The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London - Streamed

***

Music by Ben Morales Frost

Lyrics and story by Richard Hough

Directed by Charlotte Westenra

Marc Pickering and company

Credit to the producers, cast and creatives of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, for having the sheer professional optimism and commitment to launch a brand new musical in the midst of a locked-pandemic.

However, notwithstanding the team’s noble intentions and hard graft, for the most part the show is tedious and uninspiring. Tantalisingly trailed with hints of Paul Dukas’ famous 1897 composition (itself made even more of a worldwide sensation in Disney’s Fantasia), Richard Hough’s story fuses Norse mythology with Goethe’s Dukas-inspiring poem, arriving at a modern day analogy that celebrates all sorts of wokery and anti-capitalism. Unfortunately, once Hough's new-age politics are stripped away, his narrative seems more akin to that of the Emperor’s New Clothes than any other classic fable.

Charlotte Westenra’s cast drips with talent. David Thaxton is Johan the eponymous sorcerer, here reduced to an angst-ridden father with a secret, and environmentalist pledged to protect the Northern Lights. Newcomer Mary Moore makes a decently-voiced job of his daughter Eva who is also the titular apprentice. Disappointingly, other than some novel balletics with a handful of brooms and some teasing musical motifs drawn from Dukas, faintly woven into Ben Morales Frost’s score, that’s it for any connection to the much-loved symphony. Thaxton’s award-winning ability to act through song is squandered, as both his role and his lyrics have been created with such lack of depth that there is little beyond politically-correct cliché for him to sink his teeth into.

There are redeeming moments of genuine theatrical excellence, notably those from Marc Pickering as the evil refinery owner and bad-guy of the tale. Pickering’s gift for comedic impact and timing is arguably unsurpassed and he breathes delightful moments of hilarity into his (justifiably) two-dimensional character. Pickering is matched by the equally outstanding Dawn Hope as his mother. Hope’s delivery of a number that explains one of Hough’s tortuous plot twists, Damn You, proves to be the standout turn of the show. There is also, as ever, top-notch work from the much underused Vicki Lee Taylor in a number of modest supporting roles.

If only Hough’s songs and story were wittier and Morales Frost had placed Dukas’ melodies more centre stage, then this could yet have the potential for a great show. As it stands while some may find this musical theatre treatment of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice an enchanting tale, it desperately needs some magic.

Streams until 14 March. Tickets via this link

Photo credit: Geraint Lewis

Follies - Review

National Theatre, London



*****


Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Goldman
Directed by Dominic Cooke

Follies

Eighteen months on and with a couple of well placed casting changes Stephen Sondheim’s Follies returns to the National Theatre with the excellence of this devastating musical a breath of fresh air amidst a slew of disappointing recent openings in the capital. What sets Follies apart from so many other current shows is the meticulous detail that Sondheim weaves into his lyrics and melodies. There is an almost Shakespearean genius to the man, such is his ability to pare the essence of love, lovelessness and the human condition down to the barest, bleakest of bones.

Of Follies’ two leading ladies Janie Dee reprises Phyllis, as Joanna Riding takes over as Sally for this revival. Dee has had time to both sharpen Phyllis’ talons and harden her carapace, her every nuance carefully honed by Cooke’s perceptive direction. Dee’s delivery of Sondheim’s words wield a merciless scalpel into the failures of husband Ben. Phyllis’ big solo Could I Leave You? Proving almost bloody in its brutal dissection of her marriage. Dee savours the wit that Sondheim has bestowed upon her character. Acting through song does not get better than this.

Alexander Hanson, Janie Dee and Christine Tucker

Follies was already a five star show back in 2017. With Riding onboard however and with the elegant fragility that she brings to Sally, a level of credible characterisation that was missing on this production’s first outing, the whole piece is lifted to a higher plane. Sally is one of the toughest gigs in the canon, a faded beauty decayed into a desperate housewife, glamorously bewigged and yet ultimately a woman who on the inside, is crumbing as much as the derelict theatre around her. Serving up pathos without a hint of maudlin sentimentality Riding's heartbreaking rendition of In Buddy’s Eyes is a lament to a love that has long since dwindled - while the mental devastation of Losing My Mind scorches in its revelation of her pain. And as she rips the wig from her head during that song’s closing bars, we gasp at the brute ugliness of her depression.

Ian McIntosh, Joanna Riding and Gemma Sutton

Peter Forbes’ Buddy Plummer has grown too. There is a sleazy mania to his performance that is as abhorrent as it is compelling, especially in his Willy Loman-esque take on The Right Girl.  Alexander Hanson’s Ben offers up a brief glance into the rise and, more pronouncedly, the fall of an oleaginous statesman. Hanson performs well, but there is a tad more bedding into the role that is needed to fully convince.

The show’s supporting roles are all individual treats. Tracie Bennett, ‘still here’ from 2017 as Carlotta, remains perhaps the most diminutive of powerhouse voices to be found in the West End. Oozing classy, sassy cynicism Bennett comes close to stopping the show. She is matched though by her colleagues. Claire Moore is every inch, the most believable Broadway Baby; Felicity Lott and Alison Langer enchant with One More Kiss; Dawn Hope leads the most phenomenal tap line (and credit here to Bill Deamer’s immaculately conceived and drilled choreography throughout) in Who’s That Woman - and a further nod to Bennett who, in a display of sheer bloody stamina segues seamlessly from that number into the demands of I’m Still Here. 

Dawn Hope leads the line

The ghost quartet of the leading roles are marvellous with the ever-excellent Gemma Sutton, together with Christine Tucker, Ian McIntosh and Harry Hepple all offering the necessary passion, scorn and incredulity to make their ghost roles take flight.

It is not just Follies’ writing, but also the National’s lavish production values that define this show as a gem. Vicki Mortimer’s designs deftly blend the decay of the Weismann Theatre into the glamour of the ghosted numbers, with the subtle magnificence of the Olivier’s drum revolve taking the show through both the battered Broadway building as well as the decades, almost imperceptibly. Nigel Lilley's 20-piece orchestra is a soaring delight throughout.

A musical can be judged on narrative, music, song and dance, with Follies scoring top marks across the board. This revival offers an unmissable glimpse into the heaven and hell of humanity.

Runs until 11th May

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Devil With The Blue Dress - Review

The Bunker, London



***


Written by Kevin Armento 
Directed by Joshua McTaggart

Daniella Isaacs and Flora Montgomery

All too frequently, political scandals have the ingredients of a telenovela - heroes, villains, power, sex, blackmail and a healthy dose of the incredulous. Even more commonly, they are named for the men at their centre. That is, with the exception of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the namesake of which - in this dramatisation of the affair and its surrounding cause and effects – accuses Hillary Clinton, America’s First Lady and wife of the then US President Bill Clinton, of making sure that everyone knew Lewinsky’s name, in the hope of minimising the political damage to the Clinton moniker and ultimately, her career. 

There are two things of particular note. Firstly, in this interpretation, Hillary (Flora Montgomery) is placed firmly at the centre, simultaneously acting as a by-stander, a victim and a shrewd political operator and questions the real value of her gamble. Secondly, while this is an all-female play that explores the characters’ complexities through their relationships with the President and with each other, it misses the mark on its examination, arguably providing very few authentic insights into the way women really work. Alongside this, the audience will find it very difficult to dismiss a comparison with the current Administration and its extraordinary ability to swerve any blow of this dimension or potentially, even larger.

The setup is, in principle, very clever. Set in Hillary’s memories of that time, we see five characters expose their different relationships with Bill.  Four of them know him personally: the wife; daughter; mistress and the long-serving secretary, Betty. The fifth is an observer from a Republican standpoint but is revealed to be more than that as Lewinsky’s friend and confidante Linda Tripp. 

Bill makes regular appearances, with the actors playing Chelsea (Kristy Philipps), Betty (Dawn Hope) and Linda (Emma Handy) taking on this role in turn. They make a great cast who execute a fast-paced script very well. Monica (Daniella Isaacs) is magnetic but it is Philipps’ ability to flit between playing Chelsea and Bill with astonishing believability that makes for a standout performance. Special mention too to saxophonist Tashomi Balfour, who succeeds in amplifying the murky, seedy and fiery emotions played out on stage.

Devil With The Blue Dress promises a deconstruction of the societal response to women seeking power and the men that abuse their trust, but instead feels more like a commentary on the fallibility of people as witnesses. Is anyone’s testimony truly evidence? How much more weight is given to the hard evidence, such as titular blue dress?

While the play’s premise may be ambitious, it rarely manages to pack a punch. The source material and melodramatic tendencies are all there - indeed it comes across as a very well-researched piece - but it feels as though emphasis is being erroneously placed on the execution, rather than upon the story itself. 

Yet the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal - as this reviewer is now describing it - has a pressing relevance for today’s audience and with its talented cast, Devil With The Blue Dress will no doubt have a good run.

Runs until 28th April
Reviewed by Bhakti Gajjar
Photo credit: Helen Murray

The Scottsboro Boys - Review

Garrick Theatre,  London

*****

Music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb

Book by David Thompson

Directed and choreography by Susan Stroman

MY FEATURE ARTICLE: BACKSTAGE WITH THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS

l-r  Colman Domingo, Julian Glover and Forrest McClendon

A year after it wowed the critics in its London debut at the Young Vic, (see my 2013 review below) The Scottsboro Boys returns to cross the Thames. With many of the 2013 cast reprising their roles at the Garrick, the show's West End opening offers a rare privilege to re-review this 5-star treat, last year's Critics' Circle choice as Best Musical.

The Scottsboro Boys is written around a true 1930's travesty of justice that defined the hateful ugliness of America's Deep South. Eight black men and a boy, all of African American heritage, were falsely accused of raping two white women as their train stopped in Scottsboro, Alabama. Their subsequent conviction and death sentences polarised the USA. As the South was still licking its wounds barely 70 years after the Civil War, the North mounted a defence campaign that was to see 8 of the nine boys paroled. Parole, by its very nature, demands an admission of guilt and amidst a bevy of standout performances, it is Brandon Victor Dixon's Haywood Patterson, a man whose conscience couldn't permit him to utter a lie and who, defiantly, was to spend his life wrongly incarcerated, upon whom the story's spotlight falls.

Dixon is a long-established Broadway talent and having spent the last year listening to his voice on my iPhone in the NY cast recording, it is a privilege to witness him live. Patterson's journey carries the show and he bears his principled stand with passion, poignancy and perfect performance. The brilliant jazz-hands irony of his softly sung Nothing as he pleads his innocence, echoes the sardonic lyric of Kander and Ebb's Mr Cellophane from Chicago. The observations are as sharp, but this time there's no comedy.

The company are excellent throughout, with fellow Broadway imports Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon defining the harshest of satires as minstrel jesters Messrs Bones and Tambo, their gags making a pastiche of Vaudevilke. Deliberately corny, the clown-like versatility of these men and Domingo's comedy-horror rictus grin seal the brilliance of the genre.

The jarring perversity of Kander & Ebb telling this history story via a minstrel show, only serves to underline the perversion of justice to which Alabama subjugated itself as its rednecks bayed for the Boys' blood. The minstrel show's Interlocutor, 79yo veteran Brit Julian Glover, gives a performance that subtly combines majesty with a brilliantly understated bumbling ineptness. A man who believes passionately in what he perceives to be justice, yet who has also learned his racist views from childhood, carrying a sincerely held belief that black people are worth less than white. Glover's is an acting masterclass.

Elsewhere, excellence drips from this show. Broadway talent James T Lane, resplendent in frock and hat as Ruby Bates, one of the perjurious white women, dances across the stage with a movement that has to be believed. Susan Stroman, who has remained with the show since it's emergence off-Broadway back in 2010 has envisioned the ghastly tale magnificently, never bettered than in the slickly-sickly tap routine Electric Chair. A mention too for the brilliantly delivered tour of Fred Ebb's take on the South's music, played under Phil Cornwell's baton.

First time around, this review failed to pay sufficient respect to the character of The Woman, played by Dawn Hope, onstage almost throughout and saying nothing until the final scene. Consider (or google) Rosa Parks in history and it becomes abundantly clear how much of a cornerstone in the USA's Civil Rights movement The Scottsboro Boys became.

The Scottsboro Boys is unmatched on any London stage. As both a history lesson as well as a display of world-class stagecraft it stands apart. More than unmissable, if you care for humanity and appreciate some of the finest song and dance around, this show has to be seen.

Runs at until Saturday 21st February 2015


Later this month I shall be touring Scottsboro, Alabama and visiting The Scottsboro Boys Museum.

Follow me on Twitter @MrJonathanBaz for my upcoming writing about this visit.

MY REVIEW OF THE 2013 YOUNG VIC PRODUCTION