Barnum - Review

RichmondTheatre, London

***

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Michael Stewart

Book by Mark Bramble

Directed by Jonathan O'Boyle

The cast of Barnum

After a spectacular run at Newbury’s Watermill two years ago, while this innovative actor-muso take on Coleman and Stewart’s classic musical still showcases fabulous talent, the show has lost some of its Big Top magic on the road.

Lee Mead is P.T.Barnum and to be fair, much like Matt Rawle before him, he’s a convincing king of flim-flam. Mead sings wonderfully and leads his show with an authentic enthusiasm. Not just vocally, Mead’s takes on There Is A Sucker Born Ev’ry Minute and The Colours Of My Life are magnificent, but his acting too is a blast with a stunning tight-rope act to close the first half.

Supporting Mead are original cast members including Monique Young as Charity, Barnum’s wife and Penny Ashmore as Swedish Nightingale (and Barnum’s mistress) Jenny Lind. Both remain exquisite, Young still breaking our hearts with her take on The Colours Of My Life.

But while the circus skills are breathtaking throughout and the actor-muso take on the score, delightful, the demands on one’s imagination that made General Tom Thumb and Jumbo the Elephant seem so glorious at Newbury, seem little more than bona-fide baloney when squeezed into the cramped confines of Richmond’s proscenium arch. 

If you want to see Barnum because you love the songs, then you won’t be disappointed.

Runs until 27th June, then on tour

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Allegra - Review

Richmond Theatre, London

****

Written by Peter Quilter

Directed and choregraphed by Stephen Mear

Maureen Lipman

In a play that will touch the hearts of many, Maureen Lipman plays Allegra, a woman of senior years who, through conditions that are unstated in the script but clearly recognisable, is losing her connection with the world around her. Frequently disappearing into her own private world of song, it matters not whether dementia or Alzheimer’s is her diagnosis, rather that Allegra is a woman of remarkable mental energy who is finding her world increasingly confusing.

Quilter offers three foils to Allegra’s vivacity: her brother Ronen (John Middleton), her Czech carer Anna (Elizabeth Bower), and PC Rogers (Bailey Patrick) the local cop who’s tasked with challenging Allegra over her singing that has been complained about as a public nuisance.

The strength of Quilter’s writing lies in its deliberately unsophisticated charm. The action as it plays out is simply defined, in a dialogue peppered with neatly timed gags that all land perfectly. Throw in a liberal measure of songs that stretch back over the years - and how Allegra, who may not remember that she had only seen her brother barely two hours ago, but can remember lyrics and tunes that date back decades - and one realises the perceptive depth of Peter Quilter’s script.

There are hints of Quilter’s Glorious! - about Florence Foster Jenkins - in the story, as well as a hint of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as Allegra reluctantly subjects herself to the medication imposed upon her by the Court.

More than just the writing however, it is Lipman who takes this story of simple charm, lifting it into an evening of simply stated drama, that’s also rather wonderfully sung. In a performance of powerfully poignant presence and poise, she captures not only Allegra’s comic eccentricities but, almost heartbreakingly, her fragile vulnerabilities too.

The musical backing may be prerecorded, but Lipman’s singing, often a-capella, is thrillingly glorious, truly live, and possibly one of the finest performances to be found. That the lyrics of Take Me Out To The Ball Game are also projected on screen, encouraging an audience singalong, only adds to the evening’s magic.

Stephen Mear directs his first play (albeit one with music and some neat choreography of course) and he has helmed a hit, unlocking a beautifully nuanced story of simple humanity.

Prepare to laugh and cry - Allegra is exquisitely crafted theatre.

Runs until 13th June, then on tour before playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Cinderella - Review

Richmond Theatre, Richmond

*****

Written by Harry Michaels & Alan McHugh

Additional material by Gary Wilmot

Directed by Gary Wilmot

Jak Allen-Anderson, Charlie Stemp & Stephen Guarino

Richmond Theatre’s Cinderella is an absolute fairytale of a pantomime. With countless recent years’ featuring in London’s Palladium panto, Gary Wilmot steps off the stage to direct at Richmond and he helms an absolute blast of a show!

Helen George takes the show’s starriest billing as the story’s enchanting Fairy Godmother, and with a stunning voice to match. The evening quickly launches into a cover of Petula Clark’s Downtown covered instead into Richmond. It's fabulously sung by all the cast and sets the tone for top-notch pantomime humour, brilliantly delivered.

Taking the honours as Buttons is one of the nation’s greatest musical theatre triple-threat performers, the incomparable Charlie Stemp. His is a brilliantly bashful, bungling Buttons, combining physical comedy with bursts of sensational dance numbers. Stemp has also polished his pantomime craft at the Palladium and it shows. Adults and children alike, he holds the audience in the palm of his hand, working the room magnificently. 

Stemp and George have to share the spotlight however with that venerable old fox, Basil Brush as Baron Basil Hardup . With 63 performing years to his name Brush knows his way around a panto and while the kids in the audience may have been confused as to what the role was of this on-stage ventriloquist’s *mouse* (I kid you not, I heard them call Basil a mouse. Oh yes I did!), the grown-ups groaned with laughter at every one of the puppet’s trademark “Boom Booms”.

Did I mention dance? Well it helps that the show is choreographed by the world-class legend that is Stephen Mear. Rarely (maybe even never) are out-of-town pantomimes performed with such classy choreography, as Mear coaxes brilliance not just out of Stemp, but from his entire ensemble. Don’t ask how they fit into the narrative, but the cutest routine of tap-dancing polar bears, drilled to pawed perfection, has to be seen to be believed!

The show’s baddies are wickedly played by Jak Allen-Anderson and Stephen Guarino as the ugly stepsisters, American actor Guarino making his panto debut! The pair are great fun, well-earning the evening’s boos.

Hope Daw, Tom Major and Michael Lin respectively play the relatively straight roles of Cinderella, Prince Charming and Dandini, with all delivering fine work that makes the evening soar.

The second act rolls out the comedy highlights, with a hilarious tongue-twisting scene, matched only by a hilariously and (almost) perfectly co-ordinated take on the physically demanding If I Were Not At Hardup Hall Someone Else I’d Rather Be. Equally, the show’s penultimate number, the little know ABBA gem, Gimme Gimme Gimme A Slipper That Fits Me is another festive gem!

It’s not often that one sees pantomime of top-notch West End quality for the cost of a local ticket. Don’t miss Cinderella at the Richmond theatre. It’s a Christmas cracker! 

Runs until 4th January 2026

Photo credit: Ian Olsson

Blood Brothers - Review

Richmond Theatre, Richmond

*****

Music, lyrics and book by Willy Russell

Directed by Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson

Niki Colwell Evans and Richard Munday

The House Full signs were out at Richmond Theatre and notwithstanding that Blood Brothers is now a fixture on the GCSE syllabus leading to coachloads of schoolkids in the audience, to experience a show out-of-town and in a packed theatre was a pre-show treat in itself.

It is 40 years since the show first opened in the West End, with Willy Russell’s ingenious tale still packing a powerfully poignant punch. Niki Colwell Evans plays Mrs Johnstone, the poor young Liverpudlian mother who, on learning that she is pregnant with twins, signs a hellish pact with Paula Tappenden’s barren Mrs Lyons, to give her one of the newborn babies.

Richard Munday is the show’s grim Narrator (this Greek tragedy’s Chorus) steering the narrative, with panache, towards its infernal ending, while Sean Jones and Joe Sleight play respectively Mickey and Eddie, the hapless Johnstone twins whose lives will end so tragically. Olivia Sloyan completes the sextet of key players as Linda, the young girl who grows up as the best friend of the twins and who is to be so tragically connected to their deaths.

All six players are magnificent – with Colwell Evans proving outstanding in her take on the impoverished but loving Mrs Johnstone. Given some of the show’s best songs, she delivers them powerfully and in the finale of Tell Me It’s Not True, with heartbreaking pathos.

But it is not just the principals, it is their excellent supporting troupe that make this a grand night of theatre. The ensemble play an array of little more than two-dimensional characters, there to advance the story and it’s context and not much more. Each tiny vignette however, almost cliched in their creation, is a work of genius in itself such is Russell’s writing talent.

Russell not only captures the ghastly Johnstone/Lyons contract, he offers a chillingly perceptive dissection of English life that echoes with relevance today. Class and snobbery prevail, with the educated privileges that are showered upon Eddie, contrasting with Mickey’s far tougher journey. Eddie goes to university and becomes a city councillor, while Mickey feels the sharp end of deprivation alongside much harsher justice from the local policeman than middle-class Eddie receives.

Set in Liverpool during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the socio-economics of the time for the city’s working class were brutal. In Russell’s excruciatingly brilliant song Miss Jones the recession is cruelly juxtaposed against Mickey and Linda’s shotgun wedding, borne out of her unplanned pregnancy. And look closely at this musical, because there’s more than a nod to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel here too.

Throughout, Matt Malone’s six-piece band rise to the occasion with slick interpretations of Russell’s memorable melodies.

Quite simply, Blood Brothers remains sensational musical theatre. Catchy tunes, perfectly performed, and all framed around a book that is virtually flawless. This production tours for much of the year and when it comes to a town near you, don’t miss it!

Plays until 25th February, then continues on tour

Photo credit: Jack Merriman

Educating Rita - Review

Richmond Theatre, London

*****

Written by: Willy Russell

Director: Tamara Harvey

June 25 2012

Matthew Kelly and Claire Sweeney

Educating Rita, produced by the Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath, is a delightful re-working of Willy Russell’s clever study of character and emotion, liberally sprinkled with humour and delicious irony.

Claire Sweeney plays the title role of the married hairdresser who at 31 and already familiar with the poetry of Roger McGough, is hungry to broaden her cultural horizons via the Open University.  Matthew Kelly plays Frank, a one time poet and now a local university tutor, assigned to supervise Rita’s studies.  

Like fine wine, this play has improved with age. When first produced in 1980, the Thatcher era was established and the gap between rich and poor, acknowledged as a backdrop in much of Russell’s writing, was distinct. It is a sad reflection that many of today’s newspaper headlines echo similar themes, and that the play’s social comment is as relevant now as when it premiered .  The original production and subsequent film, drew attention to the hitherto broadly unknown Julie Walters who had cut her acting teeth at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre and who brimming with scouse grit, gave a performance as Rita that set the bar very high.

Claire Sweeney approaches the role from a distinctly different career path. Having already achieved numerous starring roles on television and stage Sweeney’s Rita, is an outstanding performance defining her as an actress with a depth of talent that reaches beyond musical theatre. Her broad Liverpool accent, not only authentic but deliciously emphasized, allows her to take Russell’s creation of the 80’s and subtly re-imagine the hairdresser to reflect our current early years of the 21^st century. Rita’s arc sees her character grow not only in literary criticism, but also in self confidence. Sweeney’s performance ( amidst numerous immaculately timed costume changes ) charts this development in Rita with sensitivity and pinpoint perception.

Matthew Kelly provides a worthy foil to Sweeney’s comparatively youthful impetuousness.  In his tutorial sessions with Rita he discovers that the protective layers of his alcoholic character’s crusty and cantankerous protective shell are first penetrated and then, almost onion-like,  stripped away by this mature student’s directness of purpose and irresistibly innocent charm to reveal a vulnerable and lonely man. Without meaning to, Rita steals his heart, and when, in Act 2, we see his jealousy of her newly acquired freedom, Kelly’s performance tugs at the heartstrings without being mawkish. In a similar vein, his portrayal of Frank’s sometime drunkenness is also delivered free of cliché.  It is interesting to note that Kelly and Sweeney briefly performed together earlier this year, albeit not as a duet, in the tour of Legally Blonde. The pair have an onstage chemistry that clearly works, and it will be intriguing to see if this professional pairing is exploited in productions of the future.

The creative team has excelled throughout in this touring production. Tim Shortall’s set, with numerous bookcases, many of which conceal bottles of scotch is delightfully detailed, whilst Davy Ogilvy’s sound design, ensured that clarity of speech was maintained, even in the rear stalls.

This show is a delightful two hours long, spent watching an actor and actress who are both clearly at the top of their game.

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews