Hello, Dolly! - Review

London Palladium, London

****

Book by Michael Stewart
Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman
Directed by Dominic Cooke

Imelda Staunton

Several years in the making, but at last Imelda Staunton's Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! arrives at the London Palladium.

This is a musical that appears full of fun, froth and fancy restaurants but at its heart is all about the very essence of the human condition. Dominic Cooke coaxes a gorgeous interpretation of Levi’s strengths and vulnerabilities from Dame Imelda who perhaps is at her most vocally magnificent in the act two tear-jerker Look, Love In My Window. Of course Staunton powers her way through the massive numbers of  Before The Parade Passes By and the title number itself, but it is in capturing  Dolly’s fragility that the actor is at her finest.

Andy Nyman is Horace Vandergelder and Jenna Russell, Irene Molloy, both of them making fine work of supporting Staunton. Equally Tyrone Huntley and Harry Hepple as Vandergelder’s hapless employees are a comedy delight.

Bill Deamer’s choreography is a treat as he makes fine visual use of the 36-strong company luxuriously filling the Palladium’s massive stage. In the pit, Nicholas Skilbeck’s lavishly appointed 22-piece orchestra deliver a gorgeous interpretation of Jerry Herman’s timeless score.

But for a show that is steeped in the very essence of New York from Yonkers to 14th Street NYC, if there is a flaw in the evening it is that we are not transported convincingly to the Big Apple. Finn Ross’s scrolling projections - often found to be brilliant enhancements to a show - are over-deployed here, losing much of their transformative impact.

Hello, Dolly! does not come around that often to a major London stage, least of all with a Dolly of Staunton's calibre and this run itself is tantalisingly short with barely a two month residency in the West End. But the show's song and dance credentials, delivering one of Broadway's all-time greats, are impeccable. A fabulous night of musical comedy.

Runs until September 14th

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Barnum - Review

Watermill Theatre, Newbury

*****

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Michael Stewart

Book by Mark Bramble

Directed by Jonathan O'Boyle

Matt Rawle and the cast of Barnum

Barnum at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre sets a very high bar for the nation’s musical theatre productions opening this summer. Blessed with a balmy evening in the theatre’s glorious garden, the cast offer up a mise-en-scene of juggling and other circus treats before curtain-up. And then, almost like a Tardis, the bijou, balconied auditorium of the Watermill becomes a 19th century American Big Top and the audience are transported into an evening not just of humbug and balderdash but of the work of a company of gifted performers delivering theatrical perfection. The Watermill has long been recognised for its outstanding actor-muso interpretation of some of the greatest shows. With Barnum, its cast are now required to be quintuple-threats with circus-skills added to their remarkable talents.

Matt Rawle leads the show as P.T. Barnum in a performance of sublime magnificence. Arguably the best Barnum this country has seen since Michael Crawford created the role some 43 years ago Rawle brings verve, wit, musical talent as well as the high-wire skills demanded of the first act’s closing number. Rawle is not just flim-flam. His pathos is heartbreakingly exquisite and the chemistry created between him and Monique Young’s Charity Barnum has to be seen to be believed. These two actors convince us of their East Coast credentials and through a clearly bumpy marriage, display a love for each other that is credible and moving. Rawle of course has the lion’s share of the songs, the tongue-twisting demands of which he smoothly masters. Young is equally vocally majestic, with the pair’s duet The Colors Of My Life evoking tears and smiles in equal measure from the audience.

Matt Rawle and Monique Young

The pair are surrounded by excellence in the show’s company. Tania Mathurin delivers a wittily perceptive take on Joice Heth, “the oldest woman in the world”, while Penny Ashmore is an enchanting Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale”. Not only an accomplished harpist, Ashmore’s soprano voice is thrilling in its power and purity. Fergus Rattigan is appropriately energetic as General Tom Thumb, while the four circus performers in the show’s ensemble, Kiera Brunton, Dan Holland, Emily Odunsi and André Rodrigues display strength, beauty and breathtaking agility in their creation of the circus-ring experience.

The creative work that has gone into this production is of the highest standard. Jonathan O’Boyle directs with flair and sensitivity paying attention to the finest details of the show’s nuanced tale. Oti Mabuse’s choreography, squeezed into the Watermill’s compact space is a delight – and a nod too to Josh Barnett who not only plays the Ringmaster but is also the show’s onstage musical director, seeing  Cy Coleman’s melodies done to perfection. Lee Newby’s designs are a treat as are Amy Panter's skills in circus direction, the whole cast and crew delivering flawless entertainment.

Head down to Newbury and join the circus!

Runs until 8th September

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

42nd Street - Review

Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London


*****


Music by Harry Warren
Lyrics by Al Dubin
Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble
Directed by Mark Bramble

Clare Halse leads the 42nd Street company

Revisiting 42nd Street at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – and it still remains the finest spectacle of dance to be found in the West End.

Lulu takes over the role of Dorothy Brock, crock, from Sheena Easton – and the show displays one of those rare moments of art imitating life. Wikipedia may disclose Lulu’s age but this review will not. Suffice to say that her days of being a chart-topping pop star were many decades ago – and indeed her last venture onto a West End stage was back in the ‘80s. But actually, that’s what Dorothy Brock is all about. She’s a faded star, long past her best. Lulu’s vocal magic may have slightly faded, but she still has star quality by the bucket load, alongwith a name that’s recognised on both sides of the Atlantic. Producers, Michaels Grade and Linnit are no fools – Lulu will put bums on seats.

And then, of course, there’s that 50-strong(!) company wowing the crowds with their dance. Ashley Day takes over as Billy Lawlor, but while Lulu may top the bill, it is unquestionably Clare Halse as Peggy Sawyer who leads the show, with tap-dancing feet that become a blur of brilliance.

42nd Street was fabulous when it opened a year ago. It still is.

You can read my original review from 2017 here.

Booking until 20th October

42nd Street - Review

Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London


*****


Music by Harry Warren
Lyrics by Al Dubin
Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble
Directed by Mark Bramble

The Finale of 42nd Street

42nd Street at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is a feast of musical theatre. This revival of the 1980s show, itself inspired by the 1930s recession busting movie of the same name, is nothing less than a homage to Busby Berkeley’s lavish Hollywood tap routines, framed around a fairytale of Broadway. 

Peggy Sawyer is a kid fresh off the bus from Allentown. She's also a gifted dancer who manages to work her way into the cast of Pretty Lady, the latest production being mounted by Julian Marsh, a tyrannical Broadway producer. When ageing star Dorothy Brock crocks her ankle and is unable to continue in her role, Sawyer is plucked from the chorus to replace her. It’s all magical whimsy, surrounded by a  handful of comic-book subplots that really don't bear close scrutiny.

What makes this show pulse with life is its dance. All credit to the two Michaels, Grade and Linnit, who’ve produced the revival – their 55 (yes 55!) strong company is simply breathtaking. There's barely any (visible) fancy new technology here and no gimmicks at all. Even Douglas W. Schmidt’s scenery is (for the most part) in a refreshingly simple style with hand painted 2D backdrops. It is evident that in this multi-million pound show the producers' money has been lavished on the actors, their sensational costumes and countless pairs of tap shoes.

Amongst the featured roles Clare Halse’s Sawyer is just a delicious whirl of wonderful. Her feet defy belief as she works the show’s fiendishly fierce routines, taking us with her as Sawyer comes to realise her dream. Opposite her and with a modest love interest is Stuart Neal’s Billy Lawlor – again fleet of foot, a joy to behold and a beautifully voiced young man.

Tom Lister’s Marsh is spared much of the dancing responsibility, but he nonetheless creates a believably driven megalomaniac, with just a glimpse of heart. When his voice finds its pitch, he commands the stage.

Making her West End debut,  Sheena Easton is Brock. Easton's is a beautiful voice for sure – her I Only Have Eyes for You is a vocal delight – but her acting lets her down, failing to give the shallowness of her character the body it cries out for. If there is but one criticism of director (and writer) Mark Bramble, it is that he hasn’t taken Easton to fully fill the role.

No matter, for elsewhere there is acting excellence - as Dorothy Brock's septuagenarian, strung-along sugar daddy Abner Dillon, the always excellent Bruce Montague gives a mini masterclass in musical theatre comedy. Likewise Jasna Ivir and Christopher Howell as Pretty Lady's writers are a well polished double act, while Norman Bowman, as ever, brings perfectly nuanced excellence to the modest role of Pat Denning.

But never forget - 42nd Street is all about its song and dance and it's been a long time since a company so large and so perfectly drilled, has wowed a London audience. The classic numbers We're In The Money and Lullaby Of Broadway are joyous - while Keep Young And Beautiful, with the ensemble's Girls horizontal on a revolve as a Berkeley-style mirror is suspended above them to show the ingenious routine, makes it feel like a time machine has brought Broadway and Hollywood's Golden Age to London.

And as for the jaw-dropping finale, it is a festival of synchronised genius, a cascade of glitter and light celebrating the beauty of perfectly performed tap.

As the world on both sides of the Atlantic cautiously enters a new era, it’s just so refreshing to be shown a full-blooded glimpse of the heritage of happiness that beautifully crafted musical theatre can deliver. 

Bravo to musical director Jae Alexander and choreographer Randy Skinner. Drury Lane's 42nd Street is the most spectacular show in town!


Booking to July 2017
Photo credit: Brinkhoff & Moegenburg

42nd Street - Review

Theatre du Chatelet, Paris


*****

Music by Harry Warren
Lyrics by Al Dubin
Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble
Directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear

Dan Burton and the Company

There can be few more impressive openings to a musical than Stephen Mear's treatment of 42nd Street. With the orchestra (magnificent under Gareth Valentine's baton) having played the overture’s first few pages the curtain rises teasingly, just a yard or so, to reveal a stage full of dancing feet tapping out the show's melodies. With a company numbering nigh on 40, the sight and sound of this unexpected treat, performed with pinpoint, perfectly drilled precision, is simply breathtaking. Rarely has a show set its stall out so impressively in the overture and then gone on to exceed expectations as the evening plays out.

The story behind 42nd Street is a classic, corny even, meta-musical fairytale. It is 1933 and Peggy Sawyer, a young and gifted dancer from Allentown, Pennsylvania who has no showbiz experience wants to be cast in the new Broadway show Pretty Lady. Its genius but tyrannical director Julian Marsh is on his uppers after the Wall Street crash and in desperate need of a hit. Marsh overlooks Sawyer, and casts Dorothy Brock, a leading lady of years gone by as his star because Brock's sugar-daddy boyfriend has bankrolled Pretty Lady's production costs.

As love rivalries smoulder amongst the cast, Brock breaks her leg at the last minute. As Marsh is about to close the show, the ensemble persuade Marsh him to choose the talented Sawyer as Brock's replacement and of course she and the show become an instant hit.

Whilst the story may be corny, Mear who directs and choreographs has demanded production values that are anything but. Emerging talent Monique Young plays Sawyer and she brings a coquettish insouciance to the role matched only by her sensational footwork, handling her vocal solos with a confident charm and magnificent poise.

Sharing the honours as the show's other leading lady is Ria Jones' Brock. Mear knows Jones well (she famously understudied Glenn Close in his Sunset Boulevard earlier this year) and his understanding of the woman's gift has delivered yet another example of on-stage excellence. Jones hams up Brock wonderfully when she has to, yet shows off the full Rolls-Royce potential of her vocal majesty with her interpretations of I Only Have Eyes For You and the act one closer of the show's title number. As an aside, Jones is one of those occasional performers on London's cabaret scene who truly merits the description "unmissable".

Dan Burton who plays Sawyer's love interest Billy Lawlor is another of Mear's regular ingénues, last seen in the West End's Gypsy. Arguably the best of his generation in musical theatre dance, Burton has a grace in his movement that has to be seen to be believed alongside perfectly pitched, mellifluous vocals. Alexander Hanson's Marsh completes the quartet of key roles and he brings a believable gravitas to a part that can so easily become a cliché in less talented hands. Elsewhere in this magnificent company, Jennie Dale (yet another Mear regular) shines in support as Maggie Jones.

Dan Burton and Ensemble

It’s not just the cast that make this production quite so special. Valentine's orchestra is lavishly furnished, while Peter McKintosh's sets display an imaginative detail that can all too often these days be reduced to an economy of projected images, but here at the Theatre du Chatelet, are displayed in fabulous constructions of steel and backdrops.

And then of course there's the show's famously big numbers. Keep Young and Beautiful, We're in the Money and Lullaby of Broadway are done to a perfect turn. Mear fills McKintosh's stagings (and Philadelphia's Broad Street Station, complete with massive working clock stuns on its own) with a plethora of bodies that define flawless synchronised harmony.

The Chatelet’s producers have lavishly and tastefully invested a fortune in their cast and creatives and it shows. If you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket to Paris, go. This production of 42nd Street is quite simply musical theatre perfection - there's no better show to be seen this side of the Atlantic.

Runs until 8th January 2017

Mack and Mabel - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman
Book by Michael Stewart
Directed by Jonathan Church

Anna-Jane Casey leads the company in a spectacular Tap Your Troubles Away

There is much about Jonathan Church’s Mack and Mabel at Chichester that displays the very best of modern British musical theatre talent. Amidst a tale of humour and tragedy, the production frames a collection of performances and creative work, much of which is flawless.

Michael Stewart’s book, revised by his sister Francine Pascal, famously tackles a complex history. Telling the true story of the love between movie director Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand, the star he discovered, is a challenge. The show charts Normand’s rise from deli delivery girl, to the heights of Hollywood fame, before an early death hastened by addiction and scandal – and all played out against a collection of numbers that blend melancholy with the madcap farce of Hollywood’s silent slapstick golden years. It is a combination of tableaux that has longed proved a challenge to its (stage) directors.  

Michael Ball plays Sennett in a performance that imbues the Hollywood director’s vision and ruthless singleness of purpose with a magnificent stage presence and masterful vocals. Ball is arguably unmatched in his abilities – and his range: imperious in Movies Were Movies and perceptively tender in the beautifully crafted I Won’t Send Roses defines his place in the musical theatre pantheon.

Broadway import Rebecca La Chance makes her UK debut as Mabel – and it’s a tough ask. If her performance lacks the impish defiance that her opening number Look What Happened To Mabel demands, she makes up for it with a powerfully scornful Wherever He Ain’t. La Chance’s work in act 2 impresses as she captures Normand’s capricious management of fame alongside a drug-fuelled decline. Her final solo Time Heals Everything (set in the 1920’s and with La Chance clad as a gorgeously shimmering flapper – great design work from Robert Jones) offering a scorching torch-song in its interpretation.

Stephen Mear’s choreography is as inspired as it is ingenious. The little touches that include a trio routine that kicks off Wherever He Ain’t are a treat – whilst the big ensemble numbers all impress. Hundreds Of Girls wittily combines projections with dance (as well as some eye-watering work with beach balls) whilst Hit ‘Em On The Head weaves a Keystone Cops yarn into a routine whose technical excellence suggests David Toguri’s ground-breaking work at the National Theatre more than thirty years ago.

Act two’s penultimate number Tap Your Troubles Away has long been the show’s big dance routine and in a revelatory move, Mear intricately links Normand’s addictions with the flamboyant splendour of his  tap-dancing company. It’s all black waistcoats / basques and red shoes, led by the jaw-dropping Anna-Jane Casey’s Lottie whose feet become a blur of brilliance. Mark Inscoe’s William Desmond Taylor is an elegantly competitive cad to Sennett, whilst Jack Edwards’ Fatty (Arbuckle) similarly adds a convincing layer.

Robert Scott conducts his 15 piece ensemble (heavy on brass and reeds) gorgeously – setting the scene with one of the finest overtures in the canon.

The show runs until September before embarking on a nationwide tour. With Jerry Herman’s classic melodies, Michael Ball’s peerless performance and Stephen Mear’s dance work it’s well worth catching. 

Runs until 5th September and then tours.

To read my review of Mabel's Wilful Way, a Mack Sennett two-reeler and watch the film itself on YouTube, click here

Barnum

Festival Theatre, Chichester

***

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Michael Stewart

Book by Mark Bramble

In a Revised Version by Cameron Mackintosh and Mark Bramble

Directed by Timothy Sheader

This review was first published in The Public Reviews.

There has rarely been a venue more site specific than the sumptuous Big Top that Chichester Festival Theatre have erected to stage their 2013 season’s flagship show, Barnum, the Coleman and Stewart take on America’s 19th century circus legend who came up with The Greatest Show On Earth.

The tent is stylish, air conditioned and comfortable. A pre-show read of the thoughtfully designed programme finds praise heaped upon producer (and co-reviser of the book) Cameron Mackintosh and numerous references to Jim Dale who created the role on Broadway in 1980 (though strangely, for such a thoroughly historical essay by book writer Mark Bramble, no mention of Michael Crawford who was to premiere the role in London one year later). So before the lights go down, expectations are set to high.

The opening movements of both acts are spine-tingling with suggestions of spectacle along with company work that is superb. These wow moments however turn out to be rare and short lived. Leading man Christopher Fitzgerald is an American actor of excellent drama pedigree and gifted with extraordinary credentials in movement and circus abilities that include the famous tightrope walk that closes the first half. But as a musical theatre Leading Man he struggles. His voice, albeit melodic and tuneful lacks punch and presence and fails to expand to fill the cavernous tent. In Museum Song, arguably one of the toughest lyrical tongue twisters penned, speeding up scarily through the stanzas, the final verse written to be sung at ridiculous speed has Fitgerald blurring, slurring and crashing his words. His character has a line in the song Black And White “Nobody does show-business better than me”. Sadly, not here and not now. Whilst that adage could even recently have been applied to Mackintosh, the legendary producer who certainly knows what makes for a stunning image has apparently lost his casting mojo. Technical improvements are required too. Sat in Row U, some big-number lyrics are barely audible, whilst the lighting plots often leave dancing members of the ensemble in virtual darkness.

Tamsin Carroll is an adequate Chairy Barnum in perhaps one of the weakest roles for a female lead in the canon, though Aretha Ayeh’s Joice Heth and Anna O’Byrne’s Jenny Lind both deliver performances that are as vocally magnificent as they are entertaining to watch. It’s a shame that both their cameos are so modest. Credit too to Adam Rowe’s 15 piece band, heavy on the brass, whose work is a treat throughout. 

The real star of this show though is the company. Sheader together with co-choreographers Liam Steel and Andrew Wright have extracted brilliance in the ensemble’s dance and movement. The footwork is impressive with an amazing routine in Thank God I’m Old and a finale that dazzles with circus skills and flying people. It would have been lovely to have seen more circus themed direction throughout, especially during the tedious dialogues between Barnum and Chairy that cry out for more pizazz.

Mackintosh is unquestionably one of the world’s greatest showmen, but on this showing he’s humbugged the good people of Chichester.

Runs to August 31 2013

Hello, Dolly! - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

*****

Book by Michael Stewart

Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Janie Dee is Dolly Levi

In a grand show, whose qualities are built entirely upon a stunning company performance, the Curve’s production of Hello, Dolly! is a faultless piece of musical theatre.

Jerry Herman’s Broadway hit, later starring Barbra Streisand in the 1969 movie, tells of the preposterous antics of penniless widowed matchmaker Dolly Levi and her schemes to ultimately net the wealthy Yonkers grain merchant, Horace Vandergelder for herself. Levi can produce business cards that proclaim her an expert in just about everything and Michael Stewart’s book, itself based on Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, has Dolly weave what can only be described as a Ponzi scheme of romantic trickery and duplicity. Integral to the story’s delightfully ridiculous twists and turns are Levi’s client, the also widowed milliner Irene Molloy and Vandergelder’s much put upon impoverished clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, excited to be making a trip to New York City with the sole aim of kissing a girl.

Janie Dee’s Dolly is a woman “who likes to know everything that’s going on” and her performance brims with as much talent as her character has chutzpah. Popping up from the middle of the stalls, her opening number I Put My Hand In sets the tone for both performance and show. Her eyes twinkle throughout and her lead of the company in the spectacular act one closer, Before The Parade Passes By, has such vitality that the song almost deserves several further verses and it is a disappointment when that number draws to a close. Act two sees her famous arrival at the Hermonia Gardens restaurant to the show’s title number and Dee, together with the ensemble’s waiters does not disappoint. She takes a Broadway classic that everybody knows and makes it her own.

Dale Rapley’s Vandergelder is a delightfully maturing curmudgeon, his song It Takes A Woman, a glorious celebration of male chauvinism. Rapley’s presence adds a delicious credibility to his bluster as through the show and much as he resists, Levi slowly reels him in.

West End star Michael Xavier is the hapless Hackl. Michael Crawford set the bar for this role in the movie and Xavier, with his movement and vocals vaults it effortlessly. Jason Denton’s Tucker provides the perfect foil to Hackl’s mania.

As Irene Molloy, Laura Pitt-Pulford shines. Already an accomplished off-West End leading actress, her Molloy has an infectious charm and her talent adds further glitter to the show’s Broadway sparkle. Ribbons Down My Back, sung as she yearns for a suitor, is arguably one of the most heartfelt yet emotionally lightly-touched numbers ever written for the stage and Pitt-Pulford catches its fragile complexity perfectly.

Paul Kerryson directs with perception and flourish using the massive Curve proscenium to its full. The shows images are grand and he enhances the red white and blue tickertape climax to act one with the inspired addition of local marching bands to the 14^th Street parade, The Scout and Guide Bands of Leicestershire on stage for this review.

David Needham’s choreography is breathtaking. The act two Waiter’s Gallop, clearly drilled into the cast with pinpoint precision, sees dancers cartwheel through mid-air.  On stage throughout, Ben Atkinson’s eight piece band provides a big-band sound that, from the opening refrain, transports the production from England’s East Midlands to America’s East Coast.  The set design by Sara Perks ingeniously employs projections and simple mechanisms (including an inspired revolving staircase) to portray the various New York city and railroad locations, whilst her costume work is meticulous.

With regional revivals currently achieving commercial success in the West End, Curve should plan to send this show south as soon as opportunities permit. It’s a confirmed Christmas cracker!

My profile of Janie Dee can be found here

Runs until 19 January 2012