Brash Young Turks - Review

***

Certificate 15


Written by Paul Danquah, Ash Mahmood and Naeem Mahmood
Directed by Naeem Mahmood and Ash Mahmood

Melissa Latouche and Paul Chiedozie

Brash Young Turks marks an impressive feature debut from brothers Naeem and Ash Mahmood. It’s a gritty gripping thriller that tells of a journey into adulthood, set against the cut throat worlds of London’s estate agents and rip-off salesmen.

We are introduced to Dave and Terrell as kids forging a powerful bond of loyalty – before the movie fast forwards the pair ten years where as young men Paul Chiedozie and Charlie MacGechan turn in performances that balance impeccable style, with just enough menace and swagger.

Visually the film is a blast, with locations including Sushi Samba’s glass elevator placing the yarn firmly in the London of today. If the action is occasionally a little far-fetched, the acting is classy. In a cleverly crafted role, Melissa Latouche (who along with Chiedozie also produces) plays Mia a damaged young girl in the care of social services, who is desperate to be loved. 

There is a scene where the mixed-race Mia (living, desperately, in a children’s home where she’s sexually abused by staff) is visited by her white mum. When the visit ends and her mum just ups and leaves we see Mia, distraught, as she watches her mother hug her white husband and kids who are waiting in a car outside. In that briefest of moments Mia’s pain and back-story are brilliantly relayed via minimal dialog and exceptional performance. Genius filmmaking from the Mahmoods. 

Kimberley Marren is Shaz, the long term “moll” of Dave and Terrell and she does well in a role that needed just a little bit more from the writers. Richard Shelton puts in a convincing bad-guy as millionaire property man/the young turks’ nemesis Holmes. Elsewhere the venerable Julian Glover gives a lovingly played turn (even if his dialog is as corny as hell) as a cynically ripped-off pensioner and listen out too for Julian’s missus, Isla Blair as a radio newsreader.

D Double E’s music gives the film a thrilling pulse and Inspire - Hackney's Education and Business Partnership also deserve a shout out for the vision they've shown in getting behind the production. A bold and ballsy movie, Brash Young Turks is much of what young London in 2015 is all about.

A Damsel In Distress - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin

Book by Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson

Based on the novel by P.G.Wodehouse

and the play by P.G. Wodehouse and Ian Hay

Directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford

Nicholas Farrell and Sally Ann Triplett

A Damsel In Distress is a new(ish) musical confection that feels like it's been around for years. Based on the P.G.Wodehouse story and drawing upon the Gershwin brothers' songs that were composed for the similarly inspired 1937 movie, Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson breathe life into a collection of classic concepts.

In all honesty, the fable’s ridiculous plot defies both and credibility and description. George Bevan, a gifted American musical theatre composer falls for Maud Marshmoreton, a titled young Englishwoman, who is herself the ward of the fearsomely dragon-esque Lady Caroline. Maud's father Lord Marshmoreton is an elderly landed gent with a keen eye for both horticulture and women and who in turn is smitten by Billie Dore an American actress in Bevan’s most recent show. (Keep up!) Besides these paramours, there are yet more romantic shenanigans and all set in a tale that hops between London's Savoy Theatre and the crumbling Gloucestershire stately pile of Totleigh Towers, as the cultural differences that straddle the Atlantic are affectionately mocked throughout.

Making his Chichester debut, Rob Ashford directs and choreographs with his trademark vivacity and visual flair. In this show the tap doesn’t drip, it gushes. Ashford has ripped out the Overture, (evidently a late change as it’s listed in the programme) so Things Are Looking Up opens the show, setting the tone with a full ensemble tap routine. Other dance highlights include the French Pastry Walk – the first time that most people will have seen a cakewalk performed with real cakes. Fidgety Feet proves another absolute joy to watch whilst Stiff Upper Lip gloriously defines the very British attitude of sang-froid through it's polar opposite: the tap dance! Marvellous stuff.

Whilst the story maybe 100% saccharine, the songs are diamonds and the cast is platinum. Summer Strallen and Richard Fleeshman are Maud and Bevan. Nobody does young romantic better than these two and amidst Totleigh Towers’ faux Middle Ages splendour, the challenge that the upstart American offers to Maud’s rigid adherence to the social mores is perfectly matched.

Nicholas Farrell’s dotty Lord is a decrepit foil to Sally Ann Triplett’s feisty Dore, with Isla Blair’s matronly curmudgeon, Lady Caroline being another perfectly executed gem. (Though writers note – if shows continue to promote the trope of old men as priapically comic Lotharios whilst their female contemporaries are portrayed as harridan old maids, then what hope for sexual and age-friendly diversity? Such stereotypes need to become outmoded.)

Other delights include Melle Stewart’s housemaid Alice, finding her true love “above stairs”, Chloe Hart and David Robert’s hilarious kitchen-based duet and Desmond Barrit’s wonderfully withering Keggs, the Butler.

The show makes for a whirl through the songbook – the star numbers being A Foggy Day (Fleeshman, divine) and Nice Work If You Can Get It (Stewart and Strallen, likewise) whilst Farrell’s Mine, sung to his roses, is comedy gold.

Christopher Oram’s sumptuous set is a mille-feuille of crennelation, whilst from a lofty perch Alan William’s band makes fine work of the Gershwin classics.

Ideally suited to Chichester’s charms, A Damsel In Distress makes for a delightful night in the theatre.

Runs until 27th June 2015