Tommy - Review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London


*****

Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend

Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff

Additional music and lyrics by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon

Directed by Kerry Michael

Ramps On The Moon’s production of Tommy, directed by Kerry Michael, is a truly wonderful production. As the rock opera created by The Who is famously about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid”, so does this work build upon a cast, at least half of whom triumph in their performance over a range of disabilities.

The story telling is clear and alongside Michael’s deft and moving direction, Mark Smith (himself deaf and who choreographed a stunning Tommy two years ago at Greenwich) again does wonders with his dancework, offering yet even more truth and honesty to the complex moralities of the tale.

The casting is ingenious. Peter Straker’s Acid Queen is astonishing vocally, with a stage presence alone that exudes power and is worth the price of admission! Pete Townshend has even written him a new song in Act 2, that rounds off his character perfectly - and remember: when Tommy first played in the West End in 1979, Straker was the show's Narrator. 

Shekinah McFarlane’s take on Mother is out of this world - this talented performer has a voice that firmly places her in the diva category as she remains one to watch. 

In the title role, Tommy is played beautifully and emotionally by newcomer William Glint. When he sees his father for the first time and shouts out ‘Daddy’, spines tingle. Max Runham sings powerfully as Captain Walker and his scenes with Glint are very touching. Garry Robson is a suitably gruesome Uncle Ernie.

The whole ensemble play, sing and dance many roles throughout the show, with a mention too to Robert Hyman’s sensational band, who break out into character parts as well as playing their instruments.

This Tommy is a magnificent production that serves to highlight the scarcity of disabled people on stage generally and it is a shame that it takes a ground-breaking production like this to point that out. Hopefully more theatre companies will be inspired by this example.

Reviewed by Trevor Davies

Touring until 1st July

Muted - Review

The Bunker, London

***

Music and Lyrics by Tim Prottey-Jones and Tori Allen-Martin

Book by Sarah Henley

Directed by Jamie Jackson

Tori Allen-Martin

It’s a brave ask that has any composers title their show Muted - a name that by its very nature suppresses aural beauty. In this new musical that has been a long time in development, we meet Michael a former rock singer, who has been left mute following the traumatic death of his mother. Lauren is his childhood sweetheart with a secret and the show seeks to explore the unlocking of Michael from his emotional devastation.

David Leopold plays the Michael of today, mute but expressive throughout while Edd Campbell Bird is the Teenage (and sweetly voiced) Michael, with both men convincing in challenging roles.

Tori Allen-Martin, who to her credit both co-writes and co-produces the show, is Lauren singing with a vocal magnificence that brings a rich texture to her character's pain. Likewise, Helen Hobson's Amanda, Michael's mum, is another excellent turn reminding us of Hobson's remarkable body of work.

The imagination behind the story is impressive and with a striking denouement too, but as an evening's entertainment, there's something missing. Back in the 1970s The Who visited a similar scenario of a boy profoundly damaged by trauma in their rock opera Tommy. That show's songs however were massive and more than filled the storyline's ambitious canvas. While Muted's onstage emotions are clearly huge, its songs fail to swoop and soar, leaving one witnessing what seems more like the staged version of a ballad-heavy concept album rather than a full blown musical. For reasons not clearly explained, Sarah Beaton has designed the whole affair around a sunken paddling pool. Whilst this no doubt has thematic intentions of deep significance, ultimately the shallow waters prove a distraction. Good actors should be able to show their emotions through voice and body, rather than petulant splashing. 

It is early days for the show and some of the sound needs balancing - likewise the lighting is at times too introspective, reducing the cast to barely visible silhouettes. Musically though Adam Gerber's band put in a fine shift throughout, including some gorgeous guitar work from Gus Isidore.

New writing is to be encouraged and for that, bravo to the trio of writers. But as a fully fleshed out musical, Muted has yet to find its voice.

Runs until 7th January 2017

Photo credit: Savannah Photographic

Piss off, you miserable bastard! - My visit to Dismaland

*****

Those words in the title above were the parting shot from the sales assistant as I exited through Dismaland's gift shop, having dutifully paused to pick up catalogue and t-shirt. Whilst her valedictory message was (I hope) insincere (though I fear those who know me well may say the cap fits perfectly), it summed up the spirit of the faux-misery that Banksy’s Bemusement Park strives to achieve.

Outside in the real world shop assistants, waiters, nurses, teachers, indeed anyone who routinely provides a service - heavens, that may even include accountants - will nearly always affix a smile and a pleasantry when serving a client/customer/patient – and very often the smile is sincere. But we all also know so well those occasions when our smiles are glued on and we ease our way through false pleasantries, simply because it is simply an expected common courtesy.

In Dismaland, whilst the jackanapes’ insults may be insincere (cf my above fears of course!), they are no less glib than the grinning staff member who assists you at Thorpe Park or Disneyworld, maybe at 4pm in the afternoon at the end of a long shift, when he/she doesn’t really want to help you with your baby buggy and trailing brats and just wants to go home exhausted.

But he/she glues on the smile regardless, possibly, silently, cursing you. And that is one of the aspects of what Dismaland is all about. Stripping away the hypocrisy of day to day niceties, to reveal an uglier, but not entirely unfamiliar, verite. 

Many of Dismaland’s (un-?)attractions have already been well documented in the national press. I was rather taken by the sideshow inviting one to roll-up, roll-up and attempt to topple a cast-iron anvil from its pedestal....by hurling a ping-pong ball at it. It’s a ridiculous premise – but at least it’s honestly and overtly ridiculous. The contrast of course is with sideshow attractions at real funfairs that mug off their punters who gamely believe they have some fair chance of winning that ridiculously sized cuddly toy – when of course it’s 1 in 100 or some such loaded odds. The barkers smile and flirt with you, grinning to themselves as they take your cash. At Dismaland the attendants’ style is more grim than grin, but at least what you see is what you get…

Much of Dismaland shocks. The centrepiece castle, an imitation of Disneyland’s very own imitation castle is weathered and dilapidated. After queuing to enter, the scene is one of Cinderella’s toppled pumpkin carriage, crashed and upended, with the shattered body of a Disney-esque Cinderella, all ball gown, flowing blonde locks and very much cartoon features, lying flung through a carriage window. It’s shocking, but what disturbs even more is that in the pitch black, the crash scene is surrounded by mannequins of real life paparazzi, whose flash guns, strobe-like, illuminate the horror. It’s a short hop of the imagination to Paris’ Pont de l’Alma some 18 years ago – and it is the ghoulish photographers, juxtaposed on to a cartoon scene of fictional fairytale tragedy, that makes Banksy’s work so effective.

Elsewhere the illusive artist has re-ignited the Tropicana’s mini-motorboat attraction (you know the type – coin in the slot and radio-control a miniature boat on a pond) – but Banksy’s boats are packed with models of desperate Med-crossing migrants, with the Action Man sized bodies of migrant corpses bobbing face down in the water as the boats sail over them. It makes for another troubling tableau – and with several tiny children happily steering their craft (one of the boats is a military gunboat) there was much laughter around the pond. 

Some of the adults watching (and talking about) the exhibit clearly had an evident compassion for the refugees’ plight that the boats highlight, but for all of Banksy’s noble intentions, is this exhibit leading people to laugh at, rather than care about, the migrants?

It’s a moot point and one must suspect that there will be many children (and possibly many ignorant or uncaring parents) who may not grasp the real sea-borne tragedies occurring daily. 

Has Banksy set these victims up to be laughed at? Discuss.

Even if he has, he's only been following a fine seaside tradition. The misogynist Mr Punch has, for generations, been a source of beachside hilarity and kiddie entertainment has he lays into the hapless Judy with a big stick.

Banksy updates the macabre classic, inviting Julie Burchill to script this 2015 glimpse into domestic abuse. Oh my, how the kids who sat in front of the Punch and Judy booth laughed as today’s Punch, whose banter had already referenced the monstrous Jimmy Savile, beat his wife, telling the children “you know she likes it really”.

Much has been made of the unique nature of Dismaland, but I had a niggling sense of deja-vu, that back on the train to Bristol, I nailed! In their rock opera Tommy, The Who have Uncle Ernie open up the dystopian Tommy's Holiday Camp. Dismaland is Banksy's version.

As the artist was quoted in yesterday’s Sunday Times “It’s interesting that Dismaland gets described as ‘twisted’ — I’ve never called it that. Somehow building a family attraction that doesn’t ignore injustice, casual cruelty and mortality means your attraction is deemed twisted. I think it should be the other way round.”

Banksy is laughing at us all – but thankfully he’s only charging a fiver for the humiliation. When one fails to topple his anvil there’s a consolation prize instead. It's a wristband with the slogan: Meaningless Rubber Bracelet – which in fact, one week on, has served as a pertinent reminder of the day.

Dismaland bemuses, amuses and hopefully also disturbs. If it doesn’t, there truly is no hope for society.

Dismaland is open at The Tropicana, Weston Super Mare until the end of September. Tickets are released weekly, online at www.dismaland.co.uk
Note: All tickets up until 7th September are sold out.

Tickets for 8th – 15th September will go on sale at 10am on Wednesday 2nd of September.

Tommy - Review

Greenwich Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend

Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff

Additional music and lyrics by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon

Directed by Michael Strassen

Ashley Birchall

Amidst the present day plethora of so called "juke box" musicals, in which bands' and singers' back catalogues are ruthlessly plundered to provide musical highlights for a show that is either autobiographical or worse still, downright anodyne in its narrative, it is an absolute joy for London to be re-united with Tommy.

Released in 1969, The Who's brave and stunning concept album was the first (and arguably the best ever) rock opera, telling an original tale of a young boy turned deaf, dumb and blind after witnessing his RAF pilot father, until then missing presumed shot down in a Second World War dogfight, return home unexpectedly after the War and shoot dead his wife's (Tommy's mother) new lover.

Trapped in a life of sensory deprivation, evil and abusive family members heap merciless bullying and sexual abuse onto Tommy's torments until, by chance, he discovers a gift for pinball - and a road to his salvation emerges. Painting a gritty if sometimes psychedelic picture of a post-war Britain struggling to define itself through rock music, Tommy is not only a fabulous work of fiction – it also makes for fascinating social comment.  

I must declare an interest. Having grown up with Tommy as one of my soundtracks to the 1970s, along with hard-wired memories of Ken Russell’s 1975 film adaptation, my expectations (riskily) ran high for Michael Strassen's production at the Greenwich Theatre. Those expectations were not only met, but like Tommy's mirror they were smashed, in a show that offered an all too rare trinity of perfection in song, movement and music.

Credit first to the band. Under Kevin Oliver Jones' direction and guitar work, Lauren Storer on keyboards, bassist Paolo Minervini, with Kamil Bartnik on drums create a sound that offers a beautifully weighted tribute to the original mix, with a rock pulse that could have come straight from a time machine. One minor criticism is that the show’s sound desk still need to get the balance finely tuned.

The Overture’s opening bars set the standard for the rest of the evening. As Jones' band work their way through the score's iconic motifs, Mark Smith's choreography plays out the prologue's complex narrative solely through dance and mime. Smith’s routines are expert in both conception and execution and combined with Strassen's interpretation of the libretto, give rise to tableaux that are breathtaking in their ingenuity, simplicity and brilliance.

In the title role Ashley Birchall leads the company, onstage throughout, with a performance fused with energy and sensitivity. Birchall’s energy in I’m Free complementing the heart rending sensitivity he offers in See Me, Feel Me.  In a role that by definition demands an extensive use of mime and physicality Smith and Strassen had between them coaxed excellence from the young man. Miranda Wilford delivers her usual level of brilliance as Mrs Walker (Tommy’s mother) having to age, both physically and in attitude, from carefree young teenager to a middle aged matriarch, her Smash The Mirror an impressive solo.

Giovanni Spano is every inch a school bully as his Cousin Kevin tortures Tommy, though even his wickedness is trumped by John Barr, whose sensational take on the vile paedophile, Tommy’s Uncle Ernie offers perhaps one of the nastiest characters in the canon. If the lyrics to Fiddle About are shocking, they were matched only by the ghastly yet skilfully undertstated performance of Barr’s toothless menacing molester. Barr’s monstrous creation is enhanced later in act one by Smith’s choreography of Eyesight To The Blind, with both Ernie and Kevin in a Fosse-inspired routine – tatty trilbys replacing the legendary choreographer’s signature bowler hats.

Confined by a modest budget, Nik Corrall’s vision of the show’s sets is masterful. A clever use of rope suggested a domestic living room – whilst the brilliance of the pinball sequence will not be given away in this review.

Only here for three weeks, Tommy is unmissable and up there with the very best of musical theatre on offer in London today. See it, hear it!


Runs until 23rd August
Photo credit: Claire Bilyard