watch as it is probably exhausting to perform. We flinch at the Trial By Pilate / 39 Lashes and during his crucifixion, the extent to which Bennett subtly underplays his agony makes it all the tougher for the audience to watch - and all this alongside Scutt's ingenious interpretation of Calvary, itself a scenic triumph that must surely rank amongst the capital's finest this year.

Next to Bennett, Tyrone Huntley's Judas is sensational. His opening take on Heaven On Their Minds displays an intelligence and energy that has been carefully honed during his already impressive career. Gifted several stunning solos, he closes the first half with Blood Money and a neat theatrical take on the "pieces of silver" that won't be revealed here. Throughout, Huntley offers a clever interpretation of the complex dissolution of his friendship with Jesus. When the Oliviers are being handed out this year, both Bennett and Huntley deserve to be on the list.

There is imaginative excellence across the company. With both Everything's Alright and I Don't Know How To Love Him, Anouska Lucas's Mary is a thing of beauty, the actress highlighting not just Mary's damaged frailty, but also the inexplicably wondrous love that she feels towards Jesus. David Thaxton's Pilate is another treat and as he sings Pilate's Dream, leading on electric guitar, the background acoustic work of Bennett and Joel Harper-Jackson (who plays Simon Zealotes) offers another layer to the song's troubling spirituality. Peter Caulfield's Herod, truly as camp as Christmas, is a blast, (and wonderfully costumed too), whilst Cavin Cornwall's imposing Caiaphas offers a baritone that has to be heard to be believed.

Shearer has surrounded himself with a top-notch creative team. Under Tom Deering's direction Lloyd Webber's score thrills, with the show evolving into a celebration of the guitar in the modern musical, as much as a biblical interpretation. Drew McOnie's choreography makes fine use of the ensemble and the multi-level space with his movement evoking not just a seething biblical crowd but also the febrile tensions of the times. 

Lee Curran's lighting adds dimension too. The rock-concert style of the evening piece lends itself to smoke - and as the park’s daylight finally succumbs to night over the crucifixion, so to like Longinus' spear, do Curran's shafts of light pierce the darkness.

This is beautiful brilliant theatre. Don't miss it.

Runs until 27th August

Photo credit Johan Perssonn

The Gershwins' Porgy And Bess - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

****

By George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin
Book Adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks 
Musical Score Adapted by Diedre L. Murray
Directed by Timothy Sheader

Nicola Hughes and Rufus Bonds Jr on opening night

The amphitheatre at Regents Park is dominated by a massive backdrop of beautifully buckled burnished copper. As the sun goes down and passions rise in Timothy Sheader’s inspired take on this North Carolina fable, the design reflects the light. lending its metallic nuances to the palette. Gold becomes red, becoming moonlit pale or a terrifying stormy blue. Katrina Lindsay’s stage design is breathtaking before the band have even struck up.

Sheader sets out a bold stall in the Overture. In a solo routine Bess emerges, clad only in a slip and in a lithe sensuous dance, slides into a sizzling red dress slit to the hips. Truly one of London’s Leading Ladies, Nicola Hughes owns the stage in a performance that defines her character’s complex combination of iressistible sexual magnetism with profound vulnerability.

If Hughes represents the best of British, then she is well matched against the trio of trans-atlantic talent, flown in under the UK-USA Equity deal, whose characters vie for Bess’ attentions. Cedric Neal reprises the coke peddling Sporting Life from his Broadway performance two years ago. His elegant peacocked flamboyance defining the fatally attractive evil of the drugs he supplies. In a show crammed with The American Songbook greats, Neal’s act two opener, It Ain’t Necesssarily So takes this most familiar of numbers and makes it sizzle with a thrilling interpretation. Phillip Boykin, also over from the States, nails the muscular menace of Crown. A man as large as his booming baritone, Boykin imbues Crown with the purest of dark violence. Rufus Bonds Jr completes the set of imports, starring as Porgy. Bond gives a pathos and a power to the role that makes our hearts bleed for his crippled character. His voice and presence is inspirational, defining goodness as he craves a shaft of Bess’ love to light his crippled world. Against three such stunning performers, Hughes more than rises to the challenge. “Frailty, thy name is Bess” could define her character, desperate to be a good woman, but unable to sustain a loving commitment or resist her addictions.

The company work is flawless. Sharon D Clarke’s Mariah is a performance of wisdom and presence. Golda Rosheuvel’s Serena is a role of subtle humility, yet when this actress mourns her husband with My Man’s Gone Now, her voice as if from nowhere, fills the open-air space, tingling spines. A nod too to Jade Ewen’s Clara, the diminutive Sugababe who masters the show’s signature Summertime, with a perfectly weighted poise.

Amidst such a classy company, the use of ramshackle tables and chairs as improvised scene-setters is a distraction. Excellent performers demand an excellence in staging and the frequent shifting of tacky furniture suggests low-budget fringe rather than a production that frames world-class talent. It also remains a disappointment that a show, so steeped in the troubled, racist, tenement history of America’s South plays to a London audience that is overwhelmingly white. It deserves packed houses that reflect a broader cross-section of the capital’s melting pot.

David Shrubsole coaxes a jazz-infused delight from his lavishly furnished 15-piece band and with few finer companies in town, The Open Air Theatre’s Porgy And Bess is unmissably incisive and thrillingly provocative.

Runs until 23rd August 2014 

All My Sons

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Timothy Sheader

Tom Mannion and Brid Brennan

Challenging perceptions of right and wrong and forcing us to question personal choices, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, his 20th century scorching classic on lies, deceit and integrity, is given a powerful revival by Timothy Sheader at the Open Air Theatre. The Regents Park setting suits the play, with Lizzie Clachan's simple set of a square lawn underpinned by long mangled roots being dominated by a huge Norman Rockwell image of a ‘perfect’ 1940’s post-war smiling family. The irony is profound.

Tensions rise as we encounter the Keller family, seemingly close and still grappling with the loss of son Larry some three years after his death. Surviving son Chris sensitively portrayed by Charles Aitken wants to move on with his life but is thwarted by a mother who refuses to accept that Larry is dead and by his father Joe who doesn’t want to rock the boat. Chris seeks inspiration and something beautiful to come home to, whilst Joe (a finely tuned performance from Tom Mannion) just wants something tangible to pass on that will have marked his existance. But soaring around this family are guilty secrets and a history of hideous compromises. With a nod to Greek tragedy and a grim inevitability, Miller skilfully weaves the threads that will lead to Joe Keller’s destruction. This is a harrowing production of a devastating play.

Brid Brennan’s powerful, intense matriarch Kate, grief stricken and in deep denial, tries to hold her family together as the overhead roar of Heathrow bound jet planes adds an unexpected layer of poignant pain to the events on stage. Powerful work too from Amy Nuttall as girlfriend Ann, harbouring her own devastating secret and also from Andy McKeane as her brother George.

Nick Powell’s atmospheric music is ominous throughout, complementing Sheader’s interpretation, with the evening proving to be coruscating theatre.  Effective productions of Miller should never be easy to watch and this production is as harrowing as it is brilliant.

Runs until 7th June 2014

The Sound Of Music

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Charlotte Wakefield is Maria Rainer

How do you solve a problem like The Sound Of Music, this season’s highlight from the Open Air Theatre? It may be one of the most famous musicals written, containing countless memorable songs that have been hard-wired into our collective psyche, yet its underlying structure remains shallow and ridiculous. A story that sugar-coats enormous issues and trivialises them, glossing over stifled and stilted parenting and an abused and damaged childhood, whilst the ever menacing loom of the Anschluss suggests that the Third Reich is more of a fairy tale baddy that can be easily hoodwinked, rather than a regime that was to prove to be the century's most infernal monstrosity. The story is clichéd, flawed and quite how it achieved epic status would confound today’s book-writers. Nonetheless, The Sound Of Music is a global behemoth and one whose staging always presents the challenge of how to make such a well loved and familiar classic appear fresh and new.

Without question Rachel Kavanaugh, together with her cast and creatives rise to that challenge. Charlotte Wakefield is a Maria who in act one beautifully meets the demands of the solos and duets of some of the world’s most well-known songs. Wakefield convinces us as the delightfully dotty nun, struggling with her emerging emotions of love and desire for Captain Von Trapp. Shame though on Rodgers and Hammerstein for simply dismissing the damage of her “wicked childhood and miserable youth” with such casual lyrical disdain in Something Good.

Michael Xavier a stalwart of the musical stage, is miscast as the dignified and stoic albeit struggling Von Trapp. We learn that his Captain had been awarded military honours in “the war” which would have seen him so decorated at least twenty years before this story takes place and suggesting that he is a man at least in his mid-40’s. Notwithstanding that Xavier is a consummate actor, he lacks the gravitas and presence to effectively portray the uber-potent but nonetheless almost middle-aged, naval commander.

Fans of Stuart Matthew Price, prepare yourselves for a disappointment. A vocal legend of his generation, he is cast with not one note to sing. Price’s butler Franz displays a definite leaning in style towards The Rocky Horror Show’s Riff-Raff and whilst he is magnificently clipped and elegant in his ultimately traitorous role, this actor's immense musical theatre talents are woefully squandered.

Michael Matus as flamboyant promoter Max Detweiler is his usual irrepressibly excellent self. Matus exudes brash bonhomie just by being on stage, with a glorious voice that matches his striking character. Credit too to Caroline Keiff whose Elsa Schraeder is an elegant and well crafted depiction of understated nastiness. 

Michael Matus and Caroline Keiff

The show’s set design is clever, simply switching between the Von Trapp mansion and the convent and the skills of Tim Mitchell and Nick Lidster in light and sound respectively, ensure that the entire show can be clearly seen and heard throughout the Regents Park amphitheatre.

Kavanaugh aquits herself well with such a well known work. If you are unfamiliar with the tale, then consider seeing the show, if only to observe some of the very best aspects of London’s world-class theatre industry. If though, like most people, you love the work then definitely take that stroll to the park. You will be uplifted and exhilarated by the quality of the production.

Runs until 7 September