Tim Rice - My Life In Musicals - Review

G-Live, Guildford

*****

Read my interview with Sir Tim Rice

Before writing this review, I have to declare an interest. I am neither personal friend nor relative of Sir Tim Rice and I have only met him briefly, in a professional capacity, on a couple of occasions. However, throughout my 60 odd years Tim Rice’s songs have been part of the soundscape to my life and the lives of my family. From my own youthful encounter with Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat while at school, through the mega hits of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita and then through to my own kids growing up in that whole new world of The Lion King and other Disney animated-features, Rice’s lyrics have been there. And thus it was as much in homage as in artistic interest to sit in a full house in Guildford and enjoy an evening of Tim Rice – My Life In Musicals.

This show was first reviewed early last year when Rice trialled it over a very brief 4-venue tour. This year the itinerary is gruelling – 20 shows in less than a month covering the country from Bradford to Truro, but if the number of venues has been stretched, the quality of the evening remains world class. Rice is perched on a bar-stool onstage throughout, as Duncan Waugh’s 4-piece band and a quartet of West End singers give life to a raft of songs from his life’s discography. When the moment is right, Rice himself steps forward to offer anecdotes linked to the songs and his own remarkable career and collaborations with so many composers. Songs from Joseph get things going, with an unexpected poignancy in the number Close Every Door To Me, which in the show is of course sung by the imprisoned Joseph in Egypt and which today resonates with the 100+ children of Israel (and other nations) currently held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

As Rice moves on to talk about Superstar (his abbreviation of the show’s title) he explains Andrew Lloyd Webber’s genius in fusing rock music with a more classical musical theatre structure, and the decision of the music publishers for both Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and subsequently Chess, to on all three occasions release the album well in advance of the show. With hindsight, such a strategy speaks volumes for the underlying musical strength of a Broadway or West End show – the melodies and lyrics alone generating huge support and admiration even before one actor has set foot on a stage.  Singers Shonagh Daly and John Addison brought an Evita medley to life, with Madalena Alberto, herself an accomplished Eva Peron in a more recent iteration of the show, offering up a gorgeous Another Suitcase In Another Hall.

Rice wraps up the first half with a briefly moving introduction to Anthem from Chess, suggesting that the song’s lyrics are now more appropriate than ever. Rice clearly has a love for his country, demonstrated if for no other reason than by his commitment to taking this show on the road across virtually the entire land. His intro gave Anthem’s already powerful lyrics, an even stronger punch.

The second act kicked off with Chess’s Someone Else’s Story beautifully sung by Daly, before the impressively guitar-wielding Sandy Grigelis performed a stirring Fight The Fight from From Here To Eternity. The evening also continued with the display of Rice’s EGOT collection (Emmy, Grammy, Tony, Oscar) with the “Oscars” tribute comprising a medley of Evita’s You Must Love Me, segueing into Can You Feel The Love Tonight and then A Whole New World from Aladdin. The two Disney numbers of course have been massive in their reach and to see their writer sat simply on a stage on a stool, in a UK regional venue, tapping his feet to his lyrics being perfectly sung, is quite simply a privilege. 

The 8 gifted singers and musicians on stage are testament to the thousands of individuals, both performers and crew, to whom Rice's creative genius has given employment over the last six decades. Add on the millions worldwide who have been entertained by Rice's talents and it is clear that his global footprint is quite simply remarkable. Rice’s modest and self-effacing presence on stage belies his achievements as the greatest living musical theatre lyricist.

An evening in the company of Sir Tim Rice remains an all time high.

Touring until 15th May - details here

The Life - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

*****

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Ira Gasman

Book by David Newman, Ira Gasman, and Cy Coleman

with additional material by Michael Blakemore

Directed by Michael Blakemore

Charlotte Reavey and Cornell S. John

Cy Coleman has a fine track record of taking an acerbic view of iconic American cities. With City Of Angels his score parodied a film noir view of Los Angeles - and here, with The Life, he peels back the fairytale of New York to reveal the truer uglier side of 42nd Street and Broadway that persisted throughout much of the last century.

It is hard to believe that this same city location fuelled the narrative to Frank Loesser's Guys And Dolls. Coleman and Ira Gasman pitch their show uncompromisingly on the streets around Times Square in the 1980s, when crime and sleaze were endemic to the area. But where Loesser's Joey Biltmore or Big Jule may well have been looked on as lovable rogues, The Life's villains are terrifyingly monstrous.

And yet - amongst the filth and destitution of its city setting, The Life's story, fuelled by Coleman's richly flavoured score, moves us all in depicting the fragile shoots of hope and humanity struggling to survive.

T'Shan Williams leads the show as young hooker Queen - desperate to make enough money to break away from vice and build a new life with her boyfriend Fleetwood (David Albury). We know their love is doomed from the outset - he's a drug-dependant Vietnam vet, battling PTSD and for whom Queen will always take second place to his addiction. It is Williams’portrayal of Queen's self-belief that drives the show. Her relative youth belying an ability to play a desperately damaged, vulnerable woman who's struggling to make her life work. Vocally Williams is a dream too, holding sensational notes with a range that is at times spine-tingling.

Williams is more than matched by the powerhouse that is Sharon D. Clarke. Playing Sonja, a compassionate ageing woman who's only known life as a whore, Clarke is majestic and compelling. Her duetting with Williams offers some of the finest musical theatre performance to be found, the spirituality of You Can't Get To Heaven being an electrifying glimpse into the bond of humanity that spanning the decades between them, unites the two women. Living in a world of profound ugliness, they display a dazzling inner beauty.

There's impressive womanly work on stage not just from Clarke and Williams but from a striking ensemble of street-hookers, who frequently suggested (to this reviewer at least) that if one were to take back the mink and the pearls from Loesser's Hot Box Girls, then what Coleman and Gasman have created is so much closer to a far harsher reality.

There's a cracking turn too from Joanna Woodward as the (apparently) naive Mary, straight off the bus from Duluth and quickly hustled. Woodward's Easy Money routine offering a polished glimpse into the truth of the tawdry sleaze of the strip scrub - in a routine that again defines so much more dismal honesty than the glossed over burlesque of Louise's strip routines in the closing act of Styne and Sondheim's Gypsy.

The Life shines in its diversity. Not just in a cast that is unequivocally multi-racial, but rather one which is refreshingly spread across a range of ages and body sizes that don’t conform to the conventionally clichéd tropes of beauty.

Where the show is unashamedly partisan however is in its treatment of men. By the final curtain, we've learned that every man on stage is ultimately a deceitful, exploitative scumbag.

Notwithstanding their characters' moral vacuity, the guys on stage are, to a man, outstanding actors. John Addison sets the stage as Jojo a middle ranking hustler, whose Use What You've Got defines his oleaginous duplicity. There's classy work too from Jo Servi's bartender Lacy, who in a small but critical moment defines the malicious misogyny permeating the streets. It is however Cornell S. John as Memphis, the city's prime pimp who both stuns and horrifies. John has a presence rarely encountered in Off West End theatre. With magnificent understatement he oozes an abusive, fearful force, which when played alongside his striking vocal resonance in both Don't Take Much and My Way Or The Highway, proves as chilling as it is compelling.

It's taken twenty odd years for Michael Blakemore, who directed the show's Tony-winning Broadway premier to bring it to London and his maturity and wisdom is evident in this carefully nuanced production's impact. Slick movement matched with a simple design motif of sliding parking-garage doors that slide to reveal the scenic trucks, and all staged underneath visionary projections of New York (the projection of the Hudson River's ripples is inspired), combine to create an ingenious treat.

Above the stage, Tamara Saringer conducts the first 11 piece band to play Southwark coaxing an exquisite treatment of Coleman's soaring score. Yet again, Joe Atkin-Reeve's work on the reeds is sensational - as Coleman's compositions range from ballsy brassy belting numbers to ethereal Gospel and heartbreaking ballad. 

The show marks Broadway and West End producer Catherine Schreiber's welcome arrival into leading a team of producers (co leads Amy Anzel and Matthew Chisling) on London's fringe. Together they display a commitment to production values throughout the show that rank alongside the sector’s best.

Scorchingly unmissable, The Life is one of the finest shows in town.

Runs until 29th April

Picture credit: Conrad Blakemore

Dessa Rose - Review

Trafalgar Studios, London

****

Book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Music by Stephen Flaherty.
Based upon the book by Sherley Anne Williams 
Directed by Andrew Keates

Cassidy Janson and Cynthia Erivo

The last twenty twenty years or so have seen the troubled racist history of America’s Deep South prove fertile ground for musical theatre with Jason Robert Brown’s Parade and Kander and Ebb’s Scottsboro Boys, both based around actual events, recently playing to London audiences. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Dessa Rose tackles the USA’s grim domestic history with a fictional tale of hope and inspiration set amongst the harshest of times in the Antebellum South when black enslavement was the norm. The story follows two young women, Dessa Rose a rebellious slave and Ruth a white farmer’s wife. Abandoned by her husband, Ruth, extraordinarily for her time, forms a compassionate bond with a group of escaped slaves, who establish a community on her farmland, under her benign acceptance.

In the oppressive confines of the Trafalgar’s Studio 2 andrew Keates has fashioned an impressive representation of these desperately cruel years. Chains hang from the roof, whilst the simplest of props suggest the Hot Box, or cramped miniscule solitary chamber to which slaves would be confined by their owners as punishment for misdemeanours. Clever movement and an inspired use of percussion, suggest both time and culture.

Keates is helped immeasurably by having some of London’s finest performing talent to work with. Cynthia Erivo whose Celie in 2013’s The Color Purple was one of the year’s theatrical highlights, plays Dessa Rose. Erivo’s presence on stage is at all times compelling and often electrifying. She acts with her voice, her body and intriguingly, with her eyes. At once the righteously vengeful slave, the grieving lover and a young mother, one wants to cheer and weep for her Dessa. Erivo closes the first act with Twelve Children a song about her character's siblings who had all met tragic fates and a number that is one of Ahrens and Flaherty’s most poignant. Erivo only understands “exceptional” as a work ethic and she remains one of the most exciting faces to have emerged in recent years.

Cassidy Janson’s Ruth is another display of excellence. Her laconic Southern Belle is a complex character, mastering rejection, desire and maternal care in a carefully crafted work. Elsewhere, Sharon Benson’s White Milk and Red Blood is a moment of spine-tingling tenderness, whilst Edward Baruwa’s Nathan, a slave ultimately to become Ruth’s lover, achieves a perfect mix of wry comedy with melodrama. Mopping up a number of roles, John Addison particularly convinces as a Sheriff and a slave trader, often recalling the gritty ugliness of the time that Quentin Tarantino captured in his movie Django Unchained. Fela Lufadeju also compels with gorgeous voice and movement as Dessa’s doomed lover Kaine.

Whilst many of the songs have pace and a distinct Southern influence on their melodies, as can be the case with Ahrens and Flaherty mediocrity occasionally creeps into their composition and their lyrics can seem blunt when compared to Brown or to Kander and Ebb. It is of course a tall order to tackle any such horrific scenario through the medium of song and dance and credit to Ahrens and Flaherty for such a powerful and imaginative work but nonetheless, their writers’ scalpel needs whetting.

Dessa Rose’s story is moving and under Dean Austin’s baton the music is free flowing. The acting is outstanding and Andrew Keates has again assembled one of the finest companies around. A compelling production, not to be missed.


Runs until 30th August 2014

The Thing About Men - Review

Landor Theatre, London

****

June 9 2012

Book and Lyrics: Jo Dipietro

Music : Jimmy Roberts

Director : Andrew Keates 

As Andrew Keates writes in his programme notes, men are hopeless and imperfect. He is probably not wrong. Fortunately his production of The Thing About Men is the antithesis of hopelessness and imperfection. Luckily I caught the last night of the run.

The storyline of this musical confection is both slight, and at the same time intriguing. The wife of a cheating husband strikes up her own extra-marital affair, and the show then follows her husband as he realises the depth of his love for his wife, and the endeavours he makes to win her back. To say more would be to spoil, and whilst at some times the book stretches credibility, the strength of the shows musical numbers and performances make it a delight to watch.

Peter Gerald and Kate Graham play Tom and Lucy Ambrose , whose failing marriage provides the backdrop to the musical. Gerald is superb, portraying the greying advertising executive with perception. Onstage for most of the show, his is a most demanding role, including a gym workout session that is exhausting to watch, let alone perform! His vocal delivery has an authentic lilt of the eastern seaboard, and his singing is strong.  As Lucy, Graham has perhaps a more difficult task. In a show that is at times very funny, her character is played for comparatively few laughs, and amongst a stage of comedians, she sensitively evokes both her having been betrayed and her hesitance before yielding to the passionate desire she feels towards her lover, Sebastian.

As Sebastian, John Addison powerfully portrays an attractive man, who in athleticism and vigour, is everything Tom is not.   If I have one minor criticism of the production, it is that the story suggests that Sebastian is of a similar age to Tom , whereas Addison’s character is considerably younger than Gerald’s hapless cuckold.  Addison delivers energy to his numbers, and whilst his character is in many ways but a foil to Tom’s journey, he is nonetheless a joy to watch and to listen to.

The libretto demands two further cast members – Man and Woman – who between them play an incredible 26 roles.  Steven Webb and Lucyelle Cliffe, represent the best of young musical theatrical talent. Their characters frequently set the tone or background to a scene – far easier on this shows modest budget to arrange a costume change ( one of many, performed with eye-watering speed throughout ) rather than build a complex or laborious set – and their comic voicework combined with excellent singing, impeccable timing, grotesquely stereotyped characters, and physical agility is hilariously delivered. Steven Webb memorably contorts his body to suggest a waiter first descending then climbing, a set of stairs ( where the Landor’s floor remains flat and solid throughout )

And as is so often the way at this delightful little theatre, the production values that Keates espouses ring true throughout the performance.  The scenery is simply and cleverly evoked by Martin Thomas. Howard Hudson’s lighting similarly gives an added dimension to the simple confines of the venue. Joanna Cichonska cleverly directs the three piece band, to provide an accompaniment of perfect pitch . Even the programme makes for an excellent read!

To return to the programme notes, Keates suggests that The Thing About Men seeks to understand the way men work. In part he is not wrong. The show is a delightful study of one man's weaknesses, and how, amongst much hilarity, he actually finds a path to some ( OK , cheesy) redemption. Should this production return to Clapham or elsewhere, don’t miss it.

Twitter @jaybeegee63