Oliver! - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester


****


Music, lyrics and book by Lionel Bart

Directed by Paul Kerryson

The Company

The Christmas decorations may be taken down - but at Leicester's Curve the seasonal family show has another two weeks to run and judging by Friday’s packed, cheering audience it is continuing to bring much festive joy to the city.

Oliver! has always been best suited to a large stage and the Curve's main house proves ideal. Matt Kinley's impressive designs: grim ironmongery for the workhouse; beaten up timbers for Fagin's kitchen including a brilliantly silhouetted St Pauls Cathedral; and chocolate box Georgian for Brownlow's Bloomsbury are ingenious and expansive - though a minor niggle, the portrait of Brownlow’s beloved Agnes isn’t visible to those seated stage left.

Paul Kerryson places this glimpse of Victoriana in a warts and all context, pulling no punches with the tale's underlying sex and violence. It has been a while since the genius of Bart's craft in both lyric and score has been so carefully exposed.

In the title role Albert Hart capture's Oliver's wise naïveté. His presence commands the audience (he is almost angelic in Who Will Buy) and if he wisely avoids singing some of the role's highest notes, it's no big deal. Hart rises above the audience's "aahs" and alongside Joel Fossard-Jones' Artful Dodger, the pair achieve a delightfully cheese-less cheekiness.

Aside from the leading parts, it's the detail of the minor characters that work so well in this take on one of the most English musicals in the canon. We get an early glimpse of the show’s passionate darkness with Jenna Boyd and James Gant (Widow Corney and Beadle Bumble respectively) bringing a neatly worked hint of Carry On humour (another most English genre in itself) to their capers.

Likewise Jez Unwin's ghoulish Sowerberry and Natalie Moore-Williams as his ghastly wife. Inspired direction sees a macabre It's Your Funeral partly played out with the two borne aloft, corpse-like as they sing.

The show's splendour opens up in London of course, where Peter Polycarpou's Fagin (clad in an inspired takis-designed robe) is another musical theatre treat. If his semitic caricature was perhaps a tad too stereotypical, in all other respects the actor’s portrayal of this most complex of villains is as beautifully performed as it is cleverly layered. Reviewing The Situation proving Polycarpou as one of the masters of his craft.

There's more delicious detail in Lucy Thomas' Bet - Nancy's friend - who again brings a shading to this modest role that's rarely seen. Likewise John Griffiths as the principled and patrician Brownlow works well.

Bill Sikes is a cracking turn from Oliver Boot. There's all the traditional scary menace associated with this misogynist thug, yet Boot also cleverly works in a vulnerability. His Sikes struggles with both his love for Nancy and his uncontrollable and ultimately murderous abuse of her.

And then there's Nancy…

Bravely stepping in to the role for the run's final three weeks, Laura Pitt-Pulford again shows her professional devotion to director Kerryson, as long has he needs her. Earning a UK Theatre Awards nomination this time last year for her marvellous Maria (and who knows, if she hadn't have been up against Imelda Staunton's unstoppable Rose, she might well have scooped the gong) one can only hope that the award's assessors are calling in at the Curve to catch Pitt-Pulford’s takeover. I'd go anywhere to see this actress and with good reason. Her powerful As Long As He Needs Me is magnificent, reducing many in the house to tears, whilst the loving sensitivity showed towards Oliver (and which Pitt-Pulford portrayed so well towards the Von-Trapp brats a year ago) displays the skill of a performer who not only exudes excellence, but inspires a respect and affection from her fellow company members that is rarely seen in such sincerity.

It is only on re-listening to Bart's score that his melodic genius truly filters through - and under Jo Cichonska's baton the 11 piece orchestra offer an excellent interpretation. A mention to Guy Button, Steve Cooper and Sophie Gledhill whose strings work skilfully brings out the haunting klezmer riffs that underlie Fagin's performance. Choreographer Andrew Wright goes to town with the show's big numbers. We first see Wright's grand visions kick-off in Consider Yourself and he goes on to bring moments of ingenious wit to I'd Do Anything and of course the carnival of street-vendor splendour that is Who Will Buy.

Paul Kerryson gives a classy treatment to a classic show. With only two more weeks left, you should buy these wonderful tickets!

Runs until 23rd January

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

A Little Night Music - Review

Palace Theatre, London

****

Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Directed by Alastair Knights

The company of A Little Night Music

A Little Night Music is inspired by the Swedish writer/director Ingmar Bergmans’s whimsical movie Smiles of a Summer Night, that tells of the midsummer night smiling three times. The first smile falling upon the young, the second upon the foolish and the final smile, upon the old. On a chilly January evening in London, the midwinter’s night actually smiled for a fourth time, upon the city itself, by gracing the Palace Theatre with this show. First mounted in Guildford some 18 months ago Parker and Knight’s interpretation of this Tony-winner remains an absolute treat.

Typically, reviews on this site are short in length – a show is running and a review needs to be published asap. This time round however A Little Night Music was a one-off and the tickets (all sold-out on the night) are gone. So what follows here is a lengthier than normal commentary, focussing upon the various components of this charming chamber production. 

The Liebeslieders, effectively a Greek (Swedish?) chorus set the tone for the night. Dotted around the auditorium and loggia, their Overture leading into the Night Waltz was delicious. Notes, often a capella, were spot on with a simply spine-tingling vocal purity. Top work all round throughout the show from Jenna Boyd, Michael Colbourne, Emma Harrold, Nadim Naaman and Laura Tebbutt.

Frederik and Ann Egerman were played by David Birrell and Anna O'Byrne. Birrell’s bumblingly philanderous Egerman nailed the hapless everyman who finds his world populated by not so much grotesques, as extremes. Birrell’s vocal work did the job and he proved a worthy partner in his character’s various duets. O'Byrne’s Ann however was a gifted creation. A young woman barely still a child, terrified by/revulsed at the thought of consummating her marriage to Frederik (who of course is old enough to be her father). O'Byrne managed the complex combination of fear, manipulation and outright lustful passion for Frederik’s son Henrik perfectly. Her magical soprano tone belied her talent and with a supreme understatement, O'Byrne gloriously realised the comic potential of her character.

The three generations of the Armfeldt family form an axis around which the story hangs. Young Bibi Jay as the teenage Frederika Armfeldt was a confident performer, able to hold her own amongst a company of stars. Anne Reid, an accomplished actress most famous for her film and TV work set a measured tone as the matriarchal Mme Armfeldt, with her caustic one-liners delivered deliciously and her solo number Liaisons being salaciously convincing. Reid’s character dies as the show ends and unless one knew this beforehand, the death was hard to discern. When all the principal characters are sat on stage throughout, mute and frozen as is the demand of such a chamber-styled piece, then director Knights needed to have done more to highlight such a key moment.

The focal character of A Little Night Music of course is fading actress Desiree Armfeldt, the true love interest of Frederk Egerman and played again, as in Guildford, by Janie Dee. Desiree is a tough role made even more challenging by having to sing Send In The Clowns, a number that is arguably bigger than any actress. Dee was good as Desiree capturing that charm of femininity that defined her desirability and her Send In The Clowns was undoubtedy a celebration of coherent magnificence. But re-visiting notes from Guildford, even there the show was dazzled by the performances of O'Byrne and (see below) Joanna Riding. When there are “outstanding” performers in a company, to be just “good” is not good enough and Knights again needed to have done more to address this. In footballing parlance, he should have put his arm around Dee’s shoulder and coaxed that little bit extra from her, lord knows she has it in her tank to give. It was barely two years ago that Dee's Dolly Levi at Leicester’s Curve wowed the critics and deservedly earned her yet another gong. Maybe next time.

The real bittersweet highlight of this show though comes from the adulterous Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm and his wife the Countess Charlotte. In Guildford these parts had been played by Simon Bailey and Joanna Riding where both were sensational. This time around Riding returned but Bailey was replaced by Jamie Parker. Parker is currently in the middle of a 7-show week stint in Sondheim’s Assassins, so expectations surrounding his performance were mixed as to how much he may have been able to give to the Count. Any such anxieties were misplaced. Parker reached for the bar set by Bailey and smashed it. His Count being both menacing and hilarious, with a presence in all scenes that demanded attention and delivered a flawless singing voice. Parker’s take on In Praise Of Women filled the Palace’s cavernous space with whoops of audience delight.

As in Guildford Jo Riding’s Countess was, again, a masterclass in musical theatre. Riding knows the show of old, having played Ann some twenty years ago in Sean Mathias’ production at the National Theatre. Her mastery of Charlotte’s ingenious complexity was a sight to behold – poise, voice and movement all flawless – an actress perfectly suited to the role in terms of age and ability. Pray that this show returns and with Riding in it – she’s already won two Oliviers in her career and this performance deserves to have earned her a third.

Henrik, played by Fra Free was the necessary cauldron of repressed desire, struggling to contain the passionate love he fees for his stepmother. Fee got the angst just right.

The housemaid to the Egermans is Petra, wise beyond her years and a knowingly sensous flame of a woman, very sexual and with not much to sing in the show until her 11 o’clock number The Miller’s Son. Reprising the role from Guildford, Laura Pitt-Pulford was, as one would expect from this leading actress of her generation, outstanding. Throwing herself into the song in one of the most passionately choregoraphed solo routines of the night. It’s only a pity that Sondheim didn’t give Petra more songs.

So much for the actors – What about the musicians? Alex Parker musically directed meticulously, commanding a sumptuously furnished orchestra of 28 players. One can only speculate as to what favours he had called in to amass such orchestral excellence, but as Parker confided over a glass of post-show bubbly, there were several West End orchestra pits lacking a handful of talented players that night! The show’s score is rich in melodies that feature, brass, strings, wood and percussion at different moments and Parker’s orchestra did not disappoint. Truly a class act.

Parker and Knights have now presented this show twice. They need to do it again – and for a longer run too, for London (or a regional venue) deserves nothing less than to feast upon this groaning smorgasbord of talent. Knights may still have work to do, but as and when this show comes round again, don’t miss it!

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