Tag: daniel rigby

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The Witches musical at the National Theatre – review

Daniel Rigby & Katherine Kingsley reach comedy heights in musical spectacular


★★★

Daniel Rigby and cast of The Witches. Photo: Marc Brenner

It’s hard not to compare the National Theatre’s The Witches with the

West End hit Matilda. Both originated as stories by Road Dahl, both have been turned into much-loved films before being transformed into musical spectaculars.

Good as this well-produced show is, The Witches never quite reaches the heights of its RSC rival. But it does offer an entertaining evening, especially if you want to take your older children to a theatrical show more inventive, and less cliched, than a pantomime.

National Theatre favourite Lucy Kirkwood has done a good job with the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel, although it does take a while to get going. It could have gained from being half an hour shorter than its current two-and-a-half hours plus interval.

Still, her lyrics, jointly credited with the composer Dave Malloy, are sharp and witty. The latter clearly knows his way round musicals and has written varied hummable tunes appropriate to the different situations.

The plot goes back to the original story, losing the happier ending of the 1990 film. To remind you, a child discovers that a group of witches is meeting in the hotel at which he’s staying and they are planning to turn every child into a mouse. With the aid of his Gran, he sets out to thwart them.

The cast of The Witches

Director Lyndsey Turner was previously at the National with a very different show about witches. Following the tense drama of The Crucible,  she shows she is also a champion of fast-moving musical comedy. Supported by set and costume designer Lizzie Clachan, Ms Turner takes full advantage of the large cast, and the Olivier revolve.

My only reservation about Ms Clachan’s contribution is the surround of dark thorns which provide a contrast to the brightly colourful sets and costumes (and fill in the enormous Olivier space) but seem like too heavy handed a reminder that the world is a dark place.

Spectacular routines

There’s a Broadway chorus style number Magnificent, which introduces Mr Stringer, a character much expanded from the novel and played by Daniel Rigby as a frantic Basil Fawlty-style hotel manager, obsequious to his rich guests and rude to the less well off.

By the time there is an outbreak of mice in the building, Mr Stringer becomes hysterical and leads possibly the stand-out routine of the show- Out! Out! Out! It’s a dizzying number in which he and his staff prance round the revolve going from room to room looking for mice, placating complaining guests along the way. Daniel Rigby‘s contortions of face and body combined with a strangulated voice surely make him the finest physical comedy actor currently on the London stage.

Katherine Kingsley and cast of The Witches. Photo: Marc Brenner

The Grand High Witch is a superb villain, and Katherine Kingsley extracts every drop of evil from her cauldron. She is imperiously haughty, she snarls at everyone including the audience, and sings an hilarious song Wouldn’t It Be Nice, about how marvellous it would be for parents if they didn’t have children dominating their lives.

Both Daniel Rigby and Katherine Kingsley are a gift wrapped in a bowto this musical. They take the foundations of words, music and situation, and build upon them until the comedy reaches summits of laughter.

The good adult, so to speak, is the boy’s cantankerous elderly gran, beautifully played for laughs and pathos by Sally Anne Triplett. She sings a gorgeous song with her grandson Luke called Heartbeat Duet.

Let’s go back to the comparison with Matilda. Where the earlier musical scores is that its child hero survives intact to the end whereas Luke is turned into a mouse halfway through. At that point, his character alternates between being a mechanical mouse and a  boy in a costume. I know we often need to use our imagination in theatre, but this particular concept failed to fire mine.

One other caveat. Although this is a family show, it is not for young children. It’s not only the complexities of the plot and the darkness of some of the events (Luke’s parents die early on), the language and length are too much for anyone under about ten years old.

Still, for the rest, children and adults alike, there’s plenty of spectacle and comedy in this musical

The Witches performed at the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre until 27 January 2024.

Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch the video of this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

 

 

 

 

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Accidental Death of an Anarchist- Review

Daniel Rigby stars in the funniest play in London (probably)

★★★★

Two actors hold on to athird actor who appears to be about to throw himslef out of a window in a scene from Accidental Death Of An Anarchist at the Theatre Royal Haymarket June 2023
Tom Andrews, Tony Gardner & Daniel Rigby (L to R) in Accidental Death Of An Anarchist. Photo: Helen Murray

A maniac arrives at a police station in London and pretends to be a judge investigating a death in custody. There follows the maddest, funniest play you’re likely to see in London this summer, and possibly the most political. The script is cleverer than a false police report and Daniel Rigby’s performance is more hilarious than a Chief Constable trying to defend their corrupt officers.

Accidental Death Of An Anarchist was written fifty years ago by Dario Fo as a reaction to a death in police custody in Italy. Sadly it has never stopped being relevant, and with daily headlines about corruption in the Metropolitan Police, it has been crying out for an update.

Step forward Tom Basdon with an adaptation packed with references to recent events, alongside an abundance of timeless jokes. Farce may seem an odd way to expose a rotten constabulary but when, as the play mentions, all the inquiries, and inquiries into inquiries, and inquiries into inquiries into inquiries fail to change anything, the situation becomes so absurd that laughter seems the only response left to vent one’s anger and frustration.
And you can’t not laugh at Daniel Rigby, as his character who has been brought into the station accused of impersonating a psychiatrist wriggles out of that charge with much verbal dexterity, then takes the opportunity to impersonate a judge who’s investigating how a suspect fell out of a window during interrogation, and then a judge pretending to be a forensic investigator (with a wig and false arm, two of many props in his Liberty bag). He pretends to be on the side of the police while tricking them into revealing how corrupt they are. The hapless officers are led into ever more ridiculous explanations about what happened, as they try to cover their arses.
It’s not a long evening but it is packed with more jokes and visual gags than a whole comedy series. As absurdity piles upon absurdity with crazy logicality, Daniel Rigby rattles off his lines faster than a police car on a shout, while also throwing himself about the stage. The pace, as directed by Daniel Raggett, never stops, except for a moment when Mr Rigby gets off a table in comedic slow motion.
You would never pick Daniel Rigby out as a comic. He doesn’t have the face of say Rowan Atkinson or the gangly body of a John Cleese. In fact, the very ordinariness of his appearance in the lineup makes him funnier because what he says and does is all the more unexpected. He has a cheeky grin and his eyes glint with mischief- no wonder he was so successful at playing Eric Morecambe in the TV film Eric and Ernie. He talks in a slightly high voice that always seems to be verging on the hysterical, and his movements are sudden and surprising.
In fact, slapstick and physical comedy feature highly on the charge sheet: characters are punched and soaked in water, Mr Rigby throws files of statements into the air (they are after all just paper). And in a moment I loved, he starts writing on the whiteboard, runs out of space, and continues writing on the wall.

Thrilling and dangerous

Daniel Rigby and company in Accidental Death Of An Anarchist. Photo: Helen Murray

To compound the fun, The Maniac (so-called) says he is an actor, and, of course,  he is an actor. The conceit is used to create further anarchy. So he refers to and even speaks to the audience, which the other characters think it is in his mind. He deliberately breaks the fourth wall by throwing his jacket and later sweets into the audience, following the mention of pantomime.

The inventiveness feels as thrilling and dangerous, as hanging out of a window on the fourth floor.
The five other actors are all in effect straight men and a straight woman to Daniel Rigby’s clown. Tony Gardner as the Superintendent has the panicky face of someone who has been promoted beyond their ability, Tom Andrews is a Neanderthal bullying detective, Ro Kumar is a naïve young officer, Ruby Thomas plays a reporter more interested in her image than uncovering the truth. They all have good lines. Mark Hadfield, playing a confused inspector, says at one point: ‘Unconscious bias? I don’t what it is, but I hate it.’
Anna Reid’s set conjures up perfectly the plastic soullessness of a police interrogation room. I liked the way she placed the stage floor at an angle to the proscenium arch, as a further indication of the way the world is knocked out of kilter, not only by The Maniac but by the fact that the people who should uphold the law are breaking it.
Allusions to real events are almost casually thrown in to take you by surprise when you’re in the middle of a belly laugh (‘It’s just bants, like when we take a selfie with a murder victim.’ )
There is a roll call of the names of real victims of Met police corruption near the end, and a statistic is projected onto the set after the curtain call stating that there have been 1862 deaths in British police custody since 1990. Accidental Death of an Anarchist is so shocking that it makes you wonder whether you should have been enjoying yourself quite so much. But this is the kind of defiant laughter that helps us through the worst of situations.
There’s so much madness and mayhem that it’s not surprising the play starts to run out of steam towards the end. Even so, you still feel you’ve had your money’s worth from this evening of non-stop eye-watering laughter.
Accidental Death Of An Anarchist is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London until 9 September 2023.
Paul Seven Lewis received a complimentary review ticket.
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Noises Off at The Garrick – review

If you’ve never seen Noises Off, You Really Should

★★★★★

Noises Off by Michael Frayn at The Garrick Theatre 2019
Noises Off by Michael Frayn at The Garrick Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks

When I saw the first production of Noises Off back in 1982, I laughed so much I was fighting for breath. If I didn’t laugh quite so uncontrollably on this occasion, it’s only because it’s the fifth time I’ve seen Michael Frayn‘s masterpiece, so it no longer has the element of surprise. I still laughed more than at any other play I’ve seen. If you’re lucky enough to watch it for the first time (and if you’ve never seen it, you really should), I’m sure you’ll be as out of control as I was 37 years ago.

Possibly the funniest farce ever written, Noises Off is about a touring theatre company who are performing an old fashioned bedroom farce full of the usual misunderstandings, deception and people ending up in a state of undress. We join the actors at the final rehearsal and find that unlike the one dimensional characters they’re playing, these are well observed rounded human beings with flaws, emotions and rocky relationships all destined to undermine the show.

The farce ends in farce

In act two we join the production on tour but this time we’re backstage. We know what’s happening or supposed to be happening on stage but see the chaos behind the scenes. This is the most hilarious act because the actors have to be quiet so they mime all their anger and bewilderment.
Production photo of Lisa McGrillis, Lloyd Owen, Sarah Hadland & Meera Syal in Noises Off The Garrick theatre 2020
Lisa McGrillis, Lloyd Owen, Sarah Hadland & Meera Syal in Noises Off

There’s a priceless moment when one actor tries to attack another with an axe and others restrain him but they are still professional enough not to make a sound. In the final act we’re near the end of the tour and watching from the front as the farce falls apart and ends in, well, farce.

Confused and confounded, the actors carry on with heroic if misguided determination as they fall out with each other backstage and try to cope with plates of sardines rarely where they should be, contact lenses popping out, doors sticking and boxes disappearing and reappearing.

If you love theatre, you’ll love seeing it with its trousers down

So if you love theatre, you’ll love seeing it with its trousers down. Like the best comedy, it shows high ambitions brought down by human frailty. As the director of the show within the show says: ‘It’s farce; it’s theatre; it’s life.’
The characters are so well written by Michael Frayn, it’s tempting to think any decent actors could make a success of them. But it takes exceptional actors to make a success of farce. Nothing in theatre is more difficult than the timing and teamwork and sheer physical hard work required by this genre, not to mention truth to character.
In this Lyric Hammersmith production, we are blessed with just such a remarkable company. There is a moment where a bottle of whisky is passed from one to other all around the set with lightning dexterity. They go in and out of doors with exquisite mistiming. Each character is perfectly drawn so their reactions when things go wrong are always just right.
Production photo of Daniel Rigby, Richard Henders, Meera Syal & Simon Rouse in Noises Off at the Garrick Theatre 2019
Daniel Rigby, Richard Henders, Meera Syal & Simon Rouse in Noises Off. Photo: Helen Maybanks

I’m going to credit all the actors. Meera Syal as a veteran actress Dotty, who can’t remember her lines, is wonderfully semidetached from the reality of what’s going on. Daniel Rigby excels as the inarticulate lovestruck Garry, his voice getting more and more strained and his movements more frantic as he tries to cope with the unexpected. Lloyd Owen makes an excellent  exasperated sarcastic director.

Lisa McGrillis as an actor more concerned with her nails than her lines is wonderful. So are Sarah Hadland and Richard Henders as the serenely smiling Belinda and the neurotic method actor Frederick. Anjli Mohindra and Adrian Richards as the acting stage management make good innocents unprepared for the brutishness of theatre life.  And finally there’s Simon Rouse who doesn’t put a foot wrong as a deaf alcoholic who constantly puts a foot wrong.
Director Jeremy Herrin sets the rollercoaster going and it doesn’t stop until the final curtain.
Noises Off continues its run at The Garrick Theatre until 4 January 2020
Paul Seven Lewis was given complimentary review tickets for this production
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