My Fair Lady - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music by Frederick Loewe

Lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner

Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Tony Jayawardena, Kezia Ibe and Hadley Fraser

Rachel Kavanaugh’s take on My Fair Lady is a musical treat. This fiendishly complicated tale of love conquering the shocking prejudices of both sexism and class, although set around the turn of the 20th century remains strikingly relevant today, Kavanaugh showing us the timelessness of those bigotries first outlined in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.

Of course it is the combined gifts of Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics and Frederick Loewe’s enchanting melodies that translate this cautionary parable into a fairytale of song and as performed by this Chichester company, every number is exquisite.

In a brave casting choice, debutante Kezia Ibe is cast as Eliza Doolittle, the flower-girl from Lisson Grove who is lifted up to refined eloquence by Hadley Fraser’s Henry Higgins. Ibe is handed the lion’s share of the numbers and if her confidence takes a little while to steady, by the time she delivers I Could Have Danced All Night, the exquisite sweetness of her soprano voice is spine-tingling in its beauty. 

Fraser’s Higgins is flawless in his take on the blinkered, sexist academic whose vulnerabilities slowly emerge through the evening The age difference between Fraser and Ibe is perfect, with Fraser giving us a cleverly crafted insight into the Professor. This, when complemented by his acting through song that manages to find every hint of cynicism and humour (as well as Higgins's appalling chauvinism) is a masterclass in musical theatre performance.

Tony Jayawardena puts in a solid Colonel Pickering, while Finty Williams offers up hints of her gifted mother in possibly the finest Mrs Pearce (Higgins’s housekeeper) to have been seen in quite a while.

Gary Milner masters the show’s comic responsibilities as Alfred P. Doolittle – his Get Me To The Church On Time is a delight that feels like it could go on forever and in the story’s curious and unresolved love triangle, Ben Culleton is a charmingly voiced Freddy Eynsford-Hill who makes glorious work of On The Street Where You Live.

Kavanaugh is supported by creative genius. Stephen Mear’s choreography is spectacular and, as always, conceived and drilled to perfection – highlights being the refined elegance of the Embassy Ball along with the equally ballsy cockney swagger of Get Me To The Church On Time. The other creative ace in the pack is Howard Harrison’s stunning lighting. With so much of the action playing out late at night and into dawn, Harrison has arranged opposite banks of spotlights to suggest the whiteness of moonlight and the golden hues of the sun. It makes for a classy visual touch. Perched atop the stage, Cat Beveridge's 14-piece orchestra are terrific.

Yet again, Chichester have created a summer hit. This magical cast could have danced all night.

Runs until 5th September

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Magic - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Written by David Haig

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Hadley Fraser hangs out in Magic

Magic is an ingenious new drama from David Haig, an actor and playwright with a talent for spotting an episode of history and then building a fictitious drama that is grounded in a fact-filled foundation. The play explores an imagined series of meeting between Harry Houdini, the acclaimed illusionist and escapologist, and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. The author is of course renowned for his creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes, but what is not so well known about Conan-Doyle was his belief in the world of spiritualism and seances.

The essence of Haig’s drama draws on Houdini’s mastery of trickery and ultimate cynicism – he was a man who made his fortune by skilfully deceiving his audiences via fairgrounds and flim flam – and how he deploys that skill to challenge what he believes to be the fraudulent trickery of the spiritualist mediums, who he is convinced are deceiving their clients, not via circus-style chicanery but rather, and arguably far more sinister, by preying on their emotional vulnerabilities. 

Magic is set in the 1920s when Conan-Doyle was already a widower and on his second marriage and had recently lost numerous close relatives including Kingsley, a much beloved son, to the fighting in the First World War. Haig sets out Conan-Doyle’s belief in the spiritual world as almost obsessive, with the clashes between the writer and the illusionist making for compelling theatre. There are moments in the evening when one feels that the ground is familiar, as some 30 years ago Haig wrote the play My Boy Jack that focussed on Rudyard Kipling’s grief over his only son Jack, who had been killed in the Great War. 

The evening’s physical theatre is magnificent. Hadley Fraser is Houdini, while Haig himself takes on Sir Arthur. Lucy Bailey directs with her usual flair of shocking brilliance that sees the play open to Fraser being suspended upside down while escaping from handcuffs. Fraser masters the scene spectacularly, but the visuals are striking enough to remind one of Bailey’s stunning Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2006 that left audiences fainting, such was the impact of her take on that play’s violence.

 

Aside from Fraser wowing the Chichester audience with his immaculate 6-pack, ( This reviewer jealous? Never! ) his take on the escapologist is passionate and convincing. Equally, Haig’s interpretation of the complicated author desperately seeking a connection with his dead son is deeply moving. There is strong work too from Jenna Augen and Claire Price as the spouses Bess Houdini and Jean Conan-Doyle respectively and a fabulous cameo from Jade Williams as Mina Crandon, a famed medium of her time, who Houdini tries to expose. 

The tone of the evening is classy as Bailey and her designer Joanna Parker create ‘just the right level’ of tawdry in the dancing troupe that supports Houdini’s vaudeville turns. The special effects and illusions are fun too – this could almost be a family show if the subject material wasn’t so troublingly dark.

Spellbinding theatre.

Runs until 16th May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

The Deep Blue Sea - Review

Theatre Royal, Haymarket

*****

Written by Terence Rattigan

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Tamsin Greig

Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea is a minutely observed take on one day in the life of Hester Collyer. Middle aged and having suffered a failed marriage and a failing affair, we encounter Hester, prone on the floor of her tawdry Ladbroke Grove flat following yet another failure, this time in her attempt to kill herself. Lindsay Posner’s take on 1950s England delivers a sepia-tinged snapshot of social mores that have long since been discarded. But while life’s customs may have evolved and changed, the play’s underlying themes of passion and despair are timeless.

As the day unfolds we meet Hester’s landlady, neighbours, her husband and her lover, as the jigsaw pieces of her life are slowly revealed. Rattigan has a powerful and perceptive understanding of the human condition, with each of his characters carefully crafted as they impact onto the fraught and fragile Hester.

But more than just the sublime writing, the acting at the Theatre Royal Haymarket defines this production (a transfer in from the Theatre Royal Bath) as one of the finest dramas currently to be found on a London stage. Tamsin Greig is Hester, on stage throughout, in a performance that captures the complexities of her depression, self-loathing and desperate desire in the finest of detail. Never melodramatic, Greig delivers a masterclass in perfectly nuanced acting.

As her High Court judge husband Sir William and some years her senior, Nicholas Farrell turns in an equally assured performance of a complex love that still burns for his estranged wife, while Hadley Fraser’s Freddie, Hester’s younger lover, offers up a snapshot of a man battling his own demons.

The key supporting roles of Miller, a lapsed German doctor and Mrs Elton, the landlady of the house are perfectly and sensitively fleshed out by Finbar Lynch and Selina Cadell respectively, each contributing valuable colour to Rattigan’s harrowing palette. Peter McKintosh’s set is an understated masterpiece of 50’s austerity, perfectly lit by Paul Pyant.

Rattigan’s eye for English misery is unmatched, and under Posner’s direction and with Greig’s breathtaking performance, The Deep Blue Sea is unmissable theatre.

Runs until 21 June

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Opening Night - Review

Gielgud Theatre, London

****

Music, lyrics & orchestrations by Rufus Wainwright

Original film by John Cassavetes

Directed by & book written by Ivo Van Hove

Sheridan Smith

Every show has an opening night. In Mel Brooks’ musical The Producers he even included a song entitled Opening Night, so it was surely only a matter of time until a creative (step forward Ivo Van Hove) grabbed hold of John Cassavetes’ 1977 movie to fashion a two-act show around one of theatre’s most consistently nerve-wracking challenges.

In one of the boldest upendings of the genre, Van Hove’s multimedia, mind-meddling, meta-musical presents us with the decline of the fragile Myrtle (Sheridan Smith). A leading lady in The Second Woman, a Broadway play that’s four days from opening, Myrtle is already battling profound insecurities about her age and career. Early on in the narrative she witnesses the brutal death of Nancy, a fan killed in a road traffic accident immediately after having very nervously obtained the actress’s autograph. Following Nancy's death, the musical then tracks the ticking time-bomb of the impact of that trauma upon Myrtle’s mental well-being.

Smith is outstanding in a performance that mixes gravitas with fragility. The linchpin of both The Second Woman and Van Hove’s musical, it is her energy that drives the show. There are fine supporting performances too. Hadley Fraser is Manny, the demanding Broadway director who is all too happy to blur professional boundaries if it will reassure his leading lady. Nicola Hughes has the complex role of NY playwright Sarah, who is required to handle Myrtle’s mangling of her script as the actress’s mind unravels. The duet between Myrtle and Sarah, Makes One Wonder, is spine-tingling in its exploration of the pair’s respective vulnerabilities. Amy Lennox as Manny’s wife Dorothee has a modest but useful role in the narrative, providing a robust and challenging foil to her husband’s inappropriate conduct. 

The most impressive work amongst the supporting roles comes from West End debutante Shira Haas as Nancy. Haas takes this unfortunate young woman, transitioning her from a star-struck fan with issues to a ghost-like apparition that plagues Myrtle’s troubled mind. This is a bold conceit addressed brilliantly by Van Hove and lending an almost horrific edge to the second act. 

The use of video and live-action multi-camera projections (designed by Jan Versweyveld) deploys a massive upstage screen that not only plays around with cleverly storyboarded close-ups, but goes further with the merging of camera shots. In a remarkable coup-de-theatre, as Myrtle reaches her mental nadir, Versweyveld and Van Hove use time-lapse to add another visible dimension to the actress’s distress.

Rufus Wainwright’s music is, for the most part, a joy to experience taking in a range of American styles. Nigel Lilley’s 9-piece onstage band are terrific with standout work from Huw Davies on guitar. Wainwright’s lyrics occasionally drift into repetitive triteness, a feature perhaps of his rock and pop background rather than the more rigid disciplines of musical theatre.

Opening Night makes for a challenging night of unconventional theatre that is at times deeply upsetting. Sheridan Smith’s performance is one of the finest to be found on a London stage.

Booking until 27th July

Photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

The Lehman Trilogy - Review

Gillian Lynne Theatre, London

**

Written by Stefano Massini

Adapted by Ben Power

Directed by Sam Mendes

l-r Hadley Fraser, Nigel Lindsay, Michael Balogun

As a tour-de-force of theatrical skill, the National Theatre's The Lehman Trilogy, now revived at Covent Garden's Gillian Lynne Theatre has to remain one of London's highlights. The 3hr 20min opus, reflecting the transition of the american dream into a nightmare is a sublime presentation of acting skill and technical genius. Stepping into the roles of the three Lehman brothers are Nigel Lindsay as Henry, Hadley Fraser as Mayer and Michael Balogun as Emanuel.

And of course what makes this production quite such a Herculean effort for its actors is that not only are they playing the three immigrant brothers, setting up in Montgomery Alabama in the 1840s, but they are playing every other supporting role too.

Notwithstanding the actors’ excellence, matched by Es Devlin’s ingenious stage designs that have translated well to the Gillian Lynne Theatre together with Luke Halls' mesmerising video projections, the play is profoundly flawed both in its literary construct and even more so, in this particular iteration.

The Lehman Trilogy opens with scenery being constructed out of dozens of cardboard 'Bankers Boxes', items that are synonymous with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers merchant bank in the 2008 financial crisis, when news broadcasts streamed images of hundreds of the bank's employees pouring out of its offices in Canary Wharf and Wall Street carrying their personal belongings in those boxes, images that came to define the impact of the 2008 meltdown on the world's financial centres. Equally, the play’s opening presents us with the three leads, clearly dressed as observant patrician Jews, one by one getting off the boat and heading for Alabama. The three never leave the stage throughout, nor change their costumes as the years roll by. Likewise, the cardboard boxes are also on stage from start to finish.

The message is clear, an insidious antisemitic conflation permeating the entire play, that visually links Jews with sharp financial practice and corporate collapse. That this trope of an association is even then factually inaccurate, given that the Lehman brothers’ descendants lost their last familial connection with the bank in 1969 and therefore had no connection whatsoever with the Lehman corporation at the time of its collapse, is treated by Stefano Massini as little more than an inconvenient truth.

Where this production compounds racial insensitivity even further is in the casting of Michael Balogun as Emanuel Lehman. Alabama in 1844 was a slave state in the heart of America’s south. A place where, especially in the play's first act, Balogun plays a person of self-made privilege. This of course was an opportunity not afforded to Alabama’s black population at the time and in his casting, the production’s creatives and producers have shown scant acknowledgment of Alabama’s desperately troubling history of racial oppression.

The Lehman Trilogy’s 21st century stagecraft may well be state of the art and its performances, arguably, the best in town. Its ethics however, are mired in the Dark Ages.

Runs until 20th May 

Photo credit: Mark Douet

Carousel - Review

Cadogan Hall, London


*****


Music by Richard Rodgers
Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on Ferenc Molnar's play Liliom as adapted by Benjamin F Glazer

To read my recent interview with Janie Dee and Jo Riding, click here

The company of Carousel

Every now and then theatrical magic descends...

So it was at the Cadogan Hall this week where Alex Parker had assembled a starry cast and a magnificent 30-strong orchestra to perform, for one night only, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. But this cast had something even more special, setting it apart from the throng of musicals currently playing in the West End and on Broadway. For back in 1992 Carousel had been staged at London's National Theatre in a production that featured Jo Riding and Janie Dee as female leads Julie Jordan and Carrie Pipperidge. Such was the excellence of director Nicholas Hytner’s show that not only did his revival win the Olivier for Best Musical Revival and Best Director, but Riding and Dee won the Oliviers for Best Leading Actress and Best Supporting Performer (both for in a Musical), respectively.

Riding and Dee had been recently reunited at the National as the leads in a revival of Follies and so it was an act of sheer vision that prompted Parker to invite the duo to reprise their Carousel magnificence in a concert performance of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic.

Janie Dee and Jo Riding in Carousel, 1992

The pair’s contribution to the evening was a display, not only of continuing musical theatre excellence – but also of a sheer unbridled love for the show that they were singing. As the cast remained seated on stage when not called upon to perform, Dee’s passion for the piece was almost palpabke. When not performing herself she was absorbing the detail of the music and the occasion, almost in disbelief - not dissimilar to Billy Bigelow being granted the chance to descend from Heaven for a one day visit to Earth - that she had been granted a chance to reprise this heavenly score. Riding too was both entranced and enchanting and yet, in full keeping with the incredibly complex character that Julie is, maintained a sobriety that in no way diminished her evident love for the occasion.

Parker had rehearsed his musicians impeccably. From the opening bars of The Carousel Waltz, through to the closing strains of You’ll Never Walk Alone – not to mention the sheer brilliance of the demanding Act 2 Ballet, the music was a profound delight, accompanied by a vocal chorus of students from the Guildford School of Acting.

Alongside Riding and Dee, Hadley Fraser was  compelling and convincing as the violently troubled Billy Bigelow. Another character of deep complexity, Fraser imbued the errant husband with as much sympathy as could be afforded to his abusive nature. He also delivered a sensational Soliloquy.

Gavin Spokes captured Mr Snow’s comic pomposity perfectly, as Stewart Clarke’s Jigger was another deft turn from this talented young man, Clarke picking out his character’s malign opportunistic wickedness. Both men were vocally outstanding, with Matthew Kelly and Chizzy Akudolu complementing the set of supporting roles as The Starkeeper and Mrs Mullins respectively

As Nettie Fowler, Lucy Schaufer’s operatic background led to her spine-tingling take on You’ll Never Walk Alone. But back in 1992 it had been Patricia Routledge (not yet then a Dame) who played Nettie. Incredibly, and at the age of 90!, Routledge returned to this production as the narrator. For those in the audience who remembered the 1992 show, to see Dame Patricia singing along in the finale of the show’s totemic anthem was unforgettable.

Photo credit: Take Two Theatricals (2019) and Clive Barda (1992)

Young Frankenstein - Review

Garrick Theatre, London


****

Music and lyrics by Mel Brooks
Book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan
Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman

Hadley Fraser and Shuler Hensley

Not since the pairing of Bialystock and Bloom has there been a theatrical partnership to match that of Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman. He’s an irreverent comic genius who for 70 years has taken no prisoners in his mocking of life’s stereotypes and injustices while she is one of the most perceptive and assured director/choreographers of her generation. And so it is that their latest collaboration Young Frankenstein, recently arrived from Broadway to open at London’s Garrick Theatre, is another triumph.

Like The Producers before it, Young Frankenstein hails from a Brooks movie of some 40 years earlier with the veteran writer/director reframing the comedy-horror flick around his own composition of words and music. And much like Dr Frankenstein’s eponymous creature, Brooks (together with Stroman) has re-animated his story into exceptional musical theatre. If Sunset Boulevard is a sincere tribute to the romance of post-war Hollywood, then Young Frankenstein is an as-loving parody of the same time and place, but played for laughs. 

Snowflakes be warned, there are no “safe spaces” in this show as Brooks makes fun not only of cinematic genres, but also, and mercilessly, of men, women and for good measure exhumed corpses too. The jokes may be as corny as they are smutty, but Brooks knows just how far to dig in mining this rich and timeless seam of humour, throwing political correctness to the wind.

The plot (very) loosely follows the classic story, with Hadley Fraser as the fine-voiced young Dr Frankenstein leaving his slightly matriarchal fiancée Elizabeth played by Dianne Pilkington and setting off from New York (aboard the HMS Queen Mary Shelley, geddit?) to travel to his infamous grandfather’s castle in Transylvania.

Once there and in the heart of Europe, (and oh how Hollywood has, for decades, loved to view our continent as full of nightmarish monsters) the young Doctor meets a string of characters that are straight out of the 1950s B-Movie playbook

Ross Noble is Igor, the hunched assistant, Lesley Joseph plays Frau Blucher an older woman with a sinister past, while Summer Strallen is Inga whose character is largely a recreation of The Producers’ Ulla.

Noble’s talent lies in stand-up comedy - though he applies himself brilliantly to the scripted confines of Igor’s ineptness. Joseph however is quite simply an old-school comedy master. She works the room and with her big number He Vas My Boyfriend offers up a gloriously pastiche of Marlene Dietrich.

Strallen’s Inga sends the comedy straight back to the 1970s - gifted in song, dance and performance, her turn defines the cliché that Brooks has created for her.

There’s eye-watering stuff from Patrick Clancy who doubles up both as the village’s police Inspector as well as a Hermit who befriends the monster. Clancy is also a talented pro who’s worked with Brooks before - his timing is spot on, with slapstick that is as hilarious as it is offensive.

Notwithstanding the occasional lapse in pace, Stroman’s staging is inspired. Act 2 may contain some wittily brilliant tap routines that spoof Top Hat delightfully, but the first half’s number Hang Him Til He’s Dead sees the pitchfork-waving mob of villagers choreographed into an embarrassingly joyous hangman’s dance. And as for the horses that haul Dr Frankenstein’s cart to the castle, never has the equine form been staged or suggested with such ingenuity and comedy.

Perhaps the biggest accolade of the night is due to Shuler Hensley who plays The Monster. Only rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic (he was last in London in the 90s for an Olivier-winning turn as the monstrous Jud in the National Theatre’s Oklahoma) Hensley created The Monster on Broadway before touring with the show and he breathes a life into one of the canon’s most curious characters. His Monster has to evolve from being of virtually zero-intelligence, to a creature that’s far more sophisticated. To reveal any more would be to spoil - suffice to say that Hensley masters the transformation magnificently.

As this review is published, the producers have announced that the run is extending into late 2018. Hurrah! Young Frankenstein is a fabulous night out.

Booking until 29th September 2018

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Of Thee I Sing - Review

Royal Festival Hall, London


***

Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind

All credit to Elliot Davis, Senbla and the genius of casting director Anne Vosser, for assembling such a platinum plated cast to perform the little known Of Thee I Sing. But whilst this one-night-only's company was majestic, the show itself plumbs the crassest depths of jingoistic prejudice, sexism and febrile farce. Quite how it won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize (the first musical ever to do so) beggars belief.

Described as a lampoon of the American political machine, Of Thee I Sing not only mocks the nation’s executive, it mocks a dumb redneck electorate too, spinning a ridiculous yarn surrounding the election and subsequent presidency of a John P Wintergreen. The story does not merit description, but on the Festival Hall stage, some of our finest performers nonetheless proved that that they've truly earned their 5* reputations.

Hadley Fraser was Wintergreen, displaying the chiselled charm of a President and lending his magnificent voice to songs that were largely forgettable. Louise Dearman enchanted as his true love Mary, whilst Hannah Waddingham, as a hopeful, but ultimately rejected First Lady, offered her usual magnificence, tearing up the stage in a hybrid of Southern Belle cum Brunhilde. 

Offering a Rowan Atkinson inspired Vice President, Tom Edden was a masterclass in comic timing and presence, though when it comes to world class excellence in comedy acting through song, there is none finer than Peter Polycarpou, whose blustering French Ambassador made the very best of an awful role.

There is only one real (and gorgeous) classic Gershwin number in the show, Love Is Sweeping The Country and the tightly choreographed routine, as well as a delicious delivery that Daisy Maywood and Gavin Alex gave to it in the compact space available, proved the evening's highlight. To be fair everyone else on stage was fabulous too, including Gareth Snook playing a multitude of roles and some polished ensemble support from the Musical Theatre Academy.

Under Michael England’s baton the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra were delightfully spot on throughout the evening.

City of Angels - A Performer's Eye View from Tiffany Graves

In the first of an occasional series in which respected professionals from the world of theatre offer their thoughts on a show, Tiffany Graves gives her Performer's Eye View of City of Angels, currently playing at the Donmar Warehouse....

I know, I know - I'm very late to the party. Embarrassingly so, as City of Angels shall only be at The Donmar for another couple of weeks (the run comes to an end on February 7th). But, better late than never - with soaring reviews and tickets like gold-dust, I was delighted to have been able to secure a seat.

Before the performance, I spotted a fellow performer Frankie Jenna (currently starring as Kathy Seldon in Singing in the Rain at The Gatehouse) who had bagged a standing spot on her night off as she couldn't bear to miss this production either.

Although not a show I was lucky enough to be seen for, it was definitely one I would have loved to have been in (not least because I adore Cy Colman’s work and greatly enjoyed doing his Sweet Charity at the Menier and Haymarket, also choreographed by the wonderful Stephen Mear).

I do, however, have a ridiculously talented friend who got very close to being cast as one of the Angel City Four and recounts tales of sitting up until the early hours learning both female harmony parts and was a mere 'shoo-wap-bee-dooo-wah' away from getting the job - had it not been for the fact that she has glorious long, raven hair (not too dissimilar to Rosalie Craig's locks that adorn all the show’s sultry smoldering posters) and that Josie Rourke decided to give a nod towards LA's racial undertones so fitting of the time. Brilliant choice... not so much for my talented friend.

So where does one start? The show is a veritable smorgasbord of delights, boasting a creative team that would make any performer salivate with joy at the thought of the first day of rehearsals. Think 'Avengers Assemble'. With the likes of Josie Rourke, Gareth Valentine and Stephen Mear at the helm, you know you are going to be in very safe hands.

And the cast that they had 'assembled' were truly at the top of their game. Led by newlyweds Rosalie Craig and Hadley Fraser, the entire cast's diction was a crisp and effortless vocal tone.

Peter Polycarpou excelled playing Fidler/Irwin with just the right combination of cringe, humour and Hollywood sleaze. Quite a masterclass in delivery. And, naturally for Peter (we did Cats together many Jellicle Moons ago), he didn’t pass up the opportunity of going au naturel for our viewing pleasure!

Like every performer, there is the part of my brain that never stops when watching a show, no matter how hard I try to quash it, whispering to me "If you had been cast in this- who would you like to be? How would you play the role and would it be a different portrayal to the one you see before you?"

So - hands up, I admit it - I would’ve adored to play Alaura Kingsley/Carla for the sheer glamour and show-stopping joy that a part like that offers. What a gift! Katherine Kelly was perfect casting for the role (damn her!) and oozed the sophisticated allure demanded of her. 

And with Katherine's unfortunate exit from the cast this week, in swooped Wonderwoman Caroline Sheen to save the day with a mere 24 hours notice. (We did A Funny Thing at the National together, and you couldn't ask for a calmer head or safer pair of hands to step into the show at the last minute) Hats off to you Caroline, from all of us awestruck and envious fellow performers up here in the cheap seats!

Stephen Mear's clever racket-choreography for her Tennis Song duet with the rugged Tam Matu raised all the necessary titters, and I will be doing my level best to steal some of Alaura's bombshell poise when I portray Ulla in The Producers later this year (well, it's the biggest form of flattery after all).

As for my favourite turn of the evening, it was a tough call, as You Can Always Count On Me is one of my all-time favourite songs and Rebecca Trehearn did not disappoint in her rendition. She certainly is a dame who knows how to sell a song. And Rosalie Craig’s It Needs Work was delivered beautifully – and must have been such fun singing David Zippel’s irreverent lyrics across a New York café table to her new Mister.

However, it's a full feast of a production, meaning that not only are the performances sublime, but the devilishly ingenious lighting, creative staging, inventive set and fabulous costume design all play a huge part in the audience's enjoyment and the show’s overall success; seamlessly depicting which story we are in (there are two - the Film Noir and reality, woven together marvellously in Larry Gelbart’s book... do keep up!).

In such a stylish era, the women look spectacularly put together and the men suave. Set against a backdrop of scripts that can be climbed upon and sweeping stairs that glide across the stage, it cannot fail to impress. I always worry when friends see me in a show and comment on how wonderful the set or costumes or lights were as I feel that they are deflecting. Not so here - these features all complement the actors beautifully, making the piece as a whole so perfectly formed.

So. I enjoyed it. A lot. Is it obvious? I would love to tell you to grab a ticket and go, but sadly they are now few and far between. You could try the Barclays Front Row offer if it is still available, or if not queue up for returns. Or feel smug that you were one of the lucky few who got to enjoy such a gem. Or sit on the floor, crossed legged and pray to the great fairy of musical theatre in the hope that it might, hopefully, transfer.

If it does, I for one would certainly go see it again!

Tiffany Graves

Tiffany will soon be appearing as Ulla in the UK tour of The Producers alongside Jason Manford, Ross Noble, Phil Jupitus, Cory English and David Bedella.

Best known for playing both Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart in Chicago, Tiffany went on to be alternate lead in Sweet Charity at The Haymarket, Killer Queen in We Will Rock You, Marlene Dietrich in Piaf, and took part in the 50 Year celebration at the National Theatre. She has also appeared in Cats, A Chorus Line, Sunset Boulevard, Witches of Eastwick, Wonderful Town, Follies and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.

She will be performing in her own cabaret show Desperate Divas at London's St James Theatre on February 22nd.

Follow Tiffany on Twitter @tiffanygraves4

City of Angels plays until 7th February 2015

City of Angels - Review

Donmar Warehouse, London

*****

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by David Zippel

Book by Larry Gelbart

Directed by Josie Rourke

Rosalie Craig in rehearsal

It's more than 20 years since City Of Angels last played in the West End and it is a mark of panache that sees the Donmar reviving it now. An unconventional tale, mixing morality with the darker side of Hollywood's film-noir era, but for this particular production with a shortish run, a million-dollar cast and production values to match, tickets to the Donmar are like gold dust.

Hadley Fraser is Stine, a writer contracted to monstrous mogul Buddy Fidler's studios. Sat at his Corona typewriter, Stine taps out his pulp fiction screenplay City Of Angels, a mystery of murder and double crossing that centres upon the investigations of fictional gumshoe Stone. All of Stine's movie characters are modelled upon the people who share his world, with a feature of the musical's book being that the actors who play Stine's contemporaries mirror their roles in Stone's fictional existence. With one key exception: although Stone is the writer's alter-ego, he is played by Tam Mutu, in a role that sees the detective slowly usurping his creator's influence. Fraser and Mutu, both giants of their generation in musical theatre, are flawless as the protagonists inhabiting their parallel worlds. The irony as Stine stamps on Stone at the end of act one in the glorious You're Nothing Without Me, a message so brilliantly reinforced by clever projections, is slickly mirrored in the show's closing number I'm Nothing Without You.

The acting is perfect throughout. Rebecca Trehearn smoulders as secretary / other-woman in both worlds and sings sensationally, first in a striking duet with Rosalie Craig's Gabby, What You Don't Know About Women and later stealing the show with You Can Always Count On Me. Flame haired Craig stuns too, with her With Every Breath I Take a fabulous act one solo. The production's list of talent is endless. Samantha Barks pops up (literally) in Stone's bed, singing as beautifully as her looks are deliciously provocative, whilst the show's humour is never bettered than in Marc Elliott's Latin detective Munoz's number All Ya Have To Do Is Wait.

Peter Polycarpou has been busy building a reputation as the master of middle-aged Americana, with his Hines (Pajama Game) and Nathan Detroit (Guys and Dolls) proving to be recent comic delights of the canon. He surpasses himself here, both as Fidler and fictional producer Irwin. Whether it be with trousers round his ankles or cigar wedged firmly between his teeth, Polycarpou is a master.

Josie Rourke directs her first musical with an assured touch that showcases the hallmark precision of the Donmar's Artistic Director. The gorgeously voiced backing ensemble of the Angel City Four (who also play the various serving roles in the LA locations and who include the sensational Sandra Marvin) are black. In a show set some years before the (partial) emancipation that the Civil Rights movement was to yield, Rourke subtly layers her production with a tacit acknowledgment of Tinseltown's racism. Stephen Mear's inspired choreography pushes this exposition just a little further, with his work in particular on Ev’rybody's Gotta Be Somewhere and the song’s underlying theme of the resentment of white privilege proving another example of this dance supremo's excellence.

(read my recent interview with Stephen Mear here)

The Donmar's space is famously, deliciously, tiny. By early into act two the fake stage smoke has been replaced with a rich fug of cigar smoke, filling the auditorium and only adding to the authenticity. Robert Jone's set design is ingenious, with the simplicity of a scene-setting slow revolve fan cutting a swathe through a hazy spotlight beam matched only by the wizardry of Jone's CGI projections that Tardis-like expand the Donmar's confines. (The swaying palms at the Kingsley mansion are inspired!) Gareth Valentine's ten musicians, heavy on the brass and wind, extract every note of genre-laden tension and nuance from Coleman's score.

Gelbart's book is clever but it ain't perfect and there are moments when Stine's stylised "reality" is as incredible as Stone's fantasy world. But when a show is produced as perfectly as this, frankly who cares? The Donmar's City of Angels drips with world class talent. Kill to get a ticket.

Runs to 7th February 2015. The production is sold out, however the Donmar is releasing a number of Barclays Front Row each Monday and a limited number of day seats can be purchased at the box office.

Photo: Johan Persson

Stephen Mear - An Extraordinary Year For An Extraordinary Choreographer

Mear rehearses Lara Pulver in Gypsy (photo Roy Tan)

Since this article was first published, City of Angels has opened at the Donmar Warehouse to rave notices.
My 5* review of this outstanding musical can be found here.

The virtually sold out City of Angels is currently previewing in the intimacy of London’s Donmar Warehouse. As rehearsals were drawing to a close last week, I spent a delightful evening at Joe Allens with acclaimed choreographer Stephen Mear, to learn a little more about this man’s remarkable career and achievements.

As 2014 draws to a close, Mear is likely to have had the rare distinction of having choreographed two of the year’s most highly acclaimed musicals this side of the Atlantic and both away from the mainstream thrust of the commercial West End. As well as the buzz surrounding City Of Angels, he has only recently returned from a brace of theatrical excellence at Chichester. His work on the movement in Rupert Everett’s Amadeus that opened the re-built Festival Theatre was a gorgeous treat of rococo splendor, whilst his choreography of Jonathan Kent’s production of the Sondheim & Styne Gypsy, a giant of a show with a cast led by Imelda Staunton with Lara Pulver, has contributed to the production being hailed as a “once in a lifetime” event. 

(read my review of Gypsy here)

A lean and incredibly athletic 50 year old, Mear speaks of his influences, with his career stretching back to performing in the early years of the original productions of both Cats and Evita. He has both worked alongside and assisted many of the dance greats having known Fosse, worked with Gillian Lynne and counts Broadway’s (and lately the West End too) Susan Stroman as a close friend. And it is probably that rich breadth and depth of Mear’s experience that makes the quality of his work so distinctive. We both recall Richard Eyre’s seminal and groundbreaking Guys And Dolls at the National Theatre in 1982, where Mear was to find the late David Toguri’s choreography an inspiration.

That introduction to Eyre's musical theatre style was to plant the idea in Mear's mind of working with the director in later years. Alongside Matthew Bourne, Mear choreographed Eyre’s multi-million Disney-dollar Mary Poppins. That dance pairing was to prove sensational, with Mary Poppins winning the 2005 Olivier for choreography before going on under the same creative talent to garner a Tony nomination two years later in New York. The vision behind that show was unique - Who can forget Gavin Lee, upside down, tap dancing his way across the top span of the Prince Edward Theatre's massive proscenium? At this point Mear confesses: he is afraid of heights. In rehearsals a swing had been constructed especially for him, to allow the dance maestro to be suspended from the stage upside down alongside Lee. The height proved too much for Mear and he was swiftly returned to terra firma, but it says much for his perseverance and commitment that he even permitted himself to be hoisted aloft at all.

Gavin Lee and ensemble in the famous Mary Poppins Step In Time routine

The Eyre association continues to this day with Mear having worked alongside Sir Richard on Betty Blue Eyes as well as the short-lived Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Don Black offering, Stephen Ward. Mear looks back appreciatively on that show, especially upon being able to have worked again with the likes of Jo Riding and for the first time having the opportunity to have worked with Lloyd-Webber. Eyre was to hire Mear again last year for Chichester's charming revival of The Pajama Game, a show that was to see a 2014 transfer to the West End - and as Gypsy prepares to land at the Savoy Theatre next March, allowing Mear's glorious work to be shared with the wider audience it deserves, the theatre world is abuzz with what is likely to be the 2015 musical theatre revelation… It's Chichester again, this time producing the Jerry Herman stunner Mack & Mabel, with Michael Ball lined up to play Mack Sennett, the genius director of two-reeler silent movies. Again Mear will be responsible for the dance and in a show that offers a famously perceptive and sometimes dark commentary upon the early years of Hollywood, personally I cannot wait to see Mear's take on the slapstick comedy that underlies the brilliantly maverick number Hit Em On The Head!

But right now, amidst the season of tinsel and glitter, the talk of the town is of a show that focusses upon Tinseltown's darkest side, the noir of the 1940s styled City Of Angels. Billed as a musical comedy, the show reflects two parallel plots - a writer desperate for his screenplay to be produced woven together with the fictional story that he is creating. It's a world of gumshoes, hazy cigarette smoke and sleazy intrigue and its been a good 20 years or so since the Prince of Wales theatre last gave the show a West End outing.

City of Angels marks Mear's first time working at the venue as well as alongside director and the Donmar’s Artistic Director Josie Rourke. Another first is that City of Angels is Rourke’s entrée into musical theatre and Mear speaks glowingly of her approach. "She's amazing and hasn't missed a trick" he says, adding that the acclaimed director, some years his junior, believes in a constructively collaborative approach to planning the show. Mear adds that City of Angels is a show not famed for its dance routines - yet without giving too much away, talks excitedly about his staging of the Prologue and refers to how the casting of the show will complement some of the plot's darker racist undertones.

Mear is also fortunate in having been gifted a platinum-plated cast to work with. Hadley Fraser who numbers amongst the cream of his generation is playing the writer Stine, whilst his on-stage wife Gabby is played by real life (and newly wed) missus Rosalie Craig, another British musical theatre A-Lister. That the cast also includes Peter Polycarpou as movie mogul Buddy Fidler only appeals further to Mear - he worked with both Polycarpou and Fraser on The Pajama Game, gleaning a thorough understanding of these performers’ potential. With Katherine Kelly, Samantha Barks and Tam Mutu also on the bill, Mear truly feels spoilt with the talent that he has been blessed to work with.

Peter Polycarpou in rehearsal for City of Angels
photo by Johan Persson

Mear’s talent know no bounds and this piece has not even mentioned his New York achievements with Disney’s The Little Mermaid on Broadway, nor his acclaimed Die Fledermaus last year at the New York Met. The list is endless. For now though, its all about shoehorning the immense craft of this lord of the dance into the bijou confines of the Donmar. City of Angels will be a sassy show performed by the cream of the industry’s talent and in a production sculpted by the finest creatives. What a fabulous way to see in the new year!

City of Angels plays at the Donmar Warehouse until 7th February 2015. The production is sold out, however a number of Barclays Front Row seats are released for sale each Monday and a limited number of seats can be purchased each day at the box office.

Gypsy transfers to London's Savoy Theatre in March 2015

Scott Alan Greatest Hits Volume One - Review

****

In the run-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, Scott Alan has released Volume One of his Greatest Hits. Whether you are a newcomer to the work of this talented New Yorker or a devoted fan, there is something for everyone in this 19 track pot-pourri, including a heartfelt couples of pages of liner notes from none other than our very own uber-critic Mark Shenton, a close friend of the composer.

Such is Alan’s respect amongst the performing community, that as with his live gigs, the cream of both Broadway and the West End are credited on the album. He includes a coven of former trans-Atlantic  Elphaba’s  (I counted five but am happy to be corrected) – and indeed it was Kerry Ellis singing Never Neverland (Fly Away) at London’s Pheasantry a couple of years ago that introduced me to Alan’s work. This time round it is Stephanie J. Block who gorgeously frames this paean to childhood, whilst Ellis’ Behind These Walls proves again why she is one of the UK’s leading musical theatre leading ladies.

Several tracks are a nod to Alan’s stage musical Home, that a London audience was treated to a full chamber performance of last year. Shoshana Bean’s take on the title number Home is as gorgeous a performance as you will ever hear from this woman, whilst Liz Callaway’s Goodnight perfectly captures the tragic poignancy of the show’s endgame. Other treats amongst the tracks are Willemijn Verkaik’s magnificent Watch Me Soar, whilst Brit boys Hadley Fraser, Oliver Tompsett and Stuart Matthew Price also make listening to the album a joy.

Within this set of Greatest Hits is perhaps one of the greatest recordings of recent years with Alan being never bettered than when he writes from experience. Inspirational in his publicly declared battles with depression, his Anything Worth Holding To, sung here by Cynthia Erivo, probably the UK’s brightest emerging musical theatre star and in a version arranged by Ryan Martin, is just heartbreakingly sublime.

To be fair, there is much upbeat fun recorded too. Eden Espinosa’s I’m a Star is a witty look at today’s oft-seen desperation for fame, with Espinosa giving just the right amount of punch to Alan’s pithy perceptions. 

The album makes for either an ideal gift or a personal treat and with Alan having re-arranged and orchestrated many of his numbers anew and with all pre-existing recordings being re-engineered for the occasion, this collection is much more than a cynical bundling of work to stack the aisles and the download servers ahead of the festive season. Go buy Scott Alan's Greatest Hits. The album may make you laugh and cry. It will certainly make you smile and think.

Available from Amazon and iTunes

The Pajama Game

Chichester Festival Theatre

***

Music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross
Book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell
Directed by Richard Eyre

The Chichester Festival Theatre has a grand track record in producing five star musicals. With Sweeney Todd and Singing In The Rain having recently enjoyed successful transfers to the West End, the  expectations for Richard Eyre’s The Pajama Game, run high indeed. Sadly however, the press night reports of this show’s excellence turn out to have been great exaggerations.

Eyre established his credentials as a musical theatre director with Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre in 1982. That inspired vision, matched with a creative team to die for, stunned London. Whilst The Pajama Game does not sit as high in the musical theatre canon as the Frank Loesser epic, it offered Eyre similar potential that has frankly been squandered in what at times seems to be little more than an odd tribute to his Guys and Dolls triumph. There is scene-setting neon, a big Latin dance number, the lampooning of American culture and Eyre has even gone so far as to hire his Sarah Brown from the 1996 revival, Joanna Riding, who when she leans back in the arms of Hadley Fraser, still shows that elegantly profiled poise of the sergeant from the Save A Soul mission.

But this is The Pajama Game, a moderately corny piece albeit with its heart in the right place, that against a backdrop of conflict between unionised pyjama workers and their corrupt employer creates an unlikely love story between factory superintendent and the boss’ right hand man, Sorokin (played by Fraser) and his adversary, the union rep Babe Williams (Joanna Riding's role).

Pippa Ailion who cast the show has a lot to answer for. Whilst Riding looks downright gorgeous for her age and her singing and movement are perfect, she is by some years Fraser’s senior. The chemistry betwixt these two thus seems at best improbable and at worst, forced. The other minor love interest of the show is between factory time keeper Hines and office secretary Gladys. Peter Polycarpou’s Hines is a scene stealer. This outstanding actor’s voice and timing are perfect and the farcical moment when his trousers fall down is eye-wateringly funny. Alexis Owen-Hobbs however, who plays the glamorous Gladys, (un)fortunately looks young enough to be his daughter. This is a credit to her beauty, matched also by her talent, but it does nonetheless provoke disbelief that a young woman could date such a visibly older guy. Hadley Fraser’s voice is dreamy and his delivery of Hey There (You With The Stars In Your Eyes) is a spine tingling rendition of the classic, but whilst he sure can sing, his acting on the night seems flat. The final failing of the show is the choreography. The big dance number of Hernando’s Hideaway seemed at best sloppy and un-drilled and the act two opener, Steam Heat, with Gladys and two factory men, evolves into a slick tap routine that is brilliantly performed but needs a lot more of the company tap dancing on stage to fully achieve the song’s spectacular potential. In an age that has just witnessed a revival of Irving Berlin's Top Hat, to have just three people tap-dancing smacks of micro-budgetted constraint that can surely not be the case at Chichester?

Eugene McCoy’s Prez and Jenna Boyd’s Mae are excellent in support and creatively Tim Hatley’s design, Jack Galloway’s costumes and Linda McKnight’s wig work all add perfectly to establishing the show’s location and period. Credit too to Gareth Valentine’s band who provide a beautiful sounding and perfectly balanced backing to the show.

There is talk of The Pajama Game following that now well-worn path up the A3 to a London transfer. That would be inhumane. This production, as it stands, should be allowed to gracefully see out its days amongst the retirement homes of England’s South Coast. It’s a touch more pants than pajamas.

Runs to June 8 2013