Thursday 7 November 2024

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Review

Ambassadors Theatre, London



*****


Music & lyrics by Darren Clark
Book, lyrics & directed by Jethro Compton



Clare Foster and John Dagleish


“It’s all just a matter of time…” a recurring lyric throughout this musical iteration of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic short story – and over the last few years it has been a slow but enchanting journey, watching this show evolve through two iterations at the Southwark Playhouse into its West End premiere at the Ambassadors Theatre.

The story of Benjamin Button is a modern classic. Born in the early 20th century, by a freak of the fates as a 70 year-old man, Button goes through his life gradually becoming younger until he finally expires as an infant in swaddling. Stripping away all the Oscar winning digital/CGI enhancements incorporated in the 2008 movie, writers Jethro Compton and Darren Clark shift the fable from its New Orleans origins to their native Cornwall, and in so doing create a show that gloriously celebrates story-telling through its inspirational cast.

John Dagleish plays Button and in a simple depiction of his age, arrives in the show as a hunched, bespectacled, bowler-hatted and pipe-smoking curmudgeon. Its an ingenious touch that celebrates Button’s age, yet allows him to evolve through the show with simple  costume and make-up adjustments. Dagleish has a fine voice and through an outstanding performance also captures the quizzical yet paradoxically wise, innocence of Button through the show’s first act. The second half brings moments of heartbreaking poignancy as Button's freakishly evolving youthfulness sees him encounter rejection and disbelief from some of those around him.

The show’s company of actor-musicians lend a rustic-folksy authenticity to the evening that imbues it with a mystical Cornish air. Designed by Compton with Anna Kelsey the stage is rough-timbers and staircases with fishing nets draped across the ceiling – subtle and understated, yet a beautiful evocation of this story’s roots.

Opposite Benjamin is his love interest, Elowen, played by the magnificent Clare Foster. Elowen’s character ages in the natural way through the show and it is a mark of Foster’s genius that she embodies the woman not only as a coquettish teenager, but also, sensitively, through the loving and passionate years of her middle-age, through to her ultimate passing, all with a tenderness and an authenticity that mark hers as one of the more fabulous female performances in musical theatre to have graced a London stage in quite some time. 

Leave your memories of the movie at the door. Clark and Compton’s interpretation of this whimsical story, together with their inspirational melodies, mark this show as perhaps the finest new writing to hit the West End this year. If the media gods allow, this production almost deserves a movie of its own. Who knows? Surely it’s all just a matter of time….


Booking until 15th February 2025
Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Tuesday 29 October 2024

Amaze - Review

Criterion Theatre, London



****


Directed by Jonathan Goodwin



Jamie Allan

Half-term week sees London’s Criterion Theatre packed for Jamie Allan’s Amaze, the latest magic show from this talented UK performer.

Themed around Allan’s childhood, his background and his evident love for his (now deceased) parents, Amaze includes some spectacular sleight of hand and illusions. Close up cameras ensure that even those in the cheaper seats can catch the details, and for the most part the audience are wowed by Allan’s genius. Decks of cards are toyed with, mathematical improbabilities leave us stunned and there’s even a woman who’s levitated off the stage - what more could anyone want from a magic show?

There are moments when Allan’s reflections on his life’s journey - while no doubt sincere - are perhaps too intense, but that’s his choice and it’s his show.

For an evening of traditional family entertainment, Amaze is amazing!


Runs until 23rd November
Photo credit: Danny Kaan

Monday 28 October 2024

Dr Strangelove - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London



****



Adapted from Stanley Kubrick's film by Armando Ianucci and Sean Foley
Directed by Sean Foley


Steve Coogan



It is 60 years since Kubrick’s movie Dr Strangelove stunned audiences. Playing to a world still grappling with the aftershocks of the Cuban missile crisis, his satirical take on the superpowers’ governments and their armed forces tapped into existential fears of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Today, Armando Ianucci and Sean Foley offer up an adaptation of Dr Strangelove in an entertaining tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant original.

On screen it was the comedic genius of Peter Sellars that played three of Kubrick’s key roles:  a stiff upper lipped British RAF officer (itself a character offering a precursory hint towards Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder of later years); the American President; and finally the eponymous Strangelove, a crazed nuclear scientist. The story’s satire was inspired, with Kubrick’s movie now recognised as one of the great anti-war narratives of the last century.

In a bold casting move, Ianucci and Foley give Steve Coogan the Peter Sellars responsibilities - adding to his roles by also making him Major Kong, the maverick pilot of the nuclear-armed B-52 bomber. Coogan is a class act, not least when playing Strangelove afflicted by alien hand syndrome. But his evening on stage is a tough gig and he perhaps needs a little longer to become fully fluent in his performance. The supporting company are a blast, with notably great work from Giles Terera as US General Turgidson and John Hopkins as the deranged General Ripper.

It was always going to be a challenge - transferring the opening salvos of a B-52-delivered Armageddon from the broad canvas of film, to the comparative intimacy of a West End stage - and hence it is little surprise that the production team rely on projections (aka film) to convey some of the story’s more graphic moments. The videos are strong but they have a few distracting glitches that need attention.

Wrapping the whole show up, Penny Ashmore rises from the Noel Coward’s bowels to assume the part of Vera Lynne and lead the company in We’ll Meet Again as the world explodes around them. It’s a neat theatrical moment that almost leads into an audience singalong, but it doesn’t match the powerful brutality that Kubrick achieved in his juxtaposition of that song, set to a backdrop of global conflagration.

Dr Strangelove may cut corners in its interpretation of Kubrick’s masterpiece but it still makes for a hilarious night at the theatre as well as a sad reflection upon our world today.


Booking until 25th January 2025 - then on tour to Dublin
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Thursday 24 October 2024

Fly More Than You Fall - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London



****



Music and lyrics by Nat Zegree
Book and lyrics by Eric Holmes
Directed by Christian Durham


Keala Settle and Robyn Rose-Li

In a show founded on the writers’ personal experiences, Fly More Than You Fall is an exploration of loss through the eyes of 15year old Malia. An aspiring writer, we often see Malia’s emotions expressed through the development of her two fictional creations, a pair of injured birds, Willow and Flynn. 

Whisked back from summer camp early following her mother Jennifer’s diagnosis with a stage-4 cancer, the show’s first half offers a sensitive interpretation of Jennifer’s decline and its impact upon her husband Paul and upon Malia. As well as the most painful of sadnesses there is also an anger that is expressed at the cruelty of Jennifer’s dying - and all portrayed through song and dialogue that is perfectly weighted and free of mawkish sentiment.

The second act opens following Jennifer’s death - and while it delivers some moments of poignant grief there are also patches of shallow cliche that detract from the evening’s impact, particularly in the exchanges with and between the two imaginary birds.

The performances are exquisite. Keala Settle's Jennifer, journeying through the ghastliness of chemotherapy yet trying to remain strong for her family, is an acting masterclass. Cavin Cornwall makes fine work of the more two-dimensional Paul, however it is Robyn Rose-Li as Malia who soars throughout the show. And in particular, those numbers that involve multi-part harmonies are gorgeously delivered.

Fly More Than You Fall is a powerful concept for new musical theatre based on a strong core narrative. With a re-worked second half, it could yet prove sensational.


Runs until 23rd November
Photo credit: Craig Fuller

Tuesday 22 October 2024

The Duchess [of Malfi] - Review

Trafalgar Theatre, London



****



Written and directed by Zinnie Harris
After John Webster



Jodie Whittaker


Zinnie Harris offers up an imaginative swipe at John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, taking the Jacobean tragedy and thrusting its 17th-century themes into a modern-day staging.

Making her return to the London stage, Jodie Whittaker is the recently-widowed Duchess who, against the wishes of her brothers, wishes to rebuild a life of emancipated sexual independence, much to their controlling shame. Harris follows Webster’s broad plotline, with her dialogue reflecting a modern parlance – and notwithstanding the play’s centuries-old roots, its message remains timely.

Harris places the story's misogyny of the story centre-stage. While her women may be the tragic victims of their controlling menfolk, they are all bestowed with a divine afterlife that offers a display of their strengths not often seen in this tale’s retelling. That being said, the violence meted out to them is cruel, graphic and deliberate, while most of Harris’ menfolk die through Tarantino-esque bungled shootings.

It’s not just misogyny that Harris puts in the spotlight. Paul Ready’s Cardinal makes an excellent display of the promiscuous hypocrisy of the Catholic church and if one then considers the  honour-killing that sits at the very heart of this story, one has to reflect on the prevalence of such murders that are sadly all too prevalent amongst some UK communities today.

Harris’ narrative is exciting and her violence graphic. Whittaker plays a sympathetic victim, far more sinned against than sinning ably supported, in particular, by Jude Owusu’s deeply flawed Bosola and Elizabeth Ayodele’s naively trusting Julia. Tom Piper’s staging is brutally simple, with Jamie Macdonald’s jarring videos adding to the evening’s horrors.

The Duchess is an intelligent revision of a classic that forces us to recognise the timelessness of evil.


Runs until 20th December
Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Wednesday 16 October 2024

The James Bond Concert Spectacular - Review

O2, London



***




A evening that was definitely for James Bond fans played for one night only on the O2’s Indigo stage.

Q The Music - a tribute orchestra dedicated to performing the Bond classics, provided a sparkling delivery of the franchise’s unforgettable melodies with Kerry Schultz and Matt Walker on vocals. Some of the singing was glorious - GoldenEye, originally performed by Tina Turner was a spectacular cover, however the take on Skyfall, with its demands to replicate Adele’s original understated complex melancholy, failed to hit the spot.

David Zaritsky compered the night with perhaps more patter than was needed and while the music may have been magnificent the O2’s decaying fabric - allowing smells from the adjoining lavatories to permeate the auditorium - detracted from what really should have been a sparkling evening and left some in the audience shaken, not stirred.

Q The Music know their tunes and with perhaps just a quantum of solace added to their programme, this evening could yet prove an all time high.

Thursday 10 October 2024

Filumena - Review

Theatre Royal, Windsor



***



Written by Eduardo de Filippo
English version by Keith Waterhouse & Willis Hall
Directed by Sean Mathias


Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly

Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly star in Eduardo de Filippo’s classic Neapolitan folly Filumena, delivering the 1970s translation penned by those stalwarts of modern English literature, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall.

There are moments of comedy gold in the play's first half, particularly early on, as we learn of Kelly’s cantankerous, philandering Don Domenico being outwitted by his bride Filumena Marturano (Kendal) on the day of their marriage, a union which itself is a formalisation of their hitherto 35-year cohabitation.

Theirs is an unlikely romance. Filumena in her youth was a prostitute and the Don one of her clients, and from there blossomed a prickly love. Kelly and Kendal sparkle in their roles, with an electricity in their sparring that is frequently hilarious.

But Filumena (the play) cannot just rest on Kendal’s seductive, knowing wiles and Kelly’s frequent states of exasperation, brilliantly delivered though they may be. The story’s narrative offers a glimpse into the foibles and strata of 1940s Naples, but what once may have been an enchanting farce now seems dated and wordy. This review will not spoil any of the plot’s reveals, but especially in the second act, the comedy fast evaporates with the story condensing into a yarn that it is difficult to care about.

One imagines that de Filippo's original may well, like a fine chianti or prosciutto, have been steeped in l'italianità, the very essence of Italian culture, that will have added a richness to the tale that would have been recognised and adored by the cognoscenti.  Waterhouse and Hall’s translation however, for all its wit, strips away the beautiful Italian linguistics and the English that they replace it with quite simply lacks a romantic charm.  

The supporting cast – and all credit to producer Bill Kenwright Limited for employing such a large company – are for the most part a talented bunch with standout work from Julie Legrand as the faithful retainer Rosalia, and Jodie Steele as the Don’s latest young squeeze, Diana. 

At Windsor for another week and then touring, Filumena offers an evening of gentle entertainment.


Runs until 19th October and then on tour.
Photo credit: Jack Merriman

Tuesday 1 October 2024

Giant - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London



***


Written by Mark Rosenblatt
Directed by Nicholas Hytner

John Lithgow

Set in a bucolic summer’s afternoon in Buckinghamshire in 1983, amidst the drilling and banging of a country residence that’s being lovingly restored, Giant is a drama loosely based on facts, about the antisemitic views and writings of that hero of children’s literature, Roald Dahl.

Bearing a striking resemblance to how we recall Dahl from his appearances in the media, with perhaps a nod to JR Hartley too, John Lithgow makes his Royal Court debut as the author. His foils across the lunch table are real life publisher Tom Maschler (played by Elliot Levey) and the fictional Jessie Stone (Romola Garai), an agent from Dahl’s US publishing company. Dahl has recently published a book review, widely seen as antisemitic, and the two publishing professionals are there, over glasses of Chablis, to coax him into drafting an apology.

Mark Rosenblatt’s drama is tightly written. In what feels like a slightly overlong 2hrs 20mins, the pace never falters, with Rosenblatt’s dialogue proving well-structured and his characters, credible. Garai and Rachael Stirling, as Dahl’s Mitford-like fiancée Felicity Crosland are both outstanding. Levey plays a recognisably luke-warm diaspora Jew, not too bothered by Dahl’s pronouncements and more concerned with trying to smooth things over at all costs. Of the three supporting characters, his is perhaps the least compelling.

Lithgow’s work however is tremendous - and under the direction of Nicholas Hytner, turns in an Olivier-worthy performance.

But other than some smug references to Ian McEwan and the literary world of that time, ultimately what is the point of this play other than to provide a platform for Dahl’s rabid ravings? Giant drips with Dahl’s criticism of Israel (the 1982 Lebanon War was raging), with clear echoes of criticisms that have been levelled at the Jewish state in more recent times during the Gaza conflict. Unsurprisingly for the Royal Court there is little offered by way of challenge to Israel’s actions, although it ultimately has to prove some comfort that Dahl’s rants against Israel are coming from the same mind and mouth that throughout the play utter the vilest antisemitic slurs. There remains of course the sad but realistic possibility that much of that irony may have soared over the heads of many of the Royal Court’s audience.

That this is brilliantly crafted theatre is unquestionable. That it also provides a soapbox for countless tropes makes for an evening that is ultimately deeply unsatisfying.


Runs until 16th November
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Thursday 26 September 2024

1984 - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath




****




Written by George Orwell
Adapted by Ryan Craig
Directed by Lindsay Posner


Keith Allen and Mark Quartley

In our world today with its visibly two-tiered criminal justice system, where citizens are imprisoned for the crime of having expressed their opinions while at the same time a notoriously shamed paedophile, convicted of viewing pornographic images of the most depraved child abuse can escape a custodial sentence, it feels like a re-visiting of George Orwell's 1984 is long overdue. 

Orwell's Oceania is a totalitarian state presided over by Big Brother. A society where the militia brutalise the citizens into surrendering their capacity to think. As the regime edits the languge of its day into the continually updated 'Newspeak', the modern-day resonances with the West are troubling. Orwell's classic has long been a harsh prediction on where our democracies are heading and in Lindsay Posner's production, staged against Justin Nardella's bleak but effective video projections, there are moments of deeply harrowing horror. 

Mark Quartley plays protagonist Winston Smith, a role that is physically demanding and consuming. On stage virtually throughout, it is his arc that we follow as his secrets are betrayed and he is violently subject to electric-shock torture, its objective to destroy any sense of right and wrong that we see him desperately try to cling on to.

Opposite Quartley is Eleanor Wyld playing his love interest Julia. The pair hold our suspense throughout and as we learn of their ultimate mutual betrayal of each other, the evening's endgame is a heartbreaker.

Astride the whole work and seated on stage throughout, in what should have been a stroke of perfect casting, is Keith Allen's O'Brien. Not at his best on press night, there is more that Allen can likely bring to the role. O'Brien is a man devoid of any shred of humanity and compassion and while that harshness was at times apparent in Allen's work, there were moments when his carapace appeared to be more of a soft underbelly.

This production can only improve on the road - an intelligent treatment of one of the 20th century's finest stories.


Runs until 28th September, then on tour to Malvern, Poole, Guildford, Cambridge, Brighton, Richmond and Liverpool
Photo credit: Simon Annand

Monday 23 September 2024

Waiting For Godot - Review

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London



****



Written by Samuel Beckett
Directed by James Macdonald

Ben Whishaw, Lucian Msamati, Tom Edden, Jonathan Slinger

With a luxurious cast, Samuel Beckett’s opus drama returns to London’s West End.

Lucian Msamati and Ben Whishaw are Estragon and Vladimir, the hapless duo prescribed to await Godot’s arrival on Rae Smith’s set that is as bleak as the narrative. A barren setting, save for a tree, captures the pair’s desolation in a story that is hard to define. 

Beckett’s tragicomedy plays with aspects of loneliness, co-dependency, base humanity, cruelty and abuse - there is also a theme of faith and divinity that underpins the whole piece. Premiering some 71 years ago, in Vladimir and Estragon we can see some of the comedic duos that were to follow in the 1960s and 70s. Think of Albert and Harold Steptoe, Rigsby and his tenants in Rising Damp, Basil and Sybil Fawlty to name but three examples - all relationships doomed to an eternity of complex mediocrity from which no protagonist can ever escape. But unlike a 30minute sitcom episode, Waiting  For Godot is a challenging 2 1/2 hours (including interval) that at times makes huge demands on its audience to keep up with its dry genius.

Msamati and Whishaw are superb in their interpretations. They are brilliantly assisted by Jonathan Slinger as the cruel yet ultimately vulnerable Pozzo and Tom Edden as his unfortunately named slave, Lucky. Edden’s first-act monologue is a masterclass in spoken and the physical drama. On the evening of this review Luca Fone played the (Christ-like?) boy, perpetually sent to herald the next-day’s arrival of Godot.

A rare treat to find this work on a major London stage and for those with an appetite for Absurdist Theatre, the show is unmissable.


Runs until 14th December
Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Wednesday 18 September 2024

The Truth About Harry Beck - Review

Cubic Theatre, London



****



Written and directed by Andy Burden


Simon Snashall

The truth about Harry Beck, a graphic designer working for London Transport, is that he gave London its iconic Tube Map. 

With a skill in drawing schematics of electrical circuits to aid the network’s signalling engineers, it was Beck’s creative genius that transformed the Underground’s map from its original form, based on the capital’s actual geography and thus a visual jumble of spaghetti, to the far simpler “diagram” as Beck himself referred to his creation, that is now recognised across the world.

With meticulous research Andy Burden charts Beck’s life, and marriage to Nora, tracking his achievements and setbacks, sensibly trimming his narrative into one-act of 70 minutes.

Playing in the compact Cubic Theatre that nestles underneath Covent Garden's London Transport Museum, Simon Snashall as Harry with Ashley Christmas as Nora are perfectly cast. Capturing a gentler time of 20th century England, the pair sensitively portray the couples’ love and aspirations. As we come to learn of their ultimate childlessness, Beck’s pride in his brilliant simplification of the Tube network becomes even more painfully poignant.

There’s meat in the dialogue to satisfy the city's geeks and historians. As Harry comments to Nora as his diagram evolves: “Does it matter that Queensway and Bayswater are really so near to each other?”, had knowledgable Londoners chuckling.

The staging is simple, with a neat touch early on as Beck grabs coloured ribbons from Nora’s sewing box, to graphically festoon their lounge. It is a moment of delightful theatre as his simple representation of the central London intersections of the Bakerloo, Central, District, Metropolitan, Northern and Piccadilly lines takes shape before our eyes.

This is charming, informative and educational drama that is beautifully performed.


Runs until 10th November
Photo credit: Mark Douet

Saturday 14 September 2024

Abigail's Party - Review

Stratford East, London



****



Written by Mike Leigh
Directed by Nadia Fall


Tamzin Outhwaite

Tardis-like, Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party takes us back in time nearly 50 years in his eviscerating glimpse into UK suburban life. Played out over a Demis Roussos soundtrack and accompanied by cubes of cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, one starts to get a hint of the 1970s culture and attitudes that this play so brilliantly showcases.

Tamzin Outhwaite dominates the play's action (that never leaves her front room) as Beverly, dressed like a wannabe Greek goddess and trying desperately, futilely, to bring a whirl of glamour into her dull marriage to estate-agent Laurence (Kevin Bishop) by having invited the neighbours round for drinks, nibbles and endlessly proffered cigarettes.

In her inept attempts at sophistication, Beverly is a Hyacinth Bucket crossed with Sybil Fawlty, but unlike those two giants of the UK’s comedy landscape, she is a woman with a darker and more vulnerable side. She cannot restrain herself from outrageously provocative flirting with neighbour Tony (Omar Malik), a former professional footballer who in terms of his masculine sexuality, possesses everything that she perceives the inadequate Laurence to lack. And yet, in the play’s finale (no spoilers here) Beverly reveals herself to be both deeply loving of, and possibly emotionally dependant upon, her husband. Beverly is an inspired creation by Leigh, and in Outhwaite’s interpretation, truly one of the most exciting performances to be found in London today.

The supporting actors are similarly excellent in their contributions to this domesticated evening from hell. Ashna Rabheru plays Angela, Tony’s wife. A nurse by profession, yet dominated brutally and bullyingly at home by her husband, Rabheru captures Angela’s naïve yet knowing complexities with a fine understanding. Laurence in his own way is as ghastly as his wife and Bishop does well to capture his aspirational, faux cultural-wisdom alongside his thinly veiled racism.   There is just a hint of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, as he and Beverly spar in the ring of their unhappy union.

Completing this exquisitely observed quintet is Pandora Colin as divorcee neighbour Susan and mother of the (unseen) 15 year-old Abigail who has been left at home across the road, hosting her eponymous rowdy teenage house party. 

Stratford East’s Artistic Director Nadia Fall directs with perceptive wisdom, her work enhanced by Peter McKintosh’s wonderfully evocative set and costume designs.

Fabulous writing, wonderfully performed – and all at an affordable ticket price too. This production of Abigail’s Party is what a great night at the theatre is all about. 


Runs until 12th October
Photo credit: Mark Senior

Thursday 12 September 2024

Why Am I So Single? - Review

Garrick Theatre, London




***




Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss
Directed by Lucy Moss
Co-directed and choreographed by Ellen Kane


Leesa Tulley and company

It’s quite something for writers to have a brace of shows running simultaneously in the West End, but with Six at the Vaudeville and now Why Am I So Single? round the corner at the Garrick, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have achieved that double.

Six was famously created around the wives of Henry VIII, lending itself to a tightly written book based on a rich chapter of world-famous history. It enjoyed a stratospheric and deserved rise from humble beginnings on the fringe to the globally touring phenomenon of modern musical theatre that it is today. Why Am I So Single? however, drawn from the lives of Marlow and Moss themselves, makes for a narrative that’s lightweight and superficial in comparison. While the pair's close platonic friendship and respective life stories may be touching, they do not support a 2 1/2 hour show that itself could do with a trim of at least 30 minutes.

Where Stephen Sondheim once brilliantly explored the angsts of being single in Company, Marlow and Moss offer little more than an immaculately produced evening of self-indulgent introspection and navel-gazing. Written by anyone other than these now acclaimed wunderkinder the production may well have struggled to gain traction and backing - that is if it were even conceived at all - let alone this big fancy West End opening that frames its commercial rollout.  

Amidst countless references to classic musicals and frequently smug breakouts across the fourth wall, Nancy and Oliver (played by Leesa Tulley and Jo Foster) are Marlow and Moss’s leading characters, effectively their onstage "fictional" representations. The show is technically whip-smart and while its lyrics may be repetitive and its melodies forgettable, both Tulley and Foster sparkle with performing excellence and gorgeous voices. Noah Thomas as their mutual friend Artie is also at the top of his game.

Ellen Kane’s choreography and co-direction is another of the evening’s stunning treats with her company drilled to a glorious visual perfection.  Atop the stage, Chris Ma’s eight-piece band are equally slick.

The storyline may be thinly crafted but who knows? With its Marlow and Moss imprimatur, Why Am I So Single? may yet appeal to Gen Z. It’s certainly been rolled in enough glitter!


Booking until 13th February 2025
Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Tuesday 10 September 2024

Guys & Dolls - Review

Bridge Theatre, London



*****



Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
Directed by Nicholas Hytner


Gina Beck and Michael Simkins

There can come a time in a show’s evolution when the chemistry of its casting leads to theatrical magic.

Chemistry? Yea, chemistry….

So it is with Nicholas Hytner’s Guys & Dolls that has been playing at the Bridge Theatre for the last 18 months but which now, with the latest luxurious additions to its company, sees this beautifully written show reach new heights of musical comedy alongside touchingly poignant humanity.

Playing Sarah Brown, Gina Beck is one of the new signings and she is simply sensational. Beck first displays her vocal magnificence in I’ll Know, a gorgeously crafted duet sung alongside George Ioannides’ Sky Masterson and a number that is rarely performed quite so powerfully. Beck goes on to hold that standard throughout the evening - even revealing a profound depth of tenderness in her connection with Arvide Abernathy (yet another recent star addition to the cast in the form of the always brilliant Michael Simkins) as he sings his worldly wisdom to her with More I Cannot Wish You. Ioannides is a masterful Masterson. Cooler than a Cuban Dulche De Leche it is clear to see why Sarah Brown falls for his charm – and his voice is a treat too. 

The show’s other two leads are Owain Arthur as Nathan Detroit, the hapless promoter of New York’s floating crap game and Timmika Ramsay as Miss Adelaide, his long-suffering fiancée. Arthur does a fine job, capturing Detroit’s wry and self-deprecating humour. Ramsay, with more mink than a mink and a bold, brazen, buxom sexuality to her performance is just terrific. Vocally outstanding, with a fine understanding of the frustrated complexities that make up her character, she’s a treat to watch – and in her duet with Sarah, Marry The Man Today, the essence of this show’s celebration of the frailties of the human character is delivered faultlessly by both women.

In short, this current iteration of the show’s four key roles, all replacements from the cast of 18 months ago, is quite possibly the best to have been performed in the UK this century.

Elsewhere Cameron Johnson has grown (if that was even possible) into the story’s lovable rogue Big Jule and if Jonathan Andrew Hume’s multiple encores for his Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat may seem just a tad contrived, the infectious delight that Hume brings to the song is worth every repeated chorus.

Staged immersively, with platforms that rise and fall amidst the promenading audience, Bunny Christie’s design remains a sumptuous take on the Big Apple – while perched aloft, Tom Brady’s band is equally outstanding.

With the Bridge having announced that the show will close in early 2025, it is unlikely that a production of Guys & Dolls of this imaginative genius will grace a UK stage for some time. Until then, do not wait, until then, get along… 

If you’ve never seen the show before then Hytner’s production, graced by Arlene Phillips’ choreography is a must-see – and if you’ve already seen this South Bank spectacular, go again! 


Runs until 4th January 2025
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Thursday 5 September 2024

A Night With Janis Joplin - Review

Peacock Theatre, London



****



Written and directed by Randy Johnson


Mary Bridget Davies

Doing what it says on the tin, A Night with Janis Joplin proves to be just that. Mary Bridget Davies has crossed the pond to re-create her Tony-nominated take on Joplin and she is sensational.

Davies’ pipes are a wonder, as over a couple of hours including interval she tackles some of the singer’s most famous songs with a vocal magnificence. Massive numbers such as Me And Bobbie McGee, Stay With Me and Piece Of My Heart are delivered with an authenticity that has to be heard to be believed. Randy Johnson’s links may be corny and melancholic, particularly when Joplin’s death at that tragically portentous age of 27 is barely glossed over, but when the music is this good, that is of little consequence.

Davies is supported by an equally brilliant quartet of Kalisha Amaris, Georgia Bradshaw, Choolwe Laina Muntanga and Danielle Steers who between them offer up vocal nods to classic Motown and blues legends including Aretha Franklin and Bessie Smith. 

Of equal talent on stage are Iestyn Griffiths’ eight-piece band - all fabulous but with special mention to guitarists Kit Craig-Lowdon and Jack Hartigan who between them drive the rock-based energy of the Joplin performance.

Janis Joplin was one of America’s rock legends and this show is a powerful tribute.


Runs until 28th September
Photo credit: Danny Kaan

Wednesday 4 September 2024

The Grapes of Wrath - Review

National Theatre, London



***



Written by John Steinbeck
Adapted by Frank Galati
Directed by Carrie Cracknell


Cherry Jones

Frank GalaÅ£i’s 1990 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic makes for an interesting glimpse of American history. The 1930s Dust Bowl, coming hard on the heels of the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash saw the fabled american dream evolve into a nightmare for millions, with countless Mid-Westerners migrating towards California, in desperate search of a living.

Simply staged, Carrie Cracknell’s production that comes in at just under three hours mixes quality with tedium. Greg Hicks and Cherry Jones as Pa and Ma Joad are a magnificent focal pair of Oklahomans leading their family west. Hicks only recently played an onstage farmer in the musical Oklahoma!, so there is a theatrical symmetry in seeing his decline from playing a prosperous landowner to an impoverished migrant.  Both he and Jones bring a perfectly weighted gravitas to their family’s struggles and amidst a luxuriously cast company of 27, there is standout work from Harry Treadaway as their son Tom and Mirren Mack as daughter Rose of Sharon.

Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is brutal in its portrayal of the depths of the era’s hardships, not least in its harrowing finale that Cracknell and Galati effectively retain. The show however slips into cliché too often, with Maimuna Memon’s songs that have been written for this production. The #RefugeesWelcome theme to Memon’s lyrics offers a clumsily crass attempt to link a contemporary political relevance with Steinbeck’s magnum-opus and proves to be a disappointing distraction.

Good in parts.


Runs until 14th September
Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

Wednesday 28 August 2024

Antony & Cleopatra - Review

Shakespeare's Globe



**



Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Blanche McIntyre


Nadia Nadarajah and John Hollingworth

There are occasions in the theatre when a play is less than the sum of its parts. So it is with Blanche McIntyre’s take on Anthony &  Cleopatra that boldly translates Shakespeare’s prose into a hybrid of spoken verse and British Sign Language (BSL).

John Hollingworth and Nadia Nadarajah play the famed titular lovers. Hollingworth delivers an adequate Anthony as Nadarajah serves up an equally impassioned Egyptian Queen. However, with Nadarajah communicating her entire role through BSL, those audience members not fluent in that language are forced to follow her dialogue via the surtitle screens placed at gallery level around the Globe’s open space.

While the projected words enable the narrative to be followed, the scrolling text screens completely distract one from the strengths (or weaknesses) of Nadarajah’s performance. One is looking at the screen, not the actor and as a consequence much of the power of the verse is lost. The same frustration applies to those other characters in the story delivered through BSL, where again one’s eyes are taken away from the stage by the projections.

Daniel Millar shines as Enobarbus, notably in his famous description of Cleopatra’s barge, but such moments are rare.

An ambitious production that ultimately fails to deliver.


Runs until 15th September
Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

Tuesday 20 August 2024

The 39 Steps - Review

Trafalgar Theatre, London



****


Adapted by Patrick Barlow
From an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimond
Directed by Maria Aitken
Tour directed by Nicola Samer


Tom Byrne

Returning to the West End after nine years, Maria Aitken’s affectionate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie remains a fabulous fusion of stagecraft, wit and British interwar history.

The 39 Steps famously sees Englishman Richard Hannay caught up in a web of intrigue and espionage as he unwittingly stumbles across a fiendish spy-ring and finds himself the prime suspect for a murder he did not commit. The ripping yarn has him fleeing London aboard the night train to Scotland, pursued by both the police and the villains, with scenes of high drama and derring-do on the train, the Forth Bridge and amidst the remote villages and misty moors of the Highlands.

What makes Aitken’s piece (her work recreated in this production by Nicola Samer) quite so delightful is how she achieves such spectacular thrills and spills with just a cast of four. Using the simplest of suggestive props and lighting and the ingenious conceit of laughing fondly at the stiff upper lip of a time gone by, a re-creation emerges of so many of the wonderful cameos and caricatures that Hitchcock so painstakingly wove into his film.

Tom Byrne is Hannay, on-stage throughout and the only member of the quartet to play just one character from start to finish. Playing the three women with whom Hannay interacts is Safeena Ladha, while picking up the multitude of other roles from Scotland Yard detectives, to shady criminals, to enchanting Highland crofters (to name but a few of their roles) are Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice in a breathtaking whirl of interchanging characters. The thrills and spills are cleverly played out along with a generous measure of nods to other Hitchcock classics written into the script.

A familiarity with the 1935 film, while not essential, is useful if only to recognise just how ingenious and true to the original, Aitken’s staging proves to be.

The 39 Steps is gorgeous theatre, brilliantly performed. To quote the story’s Mr Memory: “Am I right?” Definitely!


Runs until 28th September
Photo credit: Mark Senior

Tuesday 13 August 2024

I Ran With The Gang - Review

Stage Door Theatre, London



***



Written and directed by Liam Rudden



In its first ever London production, Liam Rudden’s tribute to Alan Longmuir, the original Bay City Roller, plays for one week at the Stage Door Theatre above Covent Garden’s Prince of Wales pub.

In a show that's more monologue than musical (this ain't no Jersey Boys) Michael Karl-Lewis plays Young Alan, effectively narrating Longmuir's story and that of the group he founded, the Bay City Rollers, a band that for a chunk of the 1970s saw "Rollermania" dominate the global pop scene.

What this show lacks in panache it more than compensates for in audience enthusiasm. Longmuir’s story is an impressive tale of beating the odds to reach global stardom before the band was to fall apart, but the two-dimensional nature of Rudden's narrative makes for heavy going at times. A heartfelt photo-tribute to Longmuir that wraps up the first phase of this hour long one-act show shares a sentimental intimacy that seems best preserved for a more private gathering, rather than a theatre-show.

No matter - the evening’s second shift sees Karl-Lewis and his fellow performers Ross Jamieson and Lee Fanning leading a glorious kitsch singalong to a backing-track powered medley of the band’s greatest hits. Guilty secret: I might just have sung along to Bye Bye Baby….

The theatre was packed with a mature tartan-waving throng. With most of the Bay City Rollers’ hard-core following now drawing their pensions, to see such a grey-haired mob up on their feet and rocking to the music was as much of a tribute to hip surgery and HRT, as it was to the chart-topping songs.

Strictly for the fans who won’t let the music die.


Runs until 17th August

Sunday 11 August 2024

On location with Martin Kemp

 

Jonathan Baz and Martin Kemp

I spent a day on location with Martin Kemp, currently shooting his latest starring role in serial killer movie Doctor Plague.

Kemp stars as jaded detective John Verney who is on the trail of an ancient cult of Plague Doctors which is cutting a bloody swathe through the London underworld. Dismissed by his superiors as gang on gang killings, the murders draw Verney into an obsessive maze of a secret society conspiracy with links to the Jack The Ripper murders of 1888, putting him and his family in grave danger. Above is a first look.

Joining Kemp in the cast are Peter Woodward (Babylon 5), David Yip (A View To A Kill), Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott (Renegades), Wendy Glenn (You’re Next) and Daisy Beaumont (The World Is Not Enough).

Jonathan Sothcott produces for his indie genre studio Shogun Films (Helloween) with Ben Fortune directing. The screenplay is by Robert Dunn (Knightfall) based on an idea by Robert Geoffrey Hughes. Director of photography is James Westlake (Helloween). Executive producers include Jamie McLeod-Ross and Charley McDougall of Empire Studios, Nigel Smith and Keith Reilly.

Sothcott noted: “One of the best-loved and most recognisable faces in the UK, Martin Kemp has achieved a constant evolution of reinvention for new audiences in the last decade, but I’m delighted he’s back in front of the camera in this gritty horror serial killer movie, facing off against an instantly-iconic enemy and navigating a seemingly endless labyrinth of twists and turns. I know his legion of fans are going to love it and he’s backed by an exceptionally strong cast of terrific British actors. Doctor Plague has instant cult movie written all over it.”

Slated for release in the first half of 2025, look out for Doctor Plague.