Flowers For Mrs Harris - Review

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

****

Based on the novel by Paul Gallico

Music and lyrics by Richard Taylor

Book by Rachel Wagstaff

Directed by Daniel Evans

Clare Burt

Flowers For Mrs Harris marks Daniel Evans’ farewell production at Sheffield’s Crucible and he bows out premiering a musical that is elegant, charming and beautifully crafted.

Paul Gallico’s novel, set just after the Second World War tells of Ada Harris, a charlady widowed during the Great War and who, upon setting eyes on a Christian Dior dress in a client’s house, falls in love with the frock and sets about earning enough cash to buy one of her own. The strength of Gallico’s tale hangs upon Harris’ steely humble resolve in a world that has shown her few favours. Radiating an enchanted kindness to all those she encounters and inspired at first by the spirit of her dead husband with whom she shares private conversations, act one is about Ada raising the near-fortune of £500 to purchase the dress, with the second half centred around her antics upon reaching Dior’s salon in Paris.

And at risk of spoiling, that's it for the plot - save to say that this hardened critic, who was expecting to be entertained if not necessarily moved by a show about a woman and a dress, was in tears at the denouement.

Gallico’s work is a minute examination of post-war England. A time of rationed austerity, where class was prevalent and everyone knew their place. His world also demonstrates the timeless virtues of grace and kindness, demonstrating that whilst some people of power and wealth can behave like pigs, so too and on both sides of the Channel, can privileged folk act with love and compassion.

At the centre of this journey is Clare Burt’s astonishing performance as Ada Harris. A glorious everywoman, Burt makes us believe in the utmost modesty of her lifestyle and its contrast with her dazzling Dior dream. We root for her endeavours and we (literally and audibly) gasp in anguish at her setbacks and stoicism. Imagine a female Jean Valjean, only this time from Battersea, and you start to get close to the genius that lies at the heart of Burt’s creation. 

Like Valjean’s encounters in Les Miserables, it is the individuals who Mrs Harris meets on her journey that make this tale. In assembling his cast Evans has plundered the A-List of Britain's musical theatre performers, with a neat conceit seeing all the cast (Burt excluded) double up from playing one role in Battersea to another in Paris – a touch that only makes the show’s charm sparkle more.

There is much for Anna-Jane Casey to do in London as Ada’s fellow widowed charlady, Violet Butterfield. Casey nails not only nails the female camaraderie of south London working class, but after the break returning as a fag hag of a Parisian femme de ménage, she is a hilarious delight. Rebecca Caine’s opera trained voice thrills, first as a wealthy Londoner and then as the manageress of the Dior salon who learns to overcome her own prejudiced snobbery.

Laura Pitt-Pulford plays a well observed, petulant, wannabe movie actress in London, who cares little for her cleaner, Mrs Harris. But act two sees this gifted actress metamorphose into Natasha, Dior’s star model and in sporting the scarlet Rose ballgown, the highlight of the season’s collection on the Paris runway, Pitt-Pulford takes our breath away.

There's a measured dignity to Mark Meadows’ supporting work, firstly as the ghost of Mr Harris and later on as a kindly French patrician, while Louis Maskell offers some beautifully sung romance as the young André, out to woo Natasha.

Lez Brotherston’s set design suggests a bombed out Battersea, all power station and gasworks. But as the interval strikes his grim London is flown away to reveal a skyline of Paris highlights – only enhancing the magic of Mrs Harris’ arrival in the French capital. Brotherston's imagery is embellished with the imaginative use of a revolve - a further nod to Les Mis?

The costumes are magnificent with act two’s fashion show proving a jaw-dropper. But badged as a musical – and to be fair Tom Brady’s 10piece band make fine work of the score – the tunes are hard to recall and frustratingly the show’s programme does not include a list of musical numbers. One’s memory can almost almost hint at having attended a play with songs.

Either way, the show is pure class and let's hope that London producers will have travelled to Sheffield for make no mistake, the underlying production values of Flowers For Mrs Harris are exquisite. If the right West End venue were to be found then this new musical, Clare Burt, and her stellar company would surely deserve Olivier-nomination.

Runs until 4th June

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Urinetown - Review

Apollo Theatre, London

*****

Music & lyrics by Mark Hollmann

Book & lyrics by Greg Kotis

Directed by Jamie Lloyd

Jonathan Slinger

After a successful three year run on Broadway a decade ago and a recent stint at London’s St James’ Theatre, Urinetown finally makes it to the West End. Set in a dystopian, drought-ridden future where corporations control the only toilets and the down at heel population must pay for the ‘privilege to pee’, Urinetown’s producers must be wondering what will put audiences off first – its title or its subject matter. It would be a great shame if either did because this is a seriously funny, subversively witty show. (And actually, Greg Kotis’ knowing script gets that joke in long before any reviewer has thought of it. Breaking the fourth wall at will, Jonathan Slinger’s deliciously degenerate narrator, Police Officer Lockstock, tells us that nothing kills a show like ‘too much exposition’. ‘How about a terrible title?’ asks local urchin Little Sally).

Weaving the broadest slapstick humour into a grim, highly relevant and perhaps portentous Malthusian tale, Urinetown is a musical that never stops poking fun at its own genre and unlike so many of that ilk, resists the temptation to eventually embrace its clichés in the final act. Driving it all along is Mark Hollmann’s excellent score – ranging from gospel pastiche, to rousing ‘Les Mis’ chorus – and witty lyrics. Some of the songs may be a little forgettable, but they’re still perfectly pitched within the show.

Jamie Lloyd’s direction, aided by Soutra Gilmour’s wonderfully dingy design, is razor sharp and Ann Yee’s choreography is at times a comic masterclass all of its own. Musical director Alan Williams delivers not just an excellent band, but also, in the big second act showstopper ‘Run, Freedom, Run’, quite simply some of the tightest and most polished chorus singing to be found on a West End stage.

The cast is of the very highest quality – Jenna Russell is predictably wonderful as the fearsome gatekeeper of the urinal Miss Pennywise, while Slinger's Lockstock relishes many of the best lines. Karis Jack’s Little Sally and Mark Meadows’ sleazy senator deserve special mentions, as does an exceptionally strong ensemble.

Urinetown is modern musical theatre at its very best.


Booking to 24th January 2015 

A Man Of No Importance

Salisbury Playhouse, Salisbury

***

Music by Stephen Flaherty

Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

Book by Terence McNally
Directed by Gareth Machin



The company perform a musical interlude

A Man Of No Importance, drawn from the 1990s film of the same name, is a musical that explores the prejudices of Catholic Ireland in 1964. Alfie, performed by Mark Meadows, is the "man" in question, a bus conductor by trade and an am-dram theatre director as a hobby. His passion for literature is such that he rather endearingly even if a little eccentrically, shares his love of the arts with his regular bus passengers, whilst at the same time grappling with his closeted and virginal homosexuality. His stifled inability to express his sexual inclination has driven him to the works of Oscar Wilde and in a further, but unexplained, change of character has him leading his theatre company into a provocative production of Wilde's Salome, a show widely signalled as likely to prove heretical anathema to the Catholic Church hierarchy under whose auspices his theatre company meet.

This Salisbury Playhouse production is a pot-pourri of prejudices that highlights the Church's and broader Irish society's disapproval not only of homosexuality but also of extra-marital sex and pregnancy outside wedlock. These huge social issues are thrown into the plot in act two with such apparent casualness that they render the musical more of an unsatisfying and unsubtle picket line of protest rather than an occasion of well-crafted entertainment. Ahrens' and Flaherty's hearts and minds are unquestionably in the right place in writing this show, however their (often wonderful) creative talents seem to have wandered off, with this piece lacking the wit and bite that, for example Ragtime, had in abundance.

This is a fragmented story, desperately tragic at times yet with a curiously bolted on happy ending that almost desperately tries to create a final feel-good factor. Ultimately, this is a production whose merits lie in a handful of astonishing moments and performances that are, it should be said, rather special.

In two acts, the first half being too much of a mournful ballad-fest, it is the performances of Fra Fee and Laura Pitt-Pulford that justify the ticket price alone. Fee brings the show to life with The Streets of Dublin, a beautiful song that wonderfully sums up all that is folksy and traditionally Irish about that city. Pitt-Pulford's Adele, a newcomer to the community who finds herself cast as Salome, inspires with both voice and dance and who, after the interval, simply sizzles as the Princess. Robert Maskell as bible-bashing butcher Carney and one of the bad guys of the piece, is delightfully ruddy faced and fulsomely voiced as he sings Books, in a mildly comic number with Alfie's elderly sister who he is wooing.

A Man of No Importance brings some outstanding talent to Salisbury and is to be seen if only for its eclectic curiosity value. A nod of congratulation too to the cast, who all double up as accomplished musicians at different times in the show. Flaws notwithstanding, the appreciative Saturday matinee audience appeared to enjoy the fare on offer, with Fee's good looks in particular, especially what with him being fresh off the Les Mis movie barricades, proving a hit amongst the city's teenage girls!


Runs to May 18 2013