The Producers - Review

Garrick Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Mel Brooks
Book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan

Directed by Patrick Marber

Richard Kind and the company of The Producers

It seems almost impossible to believe that The Producers came out as a film in 1967, nearly 60 years ago. It remains a comedic masterpiece written by surely one of the greatest comics of all time, the legendary Mel Brooks, himself now a sprightly 99 years old. To many, turning the film into a stage musical was akin to drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Why attempt to improve perfection? In 2001 they achieved the impossible, turning a brilliant film into an equally brilliant and hilarious musical.

The plot is simple. It seems that there is more money to be made in producing a guaranteed failure on Broadway than a hit show, so Bialystock and his naïve accountant partner Leopold Bloom, set out to create a guaranteed disaster and pocket $2 million. 

After a highly successful run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the show transferred to London's Garrick Theatre. Andy Nyman, who opened at the Menier as Bialystock is taking a brief sabbatical and has handed his cardboard belt to Broadway actor Richard Kind. Kind's on-stage energy levels are never dialled to less than eleven, and he has the comedic ability to earn a round of applause with just a look or a simple, subtle gesture. He inhabits the role as if it were a tailor-made suit and eeks out every single molecule of the crooked producer. He’s as crooked as a politician, but the audience loves and roots for him.

Elsewhere, this tried, tested and fabulous company continue. Marc Antolin plays the neurotic, shy accountant, Leopold Bloom, drawn into Max’s nefarious, fraudulent scheme. Antolin can sing and dance superbly, having everything one needs to be a musical star and shining in every scene. 

The rest of the cast are equally superb, wringing every last ounce of comedy gold from the simplest, even throw-away lines, turning already inspired characters into even better, funnier versions. Australian Trevor Ashley is hilarious as the hopeless director Roger Debris, and is clearly loving every on-stage moment, as is his ‘assistant’ Carmen Ghia played by Raj Ghatak. The duo bring a new dimension to camp and the result is a gem. Harry Morrison as the deranged playwright  Franz Liebkind, eats the scenery whenever he’s on stage - the laughter he induces is painful! Special mention to the pigeons scene – a terrific touch. 

The always reliable Joanna Woodward plays Ulla, the barely intelligible ‘Swedish secretary’ hired by Max and Leo, and her Monroe-esque presence illuminates the stage as does her comedy timing. 

What is communicated so clearly to the packed audience is that every member of the entire ensemble is having a blast, seemingly enjoying their roles as much we are enjoying watching them. Is this a show for the easily offended? No. But that's the point. A musical entitled "Springtime for Hitler" was shocking in 1967. Now the swinging sixties have evolved into the grim, divided, angry 2020s and in many ways, the show's message is stronger and more relevant than ever.

The Producers is an outrageously offensive, camp, rude, and irreverent musical from which no one is safe from being the butt of a joke. I loved every moment of it. One word sums it up, a word we hear less and less these days – fun. Enjoy it while it’s still legal.

Reviewed by Russ Kane

Booking to 19th September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Teeth 'n' Smiles - Review

Duke of York's Theatre, London

*****

Written by David Hare

Directed by Daniel Raggett

Phil Daniels

First seen in London some 50 years ago, David Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles is a deliciously delivered slice of British history, telling of a failing rock band hired to play three sets at the May Ball of Jesus College, Cambridge. The play, set on and around the band's Cambridge stage, charts the devastating evening of the ball.

 

Famed for his political dramas Hare, the toast of Britain's champagne socialists was clearly cutting his own teeth when he penned this script. There's a very modest undercurrent of a 'rich v poor' theme and some tepid anti-war narrative after the interval, but not much more. For the most part however, this is an acute narrative of an eclectic bunch of individuals, where Hare's fangs fire rapid repartee and sharp social commentary.

 

The band’s singer Maggie, played by Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem) is a woman whose decline is in a drug-fuelled free-fall. Delivering songs written by Nick Bicat and Tony Bicat, hers is a picture of human devastation, immaculately sung and powerfully portrayed. That Helen Mirren created the role in 1975 speaks to its potential - Taylor redefines it as her own.

 

An inspired casting choice sees Phil Daniels play Saraffian the band’s manager. A man with no heart (although late in the play we learn how he came to be so dehumanised), Daniels is majestic in his monstrosity. With camel coat and thick spectacles there is no room for sentiment or empathy in his life. If it’s got any value, Saraffian steals it, trampling on the weak as he does so. Such is his cynical understanding of reality, we learn that he had cancelled the band’s upcoming gigs long before their catastrophic Cambridge booking. A fusion of Arthur Daley and Iago, Phil Daniel’s Saraffian is one of the finest performances in town

 

Elsewhere Michael Fox puts in a thought-provoking turn as Arthur, the band’s complicated songwriter, emotionally entangled with Maggie and himself a Jesus College alumnus. Roman Asde as posh-boy undergraduate Anson offers a neat contrast between the college’s rigorous history and the (brilliantly played) anarchy of the band as he struggles to discover his own identity.

The other band members and roadies are (mainly) fellas, out to play their tunes and shag their way around the country. With an air of prescience, Hare manages both to capture the UK's music scene that was to evolve into punk, as well as quite possibly lay down the foundations for the TV series The Young Ones that was to follow seven years later.

The music is loud and the performances sparkling. Teeth ‘n’ Smiles is theatre with bite.

Runs until 6th June

Photo credit: Helen Murray

Henry V - Review

 Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Tamara Harvey

Alfred Enoch

Alfred Enoch delivers an attractive, forceful and youthful performance as Henry V. In a production that at times is elsewhere workmanlike in its spoken prose, Enoch grasps some of the most iconic speeches in the canon, delivering them with an understated passion and a profound understanding. His is a youthful king, a wise and focussed leader who in the ugliness of war, can both inspire his troops and also make bold and tough decisions.

Enoch commands the stage with his presence, offering up a truly enjoyable snapshot of this most celebrated of warrior kings. One cannot help but reflect that as head of state some 600 years ago, his almost Churchillian stance offers up a bold contrast with the vapid leadership that England suffers today.

Tamara Harvey may coax beauty from Enoch in his Henry, but elsewhere the company work suggests that the RSC’s Co-Artistic Director needs to focus more on the individual than on the broader ensemble. Save for the wry comedy of Paul Hunter’s Pistol and the quality contributions from Jamie Ballard as both a soldier and the King of France, the rest of the cast fail to stand out.

Lucy Osborne’s set, largely a massive scaffold on a revolve does well to double as the walls of the besieged city of Harfleur but otherwise provides a questionable contribution to the story. Ryan Day’s lighting however is magnificent, beautifully depicting the night leading into dawn that builds towards Henry’s St Crispin’s Day speech and adding a rich texture to Enoch’s beautifully delivered verse.

A large squad of supernumeraries add a human heft to the fighting and while Harvey’s decisions regarding the battle scenes may be a little bit fanciful, her Henry V makes for an entertaining take on this most celebrated of Shakespeare’s histories.

Runs until 25th April

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Glorious! - Review

Theatre Royal, Windsor

****

Written by Peter Quilter

Directed by Kirk Jameson

Wendi Peters

Some 20 years after it premiered, Peter Quilter’s Glorious has been revived by Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre and is now on tour. Quilter tells us of Florence Foster Jenkins, an American singer who in 1944 and at the age of 76, gave her first (and what was to be her last) concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. What made Jenkins so distinctive a performer was that she lacked virtually any singing talent whatsoever. And while she may possibly have been well aware of her vocal deficiencies, Jenkins possessed a grit and energy that drove her onwards, either oblivious to, or in defiance of, the cynical naysayers who surrounded her – and presented the most remarkable display of courage and spirit.

Wendi Peters is Florence, in a performance that suggests the very best of Hyacinth Bucket and Norma Desmond as she acts with depth and sensitivity. Incredibly well rehearsed, Peters (herself a gifted singer ) has learned to sing ‘badly’, capturing the gauche naivete of her character while at the same time making her believable and incredibly credible. Such is Peters’s take on the Habanera from Carmen that she imbued the awfulness of Jenkins’s vocal screech with a heart-rending perceptive pathos. Not only that, but the evening’s humour, which by the nature of the story needs to played out in quite a deadpan style, is equally mastered by Peters.

Opposite Peters is Matthew James Morrison as Cosmé McMoon her pianist. The genius of Quilter’s storytelling is to bring out the touching and authentic poignancy of the relationship that evolves between the pair, displaying a mutual fondness that transcends the differences both in their ages and backgrounds.

Sioned Jones and Caroline Gruber complete the cast, playing a handful of supporting roles, but this rather delightful story, gently told and charmingly performed, belongs to Wendi Peters. She really is glorious!

Runs until 21st March, then on tour

Yentl - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

****

Based on the original short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Co-written by Gary Abrahams, Elise Esther Hearst & Galit Klas

Directed by Gary Abrahams

Evelyn Krape above Amy Hack 

Drawn from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s famous short story, Yentl tells of a Jewish girl from a shtetl in the Pale of Settlement whose dream is to study Judaism’s holy scriptures in the yeshiva. But with the strictures of her faith excluding women from places of study, it is through Singer’s wonderful imagination that Yentl assumes the identity of a young man, changes her name to Anshel and starts her unique journey.

Life of course bowls its challenges and as Yentl’s narrative unfolds and the course of true love emerges, the complexities of her deceits and desires lead to the most unconventional and uncomfortable ménage a trois. This is a story of a world of orthodox tradition being upended by the most unorthodox of behaviours, played out with a sensitive finesse. What makes Yentl even more distinctive is that the evening’s dialogue seamlessly segues between English and (surtitled) Yiddish, imbuing the story with a rich authenticity.

This production is devised by the Kadimah Yiddish Theatre of Australia under the leadership of the show’s director Gary Abrahams and the company’s artistic director Evelyn Krape and first played in Melbourne four years ago. It speaks much for the cast's belief in this play that three of its quartet of players are from Australia and have journeyed across the globe to bring the show to London.

Amy Hack assumes the title role in a performance that is as delicate as it is powerful. Hack convinces us of Yentl’s passion and her pain.

It is Evelyn Krape herself who lends the most flavoursome sprinkling of Yiddishkeit to the proceedings. Her character is The Figure, a ghostly fusion, if you will, of Greek chorus and the Emcee from Cabaret, who both comments on the story’s calamitous turn of events, as well as at times portraying Yentl’s conscience. Onstage for most of the play, Krape is magnificent in a portrayal that captures the compassion, pathos and above all the self-deprecating satire of Yiddish theatre. Look at Krape to get a glimpse of the dramatic forces that were to inspire the likes of Mel Brooks and Larry David.  

Ashley Margolis and Genevieve Kingsford, respectively play Avigdor and Hodes, the two “innocents” who fall into Yentl’s web of deception. They too give very strong performances that are both believable and credible as we follow their personal experiences of discovery and revelation. 

This is not a show for traditionalists, who may find both the narrative and the moments of occasional nudity troubling. But for those who seek an alternative interpretation of a slice of Jewish literary history, together with the most fabulous tribute to the art of Yiddish theatre, then Yentl is unmissable.

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

The Holy Rosenbergs - Review

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

**

Written by Ryan Craig

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Tracy-Ann Oberman and Dorothea Myer-Bennett

Set in north west London’s Edgware, Ryan Craig’s The Holy Rosenbergs was a muddled collection of Anglo-Jewish stereotypes when it premiered at the National Theatre back in 2011. Fast forward 15 years, and it transpires that time has not treated Craig’s playtext kindly.

David and Lesley Rosenberg had three children. Ruth is a human-rights lawyer working for the United Nations, Jonny is struggling to find his way in life and Danny, who had emigrated to Israel, has recently been killed in action serving as a helicopter pilot with the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. The play takes place on the eve of Danny’s memorial service at the local synagogue.

Against this backdrop of conflicting views and profound loss, Craig weaves a narrative that lurches from the sensational to the implausible in a two-act play that is at best, problematic. Ruth, and equally improbably, her boss Sir Stephen Crossley (played by Adrian Lukis) who appears half way through the second act, lays out the charges against Israel’s allegedly criminal military conduct, while offering scant criticism of Hamas’s corrupted governance of Gaza and minimal objective comment upon its terrorist activities. It has sadly taken the horrors of October 7th 2023 and that day's ensuing revelations, including the intimate connections that have been found to exist between agencies of the UN and Hamas, to realise the naïveté, or perhaps more accurately, the useful idiocy, of Craig’s argument.

Done well, Jewish self-deprecation can provide moments of masterful drama as demonstrated by the likes of 20th century greats such as Sheldon Harnick and Jack Rosenthal. Craig aspires to be an (Arthur) Miller Lite, offering us clumsily constructed nods to the American's Willy Loman and Joe Keller in the character of David Rosenberg. His writing however doesn’t come close to matching Miller's genius.

So the work may be profoundly flawed, but what of Lindsay Posner’s production values? Tracy-Ann Oberman as Lesley and Dorothea Myer-Bennett's Ruth are both magnificent. Oberman in particular, capturing the complex emotions of a mother struggling to maintain her equilibrium while simultaneously dealing with unimaginably traumatic grief. Her take on the role is credible and carefully crafted. Equally, Myer-Bennett in a part that is hard to be seen as believable, makes a first-class job of some mediocre writing.

As for the men, Adrian Lukis's human rights lawyer offers up the best work of the night. As David, Nicholas Woodeson struggles to suspend our disbelief, and though his final scenes in the play are delivered with a sincere poignancy, it is too little, too late.

Tim Shortall’s set may be authentic Edgware, but lest there be any doubt about this production’s bias, as the audience take their seats in the Menier an audio mise-en-scene plays clips of Gordon Brown’s and Barack Obama’s criticisms of Israel’s military.

Notwithstanding some outstanding work from the women, The Holy Rosenbergs does not stand up to the scrutiny of being revived and should have been allowed to rest in peace.

Runs until 2nd May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Marie & Rosetta - Revew

SohoPlace, London

*****

Written by George Brant

Directed by Monique Touko

Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu

Journeying from Chichester and Kingston through 2025, Marie & Rosetta at last receives the West End opening it deserves. And like a smooth bourbon, this show has matured beautifully on the road, its double act of Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu delivering one of the finest pieces of theatre to be found on a London stage.

Knight plays Sister Rosetta Tharpe, born in Arkansas in 1915 to cotton-picker parents, and who rose to become ‘The Godmother of Rock and Roll’. A gifted guitar player and even more blessed singer, Rosetta was to influence the greats including Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis.

Ndlovu is Marie Knight, an equally gifted pianist singer with a heritage of a gospel, who for three years in the 1940s was to tour with Rosetta.

That’s the background - the genius of George Brant’s play is how the two women’s stories are woven into a narrative that speaks so much of the USA’s racial, social and musical history through the 20th century.

Born from the women’s success in the music industry, Brant sets out a narrative that reflects the pain they both endured. The damnable policies of segregation, the despicable behaviour of abusive partners together with brutal moments of domestic violence are all touched upon -  but it is the beauty of Brant’s imagined dialogues between the pair, so powerfully given life by the two performers, that makes for this evening of humbling and uplifting theatre. When Rosetta tells of having sung at church in the morning and The Cotton Club at night, a whole landscape is painted by Brant in those few words.

And then there’s the songs. Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu are both blessed with magnificent vocal strengths, along with their impeccable acting skills. Fuse those talents with a bond that has been forged through this show’s evolutionary early months, and the result is a collection of songs that are delivered with such an intense authenticity, they transform the Soho Place into a gospel hall of love, passion and harmony.

Frequently sung a capella, the evening’s musical gems showcase a range of numbers from the period, all performed to perfection. Solos and duets pepper the evening, none more powerful than the two women singing Four or Five Times in exquisitely synchronised harmony and at a breathtaking tempo.

The chemistry that has evolved between Knight and Ndlovu is rare and precious. As the two women lift the roof off the Soho Place, they create an evening of unmissable theatre.

Runs until 11th April

Photo credit: Johan Persson