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

South Pacific - Review

Sadler's Wells, London

*****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan

Directed by Daniel Evans

Julian Ovenden and Gina Beck

Transferring from its acclaimed revival at Chichester last year and returning to the London stage a decade after the Barbican last staged it in 2011, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific has opened for a month’s glorious residency at Sadler’s Wells. 

Daniel Evans has retained his lead performers from a year ago, with the chemistry between Julian Ovenden’s Emil de Becque and Gina Beck’s Ensign Nellie Forbush still vibrant and vocally stunning. Likewise, the love that grows between Lt Joe Cable (Rob Houchen) and the Polynesian Liat (Sera Maehara) is equally well defined. Of course, what sets this show apart is the United States’ racist culture that Rodgers and Hammerstein sought to challenge in their musical adaptation of James A. Michener’s original story.

75 years on from when the show premiered on Broadway many will find its handling of the racism of America’s Southerners and WASPS, problematic. Equally, the comparative youthfulness of Liat’s character does not stand up to close scrutiny in the post-MeToo era of the 21st century. It is however important that from a cultural perspective, the show should be recognised as a wonderfully curated museum piece. It was written for its time and should be enjoyed in that context.

Musically this production of the show is as wonderful as it was by the seaside last year! The songs are classics and to hear them sung, in a venue as acoustically fine as Sadler’s Wells and by voices such as these is a delight. The surprisingly powerful and unexpected melancholy that Joanna Ampil’s Bloody Mary brings to Happy Talk is one of the production’s more haunting highlights.  Another notable performance comes from Douggie McMeekin as the loveable Luther Billis, providing excellently timed comic relief.

Peter McKintosh’s set, paired with Howard Harrison’s lighting, are incredibly imaginative and make you feel as though you are right there on a sunny Pacific island. This alone is worth the visit to Sadler’s Wells as well as to regale in the show’s beautiful music and dance. It really will be some enchanted evening.

Runs until August 28th

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Swan Lake - Review

Coliseum, London


*****

Choreographed by Derek Deane after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov

Precious Adams in Swan Lake

The English National Ballet’s 2019 Swan Lake presents one of the most famous, classic works in a production that is at once beautiful and thrilling. Derek Deane choreographs after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov - with additional movements created by Sir Frederick Ashton - and the hallmarks of this collection of trans-European geniuses is evident throughout.

Dancing Odette / Odile is the Romanian Alina Cojocaru - with a grace and allure that reached out across the curtain. The beauty of any ballet lies, not only within the elegance of its performers or the artistic talent of its creative team, but for the piece to convey the flowing drama of the narrative - a bar that is set all the higher when the production’s underlying fairy tale is not only one of dance's most fabled yarns, but is also so strong both in its moral rectitude and its global familiarity and recognition. In this iteration at the Coliseum, the English National Ballet have more than risen to the challenge, they raise the stakes too. The much loved story - even where every chapter is known and anticipated - is delivered here with such meticulous panache that one cannot help but weep at the unfolding, underlying tragedy.

Leading with Cojocaru are Joseph Caleb as Prince Seigfried and Jeffrey Cirio as Rothbart. There is a beautiful trusting naïveté to Caleb’s work that defines the uncompromised virtue of his Prince - and this contrasts magnificently with the feathered menace of Rothbart’s wickedness – his evil persona chillingly retained even whilst sat watching the court dances of the ballet’s third act.

Conducted on the night by Orlando Jopling, Tchaikovsky’s classic score becomes a whirl of musical wonder - the detail provided at times by the harp, or even (in act 3 again) the castanets, only enhancing the evening’s symphonic majesty. Its not just the music either, as Peter Farmer’s lavish stagings, with fogs across the lake deployed perfectly alongside Howard Harrison’s lighting that provides a flawless frame to the evening.

And as for the flock of swans - the avian/aquatic grace of the ENB’s 24 strong corps de ballet provide a shimmering. fluttering magnificence to an occasion of simply divine dance.

Runs until 13th January

Photo credit: Jason Bell