Top Hat - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music & lyrics by Irving Berlin

Book by Matthew White & Howard Jacques

Directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall

Lucy St Louis and Phillip Attmore

Broadway’s gifted director and choregrapher Kathleen Marshall returns to the UK to helm a gorgeous production of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat.

Berlin’s wondrous songs and the original RKO movie may hail from the 1930s, but the stage show is very much a 21st century confection that takes the film’s ridiculous plot, a narrative so corny that it is the very definition of” musical comedy”, using it as a framework on which to showcase nearly 20 of the American Songbook’s most sparkling gems.

The musical’s story sees two young Americans fall hopelessly in love, albeit their path to happiness is blocked by a delightfully entertaining spin around mistaken identities. Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers and Lucy St Louis as Dale Tremont lead the show  and while both  deliver perfection in their song and dance, it is left to the show’s gifted supporting characters to truly flesh out the evening’s comedy drama. Alex Gibson-Giorgio plays a preening Italian fashion designer with more than an amorous eye for Miss Tremont, while James Clyde turns in a grand performance as Bates, a manservant who pops up throughout the tale in a range of disguises.

Delivering the evening’s most exquisitely defined masterclasses in stagecraft however are the performing legends Sally Ann Triplett and Clive Carter who play Madge and Horace Hardwick respectively. These two actors are just a crowd-whooping delight whose take on Outside Of That I Love You displays their experience and skill in knowing “just how” to deliver that killer lyric or gag punchline to perfection. To be truthful, the show’s jokes are as old as the hills – but in the hands of Triplett and Carter who cares? Their work puts the humour back into humanity and makes the evening soar! Stephen Ridley directs his 12 piece band masterfully, making fine work of the classic and much-loved melodies.

Top Hat does what it says on the tin. An evening of fabulous Broadway fun that will light up the country on its nationwide tour well into 2026.

Runs until 7th September, then touring

Photo credit: Johan Persson

King Lear - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon


*****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran

Nia Gwynne, Natalie Simpson, Antony Sher and Kelly Williams

William Shakespeare's tragedy depicting the 17th Century King's descent into madness has been given a pared down, modern retelling by director Gregory Doran in this new production at the RSC. The audience draw is clearly Antony Sher, taking on the eponymous role (the Stratford run is apparently returns only) but this production has much to commend it.

King Lear decides to abdicate & divide his kingdom between his three daughters. He asks each of them to make a public declaration of their love for him. When his youngest daughter, Cordelia, (Natalie Simpson) refuses, she is disinherited, marries the King of France with no dowry & the elder daughters Goneril (Nia Gwynne) & Regan (Kelly Williams) inherit. And so the story of destruction begins. 

From the outset, the seemingly monastic set, looming bare brick walls & a huge rear iron door, invite us to the openness of the Swan stage. Set designer Niki Turner has created a world of angles, cubes & clean simplicity. The costumes would not look out of place on a couture runway; the female gowns are artful, flowing but with bodice structure or faux breastplates, rhinestone embellishment or matte sequin "armour". However exquisite, the costumes never overshadow the actors but seem to empower them.

When Antony Sher enters, carried aloft within a gilt glass box, enveloped in an enormous fur coat and hat, he looks majestically ursine. His Lear appears huge when the audience first encounters him, both in stature and arrogance. Sher proceeds to disintegrate before our eyes, mentally and physically, totally engaging the audience throughout the 3 hour duration. Even within the play's unremitting bleakness, Sher keeps the man behind the monarch the pivotal focus.

An exciting and diverse cast move across the stage seamlessly. Doran's deft direction allows the actors' performances to flourish, unencumbered, allowing Shakespeare's text to sing. This is a version vicious, visceral and venomous.

James Clyde as the Duke Of Cornwall and Kelly William's Regan open Act 2 with a scene of torture, which is bold but quite brilliant in the way the actors convey the utter callousness and casual acceptance of their evil. He takes out a man's eyes as the blood drips through his hands and she stabs a servant who protests as if crushing a spider. In a neon glass torture chamber cube, centre stage, they are delightfully despicable. Tim Mitchell's lighting is akin to an unnamed character here, highlighting the macabre.

David Troughton brings a heartfelt realism to the Earl of Gloucester, a man who disinherits his legitimate son Edgar and believing the lies of his bastard son Edmund, is forced into hiding to save his life. His later scenes were poignant and physically compelling whilst cast-out in the unknown, dealing with blindness. 

Graham Turners' Fool has the commitment of an old Broadway hoofer with an infectious Northern confidence. Both actors have integral scenes with Sher's Lear that are so warm & connected, you completely believe the relationships of these men are endearingly enduring.

As Edgar, Oliver Johnstone is tremendously exciting, using every inch of the stage, blood stained, conveying a manic craziness to his very toenails. Johnstone's physical acting is bold & top notch. Concealing his true identity to his blinded father, you can almost smell the frustration and pain from Johnstone. Head in hands his body expresses as much as his words do.

And then there was Paapa Essiedu. He plays Edmund with such authority and conviction it's startling. His delightful diction makes bullets of choice words; he brings a modern voice to this Shakespeare text as if hearing the speeches anew. When you feel like someone's up on the stage just chatting with you, something good is happening. Mr Essiedu does that. And the audience lapped it up. 

Sher is outstanding in this marvellous rendition but what elevates this production is the cast working together in harmony, telling a well-told tale, in a new and vibrant way. Truly a great night at the theatre.

Runs in Stratford upon Avon until 23rd October, then transferring to the Barbican Theatre London from 10th November to 23rd December

Reviewed by Andy Bee

Photo credit : Ellie Kurttz

Dangerous Lady - Review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

****

Adapted by Patrick Prior

Directed by Lisa Goldman

Claire-Louise Cordwell as Maura Ryan

Dangerous Lady is the most traditional of plays, mounted in a wonderfully traditional theatre. Martina Cole's first novel has been adapted for the Theatre Royal Stratford East by Associate Writer Patrick Prior who, in an age where crime novels are typically dramatised via film or television replete with clever camera angles and expensive explosions, has taken this tale of London's criminality in the late twentieth century and simply transformed it for one of London's most atmospheric stages. This play is a cracking yarn of old fashioned east-end values, villainy, violence and virtue.

Claire-Louise Cordwell is Maura Ryan, the femme fatale of the play's title. We follow her from birth, born into a family of Irish Catholic heritage. Her mother is a single parent matriarch, adored by her three sons and daughter and the theme of family loyalty and the consequences of betraying such commitment, runs through the play as through a stick of Brighton rock. The young Maura unwittingly falls in love with a rookie policeman, a relationship that is destined to be doomed whilst her siblings slowly build up an empire of organised crime across the city and the play tracks her over thirty years with neat socially historic nods to the illegality of abortion, the illicit widespread fundraising for and growth of, the IRA and an intolerance of homosexuality. Maura's brothers are characterisations of villains both factual and fabled. There are aspects of their life that echo the Kray Brothers and the emerging republican influence on London's gangland bears more than a passing resemblance to the crumbling of Harold Shand's empire in Barrie Keefe's The Long Good Friday (see weblink below). Director Lisa Goldman has her cast portray shootings, beatings and factory explosions in a manner that is convincing without ever being gory, her London very much a recognisable tableaux.

Cordwell's is a tour de force performance . On stage for almost the entire production, she carries the success of this story. Hers is the character that is the most defined by Prior and she brings an authentic humanity to the spectrum of Maura's emotions as she experiences love, loss, and anger as well as developing a ruthless controlling streak as she grows to command her brothers' empire. Her journey is physically tough, and the violation she suffers at the grubby hands of a bungling abortionist is harrowing to watch. Cordwell has her audience wincing at the pain she endures and cheering at her triumphs.

Veronica Quilligan is convincing as the sibling's mother, powerful yet, in later years, weary with grief and surprisingly vengeful. As eldest brother Michael, James Clyde is a watchable if somewhat two-dimensional hoodlum, his gay sexuality, coke habit, and menacing manner being a little cliched. In a haunting moment, Allyson Ava-Brown, playing several supporting roles in the story, sings an ethereally beautiful Amazing Grace at a family funeral.

Whilst act one of the play charts Maura's rise to power and is both credible and gripping, the second half, in which the story's various plot lines moves towards resolution can at times feel contrived. This may well be the corollary of editing Cole's original 500 page novel into one evening's entertainment.

The set is simple yet ingenious and with 48 scenes to accommodate, Jean-Marc Puissant's use of concentric revolves enables a diverse range of locations to be effectively and stylishly represented. Matt McKenzie's sound design, with background music suggesting the years passing and vocal and special effects, including a particularly authentic church echo, add to the production's ambience.

Martina Cole's work belongs in this east London setting. Her story with its classic themes of love, brutality and revenge makes for a grand evening of adult theatre.

Runs to November 17


 A lookback on The Long Good Friday

Photograph: Robert Day