Here You Come Again - Review

Riverside Studios, London

****

By Bruce Vilanch, Gabriel Barre and Tricia Paoluccio

Additional material by Jonathan Harvey

Directed by Gabriel Barre

Steven Webb and Tricia Paoluccio

Hitting the sweetest of sweet spots, Here You Come Again is a juke-box musical that does for Dolly Parton what Mamma Mia did for ABBA. Oozing with sincerity as much as it defies credibility, the show is built around the importance of recognising one’s self-worth, while staying heart-warmingly true to Parton’s glowing public persona.

Set during 2020’s lockdown, Steven Webb plays 40-yo gay Kevin, freshly dumped by his boyfriend and now returned to his parent’s home where for the purposes of social distancing they have isolated him in the attic den that was his bedroom as a teenager. Festooned in Dolly Parton merchandise, the attic is a tribute to the star that Kevin has never stopped adoring for decades.

In the depths of Kevin’s despair and with more than a hint of Mary Poppins, Dolly Parton herself bursts through a poster on his wall singing the title number and lifting the packed Riverside Studios onto a fluffy pink cloud of joy and exhilaration. The show's writing is clever throughout, but with the shrewd addition of Jonathan Harvey to the creative team, dramatic heft is added to the narrative.

Tricia Paoluccio (a co-creator of the show) plays Parton to a tee. Her personification of the queen of country music is nigh-on flawless with a voice that captures Parton’s unique timbre and a tone and cadence that is so spot-on that if you shut your eyes and listen it might just as well be Dolly herself here in Hammersmith.

Parton’s biggest hits (try saying that after a few drinks) are in the show. A wondrously corny storyline introduces Jolene (with superb red-haired accompaniment from Webb), while the interval is sandwiched between Love Is Like A Butterfly and 9 To 5. Islands In The Stream (with the audience all waving the torches on their phones) and I Will Always Love You are two of the second act’s highlights, as a handful of Dolly’s lesser known delights add to the evening’s songlist.

The story line is simple and neat and if the ending may be a tad twee (no spoilers here) at least it ensures the audience leave with the broadest of grins and the warmest of hearts. The finale of a singalong Dolly megamix (currently followed by a Christmas megamix too) is as cheering as a glass of brandy-laden mulled wine.

Above all, this show stands on the strengths of its two leads. Webb has the challenge of convincing us of the sentimentality and integrity of Kevin, which he does magnificently. Paoluccio of course has to become Dolly Parton and both of them produce a top-notch chemistry that is touching and believable. On press night Aidan Cutler and Charlotte Elisabeth Yorke stepped up to deliver a range of minor supporting roles, while the music was perfectly directed by Jordan Li-Smith’s four-piece band who were both on and off stage as the numbers demanded. Paul Wills' set design is simply effective and his glitzy costumes, magnificent. Lizzi Gee's choreography sees the actors perfectly drilled in some outstanding routines.

Here You Come Again will wrap your heart round its little finger. On tour after its month-long Riverside residency, this evening of pure entertainment deserves to end-up in the West End.

Runs until 18th January 2025, then tours

Mother Goose - Review

Theatre Royal, Brighton and Duke of York’s Theatre, London

*****

Written by Jonathan Harvey

Directed by Cal McCrystal

Ian McKellen as Mother Goose

Ponder a while and reflect on the image above. It is a picture of Sir Ian McKellen, one of this country’s finest actors and in this photograph by Manuel Harlan is captured the humour, genius and lifetime of experience that defines him. Now read on…

Mother Goose that has played a week at Brighton’s Theatre Royal before transferring to London’s Duke of York's Theatre and then touring into spring next year, is pantomime at its finest.

In one of those rare theatrical events that sees a Knight become a Dame, Ian McKellen leads the company in a spectacular take on the title role. It’s seventeen years since McKellen last did panto and it’s as if he’s never been away. He holds the role flawlessly in a production that has been built for a long haul on the road and thus denies him both Christmas references and moments of localised fast-moving audience interaction. Nonetheless, his majestic dame captures Goose’s stunning faux-glamour alongside some fabulous moments of self-deprecation and immaculately timed repartee. Heck, McKellen even sings, and for just a brief moment, as he lapses into Tomorrow from Annie that’s prefaced by an autobiographical reference to his 8-year old self seeing panto in Bolton, there is just a hint of poignant pathos as we recognise the man’s remarkable longevity and his place in the pantheon of Britain’s greats. But written by Jonathan Harvey this is panto not pathos - and McKellen’s ability to roll through a script that references Mother Goose’s beaver as well as her (his?) haemorrhoids, hallmarks Harvey's carefully crafted text that will tickle all ages. References to Lord Of The Rings abound, and there’s even a splash of Shakespeare on the closing moments, as McKellen’s Dame treats us to Portia’s “Quality of mercy” speech from The Merchant Of Venice.

McKellen’s supporting cast are outstanding. Sharing the celebrity-billing alongside the venerable Dame is standup comedian John Bishop (mocked throughout by McKellen as not being a ‘real’ actor) as Mother Goose’s husband Vic, making a wonderful foil to McKellen’s high-octane campery. Oscar Conlon-Morrey steps up to the comedy role of the Gooses’ son Jack. Conlon-Morrey is a dab hand at panto, heroically handling Jack’s buffoonery and slapstick.

Oscar Conlon-Morrey, Ian McKellen and John Bishop

The production’s musical references are a delight, with frequent references to classic musical theatre shows - none finer than the Act Two opener of One from A Chorus Line (I can’t explain its relevance to the plot either) with a delivery that is as brilliant as it is hilarious, with Dame Ian providing the number’s visual (if not vocal) climax. It is left to Anna-Jane Casey however, playing the goose of the show Cilla Quack to deliver not only the odd wry menopause gag, but to take the roof off the Theatre Royal, firstly with a brief take on All By Myself, before a simply stunning version of Don’t Rain On My Parade. It is often said that pantomime is, for many children, their first experience of live theatre. In this production they’re also being given a taste of some of Broadway’s finest songs. A nod here to musical director James Keay whose arrangements, delivered by his economically sized three-piece band, are spot on. Lizzi Gee’s choreography is a treat, delivering dance routines (just wait until you see Sir Ian tap!) that has been lavishly designed and immaculately rehearsed.

Anna Jane Casey, John Bishop and Ian McKellen

The show heads into the West End next week and it is a far more traditional pantomime than London’s other highly-priced festive offering. McKellen’s Mother Goose is not about million-dollar costumes shoehorned into a formulaic variety show. Far from it. This is a pantomime created in the mould of hundreds of shows that are playing across the country right now. It just happens to have one of our finest actors ever giving one of his finest performances. What’s more, when the show departs London in February to tour England, Wales and Ireland , all its tickets are affordably priced too.

It is not often that one can say that a pantomime is “coming to a town near you soon”, but this one is. And when it does, don’t miss it.

Touring until 1st April 2023

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

HMS Pinafore

Union Theatre, London

****

By W.S.Gilbert and A.S.Sullivan

Directed by Sasha Regan

Benjamin Vivian-Jones

As Sasha Regan notes in the programme, it is her memories of single-sex school day shows, that fuelled her desire to bring all-male productions back to the Union. Regan is a canny director who exploits the confines of the Union well. Her company of 16 are beautifully voiced and the ensemble numbers are thrilling on the ear. The wit of Gilbert and Sullivan whilst belonging to a bygione era, brings a delicious sense of British understated irony to affairs of the heart. Not even as remotely saucy as a seaside postcard, the Victorian writers’ libretti still make us chuckle at their faux-innocent doe-eyed wordplay.

A few notables amongst the cast. Benjamin Vivian-Jones is a delightfully clipped captain. On his toes with whistle around his neck, he is a leader of men whose stature visibly shrivels when his true lowly status is revealed. Newcomer Lee Van Geleen as the beautifully baritoned cynical shipmate Dick Deadeye puts in a masterful comic turn, whilst David McKechnie’s gartered Sir Joseph Porter KCB (a truly plausible ruler of the Queen’s Navy) stole every scene with his gloriously hammed up Whitehall mandarin. Amongst the “ladies”, a veritable assembly of sisters, cousins and aunts, Bex Roberts provides a sweetly sounding Josephine.

But in a week that has seen the equality/diversity arguments thrust into the spotlight, with the National Theatre (NT) criticised by some for a paucity of female playwrights, is it right that a show in London in 2013 should eschew female actors, celebrating the dressing up of men as girls, complete with corsetry and fascinators? Modern casting is increasingly moving away from being gender and race specific and at its 50th anniversary gala, the NT had Anna Maxwell-Martin play Horatio, whilst at the same event acknowledged on film Olivier’s 1963 “blackface” Othello, a makeup that would be abhorrent today. So if it is, rightly, not acceptable to paint a white person in a black skin and pretend that he is black, why is it acceptable to dress a man as a woman and have him pretend to be a show’s female lead? Is this diversity from modern theatre and its audiences, or is it hypocrisy? Stephen Schwartz was spot on when he wrote Wicked’s Wonderful. “It's all in which label, is able to persist”

At the Union Lizzi Gee’s choreography entertains with occasional moments of sparkling innovation, whilst Chris Mundy’s piano work is flawless to the point of almost suggesting a mini-orchestra is in the room. If you like your theatre well-sung and as camp as Christmas, then set sail for SE1 and HMS Pinafore where you’ll find the festive season has arrived two months early!

Runs until 30th November 2013

Pipe Dream

Union Theatre, London

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Based on the books Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

Kieran Brown and Charlotte Scott

In a rare move at her Union Theatre, Sasha Regan steps up from producing to directing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pipe Dream and as it turns out, she's actually rather good. It's a quirky show, never before seen on this side of the Atlantic and with the talented writing duo having focused on the USA's eastern seaboard with Carousel and then the Dust Bowl with Oklahoma!, Pipe Dream sees their creative gaze move westward to California's Monterey on the Pacific coast.

The show's story is set amongst a glorious ensemble of bums and whores and it achieves what R&H do best, telling of a slice of American life that celebrates the emergence of an unlikely love between Doc and Suzy. Kieran Brown is Doc, an academic marine biologist whose passion is studying the sea creatures washed up in the city's coastal tide-pools. Charlotte Scott plays Suzy, a girl who arrives in town penniless and homeless but who nonetheless elects to preserve her dignity by dwelling in a drain pipe, rather than accept the offer of a roof over her head in exchange for punters in her bed at the town's brothel. Both Brown and Scott are accomplished West End performers who bring talent and depth to their roles but both of them also need to remember that the Union is unmic'd. They need to give just a little more pizazz to their performances to truly sizzle as the shows leads.

Steaming sultrily as the brothel's Madam, (curiously named Fauna) is Virge Gilchrist. It’s an all too rare appearance from this wonderfully voiced actress who knows just how to spice up her sleazy position without once becoming sordid. Her number accompanied by her girls, The Happiest House On The Block, is as witty and as entertaining as Les Mis' Lovely Ladies but happily without that song's sad conclusion. 

Virge Gilchrist and her girls

David Haydn as the senior bum of the piece, Mac, gives his all in a spicy performance that drips with gusto. When, as a bus-driver, he leads his band of reprobates in The Lopsided Bus, there could almost be a glint of a wild eyed Freddy Kruger in the way he grips his imaginary steering wheel. Lovely work too from Nick Martland as gentle giant Hazel, a guy with learning difficulties who is played with clever and witty sensitivity rather than for cheap laughs and a final nod to Christopher Connor, Rebecca Fennelly and Georgie Burdett whose lovely ballet work and eye-watering splits are a further reminder of just how good the talent is that can be found in London's fringe theatre.

Lizzi Gee's choreography is imaginative and uses the Union space with flair. Her big numbers are incredibly ambitious, though a little more polished drilling of her company would not go amiss. The Party That We're Gonna Have Tomorrow Night in particular has distinct echoes of Oklahoma!'s wonderful Kansas City, pulsing with wit, rhythm and tempo. Credit also to Christopher Peake's band who take these virtually unknown numbers and give them a beautiful musical life.

The simply designed set captures the poverty of Steinbeck's Cannery Row. A lot is left to our imagination, but Elle Rose-Hughes has used light, shadow and slatted timber brilliantly, to create a fabulous effect on a low budget.

This is not one of Broadway's grander shows. No family of seven cute kids to be found on this stage, nor songs that we know inside out. Rather this is a fine and (for London at least) freshly innovative piece of musical theatre. Gimmick free and bursting with talent, it's the most imaginative Rodgers and Hammerstein show in town.

Runs until 31st August