Aspects of Love - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London


***


Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart
Based on the novel by David Garnett
Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle

Jerome Pradon and Madalena Alberto

In a rare London revival, Jonathan O’Boyle brings Aspects of Love down the M6 from Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre to the Southwark Playhouse, delivering a show that wavers between a confection of complex cliché and a homage to the male ego.

Driving the narrative is Alex, (Felix Mosse), a man possessed with such apparent animal magnetism that he is rendered irresistible to the opposite sex from adolescent girls through to women approaching their third age. But for all that Alex may have been imbued with this Lothario-like psyche, it hasn’t rubbed off on Mosse, a young man who lacks both gravitas and vocal presence. As a consequence, too much of this production, especially in the second act, becomes literally in-credible and at times tedious. And in the #MeToo era especially there needs to be questions raised about performing a show that references a mutual love, even if non-consummated, between a 34 year old man and a child 19 years his junior.

Most of O’Boyle’s company turn in sound performances with fine work in particular from Kelly Price as Rose, the show’s leading female and Eleanor Walsh as Jenny, her daughter. The acting accolades of the night however belong to the cast’s more senior members with Jerome Pradon putting in a polished turn as George, Alex’s uncle and an incorrigible romantic. A man who hopelessly falls for any woman who chances to wear the gown worn by his first late wife, Pradon’s priapic predator masterfully steals his every scene, his acting through both song and presence proving immaculate. Madalena Alberto plays Giulietta, George’s Venetian lover. Alberto is the very essence of excellence in a role that is woefully too small for her sensational talent.

Aspects of Love, inhabiting that obscure fairy-tale world of love that Sondheim mastered far more effectively in A Little Night Music, demands flawlessness across the board if its creaking conceits are to work and the cynical 21st century disbeliefs of its audiences be suitably suspended. This requirement extends to the band too, for while Richard Bates’ trio put in a fine shift on Lloyd Webber’s score, the noble Lord's melodies crave a bigger ensemble of musicians if they are to soar effectively.

Fringe treatments of musical theatre can often be magical. Here however, a difficult story makes for an evening of uneven entertainment.

Runs until 9th February 2019

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

The Braille Legacy - Review

Charing Cross Theatre, London

**

French book and lyrics by Sébastien Lancrenon

Music by Jean-Baptiste Saudray

Translation by Ranjit Bolt

Directed by Thom Southerland

The Company

There's a magnificent story behind The Braille Legacy. Louis Braille, the blind French boy who applied himself to developing a language of tactile dots that brought literature to the sightless.

Sadly however in Thom Southerland's interpretation of this new musical, the audience are reduced to little more than les tricoteuses, witnessing a tale that could have played to heart-soaring beauty instead be guillotined to a work of crass and shallow simplicity.

The history behind Braille's struggles is inspirational, but in Lancrenon's prose and Bolt's execrable translations, any glimmer of wit or humanity is blacked out by exposition and cliché.

The acting is as good as the script allows, with Jerome Pradon, Ceili O'Connor and, as Braille himself, newcomer Jack Wolfe all making the best of a tortuous libretto. There's a beautifully voiced chorus of children representing Paris' blind youth.

But Southerland and his choreographer Lee Proud have done (and can do) far better than this. Most of Saudray's tunes lack punch, while Tim Shortall’s curious set appears to be little more than a curious revolving cube comprised of modern French Doors. 

By all means see this show to support a hard working cast and to learn a little more about the life of one of France's true cultural giants. The RNIB are on the programme too with a noble and worthy endorsement.

But while The Braille Legacy may be a passable history lesson, it's ultimately a very disappointing musical.

  

Runs until 24th June

Photo credit: Scott Rylander

Picture Perfect

St James Studio, London

***

Music & lyrics by Scott Evan Davis

Conceived & directed by Simon Greiff

Jerome Pradon

In another display of fine production values, the fledgling United Theatrical team of Stuart Matthew Price and James Yeoburn have assembled a classy quartet to premiere Scott Evan Davis' new show.

Empty picture frames adorn the St James' basement stage, signalling that whilst appearances (frames) may be gilded, what lies beneath often isn't. Early on we find fourty-something Elizabeth discovering hubby Harry's infidelity. As son Josh agonises over the fear of mom leaving home, the mistress-young-enough-to-be-Harry's-daughter Ellie, swoons over her lover's apparent perfections. Throughout, Simon Greiff directs his company with a precise clarity.

Helen Hobson gives a beautifully weighted Elisabeth. Singing from the book, the script she held was barely noticeable. It is a mark of the woman that her delivery was exquisitely nuanced, either as caring mother or betrayed wife. She gives fabulous vocals and a faultless presence.

Jerome Pradon is her greying deceitful spouse. Again, a flawless performance, though it is in his role that the cracks in Davis' writing start to emerge with his guilty husband/dad character barely given an opportunity to crawl out of cliched predictability.

Josh is played by a mellifluous Joel Harper-Jackson. The young man's voice has a divine range and a fabulous belt and it is a mark of his talent that he can convince in songs that pitch him from aged 7 through to a much older young man struggling with his sexuality. He too however is bogged down by lyrics that are sometimes eye-rollingly awful. "Knowing who I was, Has taught me who I am" is a line that should never have made it past an early workshop.

As coquettish Ellie, the outstanding Charlotte Wakefield again shows why she was up for an Olivier earlier this year (coincidentally nominated for a Maria that played against Helen Hobson's Mother Abbess in the Open Air's Sound of Music). Amongst the best of her generation Wakefield dances her way through the show, each number a distinct and polished example of acting through song. A youthful audience filled the theatre (an impressive achievement on a sunny Sunday afternoon) and today's musical theatre students would do well to note the professionalism and excellence that Wakefield brings to all her roles.

Colin Billing's piano work with Sarah Bowler on cello bring a passion to the afternoon's accompaniment, though whilst all the tunes are superbly played, few are memorable.

In a curious irony, the show lives up to the pretext it purports to argue. The cast and creatives are glitteringly top-notch but scratch this show's surface and there is very little to stir the soul. Picture Perfect is a middling book about mediocre folk. Davis needs to inject more sparkling satire that lifts his lyrics above a paltry attempt at humour referencing human vices. Where Sondheim and Schwartz possess a brilliance that either tickles ribs or bites at one’s psyche, too much “new writing” (with Dougal Irvine and Scott Alan being notable exceptions) lacks the wit of these wordsmiths. On this showing, Picture Perfect remains a work in progress. Remove the cliche and there may yet be a deeply moving show waiting to emerge.