Gypsy - Review

Buxton Opera House, Buxton

*****

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Arthur Laurents

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Joanna Riding

In a joint production between the Buxton International Festival and the Buxton Opera House and for a ridiculously short run of 8 performances only, Gypsy’s caravan has pulled up in the Peak District’s spa town of Buxton. Drawn from the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Laurents’ book is meticulously created, much as his West Side Story was an inspired interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Add in a young Stephen Sondheim penning the lyrics to Jule Styne’s magnificent score and the components were all there to create one of the 20th century’s finest musicals.

While Gypsy Rose may have been the stage name adopted by Louise, the younger daughter of Rose, this musical is all about the maniacally matriarchal Rose, with Sondheim and Laurents combining to create perhaps the most deliciously flawed woman in the canon. Abandoned by her mother at a young age, deserted by two husbands and with two young daughters in tow, Rose is determined to offer her girls – and older daughter June in particular – a career amidst the bright lights of showbiz. But this is 1920’s America, the Great Depression is biting and vaudeville is dying. The world is dog eat dog and Rose is eating dogfood so that her kids may at least enjoy cold leftovers. Is she a self-sacrificial stage-mum? Possibly. But halfway through the first act, as Louise on her birthday sings the solo number Little Lamb, revealing to the audience that as an evidently teenage girl she does not know her own age, we get a glimpse into the infernal cauldron of emotions that define her damaged mother.

Luxury casting sees Joanna Riding play Rose. There is little glamour to the role, rather the interpretation of a middle-age woman railing against the demons of desertion via song after song after song – and each one, in Riding’s interpretation, an absolute banger! From the energy of Some People, straight into the sublimely soft nuances of Small World, Riding grasps Rose’s reins, driving her character through life’s challenges and glimpsed opportunities. On stage for most of the show, Riding’s (like Rose’s) energy appears indefatigable with the actress masterfully controlling Rose’s descent into the facing of reality and recognising the impossibility of her own dream just as Louise emerges to discover her own.

Rose famously closes both acts of the show with massive solos. Riding’s take on Everything’s Coming Up Roses blithely sends the audience off for their interval gin and tonics. She ends the show however with the jaw-droppingly frantic Rose’s Turn. It is gripping to watch Riding perform and if Hamlet is famous for subjecting its leading performer to a draining swordfight in the endgame, so too did the creatives of this show make almost unreasonable demands of their leading lady when they wrote this final number and Riding is breath-taking in her portrayal of decline. 

Monique Young makes sensitive work of Louise's emergence from overlooked younger sibling to the glamour of burlesque and ultimately international stardom. There is a wry cruel wisdom to Louise’s signature song, Let Me Entertain You. The number is sung initially in the show by the young Baby June  as a novelty child-performer in a vaudeville routine.  (Credit here to Sienna May as Baby June and also to Lucy McLoughlin as Baby Louise.) By the end of the show however the lyrics are an acknowledgement of the sleazy allure of the striptease, deftly handled by Young. If there is one small criticism of the production it is that director Paul Kerryson could have made more of the young Louise’s unrequited crush on Tulsa (a young man in Rose’s performing troupe).

In another complex supporting role David Leonard is Herbie, the middle-aged, ex-agent turned candy salesman who holds a torch for Rose throughout, until he clearly sees that Rose can truly love no-one beyond herself. Leonard’s work is sensitive and well-voiced.

The second act’s brief comic respite comes from the three worldy-weary strippers that Rose and Louise encounter as burlesque beckons. Tiffany Graves (Tessa Tura), Aleisha Naomi Pease (Electra), and Rebecca Lisewski (Mazeppa) are each wonderful in their modest cameos in You Gotta Get a Gimmick. Hannah Everest puts in a fine turn as Dainty June, with Liam Dean’s footwork (alongside that of Young too, to be fair) in All I Need Is The Girl proving another treat from choreographer David Needham.

Ben Atkinson’s 13-piece orchestra make delicious work of Jule Styne’s compositions. From the opening bars of the Overture – itself one of the finest ever – their playing is lush and lavish. There is equally strong work from Phil R Daniels’ set design and Charles Cusick Smith’s costumes.

Buxton's Gypsy is one of the finest pieces of musical theatre to open in England this year. It is unmissable!

Runs until 24th July

Photo credit: Genevieve Girling

takis talks- Performance Designed

The musical Side Show that recently opened at London’s Southwark Playhouse, is another achievement for one of the most distinctive stage designers around. For several years now the reputation of takis (the lower case ‘t’ is deliberate) has acquired immense respect from theatre and opera producers alike. Having admired takis’ work for years, I am one of the few reviewers to have seen much of his work in both theatre and opera as well as a number of regional productions. 

Before Side Show opened, I spoke with takis to learn a little more about his designs for the show, as well as aspects of his other work, including In The Heights.

Side Show

JB:          I have to start with your distinctive name. Please enlighten me

takis:     Well, I am from Greece and it is a Greek name! It was there that my passion with the theatre commenced. I joined an amateur theatre over there and did a lot of work with them. Everything! Performing, choreographing, designing and from the age of 14 to 18 I spent one month a year in Italy doing ancient Greek drama, festivals and touring. That's how it all built up. Then when I was 16, I was like, "That's what I want to do, costumes and design!"

So I decided to study Fine Arts and Costumes in a very old fashioned academy in Bucharest, learnt Romanian and set off.

JB:          Is Side Show your first time back at the Southwark Playhouse since In The Heights?

takis:     Yes and designing the show has been a blessing and a challenge at the same time. A blessing, as the audience have an inclusive, immersive experience of a freak/vaudeville show and are able to observe closely the life journey of (the real life conjoined twins) Violet & Daisy Hilton played extraordinary by Laura Pitt-Pulford & Louise Dearman. On the other hand, having the audience that close you need to be as authentic as possible with the overall design and its details.

Designing real people and in our case ‘freaks’ has not been an easy task. My first challenge was the conjoining of the two sisters, we kept changing the device until Laura & Louise felt connected. We are not talking about only a simple costume connection, but something more anatomical. Their joining has an impact of how they move, dance and how both embodied the two sisters. After achieving the ‘connection’ we worked on how to make them look alike and how to create all the costumes around the achieved conjoined bodies. We had also to create the ‘freaks’, real people of the 1920s with physical abnormalities. The realisation of all the freaks (bearded lady, 3 leg man, pin cushion human, cannibal, lizard man, half man/half woman, tattooed lady, fortune teller/dolly dimple, dog boy) is based on each performer and period research. All the designs are driven by the physique and look of each performer. We experimented and tested ideas until each character came alive. To be fair, the only way we were able to achieve this was to have two extremely talented team members in Clare Amos (wardrobe supervisor) and Natasha Lawes (Wigs, Make up, Prosthetics & Tech-Fx Supervisor).

Moving to the set design; from the beginning we decided that the best configuration would be ‘in thrust’ which means the actual stage space is very limited. I had to create levels, entrances and exits and then, within that, incorporate 7 musicians & 14 cast members. I always design by responding to the actual architecture of the venue, making the space a friend rather than an enemy and I have tried to create a 1920s environment which can change from a freak show to a vaudeville stage.

With the metal structure, cladded with wooden plunks and lighting bulbs I tried to play with illusions, to exaggerate height and depth, create perspective compositions. All the wooden planks are connected but are taking different directions mirroring the characters of the 2 sisters. The metal, art deco circular shapes bring glimpses of the period style, but also illustrate the circles of life; from the full circle to the interrupted ones.

I am really proud of what we have achieved here.

Oliver!

JB:          Looking at some of your other work, tell me firstly about the Oliver! that you designed at Leicester’s Curve last year.

takis:     Well, I’d worked a lot with the director Paul Kerryson before, so I knew that we wanted to make sure that the understanding of the period was correct. We knew that it needed to be dark as well as brightly coloured.

We have the posh characters, so you want to help that number to really be strong, have silks. Then you have Fagin’s gang, the underground, where you have the ability to bring in a lot of textures and colours of the era. Then I will put some modern fabrics within that, some fabrics that you could question them if they are of the time, but as a feeling they will give you exactly that. I went with feelings and textures.

Then of course with the main characters, I always want to meet them. I want to see, "Who do I have? What is interesting of them?" Sometimes they have incredible eyes, they have a nose which you want to exaggerate, or they have a bosom, or they have a waist. Each performer has something to give you that is good to know. Sometimes you have a conversation with them. Sometimes you have to design much earlier before you meet them, but still I do a lot of research per individual, who are these people?

JB:          Tell me more about the importance of costume in your work.

Takis:     In Bucharest we learned costume through art and through dance. Much like a choreographer will learn the dances of the period, so we understood how dress changes in society according to the movements that they made and how they danced and so on.

Then we opened up the garments to see the patterns, sometimes deconstructing them into something else. Having worked with the opera in Rome for many summers, while I was studying I learned scenic paint, costume making and many other skills. I know the basics and the tools and then I twist them to suit my needs.

JB:          Explain more about your work in opera.

takis:     Opera and ballet are on such grand scales! I did a world premiere of ballet with The Little Mermaid and it took a year to design it. The scale was enormous. The vision there, in Scandinavia, was something that we don’t have here. They're really up for exploring.

The brief that they gave me was, “takis, we want a design that will bring the classic ballet into the future". So I brought in 3D projections, floors moving up, moving down, things coming in, flying people, flying through the auditorium, things coming out. There were 12 full sets, moving floors, lifts.

JB:          That sounds spectacular - what was the budget that you had to work with for that?

takis:     I never asked!

This year in particular has been very opera-focussed for me too with an elegant Die Fledermaus at Holland Park this summer and currently the English Touring Opera’s production of Ulysses’ Homecoming and La Calisto.

We push these works to different areas, genres and feelings according to where they are performed and for which audience and why. As with musicals, the music leads you. That's what I love now more and more in musicals, opera and ballets - the stimulation is via the music.

In The Heights

JB:          Coming back to musical theatre I want to ask you about In The Heights. When you first put it together at Southwark, what were your thoughts about the show? 

takis:     I think when we heard the music, we all went, "Wow!". It is a fusion of different cultures. It hits you. It's something that moves you. It moves your body somehow.

The thing that comes out for In The Heights is the heat and the sexiness if you like, that is around there. Also, the values of friends and family are all these elements that are familiar to me because strangely enough, these Latin values are very close to Mediterranean values. We might not dance Latin, but it's these kind of things that sometimes make you respond by dance.

At Southwark we kind of brought the audience in the three sides and then I had to work with the floor and the wall. It's not a big space and we wanted to keep the key locations. Then I played with the lights of the subway, kind of taking us a different direction, different houses, different lines of like, if you like. We see the life of a society, but the life of differing individuals and how they take this cross between each other. That's kind of what's strung for it. We play with bold colours and then I just had the idea to put in fluorescence and of course Howard Hudson is an absolutely incredible lighting designer. We always work so well together.

JB:          And the transfer to the Kings Cross Theatre and sharing the venue itself with The Railway Children. That must have been a fascinating challenge from a design perspective?

takis:     Yes and you’ve driven the train there haven’t you? So you realise what the space is there! How we change between the two shows within one hour has been an amazing challenge. It was more of an engineering designing rather than designing for a show.

I had to work with platforms that are 2 meters square. We put in fills, where the trucks are and then we roll out a dance floor that brings it all together.

I feel happy that we managed to do it, in the sense of we all wanted the show to come back and it's so good that it's back, with all the Oliviers and everything that happened to it. We all have put our souls in that show. It is one of the shows that from day one, we were like, "Yeah". We were like kids, you know how you feel, no matter what age you are. We had this energy in all of us and I think that comes across to the audience.


Side Show plays at  the Southwark Playhouse until 3rd December
In The Heights plays at the Kings Cross Theatre until 8th January 2017

I Say Yeh Yeh - CD review

****

Like a fine cognac, Frances Ruffelle's most recent album deliciously distils her passion for France. Remembering that it was Ruffelle who created the role of Eponine in Les Miserables, a show that was to evolve into one of musical theatre's few truly global sensations, that she is in love with all things French is hardly a surprise.

I Say Yeh Yeh is a pot-pourri of songs special to Ruffelle for a variety of reasons. Les Mis is there, obviously, as are a handful Piaf numbers - but it is in discovering the unexpected amongst the tracks that the album takes on an eclectic charm.

Bookending the collection is Les Miserables and the album opens with L'un Vers L'autre, a Boublil and Schoenberg composition that never made the English show's final cut. The song offers a tiny glimpse into the genesis of a show, with echoes of recognisable motifs occasionally breaking cover. One is left, pondering smilingly, how different the show might have been had L'un Vers L'autre been included.

Eponine's big solo, On My Own closes the album, in an intriguing re-work. Ruffelle's timbre is timeless, but when this most famous of show-tunes is sung here by a woman rather than a girl, Herbert Kretzmer's lyrics are imbued with a worldly-wise insouciance that replaces the number’s hallmark youthful aspiration and gives the song an intriguing evolution.

Ruffelle admits that after having searched for a perfectly resonant male voice to record the enigmatically romantic Paris Summer, it was only her chance suggestion to local hairdresser Rowan John that led to him covering the track - in a vocal revelation as charming as the song's lyrics.

It has famously been recounted by Ruffelle that it was her take on Edith Piaf's Hymn To Love at a Les Mis audition that landed her both the role and later, John Caird the show's co-director as her husband. Traditionally anthem-esque, though recorded on here with a soft accordion accompaniment, Hymne À L'amour is included along with a handful of other Piaf gems. The song, perhaps more than any other and even though performed in English, defines Ruffelle's exquisite understanding of Piaf's magic. (Her take on the French singer in Paul Kerryson's production of Pam Gem's Piaf, staged at Leicester's Curve some 3 years ago, reviewed here, was arguably definitive and this album offers a neat reminder of Ruffelle's excellent interpretation.)

Produced by Gwyneth Herbert - who accompanies Ruffelle on a cover of Georgie Fame's eponymous title track - the CD offers a most delicate of musical mille feuilles, a finely crafted foray Français. Ruffelle adds that she recorded I Say Yeh-Yeh for love, rather than the pressure of any commercial or contractual requirement and it shows. A must-have for her fans and Francophiles alike!

Available for download from iTunes

Oliver! - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester


****


Music, lyrics and book by Lionel Bart

Directed by Paul Kerryson

The Company

The Christmas decorations may be taken down - but at Leicester's Curve the seasonal family show has another two weeks to run and judging by Friday’s packed, cheering audience it is continuing to bring much festive joy to the city.

Oliver! has always been best suited to a large stage and the Curve's main house proves ideal. Matt Kinley's impressive designs: grim ironmongery for the workhouse; beaten up timbers for Fagin's kitchen including a brilliantly silhouetted St Pauls Cathedral; and chocolate box Georgian for Brownlow's Bloomsbury are ingenious and expansive - though a minor niggle, the portrait of Brownlow’s beloved Agnes isn’t visible to those seated stage left.

Paul Kerryson places this glimpse of Victoriana in a warts and all context, pulling no punches with the tale's underlying sex and violence. It has been a while since the genius of Bart's craft in both lyric and score has been so carefully exposed.

In the title role Albert Hart capture's Oliver's wise naïveté. His presence commands the audience (he is almost angelic in Who Will Buy) and if he wisely avoids singing some of the role's highest notes, it's no big deal. Hart rises above the audience's "aahs" and alongside Joel Fossard-Jones' Artful Dodger, the pair achieve a delightfully cheese-less cheekiness.

Aside from the leading parts, it's the detail of the minor characters that work so well in this take on one of the most English musicals in the canon. We get an early glimpse of the show’s passionate darkness with Jenna Boyd and James Gant (Widow Corney and Beadle Bumble respectively) bringing a neatly worked hint of Carry On humour (another most English genre in itself) to their capers.

Likewise Jez Unwin's ghoulish Sowerberry and Natalie Moore-Williams as his ghastly wife. Inspired direction sees a macabre It's Your Funeral partly played out with the two borne aloft, corpse-like as they sing.

The show's splendour opens up in London of course, where Peter Polycarpou's Fagin (clad in an inspired takis-designed robe) is another musical theatre treat. If his semitic caricature was perhaps a tad too stereotypical, in all other respects the actor’s portrayal of this most complex of villains is as beautifully performed as it is cleverly layered. Reviewing The Situation proving Polycarpou as one of the masters of his craft.

There's more delicious detail in Lucy Thomas' Bet - Nancy's friend - who again brings a shading to this modest role that's rarely seen. Likewise John Griffiths as the principled and patrician Brownlow works well.

Bill Sikes is a cracking turn from Oliver Boot. There's all the traditional scary menace associated with this misogynist thug, yet Boot also cleverly works in a vulnerability. His Sikes struggles with both his love for Nancy and his uncontrollable and ultimately murderous abuse of her.

And then there's Nancy…

Bravely stepping in to the role for the run's final three weeks, Laura Pitt-Pulford again shows her professional devotion to director Kerryson, as long has he needs her. Earning a UK Theatre Awards nomination this time last year for her marvellous Maria (and who knows, if she hadn't have been up against Imelda Staunton's unstoppable Rose, she might well have scooped the gong) one can only hope that the award's assessors are calling in at the Curve to catch Pitt-Pulford’s takeover. I'd go anywhere to see this actress and with good reason. Her powerful As Long As He Needs Me is magnificent, reducing many in the house to tears, whilst the loving sensitivity showed towards Oliver (and which Pitt-Pulford portrayed so well towards the Von-Trapp brats a year ago) displays the skill of a performer who not only exudes excellence, but inspires a respect and affection from her fellow company members that is rarely seen in such sincerity.

It is only on re-listening to Bart's score that his melodic genius truly filters through - and under Jo Cichonska's baton the 11 piece orchestra offer an excellent interpretation. A mention to Guy Button, Steve Cooper and Sophie Gledhill whose strings work skilfully brings out the haunting klezmer riffs that underlie Fagin's performance. Choreographer Andrew Wright goes to town with the show's big numbers. We first see Wright's grand visions kick-off in Consider Yourself and he goes on to bring moments of ingenious wit to I'd Do Anything and of course the carnival of street-vendor splendour that is Who Will Buy.

Paul Kerryson gives a classy treatment to a classic show. With only two more weeks left, you should buy these wonderful tickets!

Runs until 23rd January

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

The Sound Of Music - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Laura Pitt-Pulford and Michael French

The vespers bell sounds at Nonnberg Abbey and the Curve stage seems to fill with black habits. The vastness of Leicester’s huge performing space is filled well by designer Al Parkinson, as he convincingly evokes the echoing majesty of the Abbey alongside the splendour of the Von Trapp mansion and of course, a neatly created suggestion of those musically alive hills that surround the town.

We all know The Sound Of Music’s touching if corny story, but it is the show’s songs that are iconic. The challenge of this musical, more than most others, is to take armchair favourites and breathe new life into them.

In his swansong season Paul Kerryson has, for the most part, cast shrewdly. In the modest role of Max Detweiler, Mark Inscoe is a clipped and avuncular delight. Alongside him, Emma Clifford nails the frigid frustations of Elsa Schraeder perfectly, whilst Jimmy Johnston's nastily Nazi-sympathizing butler Franz is another modest gem. Moving up through the cast, Lucy Schaufer’s Mother Abbess is a revelation. Her act one closing number Climb Ev'ry Mountain being so inspirationally spine-tingling that one could almost be reaching for the crampons as she sings. Michael French is the erstwhile Captain Von Trapp. As his seven stage offspring serenade him French sheds a convincing tear, but his naval uniform sits a tad awkwardly on him and he has yet to hit his best in the role. No matter though – when Albert Square’s David Wicks sings Edelweiss, every mum in the audience will have moist cheeks.

As ever, Ben Atkinson’s musical direction of his ten piece orchestra is spot on, but The Sound Of Music will always be all about Maria...

Laura Pitt-Pulford’s portrayal of the errant postulant snatches Julie Andrew’s hallowed crown (or dirndl) and makes it her own. Pitt-Pulford gives the most relaxed yet polished interpretation of this legendary role with her pitch-perfect performance entrancing the audience from one song to the next. From her delivery of the title song sprawled across a hillside, through to her gorgeously convincing interaction with the Von Trapp brats (cutely played mind, well done kids) in Do Re Mi, every song is a treat. As an actress she is convincingly youthful yet wise, at all times displaying that most intriguing of emotions, a spunky humility. This leading role is so very well deserved by one of the most talented actresses of her generation that surely it cannot be long now before Pitt-Pulford leads a West End show. 

Notwithstanding a lack of racial diversity both on stage and in the audience (which surprises for a venue in the heart of as diverse a community as Leicester) Kerryson has again delivered some top-notch talent to the town that he’s called home for some time. There is excellence afoot here – and if you want a glimpse of a woman destined for musical theatre greatness, you won't see it more clearly than in the wondrous Laura Pitt-Pulford.

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH LAURA (CLICK HERE) THAT SHE GAVE JUST AS REHEARSALS FOR THE SOUND OF MUSIC WERE COMMENCING 

Runs until 17th January 2015

Laura Pitt-Pulford: Keeping Ahead Of The Curve

SINCE WRITING THIS FEATURE, LAURA PITT-PULFORD'S PERFORMANCE AS MARIA HAS RECEIVED RAVE REVIEWS ACROSS THE BOARD. CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW OF THE SHOW

as Lucille Frank in Parade

There is much anticipation for Leicester Curve's Christmas 2014 offering. The Sound Of Music will be Paul Kerryson, the Curve's much lauded Artistic Director's swansong show. Even more than Kerryson's expected impact upon this classic musical, is his choice of leading lady to play Maria. Laura Pitt-Pulford, an actor who is amongst the cream of her generation is to play the lapsed nun/impetuous governess and her casting is an inspired decision. This Mountview graduate (the class of 2005) has consistently delivered acclaimed excellence in every part she has played and whether it be working in the fringe or in the highest echelons of the subsidised sector, her commitment to her craft is inspirational. As the news was announced of her being cast as Maria, I caught up with Laura to find out a little more about this gifted performer.

Growing up away from the London bubble (her family hail from Rugby) it was to be some months after leaving Mountview before she got her first break in commercial theatre, as Young Heidi in Sondheim's Follies at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton. It says much for Pitt-Pulford that her debut professional gig was a Sondheim - the man famously (and ingeniously) creates demanding roles, a challenge that she more than matched.

Enviably, the last few years have rarely seen Pitt-Pulford out of work, with the Southwark Playhouse, one of London's leading fringe venues, proving to be a springboard for her career. Producer Danielle Tarento spotted her to play Lucille Frank, the leading lady in Jason Robert Brown's scorching musical set around a travesty of justice that occurred in the Southern state of Georgia shortly after the American Civil War. It had been barely five years since Parade had played at London's Donmar (achieving the deserved recognition that had eluded it on Broadway), yet under Thom Southerland's direction the Tarento production was to receive its own critical acclaim, in no small measure due to Pitt-Pulford's heroic Southern belle (alongside her leading man Alastair Brookshaw). She had arrived in London.

Fast forwarding a year saw the Tarento-Southerland partnership stage Jerry Herman's Mack & Mabel, another difficult even if beautifully scored show. Pitt-Pulford was Tarento's only choice to play Mabel Normand - but there was a hiccough. Already playing the lead in Sweet Charity at Belfast's MAC, Pitt-Pulford was only to be allowed a two week rehearsal slot for the role and had to parachute in to the company when they were already half way through their rehearsals. Suffice to say, her preparation for the role had been meticulous with the show going on to be one of London's sell out successes in the summer of 2012.

as Mabel Normand in Mack & Mabel

But Pitt-Pulford is no stranger to flying (sometimes literally) by the seat of her pants. A colleague and good friend tells of how at the Curve on the press night of Paul Kerryson's wonderfully staged Piaf, Pitt-Pulford, playing working girl Toine, was required to have draped herself, spread-eagled over a chaise-longue, clad in little more than her character’s working clothes of suspenders and underwear. As Beginners were being called, a last minute costume check by the actress led her to realise she was knicker-less and even worse, the dressing rooms were an Olympic sprint away through numerous security doors. Ever the consummate professional, the actress made it on stage, just in time, ensuring Toine's opening appeared exactly as planned.

(In a lovely moment, as Laura was talking about Piaf, the coffee shop in which we were sat played La Vie En Rose in the background. Beautiful) 

Kerryson has previous with Pitt-Pulford. Before Piaf, she was his Irene Molloy alongside an award winning Janie Dee in Hello, Dolly! whilst last year Marianne Elliott cast Pitt-Pulford in the National Theatre's The Light Princess, where aside from sporting some stunning footwear, she added puppetry to her skills and still speaks in admiration of Elliott's visionary approach to Tori Amos' ground-breaking musical. A performer who is never afraid to tackle new work, Pitt-Pulford has recently thrown herself into two of up-coming producer Katy Lipson's shows. A cracking UK premier of the Sondheim pot-pourri Marry Me A Little saw some glorious Manhattan-ite interaction with Simon Bailey, whilst her Margaret in Charles Miller's The Return Of The Soldier saw her give a sensitive exploration of the layers of a very complex woman caught up in the aftermath of PTSD during the First World War.

But it is her Maria that right now is so eagerly awaited. Laura tells me that she "just can't wait to put my stamp on it. I grew up on the film, love it, love everything about it. Such a fabulous story and she is such an interesting character." 

The re-union of Kerryson with choreographer Drew McOnie, who together wowed Leicester and the wider the theatre world with a sensational Chicago last Christmas, only adds to the anticipation surrounding the Rogers and Hammerstein classic. But it is the inspired casting of Laura Pitt-Pulford as the intriguing postulant that is likely to underscore what is sure to be a sell out festive treat.

Chicago

Curve Theatre, Leicester

****

Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Directed by Paul Kerryson

Sandra Marvin and Verity Rushworth

Bob Fosse co wrote the book of Chicago. He also famously inspired the show’s choreography, which could be found on tour in the UK even up until last year. But not any more. That famously coquettish and provocative sexuality has been laid to rest and there’s a new dance style in the Windy City. Like an impetuous child, young British choreographer Drew McOnie has taken some of Broadway’s biggest numbers and re-imagined their steamy suggestiveness into a style that is entirely 21st century.

Paul Kerryson directs on the sleek modern vastness of the Curve’s main auditorium. It’s a big (and possibly expensive) space to fill, sometimes too big and if occasionally the intimacy of a bedroom scene or a lawyer's office seems dwarfed, one does not have to wait long until McOnie’s routines fill the stage. The show is such that one’s eyes are often drawn to the fascinating and complex company dance work rather than the singing lead.

The murderous partners in crime, Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, are played by the accomplished Verity Rushworth and Gemma Sutton respectively. Both women are vocally stunning, with Rushworth flashing occasional glimpses of breathaking acrobatic talent. Not quite the finished article yet, their poor synchronisation in the eleven o’clock number Nowadays is a distraction. Nothing though that can't be mended with a spot of drilled rehearsal and a few days settling into the run.

Kerryson is at his best when exploiting the bleak humanity of Kander and Ebb’s caustic wit. The comic pathos of Amos Hart’s Mister Cellophane is a brilliant turn from Matthew Barrow, whilst the sardonic irony of Sandra Marvin’s Mama Morton singing Class with Rushworth is another gem. Credit too to Marvin’s When Your’re Good To Mama. Her Curve-filling curves deliver a thrilling sound and to quote her signature song, she sure deserves a lot of tat for what she’s got to give.

David Leonard is Billy Flynn. He does everything just fine, but somehow there’s a touch of star quality pizazz that’s lacking. Hopefully that too will develop into the run. Notably brilliant amongst the company are Adam Bailey’s Mary Sunshine and Zizi Strallen’s Mona along with her other ensemble responsibilities. One suspects that her understudy Velma will be very watchable too.

The star of the show however is undoubtedly McOnie’s dance work, enhanced by takis’ androgynously metro-sexual costumes. In Razzle Dazzle, when Flynn sings of the court room being a three-ring circus, McOnie sculpts his company, using their limbs together with ropes and harnesses to create a writhing mass of syncopated beauty. Moulding bodies into art forms, in time to the brassy rhythms of Ben Atkinson’s immaculately performing seven piece band, his images are breathtaking. See this show if for no other reason than to glimpse the future of showtune choreography.

Curve’s Chicago is a stylish Xmas offering to a city that has become accustomed to festive excellence from Kerryson and his company. Its a thrilling show and if you have a passion for innovative musical theatre, then its simply unmissable!

Chicago runs to 18th January 2014. To book tickets, click here

To read my interview with director Paul Kerryson, click here

Paul Kerryson razzle dazzles in Leicester

The women of Paul Kerryson's Cook County Jail, Chicago

As the latest prodcution of Kander and Ebb's Chicago previews in Leicester, I caught up with Paul Kerryson, Artistic Director of the city's Curve Theatre to learn more about what he has planned for this festive offering and to talk about some of the theatre's recent successes that he has helmed.

JB: Are you Leicester born and bred and how long has your association been with Curve? 

PK: Originally from Southern Ireland, I’ve lived in Leicester for nigh on 23 years and have been intimately involved with the birth and growth of Curve. For the eight years prior to its opening I worked closely on its development and have been Artistic Director since it's opening five years ago.

JB: Touching on historical productions, tell me about Harvey Weinstein selecting Curve to trial his musical, Finding Neverland.

PK: I was tremendously proud that we were chosen to be the UK testing ground for the show. Not only did it demonstrate that we could host a modern large show that was technically demanding and state of the art, Finding Neverland established Curve even more firmly upon the country's theatrical map. Whilst the show remains very much a work in progress, it gave us a wonderfully high profile, a star studded cast and many of the industry's leading producers and creatives visiting us, many for the first time. And of course it earned us a fabulous amount of much needed revenue too!

JB:  In the recent UK Theatre Awards, of the three nominees from across the regions for “Best Performance In A Musical”,  two were leading ladies from Curve productions that you had directed: Janie Dee for Hello Dolly, who went on to win the award and Frances Ruffelle for Piaf.  Tell me a little about those shows.

PK: I'd worked with Janie before, when she had played the lead in The King And I, so I knew just what I was getting. She was a wonderfully astute Dolly Levi and the part came to her at just the right time too as it had only been in the week before we first discussed it, that her dad had told her how much he'd love to see her play Dolly.

Janie Dee as Dolly Levi

Piaf provided a wonderfully challenging show. I'd worked with the late Pam Gems personally too and not many people know that she had actually written three versions of the play. For my production, I went through all three selecting the texts from each that I thought best to use.

The critical part of presenting Piaf is to select the songs that you think will work with the show and then of course, to get them in the right order that will best fit the production. We ran the show in the Curve's more intimate Studio venue and when that sold out, we hastily arranged a one week reprise in the main house, where we solely used the forestage in a bid to retain the intimacy. Frances Ruffelle emphatically made the role her own and if we can find a backer, the show may yet have a life on tour. Other theatres are interested in it for sure.

Frances Ruffelle's Edith Piaf

JB: And so to Chicago. Why that show and why now?

PK: Sometimes you just have to grab a show when it comes around, it's that simple. For years the rights were not available and the UK tour only finished about a year ago so I guess I called them at the right time. 

It's a glorious piece of writing. Starting off as a Broadway concert piece, for years it was viewed as a poor relation to Cabaret. But the prism through which Kander and Ebb view life deserves a distinctive treatment and I am looking forward to giving my interpretation to the work. I want to avoid the minimalist style  of recent productions, bringing back more scene changes and a larger-scale feel to the show, whilst still keeping it sleek, sexy and funny.

And of course I have Drew McOnie as my choreographer. He is one of the most innovative dance professionals in musical theatre today, a protege of Matthew Bourne, whose work is thrilling to see. Where David Needham brought a beautifully traditional interpretation to Hello Dolly’s dance and movement (JB : Agreed. The Waiter's Gallop was breathtaking) Drew brings an altogether modern vibrancy. I went to see his West Side Story this summer, staged in a Manchester warehouse,and even though he was only working with a youth company, his interpretation was astonishing.

JB: Ben Atkinson will be musically directing for you and he has now become quite a fixture at Curve. Tell me more about him.

PK: Ben is simply a very talented young man. I first really noticed him when as the Assistant MD, he occasionally took the baton during The King And I, faultlessly. He has a confident connection between the stage and the orchestra and really understands a show's arrangements. In their recent London cabaret sets, both Janie and Frances have used him as their MD.

Paul Kerryson during rehearsals

JB: And then to Hairspray followed by the Water Babies premiere. 2014 is full of promise...

PK: Yes, 2014 is looking very exciting indeed with the established fun of Shaiman and Wittman's Hairspray followed by the thrill of unveiling Water Babies. I am very proud of the excellence, especially in musical theatre, that Curve is becoming famous for.

Chicago plays at Curve Theatre, Leicester until 18th January 2014
To book tickets, click here

Frances Ruffelle - Eponine, Piaf and a Paris Original

As this article is published, Frances Ruffelle is in Manhattan, back by popular demand to reprise her Beneath The Skirt cabaret at the discerning New York venue, 54 Below. It was only four months ago that her act was first seen in the city and to be invited back in such gloriously indecent haste speaks volumes for the singer's reputation.

So I was delighted to learn that this popular and talented performer could find time amidst her busy schedule of pre-New York packing, for lunch and a chat about her work and family. Casually dressed in short cut dungarees and trainers, she breezed into a cafe high up on London's leafy Harrow On The Hill. Her home is much closer to the city centre, but Ruffelle was out in this suburb for a lesson in accordion playing. It is a tiny clue to this actress' devotion, that whilst she was not only refining her NY set, she was also planning her London cabaret Paris Original which opens on October 8 at the Crazy Coqs. Themed around her love for all things French and without giving any secrets away, it seems hardly surprising that she is throwing herself into learning this most quintessentially French of instruments, though if truth be told, she is not a complete stranger to the charm of the squeezebox. Her son taught himself to play and she laughs as she speaks of having frequently picked the instrument up to dance around the living room.

With New York looming large, we talk about Broadway. Having created the role of Eponine with the RSC’s Les Miserables in London, it was to be only her and Colm Wilkinson (as Jean Valjean) who were asked to reprise their roles when the show opened in the USA, her invitation to cross the Atlantic coming as something of a surprise to the young actress who had already been told that she would not be crossing the pond. Whilst Ruffelle is rightly proud of her achievement in creating one of the 20th century’s most romantic stage characters she is also refreshingly modest in acknowledging the honour and the responsibility that came with breathing life into Eponine in both the West End and on Broadway. In her words, “everything is bigger in New York” and she speaks of having learned so much in having taken the role to the world’s two leading musical theatre cities. She clearly loves New York and feels very comfortable performing there amongst a city that she feels has always welcomed her.

Ruffelle’s accordion teacher is Romano Viazanni with whom she has sung in the past, notably in the Leicester Curve production of Piaf where she played the title role. The production which ran some eight months ago was arguably one of the finest female stage performances to be seen in recent years, and whilst Leicester and Paul Kerryson are to be praised for having elicited such a marvellous production from Ruffelle and the show’s company, it is a modest regret that Piaf neither transferred south nor toured. Should life ever be breathed back into that production, then Ruffelle’s Edith Piaf is a must-see.

For a detailed look back, a review of Piaf can be found here, but to hear how Ruffelle prepared herself for such an all-consuming role is fascinating. Detaching herself from cast and crew she talks of how she kept herself apart in her hotel, mirroring the loneliness and solitude that was such a persistent feature of Piaf’s life. (Ruffelle is at pains to point out however, that where Piaf would take the elevator down to a hotel bar and hook up with a stranger, she was quite happy to exclude that particular experience from her preparations.) Her Piaf on the verge of death was a picture of a woman broken and Ruffelle’s dedication and immersion in the role left her genuinely in tears and destroyed at the end of each performance. The actress speaks warmly of how her own children, sons of 18 and 23 and daughter of 25 knew barely anything of Piaf before the Leicester show and how struck they were by the story that their mother was telling. Ruffelle also shares her sadness at Amy Winehouse’s tragic early death and how much she felt that Winehouse’s trajectory echoed Piaf’s brightly blazing arc, also a sublimely gifted performer yet so physically broken and taken so young.

Interestingly and bringing the conversation directly back to her career, the actress comments on the real life harshness of Piaf’s childhood and youth, raised in a brothel and no stranger to life on the streets, with the bleak circumstances of Eponine’s (albeit fictional) adolescence on the streets of Paris. Both young women alone and desperately craving love.

The Eponine / Piaf comparison is a valid parallel and leads our conversation almost seamlessly into her Paris Original act. One can imagine that Ruffelle almost has the red white and blue tri-colours running through her. She lives in London, loves New York, and simply adores anything culturally French. The food, the clothes, the shops, the Metro, she is clearly in awe of French style and speaks of how she as a child she adored playing French roles and how often she was mistaken for a native Francais. She adores the French composers and we reflect how whilst there have been very few French contributors to grand musical theatre aside from Boublil and Schonberg and also that French theatre itself is famed for little more than the Moulin Rouge, French culture has fuelled many an epic tale. The Phantom, Quasimodo, Beauty’s Beast and of course Hugo’s Les Miserables, have all provided fantastic canvasses from which to create duly fantastic musicals, whilst the truly legendary British musical fables of My Fair Lady, Oliver and possibly Mary Poppins all seem rather tame by comparison. I speculate that of the four French stories mentioned, three of them feature characters that are terribly disfigured. Perhaps this further defines a French charm, which is to recognise above all that real beauty lies deeper than just in stylish appearance.

Ruffelle’s sets for both shows are not those standard selections of familiar stage songs that either have made her famous or else are typically popular favourites known to all. She is deliberately coy about her selections, both for New York and for London, other than to say that her choices are simply the songs that mean a lot to her and above all are those that she enjoys to sing. First and foremost though she recognises that she is an entertainer and strives to offer her audience their money’s worth in her acts. She loves what cabaret can offer and the intimacy that breaking down the “fourth wall” can achieve, but she is ruthless in considering other acts (that she refuses to name) whose choice of songs can appear as though they had been thrown together that very afternoon. Ruffelle spends months preparing her routines and cites as her inspirations, entertainers who are, or were, world class. Not surprisingly she reels off Midler, Minnelli, Sinatra and Presley as performers who have made her spine tingle.

Another common thread to both of her cabaret gigs is producer and close friend Danielle Tarento. Famed for producing off West End productions to standards that are sector-leading in their consistent excellence, Tarento works well with the singer. The two women despise mediocrity and only recognise perfection in performance. Ruffelle speaks warmly of her relationship with Tarento that goes back many years to early TV acting together and refers to her friend’s contribution now being so much more than simply producing the events. She describes Tarento as akin to her “resident director” offering her notes after each night’s performance.

Ruffelle is not just proud of her professional abilities, she is fiercely proud of her kids too. The work ethic seems to have permeated down to her brood as her two sons clutter up the house with the materials necessary to run their business that is manufacturing bespoke smartphone covers, whilst her daughter Eliza Doolittle is carving out a Top Ten career as one of the UK’s fastest rising singer-songwriter pop stars. Whilst Ruffelle acknowledges her daughter’s showbiz genes (Frances' mother is legendary stage school supremo Sylvia Young and Eliza’s dad is eminent theatre director and Les Mis co-director John Caird) she cannot emphasise enough how much her daughter’s success is not as a result of family connections, but rather the product of sheer guts and hard work.

Even more than discussing her cabaret sets, when she speaks of her sons’ business achievements and Eliza having been writing songs for more than eleven years and having forged her own professional relationships with agent and manager, she beams with pride. “I’d like to say I taught her everything she knows” she jokingly enthuses, but well aware of how tough “the Business” is away from the spotlight, Ruffelle sees in Eliza an assured young woman who is as grounded and prepared as could be in managing the fame that she has earned. I suspect that the relationship between this dynamic mother and celebrity daughter could not be closer and Ruffelle projects the image of a mother who knows that there are few things more important than a caring and responsible love between parent and (even adult) child.

To define Frances Ruffelle as a workaholic is quite possibly to understate the scale of the autumnal challenges currently on the actress’ radar. Returning from New York at the end of this week, picking up at the Crazy Coqs two weeks later, in between these two residencies, this whirlwind of a performer will be workshopping the new musical interpretation of Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 britflick, Bend It Like Beckham. With music and lyrics by Howard Goodall and Charles Hart respectively and with Chadha returning to direct, the workshop’s credentials are impeccable. It’s a hectic time and Ruffelle sees her preparation for the workshop as simply just another professional obligation that deserves the very best of her abilities.

It’s a gloriously sunny day amongst Harrow’s ancient beauty as Ruffelle, in a casually chic style that could almost suggest Jane Birkin, wanders off to her accordion lesson. An actress and mother, proud of herself and of her family and a truly impressive woman.

Frances Ruffelle can be seen at 54 Below in Manhattan on 18th September. Click here to book tickets

And she can also be seen at London's Crazy Coqs at Brasserie Zedel from 8th October to 12th October. Click here to book tickets