Pressure - Review

Park Theatre, London

*****

Written by David Haig

Directed by John Dove

David Haig

First seen in Edinburgh and Chichester in 2014, David Haig’s acclaimed Pressure finally arrives at London’s Park Theatre where it runs for a month or so before heading in to the West End for a well deserved transfer. Haig leads the cast too, in a magnificent performance as Group Captain James Stagg, the meteorologist responsible for forecasting the June 1944 weather in the days leading up to D-Day.

Rarely is a drama so ingeniously titled. Not only is the audience on the edge of their seats as they learn the rudiments of isobars, millibars and anticyclones, the play also reflects the human pressures that pound the cast, much like the unseasonably fierce storm that Stagg predicted would hit the English Channel on June 4th and 5th and which led to, on his advice, the postponement of D-Day to the (now memorialised) date of June 6th.

Haig’s scripts have already displayed an uncanny ability to depict the humanity in our history and he does it again here. Stagg is a dour Scot, principled and meticulous and beautifully contrasted with his US counterpart, Philip Cairns’ Colonel Krick. The Yank is a slickly greased all-American quarter-back who’s brash and arrogant and, every inch, ‘over here’. The contrast between Jock and jock could not be more pronounced. 

The dialogue is so sweetly crafted too. When Stagg is being pressed for his forecast he exclaims “I’m a scientist, not a gambler!” – a powerful comparison, only heightened by the stakes that surrounded the Normandy landings being nothing short of existential. Stagg’s personal pressures are compounded by a concern for his (off-stage) pregnant wife who faces a risky and complicated confinement, while he too is confined to his weather room by the War Office.

But it is more than Stagg’s battles that make this such a stunning piece of writing. In close support of Haig are Malcolm Sinclair’s General Eisenhower and Laura Rogers’ Kay Summersby, the British adjutant assigned to Ike during his posting in Britain to plan Operation Overlord. Both Sinclair and Rogers created their roles back in 2014 and it shows.

Where Stagg (before this play) was one of history’s unsung heroes, Eisenhower has long been famed as a legendary General - and Sinclair’s interpretation of the man is one of the finest supporting performances to be found. Together with Haig (and director John Dove) Sinclair unlocks the enigma of military greatness, showing not only the pragmatism and steely resolve required in a leader, but also a heart capable of the most profound compassion. When Eisenhower speaks of having quietly visited the 101st Airborne Division the night before the landings, to wish “his boys” good luck in the face of possible death, the emotion in his words is as tangible as it is sincere. Beautiful stuff.

And then there’s Summersby who’s support and devotion for Eisenhower has clearly crossed the parameters of the military covenant, leading her to become the General’s lover and rarely is love defined so exquisitely (think perhaps of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter). This pair’s passions may have been consummated, but Summersby’s devastation on being ruthlessly discarded by Ike, as he leaves Britain to continue his military campaign on the continent, is a work of magnificence from Rogers.

Colin Richmond’s subtle yet brilliant set, all Bakelite phones and massive weather charts depicting the Atlantic storms, alongside Philip Pinsky’s sound design, serve perfectly to create the play’s time and place. 

There is something magical about Haig’s carefully researched script, with a text that could almost be a paean to the British climate. Stagg’s description of a typical summer’s day on a south coast beach, in which all four seasons can easily expect to be encountered, and which leaves the incredulous Krick dumbfounded, had the audience chuckling at its recognisable familiarity.

Pressure is an unmissably beautiful piece of theatre.

Runs until 28th April

Then plays at the Ambassadors Theatre, London from  6th June to 1st September

Ruthless! - Review

Arts Theatre, London

***

Music by Marvin Laird

Lyrics and book by Joel Paley

Directed by Richard Fitch

Kim Maresca and Tracie Bennett

Ruthless! is a satirical take on the vicious and blood thirsty showbusiness world of musical theatre. Premiering off-Broadway back in 1992, its earliest production was to kick-start the careers (as understudies) of both Natalie Portman and Britney Spears.

The story tells of eight-year-old Tina Denmark aspiring to stardom and dreaming of Broadway, who will stop at nothing to achieve her goal, even if that means taking out the competition completely in a tale that becomes a camped-up, hammed-up combination of plot twists and melodrama. The book is undoubtedly clunky and occasional one liners miss the mark, but in a piece where reality is so warped, nothing ever really seems quite normal. Richard Fitch's direction however serves to highlight Joel Paley's exaggerated text and allows the actors room to play with their oversized characters. 

Kim Maresca is Judy, Tina's mother, offering up the perfect depiction of a 1950's housewife. Mareca’s comic timing is impeccable and her soprano that occasionally creeps in, despite proclaiming repeatedly that she’s talentless, is stunning.  Regardless of her having played the role before off-Broadway, this portrayal feels fresh and makes Maresca the star of the show. 

With only a handful of appearances Tracie Bennett retains her scene-stealing knack. Her interpretation of Lita, the show-tune hating theatre critic is a gem, while her number I Hate Musicals, incorporating endless references to shows of days gone by is a scream. Jason Gardiner delivers a pleasant surprise as Tina's success hungry agent, Sylvia St Croix. In drag and and rocking a fair few pairs of heels, Gardiner unveils a rich sounding baritone and a sassy Liza Minelli-esque persona on stage that blends perfectly with the story’s insanity.

Of the four child performers cast as Tina, Anya Evans was in the role on the night of this review. Experienced already, Evans is a young actress with a control to her voice that is well beyond her years. She’s also a gifted dancer and, much like her on stage mother, has excellent comic timing alongside an ability to gauge audience reaction.

Musical direction from Simon Beck adds colour to the piece with a "big Broadway" feel to Marvin Laird's numbers making the score exciting. The show has been impressively cast, with a company whose voices and performances are well suited to the style.

Ruthless! will be best savoured with a large gin alongside a generous pinch of salt. Excellently performed, it makes for a fun night at the theatre.

Runs until 23rd June

Reviewed by Charlotte Darcy

Photo credit: Alastair Muir

Assassins - Review

Pleasance Theatre, London


**


Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Louise Bakker

UPDATE - Since this review was published, Louise Bakker has made a change to the show's finale that significantly reduces the political skew referred to below

The cast in rehearsal

Done well, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is a work of political beauty, offering up a delirium of perspectives upon the assassins and would-be assassins who over the USA’s recent centuries have fixed a serving President in their sights.

Done badly however and it becomes an interval-free tedium. Notwithstanding some occasional strong performances from its cast of ten (many of whom are badly let down by appalling sound balancing), Louise Bakker’s production values are shoddy from the outset, with her politically skewed finale proving a nadir of naive and clumsy disappointment.

Jordan Clarke’s band however are outstanding, and the 2 stars awarded by this review are for his quintet. See this show if you enjoy listening to Sondheim’s music played superbly. Otherwise, avoid.

Runs until 8th April

Macbeth at the RSC - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon


****

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Polly Findlay

Niamh Cusack and Christopher Eccleston

Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack lead a stylishly novel Macbeth that is likely to divide opinions. Set in modern times, Eccleston’s troubled Thane is palpably bewitched by the thought of gaining Scotland’s crown from the moment he first encounters the weird sisters. Eccleston captures the self-doubt and vacillation that ebbs away at Macbeth’s journeys both to and on the throne, delivering a clear interpretation of the fundamental flaws that corrode his character, from the moment he commits regicide until he in turn falls victim to it. The theme of time and moments is a strong pulse through the story of Macbeth and in this show, from Duncan's slaughter, an onstage digital clock counts the seconds down over a precisely measured two hours until Macbeth's death.

Eccleston may be good, but Cusack is sensational. Unsexed perhaps, early in Act One, but Cusack oozes a provocative, venomous sensuality throughout the first half that reminds one of a young Helen Mirren. Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies are amongst the play’s most powerful and Cusack dances through the verse. She is a joy to watch throughout – with her decline towards insanity sensitively and convincingly played out. A nod too for Fly Davis’ costume work on Lady M. Her couture (again, in the first half) is stunning and as a real life royal wedding looms, Davis’ dresses model a gorgeous contemporary chic, befitting British royalty in the 21st century.

Stanley Kubrick never made a film of Macbeth, but there are suggestions that Polly Findlay is doffing her cap firmly in the direction of Kubrick’s The Shining with this Stratford production. Remember those spooky twin girls in the Overlook Hotel’s elevator? Findlay has three primary school girls play her Witches and it’s an inspired decision. The lucky trio who scored the show’s press night were Elizabeth Kaleniuk, Aleksandra Penlington and Abigail Walter, all bringing a chilling sense of evil innocence to the plot’s infernal complexity. And then there’s the Porter, who’s usually confined to moments of comic relief after Duncan’s death. Here Findlay has him on stage virtually throughout, with Michael Hodgson imbuing this minor character with a further degree of supernatural wickedness and bearing an uncanny presence to Lloyd, The Shining’s bartender.

For the most part there is sound work in Findlay’s company, but some arrows fail to hit their mark. Edward Bennett’s Macduff offers a well crafted glance into grief as he learns of his family’s slaughter, but is too patrician and plummy to convince of his capacity for earthy, bloody vengeance. Likewise, more could be made of Raphael Sowole’s Banquo.

This is a modern, minimalist Macbeth (and one in which Lady M brilliantly uses a water cooler to help remove the damned spot). A glassed in raised platform offers glimpses of Glamis' privileged chatterati that could be straight out of The Ivy’s private dining room – while for those in the audience who may be struggling to keep up with the play’s themes. Findlay/Davis quirkily project key quotes from the text onto a screen above the performance space. The chosen words are not so much surtitles as potential essay titles, but with the text again forming a part of GCSE syllabi, there are likely to be many (secondary) school children in future audiences who will appreciate the gesture.

An imaginatively staged take on “the Scottish play” which, in its leading roles, is stunningly performed. All in all a bloody, good, Macbeth.

Where you can see Macbeth
Runs in Stratford upon Avon until 18th September 2018
Runs at the Barbican Theatre, London from 15th October 2018 until 18th January 2019
Broadcast live in cinemas on 11th April 2018

Photo credit Paul Stuart (c) RSC

Old Fools - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

****

Written by Tristan Bernays

Directed by Sharon Burrell

Frances Grey and Mark Arends

Old Fools from Tristan Bernays is a perceptive portrayal of the debilitation that Alzheimer’s disease is wreaking upon an ever growing number of our elderly. A well crafted script that weaves its arc across the decades of Tom and Viv’s marriage, Bernays cleverly plays with time in a way that echoes Alzheimer’s corrosions of the brains synapses and connections.

A two hander that lasts little more than an hour, we meet Tom and Viv in their youth, dancing to the 1930s classic (and subsequently covered by everyone from Sinatra to Bublé) The Way You Look Tonight. A neat twist from Bernays sees the melody, refrained as a motif, poignantly re-appearing as the links between distorted memories and the ever-crumbling present become increasingly pronounced.

Mark Arends and Frances Grey tackle their roles magnificently - both with distinctly different challenges. Arends has to convince us (and he does) that he can morph instantly from carefree young lover, to a decaying geriatric, while Grey, who retains her sanity throughout, plays not only the loving Viv, but also occasionally their daughter Alice too, capturing the child from her infancy through to adulthood.

Bernays is brutal in his dissected devastation of the condition. In their later years, as Viv is providing Tom’s personal care, the pain etched on her face as he confuses her for his mother is tangible. In a flash backed moment we learn too of Tom’s marital infidelity in years long past. While their marriage may have healed the scars remain making the loving support from wife to husband even more heartbreakingly acute. The play is as much a study upon love as it is about dementia. 

Sharon Burrell directs with a profound delicacy – ably assisted by Lucie Pankhurst’s movement and choreography. Played in the round, if there is but one niggle, it is the (rare) moments when the actors’ work can be briefly hard to see. Peter Small’s lighting work is sharply effective too, transporting us through the years in a heartbeat.

Many in the audience will recognise either a nuance or, perhaps, a reality in the world that Bernays and his company create. And for those who to date have been spared the tragedy of Alzheimer’s affecting a loved one, its menace looms large to us all and to our families.

Old Fools is brilliant devastating theatre, marking Bernays out as an outstanding talent amongst his generation. It deserves a life beyond this stunning premiere – until then, it is an unmissable production at the Southwark Playhouse.

Runs until 7th April

Photo credit: Nat James Photography

Lock and Key - Review

The Vaults, London


**


Music and orchestrations by Bella Barlow
Book and lyrics by A.C. Smith
Directed by Adam Lenson

Evelyn Hoskins and Tiffany Graves

Lock and Key is a new musical horror story playing at the Vaults Festival, against the ominous rumbling of trains of Waterloo overhead. 

In a tale that attempts to be a modern day nightmare, Jess is ambitious junior working out her probationary period at a publishing company and keen to get on in a media career. She’s hardworking but also bullied and exploited, with the show’s action playing out as she’s working late, at 10pm, on her birthday. Her boss Samantha is a monstrous employer with no care whatsoever for Jess. There’s an office filing cabinet with a dark and grisly secret that Jess is expressly forbidden from opening. Oh, and there’s a talking  teddy bear too.

If that all sounds rather corny that’s because it is. Barlow and Smith have created cardboard clichéd characters, in a musical that’s quite possibly turned out to be more horrific than its creative team might ever have intended. Horror is a tricky genre which this blog has been keen to support over the years. Handled well, it can make us laugh, scream and be moved. Done badly, and it appears as little more than kids playing around with the dressing-up box, or to put it more succintly, like the disgusting brown substance (draw your own conclusions) that Jess discovers in the filing cabinet drawer.  

That being said Tiffany Graves as Samantha (Tiffany is also the bear’s puppeteer ) together with Evelyn Hoskins’ Jess both deliver their usual level of excellence, with performances that are far finer than the script deserves. Likewise, Tamara Saringer puts in a strong shift, ably directing her four piece band through a collection of forgettable melodies.

If a successful future is to be unlocked for Lock and Key then much work is needed on its book. The show is crying out for credible characters who engage in plausible human interaction, and horror that truly suspends our disbelief. And as for the final scene – it’s sensational, implausible and gratuitously violent. Like the contents of that mysterious filing cabinet, Lock and Key is a bloody mess.

Runs until 18th March

Photo credit: Nick Brittain Photography

Janie Dee - Review

Live At Zedel, London


****

Janie Dee

Janie Dee’s brief residency at Live At Zedel this week is a chance to glimpse a performance of understated excellence.

A two time Olivier winner - and only last week, nominated for a third following her devastating turn as Phyllis in the National Theatre’s Follies - Dee drew from inspiration from across the spectrum of song in an enchanting yet eclectic set.

Glamorously clad in a leopard-print catsuit, diva Dee slipped into the low-lit venue purring a lyric from Sondheim’s The Glamorous Life, a nod to her Desiree in the concert productions of A Little Night Music that MD Alex Parker had staged in recent years. With a consummate confidence in scaling cabaret’s daunting fourth wall, Dee went on to work the room beautifully, her patter including throwaway references to having worked with the greats - and not just the likes of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, her recollection of a conversation with Harold Pinter reminding the packed room that Dee’s talent stretches way beyond musical theatre and into powerful, often dark, drama.

A fascinating chapter of the evening was Janie's insight into years past that she’d romantically spent working in Italy. Singing two Italian numbers (whose titles escaped this reviewer) what made the moment particularly charming was that as Dee regaled the room with tales of la dolce vita, Parker was gently, subtly and oh so sweetly picking out Ennio Morricone’s theme to Cinema Paradiso as she spoke.

It is always a treat to stumble unexpectedly across some Tom Lehrer and Dee made mouthwatering work of Poisoning Pigeons In The Park, relishing the American’s caustic satire. Elsewhere on the programme her oldest childhood friend Kay Summers was in the Zedel audience celebrating her birthday and in an act of glorious warmth and appreciation, Dee invited Summers on stage to sing ABBA’s Thank You For The Music. The moment was both unpretentious and lovely as Dee, sat amongst the Zedel crowd, applauded her pal. Returning to the mic Dee wrapped up the first half with a sensational nod to Follies, teasingly asking the audience Could I Leave You?

It wasn’t just established songs though. In a celebration of artistic inclusion Dee performed new writing from Tim Connor, from Parker (and his writing partner Katie Lam) as well as a composition from her local church organist. Her selections proving to be a breath of fresh (songwriting) air. 

The evening's highlight however was Dee's return to A Little Night Music for a scorching take on Send In The Clowns. Well into the second half and now clad in an elegant black 2-piece outift, Dee gave an eleven o’clock rendering of the Sondheim classic that was as heartbreaking as it was spine-tingling.  

Only on for two more concerts this week - catch her if you can!

Janie Dee performs Live At Zedel on March 16th and 17th at 7pm