Jack & The Beanstalk - Review

Theatre Royal, Stratford East


***

Book and lyrics by Paul Sirett
Music and lyrics by Wayne Nunes and Perry Melius
Directed by Dawn Reid

Oliver Taheri and Jack Shalloo

The Theatre Royal in London’s Stratford has a reputation for excellence in its Christmas offering each year. Jack & The Beanstalk, this season’s pantomime is a big visual extravaganza that will keep the kids well entertained for a couple of hours, but it may leave the parents wishing for a bit more of a meal than Jack’s magic beans.

Paul Sirett takes the classic fairy tale, introducing us to Jack as the traditional good for nothing, albeit with a talent for body-popping. Jorell Coiffic-Kamall plays Jack and his movement and expression together with his wide eyed innocence, make him a hero that children can believe in, identify with and cheer along as well when the going gets surprisingly scary. Michael Bertenshaw a veteran of Stratford East who plays Jack's mum, is a talented and well experienced dame, deliciously grotesque on the eye and with a voice that’s wonderfully tuneless. Whilst Sirett has made only minor tweaks to the traditional narrative, he seems to have forgotten that there will be a significant adult constituent to his show’s audience, particularly when the school groups cease over the holiday period. Disappointingly, very few of Bertenshaw’s gags are aimed at the grown-ups and a local panto in particular should be able to be cheeky, mocking and satirical, as well as being top notch entertainment for the young ‘uns.

The supporting cast are a talented bunch. Jack Shalloo and Oliver Taheri provide the comic relief as a pair of bungling burglars. They ham it up appropriately, Shalloo’s singing voice also providing some brief moments of quality harmony. Outstanding vocals are also delivered by Allyson Ava-Brown as Harpo, a woman with a harp joined to her head by the ogre (yes, that possibly is a tad grotesque for a panto). Brown is an accomplished chanteuse and her voice and presence would make for an excellent, home-grown, Rachel Marron one day.

The ogre’s lair and the giant-sized ogre himself, a cleverly designed and animated puppet, have a slightly distasteful air of the Saw movies horror franchise, a suggestion further enhanced by the oversize tools that hang in the ogre's kitchen and the nasty little radio-controlled cars that scoot across the stage adorned with severed limbs. If any stage blood had been added the show would have garnered a 16+ recommendation.  And at the risk of sounding like a “don’t try this at home” preacher, why in what is clearly aimed at being a children’s show, were characters allowed to climb into an oven, of all things, to hide?

The show’s music has some clever moments with minor interludes of blues and soul, but again comes over as a touch too anodyne. A nod to one or two popular and familiar songs would not have gone amiss.

This is Sirett’s first effort at panto writing and it shows. Many fine writers before him have run aground on the treacherous rocks of comedy creation. Pantomime, like commedia dell ‘arte needs perceptive pencraft, married to excellent performance and whilst in this production, the talent on stage is first rate, their material seems to be focussed too much on diversity and political correctness at the expense of humour. If the writers did not wish to offend, they have also largely failed to amuse. Where were the snappy or even visual gags and where was that well drilled slapstick? One should not expect a mega-bucks production at Stratford East, that is not what the theatre is famous for. It is however renowned for being a home of sharp comment, pointed and well-rehearsed comedy as well as cheeky pantomime excellence. Young kids will love this Jack and those accompanying them will delight in their glee, but this production is really just a seasonal children's show rather than a pantomime that is fun for all the the family. As an honoured festive tradition, this platter is in need of a little more sauce.

Runs until January 19

Dangerous Lady - Review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

****

Adapted by Patrick Prior

Directed by Lisa Goldman

Claire-Louise Cordwell as Maura Ryan

Dangerous Lady is the most traditional of plays, mounted in a wonderfully traditional theatre. Martina Cole's first novel has been adapted for the Theatre Royal Stratford East by Associate Writer Patrick Prior who, in an age where crime novels are typically dramatised via film or television replete with clever camera angles and expensive explosions, has taken this tale of London's criminality in the late twentieth century and simply transformed it for one of London's most atmospheric stages. This play is a cracking yarn of old fashioned east-end values, villainy, violence and virtue.

Claire-Louise Cordwell is Maura Ryan, the femme fatale of the play's title. We follow her from birth, born into a family of Irish Catholic heritage. Her mother is a single parent matriarch, adored by her three sons and daughter and the theme of family loyalty and the consequences of betraying such commitment, runs through the play as through a stick of Brighton rock. The young Maura unwittingly falls in love with a rookie policeman, a relationship that is destined to be doomed whilst her siblings slowly build up an empire of organised crime across the city and the play tracks her over thirty years with neat socially historic nods to the illegality of abortion, the illicit widespread fundraising for and growth of, the IRA and an intolerance of homosexuality. Maura's brothers are characterisations of villains both factual and fabled. There are aspects of their life that echo the Kray Brothers and the emerging republican influence on London's gangland bears more than a passing resemblance to the crumbling of Harold Shand's empire in Barrie Keefe's The Long Good Friday (see weblink below). Director Lisa Goldman has her cast portray shootings, beatings and factory explosions in a manner that is convincing without ever being gory, her London very much a recognisable tableaux.

Cordwell's is a tour de force performance . On stage for almost the entire production, she carries the success of this story. Hers is the character that is the most defined by Prior and she brings an authentic humanity to the spectrum of Maura's emotions as she experiences love, loss, and anger as well as developing a ruthless controlling streak as she grows to command her brothers' empire. Her journey is physically tough, and the violation she suffers at the grubby hands of a bungling abortionist is harrowing to watch. Cordwell has her audience wincing at the pain she endures and cheering at her triumphs.

Veronica Quilligan is convincing as the sibling's mother, powerful yet, in later years, weary with grief and surprisingly vengeful. As eldest brother Michael, James Clyde is a watchable if somewhat two-dimensional hoodlum, his gay sexuality, coke habit, and menacing manner being a little cliched. In a haunting moment, Allyson Ava-Brown, playing several supporting roles in the story, sings an ethereally beautiful Amazing Grace at a family funeral.

Whilst act one of the play charts Maura's rise to power and is both credible and gripping, the second half, in which the story's various plot lines moves towards resolution can at times feel contrived. This may well be the corollary of editing Cole's original 500 page novel into one evening's entertainment.

The set is simple yet ingenious and with 48 scenes to accommodate, Jean-Marc Puissant's use of concentric revolves enables a diverse range of locations to be effectively and stylishly represented. Matt McKenzie's sound design, with background music suggesting the years passing and vocal and special effects, including a particularly authentic church echo, add to the production's ambience.

Martina Cole's work belongs in this east London setting. Her story with its classic themes of love, brutality and revenge makes for a grand evening of adult theatre.

Runs to November 17


 A lookback on The Long Good Friday

Photograph: Robert Day

Self Taught, Still Learning - Album Launch Review

****
This review was originally written for The Public Reviews

November 29 2011

On a chilly autumn morning, upstairs at Dress Circle in Covent Garden provided a warm venue to enjoy a selection of songs from “Self Taught, Still Learning”, the debut album from Chris Passey . In August 2011 this website conducted a ten minute interview with Chris whilst the album was in production, so it was a delight to enjoy the finished work performed live.

The performance started with Steven Webb singing “Room For Me”. It is a tribute to Passey that he has attracted the cream of young musical theatre talent to record his writing. Even though Webb did not feature on the album (where the song is performed by Richard Meek ) his performance was polished and beautifully rehearsed. The compact venue required no amplification so with simply Passey on keyboard and Jake Mason on cello, Webb took the arc of the song on a journey quite different from the recorded version. Where the recording has a choir providing an ethereal backing to the song, Webb was vocally on his own. His talent shone and he simply soared with a spine-tingling performance.

The album’s title derives from a line in the song “Three Tiny Words”, and with the versatile Tim Prottey-Jones on guitar, Allyson Ava Brown immersed herself in a delivery of that song that took its balladesque opening through to a middle-eight that had an almost rock-style exhilaration in her singing. Again, the unmiked intimacy of the performance gave her performance a real frisson.

Next up was Prottey-Jones singing the moving and tender tribute to a loved friend, now passed away, “If They Only Knew” ( recorded on the album by Kieran Brown ). Passey’s ability to describe passion, grief and longing in his writing, again brilliantly displayed in this number.

The fourth and final song of the morning was the upbeat 4-parter, “You Were Mine”, Passey singing with Zoe Rainey from the album, joined by Jeremy Legat and Amy Carroll.

Passey is donating all album profits to worthy causes. In a brief post-gig conversation, he described the most humbling and inspiring part of the album’s development being the generous donation of time and support from so many talented and accomplished performers – including Miranda Sings!

The album is a showcase of all that is good in today’s musical theatre – performance and writing. Buy it to support that talent – as well as the two worthy nominated charities.