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

Guys and Dolls - Review

Chichester Festival Theatre

*****

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
Directed by Gordon Greenberg

Sophie Thompson and Clare Foster

Chichester's newly re-launched Festival Theatre hosts its first musical with a sparkling revival of Frank Loesser’s musical fable of Broadway, Guys and Dolls. A show built around New York’s everyman and everywoman, Kenneth Tynan described Guys and Dolls on its 1953 London opening as the Beggar’s Opera of Broadway. 29 years later, at London’s National Theatre, Richard Eyre defined the work in a stellar, seminal production that paved the way for Broadway musicals to occupy a deserved place in the subsidised theatre repertoire. Now, some 30 years on from that revelatory South Bank production, American wunderkind Gordon Greenberg revives this tightest of tales of gamblers, lovers and the sheer confounding beauty of the human condition.

Based on Damon Runyon’s short story The Idyll Of Miss Sarah Brown, the book charts 24 hours in four of the unlikeliest of New York’s star crossed lovers. Clare Foster is Sarah Brown, a missionary who is to yield (albeit with the assistance of copious quantities of Cuban Dulche De Leche) to the wickedly chiselled refinement of Jamie Parker’s incorrigible gambler Sky Masterson. Elsewhere on Broadway Miss Adelaide, a 40-something night-club singing broad, played with sardonic hilarity by Sophie Thompson bewails her 14 year engagement to the cutest of low-lifes, Nathan Detroit, famed for running the city’s finest floating crap game. Around these four gems, a cast of missionaries, homburged hoodlums and scantily clad Hot Box debutantes, all serve to paint a cosily familiar picture of the post-war USA.  

Jamie Parker and Peter Polycarpou

Peter Polycarpou is Detroit and it is a delight to see this stalwart of British musical theatre at last take on the mantle of a leading man to open a show. Squat and hen-pecked, Polycarpou captures the impossible ironies of Detroit’s life, with a voice and comic timing that are perfectly poised. His contribution to the three-part harmony The Oldest Established is flawless whilst as a hustler desperately seeking 1,000 bucks so he can rent a venue for his crap game, there are moments that suggest a reprisal of his Ali Hakim, also from the National from some years back.

Foster delights as Sarah, coaxing an intimacy from her post-Cuba duet with Sky, I’ve Never Been In Love Before, that was breathtaking, whilst Parker’s Luck Be A Lady was dreamily suave yet defined the passion behind his love for Sarah.

There is excellence throughout Greenberg’s company. Nick Wilton’s Harry The Horse was built for double-breasted pin stripes, Harry Morrison’s Nicely Nicely Johnson is every inch the water buffalo that his character should be, (even if the showstopping encore for Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat did seem just a tad pre-planned) whilst amongst the Hot Box ensemble, Anabel Kutay leads her dancing generation with a cameo as the Havana Diva that is jaw-dropping.

Peter McKintosh’s simple set design of classic posters of the era, each framed by marquee lights suggested a nod to John Gunter’s 1982 festival of advertising-neon. Alongside, Carlos Acosta and Andrew Wright’s choreography opens up the trademark numbers with panache, whilst still allowing a spot of table dancing to be wafted into Take Back Your Mink. My only complaint: For such a shiny stage floor and so many wonderfully be-spatted Guys, where was the tap routine? When this show transfers to London (as it surely must) no doubt the Acosta/Wright team can rectify!

In our troubled world Guys and Dolls, this most frothy of fantasies, is a wonderfully whimsical tonic. It’s a place where, as Adelaide and Sarah dream of changing their men post-wedding and Sky Masterson’s mantra is that no matter how desirable, “no doll can take the place of aces back to back”, the story remains gloriously grounded amongst recognisable characters.

The show is selling out fast – and rightly so. The Festival Theatre audience rose as one to salute the cast (and luxuriously furnished 15-piece band) on press night. Musicals don't get better than this. 

Runs to 21st September 2014

Photos by Johan Person

Merrily We Roll Along

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

*****

Book by George Furth
Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Maria Friedman



Josefina Gabrielle leads the line in Musical Husbands

Some 6 months after it opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Maria Friedman's production of Merrily We Roll Along takes up a three month residence in the West End's Harold Pinter theatre. And like a fine wine or spirit, this production has beautifully matured over the months and should be savoured as a finely crafted piece of theatre.

This backward journey of composer Franklin Shepard's life, that opens in 1976 with his lover, his second wife and oldest closest friend deserting him amidst a party of vacuuous  Hollywood celebrities, is encapsulated in one line from the show's opening number (and title song) " how did you ever get there from here?" And it is that question that underlies Sondheim's lyrics and Furth's brilliant book as from there, almost as in some crazy, backwards whizzing theme park ride, this show hurtles us back in time through nineteen years, pausing only to chart the key events within the two friendships and marriages that Frank builds and then destroys.

This show has no gimmicks whatsoever. It is simply the finest assembly of musical theatre talent in town, led by the novice but nonetheless brilliant direction of Friedman, who herself  has built up a lifelong understanding of Sondheim's work.

Mark Umbers is Frank. A gifted composer whose talents are selfishly and callously wasted over the years in pursuit of cash and ultimately cocaine. The decline of his friendship with lyricist Charlie Kringas is deliciously spelt out by the writer, played by Damian Humbley as always at his very best, in a solo number Franklin Shepherd, Inc, in which Kringas, live on national TV,tells of his friend's love for contracts and cheque books over and above the more human passions of people and piano. Completing this doomed trio of friends is Jenna Russell's Mary Flynn (a role in fact played by Friedman in 1992). Of all the key characters, Sondheim gives Flynn no solo numbers, but don't be deceived. The very best of Sondheim's acerbic put-downs and one-liners, ever, are all hers and whilst her plaintive harmonies sung in Old Friends are exquisite her pain at losing her adored Frank to his first wife Beth, sung at their wedding in 1960 in a reprise of Not A Day Goes By, is gut wrenching.

Clare Foster's Beth is a beautiful, trusting, naive Southern Belle. When she ultimately learns of Frank's infidelity, her beauty displays a further facet, as hurt and betrayed she grief-stricken but fiercely protective and possessive of their young son, sings Not A Day Goes By as a solo set in 1967 outside of a New York divorce court. The song is immense. It destroys the audience, reduced this writer to a mess and is perhaps one of the most perceptive yet poetic descriptions ever written of selfless love that has been destroyed by a selfish partner.

Wife number 2 is Gussie Carnegie, an already divorced man-eater of a Broadway star, who finds Frank's zipper an easy if not submissively willng,  challenge to overcome. Josefina Gabrielle is a delight in this role, bereft early on in act one at rejection in favour of a younger starlet and stunning in the show-within-a-show number Musical Husbands. A true star of London's West End, Gabrielle's voice and presence only improves with her career.

This show has expanded perfectly to fit the impressive Harold Pinter proscenium. Sound and movement have all been seamlessly upgraded to tackle the larger stage and David Hersey's subtle lighting adds masterful touches. Catherine Jayes easily takes her ten piece band from offstage at the Menier to the Pinter pit and her understanding of Sondheim's composition is faultless. From brassy upbeat, to searing ironic agony, to the heavenly harmony that is Our Time, every note is explored to the full.

This is a show that's only here on a 12 week visit. As this review is published, the press are commenting that no West End show has ever garnered as many 5-star ratings (and lest Hecuba is accused of simply following the trend, this review's 5-star opinion was tweeted straight after curtain down on press night!). Merrily We Roll Along started out magnificent, and has simply become even better. Are there, or have there ever been, any other shows of this calibre? Damn few.


Runs to 27 July 2013

Picture: Tristram Kenton

Merrily We Roll Along - Review

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

****

Book by George Furth

Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Maria Friedman

Mark Umbers and Damian Humbley

Merrily We Roll Along is regarded by many as one of Stephen Sondheim’s finest pieces of musical theatre. It presents a challenging scenario to any director, not least to first-timer Maria Friedman, who deploys her considerable understanding of the composer’s work in bringing this piece to the compact but imaginatively structured stage of London’s Menier Chocolate Factory.

The story opens at a 1976 party at the home of Hollywood producer Frank Shepard and which  is a snapshot of all that is corrosively corrupt about Tinseltown. Shepard's second marriage is on the rocks, his long-standing songwriting partnership with pal Charlie Kringas is over and Mary Flynn, old college friend of both Frank and Charlie has become a bitter alcoholic. From this shattered patchwork of lives we watch as the years are rolled back and the broken pieces of these three friendships slowly and magically move back into the beautiful whole that they once were when the trio met at college some twenty years previously.

Sondheim is a master of portraying the human condition and few composers can better or more accurately depict the ropes that bind human relationships and the stresses that they impose on the individuals they lash together. Friedman, whilst a novice director, is no stranger to Sondheim's complexities. She coaxes a masterful performance from Mark Umbers as Shepard, a man ultimately led by his zipper, and whose sincere creativity breaks down to reveal a ruthless pursuit of success. His character's moral decline is subtle, and Umbers suggests his descent with understated nuance, occasional anger and above all beautiful voice. Humbley reprises his north american Jewish schlemiel ( last deployed as Max in Lend Me A Tenor) only here he bares teeth as well as the expected comforting ineptitude. In Franklin Shepard, Inc a song set in 1973, he savages the composer for his outrageous egoism on live TV definitively and effectively ending their relationship, in a performance that is as charged with pathos as it is with brilliant wit.

Of the three leads Jenna Russell’s Mary is perhaps the least satisfying. If there is one flaw in the story’s structure it is that her unrequited and unwittingly spurned, love for Frank is not explored deeper though in Old Friends and above all in Our Time, she contributes to haunting harmonies. Clare Foster and Josefina Gabrielle play Frank’s first and second wives respectively. Sondheim introduces us to Beth, Foster’s Southern belle by way of her devastation and betrayal, leading to the ultimate revelation of her youthful charms of trusted talented sensitivity being all the more poignant. Gabrielle’s maneater showgirl Gussie is a treat of performance. She commands the stage as well as the men and of all the characters who reverse-age through the show, her journey back in time is the most convincing. Credit also to Martin Callaghan and Amanda Minihan who play Beth's ignorant redneck parents with some wonderful one-liners. 

Tim Jackson’s choreography impresses throughout, most especially during The Blob, in which his routine cleverly suggests that the star chasing vacuity of media hangers-on was as shallow in 1962 as during the cocaine fuelled party era that set the opening tone of the show, some fourteen years later.

The production is unquestionably, fine musical theatre with intelligent production values bestowed upon this most intelligent of writers.  It should not be missed.

Runs to 23 February 2013

Finding Neverland - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

 ****

Music: Scott Frankel

Lyrics: Michael Korie

Book: Allan Knee

Director & choreographer: Rob Ashford

J M Barrie (Julian Ovenden) confronts his alter-ego played by Oliver Boot

Finding Neverland, is an exquisite piece of theatre. Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has taken the movie that he produced some 8 years ago, hired some accomplished American talent to give the tale a musical theatre treatment and then ingeniously selected Leicester’s stunning Curve Theatre to premiere the work, before it hopefully transfers to the West End and ultimately Broadway.

The semi-biographical story opens with author J M Barrie’s latest play being trashed by the critics and how rebounding from that rejection, he finds inspiration from the 4 boys in the Llewellyn-Davies family whom he befriends in Kensington Gardens, to then ultimately go on and write Peter Pan. Married to wife Mary, in what is revealed to be a well-intentioned but nevertheless loveless union, Barrie is irresistibly drawn to the boys’ widowed mother Sylvia. The relationship between these two, whilst platonic throughout, is the fulcrum of the show’s story, charting moments of both joy and tragedy that the writer shares with the young family as the couple’s love for each other develops. Writing Peter Pan, he transforms his sternest real-life theatre critic into the fictional Captain Hook, with one of the production’s most interesting musical numbers, The Pirate Inside, cleverly suggesting that the buccaneer James Hook is really the darker alter ego of James Barrie.

The cast, to a person, excel. The performances, including that of a delightful St Bernard dog are all flawlessly perfect. Julian Ovenden plays the writer, who like his famous literary creation, struggles to grow up, displaying a youthful and infectious sense of fun and irresponsibility. Ovenden captures the beautifully voiced essence of Barrie’s character within his performance, every inch more boy than man and yet possessing the personality that Sylvia is drawn too. Rosalie Craig as Sylvia similarly shines. Whilst her elegant figure fails to convince that she has borne 4 sons , her poise and presence are captivating. Vocally enchanting, her duet with Clare Foster (Mary), James Never Mentioned, in which each woman’s self-doubts and mutual envies are painfully played out, is a haunting study on a failing marriage and a nascent love affair. Oliver Boot as the critic/Hook character is a convincing villain who both in Peter Pan and as a London critic, torments Barrie. He is every inch the swashbuckling cad and Boot’s energetic delivery is a treat to watch ( and boo!). Liz Robertson, as Sylvia’s disapproving mother also delivers a sterling supporting role, combining compassionate loving mother and grandmother, with being a fearsome protector of her brood. The four talented young boys were led, on press night, by Harry Polden. Already an accomplished child actor Polden held the stage well, displaying his admiration for Barrie, along with his disdain and at times, contempt for the writer, convincingly.

Without doubt, this show is a beautiful piece of theatre, but it requires sharpening. Billed as “The New Musical Comedy”, the laughter points were infrequent and often weak. When Barrie’s cricketing contemporaries sing after a lost game, Crushed Again, the number resembles a clichéd attempt to portray a self-deprecating view of stiff upper lip British sportsmanship and whilst that may well be how we are viewed by our American cousins, such stereotyping should have ended with Mary Poppins (the film). Weinstein has spent a fortune on Finding Neverland and it shows in set design, casting and a beautifully rehearsed full orchestra, ably led by David Charles Abell. The producer has also sensibly avoided gimmickry, allowing a wonderfully strong story to tell itself. But the show needs more flying. There is a passing nod to flight in the prologue and again in the closing scene, but that is all. In much the same way as stage blood can make an audience wince at a moment of violence, so on-stage flight can provide moments of sheer breathtaking emotion. At one point in the show, a kite is flown above the heads of the Stalls, almost reaching the Circle. A sweet effect yes, but if that had instead been a Tinkerbell or Pan, sparingly deployed and truly flying within the theatre, the effect would have been profound and with Weinstein’s eye for telling a good story, probably tear-inducing. In a similar vein, the performance of Peter Pan that is put on in the home of the dying Sylvia, is performed upstage, with the spectating family sat front, backs to the audience, impeding the view of the action and distancing the audience from the production. With some minor tweaking this staging should be re-arranged as it currently detracts from the real beauty that the cast create.

This enchanting show deserves a successful run and its evolution on to a major London stage should be eagerly anticipated. Harvey Weinstein needs to invest just a little bit more, to make the funny parts of his show funnier and to deepen the poignancy of some magical moments in a wonderful story.

Runs to October 18