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5 Reasons Sutton Foster Triumphs in Anything Goes – review

Sutton Foster’s West End debut is the top


★★★★★

Production photo of Sutton Foster in Anything Goes at The Barbican Theatre London
Sutton Foster in Anything Goes. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at The Barbican is the best musical performance I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. And it’s thanks to one person- Sutton Foster.

This is Sutton Foster’s first London appearance. I guess Broadway audiences know all about her qualities but in this review I’m going pick out the five key moments in which she showed she has what it takes to launch this show into the musical stratosphere. That’s not to play down the importance of Kathleen Marshall who directed and choreographed the original Broadway production and gave Sutton Foster the vehicle to show off her talent. Nor am I underestimating the support she receives from Robert Lindsay and others. And we can never forget the foundation stone of Cole Porter’s songs.

Sutton Foster very nearly didn’t appear. The part of nightclub singer Reno Sweeney was due to be played by Megan Mullally, but after she dropped out with an injury, Ms Foster- the original Tony Award-winning Reno- was drafted in. Well, Megan Mullally’s bad luck is our good fortune.

Let me set the scene. Nearly all the action takes place on the deck of a ship with interior scenes rolled on or dropped in as needed, so we nearly always have in view Derek McLane’s phallic funnels and vaginal doors and portholes, never letting us forget that this is a musical that’s at least as much about sex as romance. Then there are the parallel lines of those smokestacks which prepare us for the precision of the chorus lines.

1 She Acts

After a jolly overture in which the conductor Stephen Ridley wears a naval officer’s white hat, the top of which is picked out by  a spotlight, and a short scene that kicks off the ludicrous and frankly irrelevant plot, we meet Reno Sweeney for the first time. She sings I Get A Kick Out Of You.

In modern musicals, which is to say mainly those written after Rodgers And Hammerstein changed everything, the songs are led by and enhance the story. In Cole Porter’s hey day, the 1930s, it was more a case of the story being built around the songs. So we have this classic love song, sung by Reno about young Billy Crocker. She says she’s in love with him but in no time at all she’s helping him snare the love of his life Hope Harcourt.

Even though it seems like her feelings for Billy are invented simply so she can sing this song, and even though we’ve heard it a thousand times, you very quickly realise that something extraordinary is happening here. Sutton Foster is putting in phrasing- pauses, emphases- making it personal. She’s singing like she really doesn’t understand why she has feelings for this young man. She forces this and every other song she sings (and she does have all the best songs) to mean something in the context of the show. It’s like hearing the song for the first time. Because she is acting the song.

2 She’s Funny

After Billy decides to stow away on an ocean liner bound for Britain so that he can court Hope, only to discover she is engaged to an aristocratic Englishman, Reno gives him a confidence boost. She tells him You’re The Top. It may start as Reno trying to cheer up Billy but it ends as a competition between them to find ever more bizarre compliments. So we begin with the over-the-top

‘You’re the Nile
You’re the Tow’r of Pisa
You’re the smile
On the Mona Lisa’

but end with ‘You’re broccoli.’ Now, this is a comic song but Sutton Foster takes the comedy to a new height thanks to her facial expressions: puzzlement at some of the comparisons, triumph when she finds yet another rhyme. She is indeed ‘the nose on the great Durante’.

3 She’s A Team Player

Prtoduction photo of Robert Lindsay and Sutton Foster in Anything Goes at The Barbican Theatre in London
Robert Lindsay and Sutton Foster in Anything Goes. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Billy and Hope, played by Samuel Edwards and Nicole-Lily Baisden, have a moment, as does Gary Wilmot, who doesn’t have a lot to do but what he does is reliably comic. Then Sutton Foster and Robert Lindsay have their only number together, Friendship. Usually, the part of Moonface Martin, a gangster disguised as a priest, is a relatively minor character in a subplot but in this production- and all credit here to the director Kathleen Marshall– he becomes a lead.

On Broadway, the great Joel Grey took the part. In London, we, and Sutton Foster, are blessed with Robert Lindsay. It sometimes seems Mr Lindsay can do anything. I last saw him extracting tears as a legendary Hollywood cameraman suffering from dementia in Prism. But of course, he is a skilled comic actor as he showed as the star of the revival of Me And My Girl. His greatest quality is his understanding of how to work an audience.

So his patter as he breaks off from the duet is pure vaudeville and transforms a comic song into comedy genius, with jokes about it being a shame Sutton Foster’s London debut is in the City of London, not the West End. And if you’re not familiar with this in-joke, it’s true that while the size of the venue and the show are ‘West End’, it is geographically speaking somewhat to the east. And what’s great about Sutton Foster is that she sails with him on this almost stream of consciousness, so that they really do seem like friends.

4 She Can Dance

The climax to the first act is the song Anything Goes. If there’s a serious theme to this musical (and there probably isn’t), it’s that standards of good and bad and right and wrong have been swept away in contemporary society, and that anyone can become a celebrity, including gangsters like Moonface Martin and Public Enemy Number One Snake Eyes Johnson, whom Billy Crocker is mistaken for, just as we find in today’s celebrity culture. This suits Cole Porter’s cynicism and gives us the song and show title.

By now, we’ve already tasted the quality of Kathleen Marshall’s choreography but this number goes up a gear. The company generates enough energy for a power station. Sutton Foster’s energy is nuclear. And so is her dancing, as she leads the synchronised stage-filling chorus through a tap routine that just builds and builds. I can’t remember when I last saw a standing ovation at the end of act one.

5 She has limitless energy

So act two opens with Reno singing Blow Gabriel Blow, a song that absolutely doesn’t fit. Why on earth would a nightclub singer sing a gospel song? Apparently, it’s because she was once an evangelist. Okay, why not? For quality of choreography and performance, it takes up where Anything Goes left off. The number starts with Sutton Foster in a preacher’s outfit but before long she and her troupe have shed their white robes to reveal red, devilishly skimpy showgirl dresses that show she also has a fantastic figure. When the dancers sway rhythmically in a close group it’s like a cauldron and again Sutton Foster, who must have been exhausted as the end of act one, is right at the centre of it, setting the stage on fire.

It’s worth remembering that the part of Reno was written for Ethel Merman and has been played in the past by luminaries such as Patti Lupone and Elaine Paige. We can add Sutton Foster to that pantheon of musical stars. Her next role is alongside Hugh Jackman in The Music Man on Broadway. I  hope, after this success, we’ll be seeing more of her on this side of the Atlantic.

Those were my five moments to remember but there’s a lot more to enjoy in the production, of course. A delightful version of The Gypsy in Me in which the English Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, played by Haydn Oakley, reveals a previously unexpected passionate side leading to a comic tango with Sutton Foster, which includes an impressive vertical split from her. There’s the comedy song Be Like The Bluebird which gives Robert Lindsay a brilliant solo moment; and Carly Mercedes Dyer who recently acted everyone else off the stage as Shug Avery in the Leicester Curve production of The Color Purple gives the raunchiest version imaginable of Buddie, Beware.

Without Sutton Foster, and Robert Lindsay in support, this production would still be amusing, energetic and visually impressive but, with them, it’s the top.

Anything Goes performed at The Barbican until 31st October 2021. A return to the Barbican and a tour are planned for 2022 (with a new cast).  An excellent film of the stage show is available on BBC iPlayer anythinggoesmusical.co.uk

Click here to watch the video of this review on YouTube

 

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Anna Maxwell Martin & Chris O’Dowd – Constellations – review

Laughter and tears looking at the role of choice and chance in love

★★★★★

Production photo of Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O'Dowd in the Donmar Warehouse production of Constellations by Nick Payne directed by Michael Longhurst at the Vaudeville Theatre London
Anna Maxwell Martin & Chris O’Dowd in Constellations. Photo: Marc Brenner

Constellations by Nick Payne at the Vaudeville Theatre is about the ups and downs of a relationship but it’s also about the choices the couple make, depending on the circumstances they are in at any given time or sometimes the mood they are in. So we see the same scenes again with different outcomes, and the potential to be very funny or desperately sad.

Throughout the multiverse of scenarios of false starts and alternative scenarios, and returning to earlier moments, there is a string that connects a linear story of a couple (played in the version I saw by Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O’Dowd). They meet, form a relationship, split up after an affair, meet again and marry.

In one repeated scene, the man proposes using an analogy of bees. He first delivers his proposal in a stilted fashion, then stumbling, then smoothly.

The format is set from the start when, in a series of very short scenes, the relationship ends before it begins time after time, as each reveals a reason why they can’t get together, followed by a black out, until you are anticipating what the next obstacle will be. The funniest is probably when Chris O’Dowd ‘s previously single character says: ‘My wife’s getting me drink.’

It sounds confusing but it isn’t at all. It’s hard to praise the author enough such an ingenious construction that nevertheless remains watchable and funny.

The play is underpinned by the quantum mechanics-inspired theory that every time we do or don’t do something, a different version of the universe is triggered leading to an infinite number of parallel universes. This is illustrated by the love story between Marianne, a university researcher into quantum theory, and Roland a beekeeper, with indications throughout of how it could have gone differently. But what didn’t happen still informs our understanding of these characters and of what did happen in this particular story of two people who love one another but whose relationship also generates sparks.

And, in being made aware of the many possible outcomes, we inevitably ask how much if any free will is involved in our decisions? In this case, Nick Payne has made the decision to show us what happened when they stayed together, at least until a final choice of paths where, similar to Schrodinger’s cat being alive or dead, there is a one third likelihood of it going one way and two thirds the other. And, since the end is so sad, you also ask yourself whether one of the other paths we didn’t follow would have had a happier outcome.

So the play calls for two excellent actors, who can instantly change mood, and even situation, saying the lines with different intonation or swapping lines, and Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O’Dowd are both actors of the highest order, with a great rapport, which is very important in linking the multiverse of outcomes we are presented with. They are also great comic actors to boot, which is important because there is much comedy.

In this revival by the Donmar Warehouse, being presented at the Vaudeville Theatre, there are four sets of couples playing the roles. It’s such a good idea to show how different actors of different ages and sexuality enhance the proposition that the characters’ story can be told in many different ways.

I wish I could have seen the others but I’m more than happy that I saw this pairing. Chris O’Dowd is not a regular on stage but he seemed so natural in his role as Roland. As we know, acting ‘natural’ is the hardest thing in the unnatural environment of a stage. He made his character laid back in a type familiar from his screen roles, but he could also be angry and upset as required, and he has a comic timing that any stage actor would be proud of.

Anna Maxwell Martin is a regular performer on stage and, while many of her roles have required her to be serious, she has a terrific comic streak. She can smile or be offhand, trot off an amusing line and hold just the right length of pause for laughter, and use terrific verbal dexterity then move on to a heartbreaking loss of the ability to speak properly. I am in awe of her acting skill.

This is the same production that originated at the Royal Court back in 2012 with the same director Michael Longhurst (Amadeus, Caroline Or Change). He must be credited with some of its success, not least the simplicity of the presentation, just the two actors at the front of the stage, with a background of balloons, representing perhaps a constellation of memories or even universes.

So space is apparently crowded by multiple universes but what about time? Well, that may not exist. The flitting back and forth through time- and (spoiler alert!)  the play having visited the end of their story actually ends with a jump back to the middle. This, it’s pointed out, is how our own stories exist in our minds: not a linear cradle to grave, but little fragments from all over the years. All of our lifetime in our head. That includes false memories. For example, Roland remembers them meeting at a wedding when we know it was a barbecue.

And talking of time, so packed is Constellations with these short meaningful fragments, and the concentration required is so intense, that the play seems much longer than 70 minutes. Which is a tribute to the author and the actors.

The Donmar Warehouse production of Constellations, with performances by Anna Maxwell Martin & Chris O’Dowd alternating with Omari Douglas & Russell Tovey, continues at the Vaudeville Theatre until 21st September

Click here to watch this review on the One MInute Theatre Reviews YouTube channel

 

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Michael Ball in Hairspray – review

Michael Ball floods Hairspray with sunshine

★★★★★

Michael Ball and cast in Hairspray. Photo:Tristram Kenton

The musical Hairspray opened on Broadway in 2002 and hasn’t changed much since. The current production at the London Coliseum, normally home to English National Opera, and the forthcoming UK tour replicate the original, as directed by Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. And why not? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And Hairspray is not only not broke, it’s as strong as Emily Campbell.

Maybe they were just glad to be back in a theatre but the roar of the audience when the curtain went up said to me that this is a musical people love and you would mess with it at your peril.

I’m sure you know the story, set in the early sixties, about a young woman called Tracy.  She is determined to dance on a local TV show, despite some people thinking she isn’t thin enough. In the course of that battle, she also fights segregation and liberates her previously embarrassed plus-size mother.

The familiar songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are an ebullient stream of jaunty tunes and fun lyrics from the opening Good Morning Baltimore to the closing You Can’t Stop The Beat.

The original 2002 production is still as fresh as a Baltimore crab cake. David Rockwell‘s set design is cartoonish and colourful, within a proscenium arch shaped like a 1960s television. There are many clever touches- the moment three different households sing Mamma I’m A Big Girl Now (a scene you won’t find in the film of the musical), the way the Dynamites girl group walk out of a poster, and the walkdown finale, crowned by a giant can of hairspray. And there are the over-the-top costumes with the outrageous hairstyles (of course) by William Ivey Long. You really wouldn’t want to change any of that.Fierstein

The show is so well known that, as a reviewer, I’m left with the cast, who are different from the original production- and can make a difference. The producers just need to make sure the cast do what’s required of them. I’m pleased to report they exceed expectations.

The part of Tracy’s mother has always been played by a man. Harvey Fierstein was the first stage Edna Turnblad. When the production opened in London in 2007, Michael Ball took on the role, and he’s reprised it for this revival at the London Coliseum.

The part of Edna Turnblad doesn’t give us the chance to enjoy his beautiful voice to the full nor even the complete range of his acting skills, but we do get to appreciate his ability as a stage performer. Through his dimpled smile, his twinkling eye contact, the sense that you are getting 100%, this man has an incredible rapport with his audience. It’s as if he has bottled up sunshine and is releasing it into the auditorium. His Edna Turnblad, transforming from downtrodden domestic to dazzling diva, is a joy.

Les Dennis gets big billing as a well known name, and his performance as Edna’s warm-hearted, ever optimistic husband Wilbur doesn’t disappoint. His duet with Michael Ball in the poignant Timeless To Me, complete with suggestive repartee and convincing corpsing, is hilarious.

Lizzie Bea and Jonny Amies in Hairspray. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Michael Ball apart, the star of the show is Lizzie Bea as Tracy Turnblad, the only fully developed character. She convinces throughout, whether swooning over heartthrob Link Larkin (Jonny Amies), standing up forcefully for equal rights, or ignoring obstacles and confidently dancing to the music she loves. One of the best aspects of this musical is the way insults and barriers are water off a duck’s back for Tracy (even when she is left alone in prison- something else that’s not in the movie). So, you are not only on her side but never- or rarely- feel sorry for her. She is an advertisement for the power of positive thinking, as is this whole musical.

Rita Simons and Georgia Anderson are the nasty Van Tussle mother and daughter, with an unpleasant line in racism and sizeism. Mary McGinlay, making her West End debut, impresses as Tracy’s gawky friend Penny Pingleton.

For a musical about equality of opportunity and opposing racial discrimination, the black characters rarely take centre stage, but Motormouth Maybelle played by Marisha Wallace is as sassy a mother and as powerful a singer as she should be. This is after all a show that turns the spotlight on the role of mothers.

Ashley Samuels makes the most of the part of her likeable son Seaweed Stubbs, Penny’s love interest. Holly Liburd, Mireia Mambo and Robyn Rose sing impressively as the Dynamites.

As I was leaving, I heard a little boy say I’m glad Lion King was cancelled or else I wouldn’t have seen this. Well, I wouldn’t want to wish any show cancelled because of Covid isolation rules, and of course The Lion King is a great show, but I do think it was that little boy’s lucky day.

Hairspray is performing at the London Coliseum until 29 September 202. A production with a different cast is touring the UK from 16 August 2021. Click here for the dates and other details.

Click here to watch the video of this review of Hairspray on YouTube

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Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin at Charing Cross Theatre – review

Magical production of Wicked composer’s first musical

★★★★

Pippin at Charing Cross Theatre. Photo: Edward Johnson

It’ll be 50 years old next year but somehow I’ve never managed to see Pippin. I’m glad my first introduction to Stephen Schwartz’s earliest musical (with a book by Roger O. Hirson) was this production at the Charing Cross Theatre, first seen at the Garden Theatre in 2020. It may not be a behemoth like Shwartz’s Wicked, Godspell and The Prince of Egypt but director Steven Dexter has put together a joyous version of this uplifting, magical show.

Apparently, with eight actors, it’s much slimmed down from previous versions, making it tight and intimate. All the more so because it’s being played in this lovely little basement theatre on a traverse stage. With the front rows at stage floor level.

Consequently, this story of a young medieval Prince who rejects the establishment and tries to find fulfillment in life is very easy to relate to when he’s right next to you. That he is a Prince is not really the point. Despite obvious comparisons with another Prince, who recently rejected his destiny to become an ordinary wealthy and privileged man, Pippin really is an Everyman. This is evidenced from the very beginning when members of the cast are supposedly chosen at random to play the parts, including Pippin. In other words, it could be anyone, and at various times during the proceedings, comparisons are made to previous Pippins.

The musical takes the form of a troupe of players telling the story of Pippin’s search so he can be said to reject one destiny only to be trapped by another. The question becomes will he finally reject the story planned for him?

Production photo of Ryan Anderson and Ian Carlyle in Pippin at Charing Cross Theatre London
Ryan Anderson and Ian Carlyle in Pippin. Photo: Edward Johnson

Ryan Anderson is superb in the title role, sincere, naive, caring, angry and, annoyingly, never satisfied as he looks for this so-called fulfillment.
And he tries many things- war, power, art, working the land. Through it all, he interacts with some wonderful characters: his grandmother played with great humour by Genevieve Nicole; the woman he appears to love, Catherine, played as confident and brittle by Natalie McQueen; and the Lead Player, a Mephistopheles-like character who directs the action, and leads Pippin to a much flagged up finale, which may not be what our hero was expecting.

Playing this role is Ian Carlyle who is the outstanding actor in this production with a strong personality, plaintive voice and brilliant dancing. In fact, the best moment in the show was the number Right Track which he and Ryan Anderson perform together in perfect unison.

Oh yes, the dancing. This is what makes this production such a winner. Nick Winston’s choreography is always entertaining and the cast dance with skill and enthusiasm.

The costumes and set by David Shields reflect the hippy time in which it was written and its hippy message that our lives are not pre-destined, and that looking for vainglory rather than finding fulfillment in the ordinary is the devil’s work. Oh, and the songs are heavenly.

Pippin can be seen at Charing Cross Theatre until 5 September 2021

Click here to watch this review of Pippin on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

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Humane – an audio play – review

Polly Creed’s clever play about an animal rights protest lifts you up then knocks you down

★★★★

Polly Creed‘s audio play Humane lifts you up with a story about a local community’s animal rights protest before knocking you down with revelations about racism with the group.

Humane, written by Polly Creedand directed by Imy Wyatt Corner, is ostensibly a story based on the true events surrounding a ten month protest that took place back in the 1990s against the export of live animals through the small port of Brightlingsea. Mainly through the experiences of two made-up characters, we learn how a community can be brought together by a specific issue.

However, as the six-episode series progresses, we also come to realise that this is more than an inspiring story of a successful campaign in the face of powerful establishment figures and police brutality. We see that friendships formed through a common cause may prove brittle, and that a community may be united against animal cruelty but not against racism. It has been said that politics makes strange bedfellows and, following the death of one of the protestors, revelations lead to two of them falling out of bed.

A number of theatre companies have turned to the audio play as a means of continuing to create drama while theatres remained closed. What they don’t always realise is that an audio play isn’t simply a stage play with your eyes shut. It takes special skills to carry it off. Humane is a True Name production and, to the best of my knowledge, the co-founders of the company Polly Creed and Imy Wyatt Corner, have not previously ventured into audio plays, yet they do on the whole succeed.

Most fundamentally, an audio play relies on you the listener to fill in all the missing sensory information. Taking flight from what you’re told, you imagine what the characters and situations look like and sound like and smell like and feel like. Without the visual element of theatre or screen, any shortcoming in the dialogue or voices sabotages the imagination’s work. Which is why Humane is both excellent and flawed.

There are many excellent moments of drama and character development. Middle-class teacher Alice played by Marcia Lecky starts the campaign and, when she experiences problems with her teenage son, we see her gradual awakening to wider issues within the local community. She befriends Linda (Francesca Isherwood), another mother but this time of a constantly crying baby, trapped in a house with her mother-in-law while her soldier husband is in Bosnia. Linda finds the support of Alice a lifesaver and we see her grow in confidence as a result, in a triumph of both writing and acting.

There is one particularly clever use of audio when we discover something about a character’s appearance of which we were previously unaware and whereby the degree of our surprise says something about our own unconscious prejudices.

There are some flat notes. The facts about the campaign are presented in unbelievably detailed news reports. Particularly difficult to swallow are the occasions when the characters themselves churn out statistics as if they’re competing in a memory test.

A challenge in producing an audio play is ensuring that voices can be understood without the visual clues you get with a screen or stage performance. This means the actors are required to articulate even more than usual. In Humane, this is not a problem when we listen to Alice because she is an educated middle-class woman, whom you would expect to pronounce each word clearly. Linda on the other hand is a working-class woman with an Estuary accent to match. Francesca Isherwood is successful in speaking her lines clearly but at the expense of sounding natural. The result is ever so slightly stilted.

Despite these reservations, I found this episodic story a good listen that is not only a tribute to a campaign largely generated by local older people and mothers with children but also an interesting exploration of racism.

Humane is produced by True Name and is available as a podcast

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South Pacific in Chichester – review

I’m In Love With A Wonderful Production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s anti-racist musical


★★★★★

SOUTH PACIFIC by Rodgers, , Director - Daniel Evans, Set & Costume Designer - Peter McKintosh, Choreography and Movement - Ann Yea, Lighting - Howard Harrison, Chichester Festival Theatre, 2021, Credit: Johan Persson
Julien Ovenden & Gina Beck in South Pacific. Photo credit: Johan Persson

I don’t think it was simply my euphoria at being back in a theatre but this Chichester Festival Theatre production of Rodger and Hammerstein’s South Pacific filled me with joy.

South Pacific was written in 1949 before Rodgers and Hammerstein settled into their, and their audience’s, comfort zone. It has all the features of the best of their work, features they in fact pioneered. One being the use of songs that reveal character and feeling and move the story on- take the many different ways, and therefore implications, in which Some Enchanted Evening is sung at various points. As was their way, the composers packed this musical with the most wonderful songs: A Cockeyed Optimist, There Is Nothing Like A Dame, Bali Ha’i, I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair, I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy, Younger Than Springtime, Happy Talk– these songs are part of our DNA.

Another feature is realism, seen both in the characters’ behaviour and Hammerstein’s down-to-earth lyrics. Top marks to director Daniel Evans for keeping this production so grounded in reality.

But what makes South Pacific stand out is that Oscar Hammerstein II was determined to face racism head-on in this musical. You’ll remember that it’s set on a Pacific island during the second world war where American GIs and nurses interact with local people, a nurse falls in love with a French plantation owner, a lieutenant with a local girl. There may be effervescent melodies from Rodgers that fill you with warmth but there is also a story that pits love against hate, love at first undermined by acquired racial prejudice before it finally triumphs. At a time, following England’s Euro final, when we have been reminded of the overt racism that still shames our country, it was uplifting to experience this powerful anti-racist musical.

I cannot fault this production. Daniel Evans has done justice to the seriousness that underlies the musical’s ‘cock-eyed optimism’. It feels like the perfect tribute to the passionately anti-racist Oscar Hammerstein. Happy Talk is no throwaway comic song here but a poignant moment of desperation.

And the director is supported by an excellent cast and creative team.

The two leads Julian Ovenden and Gina Beck are superb in voice and acting ability. Ovenden as Emile the plantation owner, conveys both an overflowing heart and a broken heart with equal conviction. Beck also runs a range of emotions as naive Nellie Forbush from Little Rock but is never better than in I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy which overflows with almost child-like exuberance.  (From August, Alex Young will be sharing and then taking over the role of Nellie, because Gina Beck is pregnant.)

Others also deserve a mention. Joanna Ampil as a believably vulnerable Bloody Mary below the tough exterior. Of the GIs, Rob Houchen as Lieutenant Cable has a beautiful tenor voice which is more than a match for the soaring heights of Younger Than Springtime, and Keir Charles stands out as the scheming but ultimately compassionate Luther Billis. One of the qualities of this musical is seeing the Americans’ wide-eyed confidence come up against the realities of racism and war.

Julien Ovenden & Gina Beck in South Pacific Photo Credit: Johan Persson
Gina Beck and cast in South Pacific. Photo: Johan Persson

The choreography by Ann Yee is magnificent. Sometimes she fills the stage with exhilarating choruses- in a scene that Busby Berkeley would have been proud of, the women take to the showers while Washing That Man Right Outta their Hair. Then there are the quiet moments, like the beautiful solo ballet by Sera Maehara that opens and closes the show.

The see-through revolving wooden sets by Peter McKintosh set the mood of Pacific island life, while leaving the stage open for the big numbers.

And I can’t forget the superb orchestra led by Cat Beveridge featuring the original score with some new orchestration from David Cullen. The glimpses of repeated melodies throughout the show do exactly what a musical should do, evoke complex feelings that words can’t express.

A word of praise for Chichester Festival Theatre who were terrifically well organised and made us feel safe to be back in the theatre. And from the rousing cheer that greeted the first moments, I’d say we were all pretty pleased to be there.

South Pacific is performing at Chichester Festival Theatre from 5 July to 5 September 2021. Performances will be streamed on 4, 9, 14, 18, 21, 26 and 31 August and 3 September.

Click here to watch Paul’s review on YouTube

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The Dumb Waiter at The Old Vic – review

Daniel Mays and David Thewlis impress in Pinter play but the streaming didn’t

Daniel Mays & David Thewlis in The Dumb Waiter. Photo: Manuel Harlan

When I heard that Daniel Mays and David Thewlis were to play the two bickering hitmen in Harold Pinter’s classic short play The Dumb Waiter, without hesitation I booked to see it. It didn’t hurt that Jeremy Herrin was directing.

Sadly for me, I decided to watch a live streamed performance via Zoom. So straightaway I lost that claustrophobic sense of these two men couped up in small basement room which I’m sure was conveyed in the studio setup at The Old Vic. Worse though was the quality of the transmission. There’s always a danger with a live feed through a medium like Zoom but on this occasion I found the action constantly jerked or even froze.

So I can’t offer a fair verdict on the production. From what I saw, Daniel Mays as the questioning Gus and David Thewlis as the rules obsessed Ben were perfect for the roles: Mays like a nervous rabbit, Thewliss a snarling fox. It confirmed to me what a great play this is- the way the two hit men are programmed to obey orders, even orders for food coming down the dumb waiter from what is, or appears to be, a nonexistent restaurant above.

There’s a constant sense of menace as they contemplate their previous and forthcoming work, killing anonymous victims, commissioned by a mysterious Mr Wilson, who could symbolise an authoritarian government or even God. And the humour in the arguments between these two contrasting characters is a delight. There’s a lovely row over their use of language – is it light the kettle or put the kettle on? Then there are the lurid extracts from the tabloid newspaper that Ben reads out, suggesting a frightening world out there.

And the grey stained set by Hyemi Shin looked good too, as far as I could tell, suggesting a prison cell or a torture chamber, as much as a basement in a closed down restaurant.

But, as I say, too poor a transmission to make a proper judgement, so for once I haven’t given this production a star rating, just a warning to avoid Zoom when you choose to watch a live stream.

The Dumb Waiter was performed at The Old Vic from 7 to 10 July 2021

 

 

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights – film review

Feel-good movie hits the heights.

★★★★★

Still photo from the movie In The Heights showing Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera
Anthony Ramos & Melissa Barrera in In The Heights. Photo copyright Warner Bros Pictures

In The Heights is the most feel-good, uplifting movie I have seen in a long time.

It’s not a film of the stage show, it is a proper film in its own right, directed by Jon M Chu, who made Crazy Rich Asians. It’s packed with the most magnificent ensemble dancing build around stirring rap and Latin music and heartwarming stories about love and community. I know you may be tempted to wait to see it on your TV but I’m telling you, no matter how big your TV is, it will not do justice to the huge dance sequences nor that Latin beat.

It’s not quite sung-through but one song follows another so quickly that’s there are only short scenes of dialogue and then you’re on to another spectacular dance sequence. There’s dancing in the street, Fame style, there’s dancing in a club, Saturday Night Fever style, dancing on bleachers, Grease style,  and dancing in a swimming pool- Busby Berkeley style. You can see where the $55 million dollar budget went.

And there are romantic songs, the loveliest of which is between Corey Hawkins and Leslie Grace, when they dance in a fantasy moment up the side of a building –La La Land style.

In The Heights started as a stage musical back in 2005, eventually opening on Broadway in 2008. It was Lin Manuel Miranda’s first hit, ten years before Hamilton.

Although there is a central character called Usnavi, a young man who owns the local store and is played with a delightfully shy manner by Anthony Ramos, this is the story of a Latinx neighbourhood in Washington Heights in north Manhattan. Almost equal weight is given to other members of the community, like the woman he fancies Vanessa, a vivacious performance by Melissa Barrera, his friend Benny played by the cool and handsome Corey Hawkins.

I don’t know why I’m saying he’s handsome because frankly, these are all highly attractive people. Like Nina who is the pride of the community because she has a place at  Stanford University. It’s a strong performance by Leslie Grace but she’s not only the cleverest person around, she’s also the most beautiful. Her father Kevin, the taxi business owner, is Mr Cool himself Jimmy Smits, for goodness sake, and Olga Merediz is the twinkling kind-faced matriarch of the community.

So what you don’t get are any horrible characters or any of the abrasiveness in relationships that can light up a movie with their sparks. It’s not that kind of movie. Having said that, the main characters have about as much depth as a paddling pool.

Arguably Quiara Alegría Hudes who wrote the book of the musical and wrote writes the movie screenplay. could have expanded on the characters because real people on stage carry you along much more easily than the close-up of people on film.

But it doesn’t really matter because the central character here is the community, one that answers discrimination by working hard and making a success of oneself. Yes, it’s a romantic ideal but it is an uplifting journey in which Usnavi, who longs to live in his homeland of the Dominican Republic, comes to realise the strengths of this little piece of Latin America in New York.

The action- and that’s not really the right word- builds up to an electricity blackout that occurs at the height of a very hot summer. And this is also the low point for the characters in the film- Nina having rejected financial help, a key character revealed as undocumented and therefore with limited prospects and the ever-present threat of repatriation, and Usnavi and Vanessa’s relationship in peril. And that’s about as much tension as this happy film generates. The blackout changes everything as the people, at first resigned, rediscover their community and the ways they can support each other.

Although there is romance, this is very much a family film with hardly a suggestion of sex. However, the three women (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Stephanie Beatriz and Dascha Polanco) who run a nail bar forced out by gentrification, are not only funny, they strut their stuff in no uncertain way. They’re almost from a Carry On film and this is just one way in which this film feels like a throwback to an earlier time.  Nostalgia is sewn into its fabric.

If you want cheering up, this is just the tonic you need. I had a smile on my face throughout.

And by the way, don’t leave before the end of the credits because Lin Manuel Miranda’s character, the Piragua seller, makes a return appearance.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel one Minute Theatre Reviews

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Robert Lindsay in The Three Musketeers – review

Robert Lindsay comedy misses target

★★

Rehearsal photo of Robert Lindsay in The Three Musketeers
Robert Lindsay in The Three Musketeers. Rehearsal photo by Mark Senior

The Three Musketeers adapted by Sydney Stevenson and starring Robert Lindsay was promoted as an audio play but, if purchase a ticket, you’ll find it comes as a video with animated illustrations and glimpses of actors using Zoom. So there are three pillars to this comedy and unfortunately not one of them is strong enough to hold it up.

The show’s intention is to satirise both Zoom productions and amateur adaptations of classic books. But comedy is hard. The late comic Frankie Howerd once told me in an interview that comedy is more difficult to achieve than tragedy. I’m afraid this play proves his point.

There’s a lot that could be funny about Ms Stevenson’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas‘ story directed by Joseph O’Malley but it doesn’t quite come off. To work, it would need to be saying something new or at least saying something familiar but with a new twist. Instead, it’s all too familiar ground.

The main theme running through this adaptation is that it’s amateurish. So there are anachronisms such as a modern ferry port or an objective to end plastic pollution or a reference to the Eiffel Tower. Cobwebs are dusted off some old jokes. Does anyone find a reference to royal balls funny any more, outside of panto? And you may have heard before a character repeating what the narrator has just said. ‘On the road our travel weary hero stops at an inn.’ ‘I am travel weary and I am stopping at an inn.’ All of this can be very funny- take anything by the National Theatre Of Brent, or the Play That Goes Wrong series or plays like The 39 Steps or indeed Ernie Wise’s plays what I wrote. My point is, it’s been done before, and this adds nothing.

A further layer takes the form of a satire of the Zoom productions that we have both enjoyed and endured during lockdown. So, we have a child interrupting proceedings by calling for a biscuit, someone unwittingly letting people see that he’s in his underpants,  someone forgetting to mute… amusing and well done but we’ve seen it before. The trouble is zoom satire has already reached its pinnacle with the conversations between David Tennant and Michael Sheen. 

To avoid showing that it was actually mostly recorded not on Zoom but in a studio, visuals are provided in the form of a charming but low budget cartoon that has minimal animation, and no people. Sadly this only served to remind me that there was once a cartoon series Dogtanian and the 3 Muskehounds that told a simplified version of the Alexandre Dumas story in a most amusing and interesting way.

It’s all a bit of a shame because the idea has merit and the cast is very good. It’s led by Ms Stevenson’s father, the excellent Robert Lindsay, whose rich voice is a pleasure to listen to. His talent is such that even a familiar trope- the increasing exasperation of a classical actor with a production that he sees as below him- becomes very funny in his hands. I’ll also pick out Antony Eden who does well as a harassed, out-of-his-depth author and as a hapless D’Artagnan.

So, while The Three Musketeers would like to be one of those shows that are so awful, they’re funny, it doesn’t quite hit the target. About three quarters of the way through, Robert Lindsay interrupts to say, ‘This is the worst adaptation I have ever read. It’s like some silly amateur jaunty comedy. I’m ashamed to be involved. I’m better than this.’ Well, many a true word spoken in jest.

The Three Musketeers is streaming from 15 to 27 June 2021. Tickets from numerous local theatres or from thethreemusketeersonline.com

Paul received a complimentary ticket to review this production.

Click here to watch Paul’s review on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

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The Winter’s Tale (RSC / BBC) – review

Stratford production lets Shakespeare speak for himself

★★★★

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Production photo from the Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter's Tale as seen on BBC
Joseph Kloska in RSC’s The Winter’s Tale. Photo by Topher McGrillis (c) RSC

The COVID-cancelled Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter’s Tale has returned as a play for TV, as part of BBC4’s Lights Up season of ‘lost’ plays.

It is set in, or at least starts in, the 1950s. We find ourselves in the court of the King of Sicily, Leontes. Within minutes the loving relationship between ruler and his queen Hermione is in tatters as Leontes succumbs to jealousy and the belief that his lifelong best friend Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, is having an affair with Hermione.

On the page, it seems hard to accept how easily this happens but William Shakespeare is the king of dramatists and the spoken word carries you along. The words in this play may not quite match those in the greatest Shakespeare plays, say Hamlet, but, tumbling out of mouths on stage, they provide image after image of the human condition and with a speed and style always matching the characters. The result, despite the implausibility of the plot at many points, is deep, believable characters caught up in a gripping drama.

Shakespeare wrote The Winter’s Tale not as a book or a movie but as a play. So, thank goodness, the director Erica Whyman has confidence that Shakespeare knows what he’s doing.  It is filmed as a stage play. Bridget Caldwell’s film direction is kept simple and that’s to its credit. There are close-ups of course but otherwise we’re left to see the actors on the large Swan Theatre stage, which itself is sparsely decorated by set designer Tom Piper. Any music, which is provided by the eclectic Isobel Waller-Bridge, is occasional and enhances rather than intrudes.

Although The Winter’s Tale is technically a comedy, the first half is pretty much a tragedy. Leontes presumes his new baby is by Polixenes and condemns it to death. He puts his wife on trial with disastrous consequences. In fact, the deaths and apparent deaths bring home to Leontes how wrong he has been. And don’t forget this is the play with the most famous stage direction in theatrical history- ‘exit pursued by a bear’. I can tell you that bear isn’t after a cuddle.

Production photo of Kemi-Bo Jacobs in The Winter's Tale
Kemi-Bo Jacobs in RSC’s The Winter’s Tale. Photo: Topher McGrillis (c) RSC

Some excellent actors to convey the script. Joseph Kloska plays Leontes as quite ordinary, somewhat pathetic. Even when he’s at his worst, he seems more mentally unstable than tyrannical which, I think, helps offset the tragic nature of this comedy. Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Hermione conveys her lines with regal authority and dignified passion. Ben Caplan playing Leontes’ right hand man Camillo makes every careful syllable suggest the conflict between loyalty and conscience.  Amanda Hadingue as Hermione’s broken-hearted companion Paulina touches us with her uncontrolled anger.

So the first half, which is about 90 minutes and takes us to the end of act 3, is very dark.

And having set up the tragedy, Shakespeare changes the tone. It’s 16 years later, a time gap which itself is unusual for Shakespeare. To some extent, this is a play about the healing power of time. Leontes has been grieving and repenting all this time.

We begin the second half, now in the mid 1960s, with some rock’n’roll. It becomes much more like the Shakespearean comedies we are familiar with. There are people disguising their origins, there’s forbidden love, there’s a mischief-making rascal Autolycus played with a cheeky chappy style by Anne Odeke. All’s well that ends well, except for the ones that died.

There’s a romantic, pastoral theme to the second half, including young lovers, shepherds and a sheep shearing festival. This makes the sixties setting very appropriate, it being a time when pop culture embraced romanticism and nature. In fact, the concept of contrasting the austere fifties with the free sixties is an inspired way of representing the two halves of The Winter’s Tale. The beautiful costumes by Madeleine Girling are elegant in the first half, more flamboyant in the second.

So, it’s a bittersweet ending, a story of redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation, which doesn’t deny the ill that has gone before. It is clear that some things that have been lost will never be regained.

There are some nice touches in the production. To emphasise that Leontes is conducting a show trial of Hermione, we see it partly as being televised with early black-and-white TV cameras. And later on, a feast is shown being filmed on Super 8 or something kind of early home movie.

Those are really the only thing approaching a gimmick. Otherwise, it’s a joy to watch a production that allows actors to speak Shakespeare’s words at length and without distraction.

The Winter’s Tale was broadcast on BBC4 on 25 April and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

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