“Rome wasn’t built in a day but Dagenham certainly was,” quip the family at the centre of this warm hearted David and Goliath story. Dagenham, of course, was the heart of Ford Motors in England. In 1968 it employed 5000 men and 200 hundred women. And that was the problem. The women who skilfully made the seat covers were not paid on the same grades as skilled men. In the end the “monster” (or Henry Ford, at least) is overcome, the women get their way and the feel good factor flows abundantly.

It’s a popular show for amateur societies at present because the performance rights are available and who could fail to warm to a couple of hours of 1960s-inspired music?  Moreover, it’s full of meaty character roles for talented people and West Wickham operatic society has plenty of those. Andy Moore, for example, is hilarious and very accomplished as the pipe smoking, self-interested, rather ridiculous Harold Wilson prancing round his office although I think I was the only person in the audience old enough to get the Gannex joke. Jacqui Morris is fun and beautifully observed as sweary Beryl and Victoria Watkins gives a truthful account of Connie, who has been fighting this cause all her life and now has breast cancer. Amanda Farrant’s Barbara Castle is good too – forceful, determined, passionate and, underneath it all, kind. I also liked Roxana King as the boss’s elegant, RP-speaking wife – much brighter than he is and eventually happy to support the factory women. It’s another well judged performance.

At the heart of it all, though, bravura work from Danielle Dowsett as Rita O’Grady who, somewhat reluctantly, becomes the women’s leader. Dowsett develops this character with total conviction all the way from struggling with the busy morning routine at home and getting two children off to school to a woman with the confidence to speak without notes, at the TUC Conference where she is so impassioned – segueing from speech into song that I found myself moved to tears. She sings magnificently, dances beautifully (Dowsett has a fine choreography track record) and brings naturalism and warmth to the role. She is the epitome of the “triple threat” concept.

As her husband, Eddie O’Grady, Shane King is variously blokeish, rueful, distressed and loving, It’s sensitive work and his singing in the letter scene is sublime.

This show needs two strong choruses – the men and the women in the factory along with a handful of other incarnations – and WWOS has produced them for this show. The choral sound is powerful and a great credit to musical director, Anne Greenidge whose 11-piece orchestra (tucked away out of sight behind the action) produces a lovely sound – especially the flute and trumpet.

It’s a good evening’s theatre not least because of the quality of the writing, both verbal and musical. Anyone (Richard Thomas in this case) who can rhyme “tampon” with “stamp on” gets my vote. Roll over WS Gilbert.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/made-in-dagenham-7/

In that squalid room The Artist (Conrad Williamson) is under commission to produce a hundred paintings at speed – variously aided, hindered or inspired by three very different women. So there’s the first issue – in a play which is laden with them – how does creativity actually work?

It’s amusing especially in the first half hour. Stacey dives headlong through the taboo which usually prevents parents and adult children from discussing the details of their sex lives. And we enjoy The Artist’s agony as The Mother (Denise Stephenson) repeatedly says outrageous things that mothers shouldn’t say to their 25 year old sons. Later we get plenty of situation comedy too as Beatriz (Jane Christie) visits and is mistaken for a sex worker. When Eva (Juliet Garricke) who actually is a sex worker turns up there’s even more confusion.

But I think this play is meant to be more than a comic romp with jokes so bawdy that under-18s aren’t admitted. It’s trying to ask big questions about life, art, free-will and the rest. But these are over-subtly submerged.

All four actors turn out good performances. Williamson does frustrated angst pretty well. Stephenson gives us a well observed outrageous mother. Christie is a gentler contrast searching for something of her own in a subplot (which doesn’t. I’m afraid, add much).  Garricke is impressive in her initial eloquent silence and then her wise, stage-commanding articulacy.

Director, Zachary Hart makes interesting use of all four of The Hope’s corners so that it feels pretty immersive and I enjoyed the threading in of Shostokovitch in lyrical mood through Jack Whitney’s atmospheric soundtrack.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/100-paintings/

It’s an enjoyable show which bubbles along but never quite comes to the boil. Given the huge cast and the high production values it feels oddly understated in places.

We’re all very familiar with the music. Or I thought we were. When I was a child my parents saw the original London production and bought an LP so I learned these tunes young. On the other hand I heard the twenty-something man in front of me ask his partner “What’s this show about?” as we all sat patiently for twenty-five minutes because of the delayed start on press night. So, for those who don’t know: it’s the story of a 1913 flower girl, taken in by a professor of phonetics determined to teach her to speak “properly” and treated with shameful misogyny. It’s based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

First, the positives: Amara Okereke gives us a splendid Eliza. She has a wonderful knack with long howls and shrieks suspended on slow dipthongs – very funny and agonising for Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton). She also sings beautifully, looks magnificent and the dignity she finds at the very end of the show is moving.

There’s a fine performance from Maureen Beattie as Higgins’s housekeeper who can communicate exasperation with her back to the audience just by moving her fingers. And it’s good to see Vanessa Redgrave at 85 still able to command the stage as Higgins’s sensible, sensitive mother.

I gradually warmed to Stephen K Amos as Doolittle, Eliza’s dustman father. Initially he seems to lack energy but he’s in fine form by the time he gets to I’m Getting Married in the Morning –  imaginatively, dramatically and colourfully choreographed (Christopher Gattelli) with gleeful bawdiness on ENO’s huge stage –  and everything Doolittle needs to be.

And that brings me to the pit beneath them where Gareth Valentine is in charge. The detail in the orchestration is adeptly picked out and I really admired  Valentine’s control of the varying tempi and dynamics, especially in I’m Getting Married in the Morning.

There’s some accomplished choral singing in this show too – especially the repeated “Poor Professor Higgins” and the work by Doolittle’s sidekicks in A Little Bit of Luck. And the Ascot scene is always a gift – delivered with aplomb here.

Michael Yeargan’s sets, and the stage management of them, almost deserve a review of their own. A revolving flat which moves backwards and forwards gives us several spaces in Higgins’s home which convincingly open into each other. It’s both ingenious and neat. When it disappears upstage we get other scenes such as Mrs Higgins’s home or Covent Garden.

On the other hand, Hadden-Paton and Malcolm Sinclair as Colonel Pickering are better actors than they are singers. Quite often there are too many characters on stage so it feels unnecessarily busy. If, like the man in front of me, you were new to this show you’d be hard put to work out who they all are. It comes across as a careful production rather than an exuberant one. It also feels drawn out in places – the running time, with interval, is over three hours.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/my-fair-lady-5/

This was an interesting evening because although I am very familiar with Chekhov’s full-length plays and have read a number of his short stories, his short plays were new to me. And on the whole, imaginatively adapted –  they feature many more females than Chekhov intended and the dialogue sounds right for 2022 – they are worth seeking out. Ideal choice for a drama club too because five separate plays provide lots of relatively small but meaty roles and scope for five different directors.

Some of these plays are firmly in Cherry Orchard or The Seagull territory in which landed  families visit each other and there are tensions.  Inevitably some plays are stronger than others. The inclusion of a sixth one, loosely based in Chekhov’s Smoking is Bad for You presents a stage manager (Alice Wilsmore) who links the other plays (and covers scene changes) is, I’m afraid, a slightly clunky device.

The strongest (and best known) of the plays is The Bear in which a grieving widow is refusing, like Olivia in Twelfth Night, to see visitors until, of course one forces himself on her. Another which stands out is The Night Before the Trial which Chekhov never finished. I can report that Richard Brown’s ending is very satisfying. And Richard Brown himself playing the actor in Swan Song with Madeleine Forrester as prompt is the high spot of the evening. They meet after hours in a theatre. He shows off ruefully and reminisces with a lot of deliciously absurd over acting while she acts as foil before eventually throwing in her surprise. Brown and Forrester are very well attuned to each other.

There is a problem in amateur theatre of this sort though, and to an extent in professional theatre too. Where you have a handful of really convincing, naturalistic actors who can totally inhabit a character, they tend – unintentionally of course – to highlight the ordinariness of some of the others. In this case, along with Brown and Forrester, the ones who really caught my eye were Rob Barton as the coarse, entertaining, charismatic and attractive Smirnov in The Bear; Caroline Malony as the deaf, scheming Madame Chubukov in The Proposal;  Matt Gurtler, who has  wonderfully expressive range of faces and looks in The Anniversary and Dean Laccohee who triumphs as the crafty, opportunistic criminial in The Night Before the Trial.

This was, incidentally, my first visit to Huntingdon’s delightful Commemoration Hall too, although I have reviewed in three other venues in the town: two churches and a pub. Commemoration Hall – dating from 1842 but refurbed in the 1950s – has a good sized auditorium with a neat proscenium arch performance space and a good foyer and café. Even the loos are plentiful and pretty.

Premiered in 2000, Bare is now a historical piece. There is, generally, much less hostility to gay love than there was, even twenty-two years ago. In that time, we’ve seen the acceptance  first of civil partnerships and then same-sex marriage in most Western countries. One feels that the relationship between Peter (Ross McHugh) and Jason (Arthur Janes) might be a little more straightforward in 2022 although the Catholic Church might not agree.

As far as I can tell this show has never had a big production in the UK although it has been staged in Liverpool and there was an outing in Brighton in 2017. So all power to Bird College for running with it – good choice, actually, because the ensemble can be as large as you like and there are thirty-six students in this group.

It was originally styled “a pop opera” and that remains a pretty fair description. It’s a sung though tragedy with chorus. Intrabartolo’s music is wide ranging and sensitive. There are hymns and anthems – because we’re in a Catholic boarding school – and, at one point a Bach-like cello continuo. All this is played well by an out-of-sight eight piece band led by MD Connor Henryk Fogel on keys.

The production (directed and choreographed by Richard J Hinds, assisted by Sam Hooper) is distinguished by the quality of its dance. There are some vibrant ensemble scenes and imaginative use of dance figures behind singers to enhance mood and atmosphere. And Marissa Sims, who plays Sister Chantelle and is reincarnated as the Virgin Mary in a dream, really is a dancer to watch.

The students are being directed by Sister Chantelle in a production of Romeo and Juliet and all the tense love themes – including an unexpected end twist – are woven into both the action and the music. Some of the songs are effectively settings of Shakespeare’s words.

At the centre of all this Janes as the anguished Jason really stands out. He is deeply attracted to/in love with Peter but tries desperately to resist it and certainly thinks any form of coming out would be madness. But he also appeals to girls and Janes gets the charisma exactly right – which eventually leads to serious trouble with Ivy (Georgia Kleopa – good). Janes sings with lots of very convincing sensitivity and makes us share his near-insoluble dilemma. Meanwhile his sister Nadia (Amy Smethurst) is in the same school. Smethurst creates a vulnerable but sassy girl, very different from her brother and yearning for some sort of relationship. When everything gets complicated she sings “Maybe being single’s not so bad” and we laugh wryly because that’s spot on.

McHugh’s performance as Peter is warm and coherent. He has no doubts. He’s known what he is since he was twelve and is very distressed by Jason’s uncertainties. His singing is pretty accurate. One of his best scenes is a phone call to his mother (Lily Gain) in which he tries to tell her the truth but she refuses to listen – but gets the message anyway and is devastated.

Well done, Bird College. You seem to be exploring, relatively unknown, musical theatre territory and doing so stylishly.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/bare/

Barry Humphries is an old pro who knows exactly how to work an audience and this show is very funny indeed. Now 88, he can get a laugh simply by pausing and looking – it’s so skilled that to call it anything as banal as “comic timing” is to belittle it.

There are three elements: Humphries himself, in autobiographical mode, presenting a leisurely wander through his long life. Then there’s a projection screen on the back wall which shows illustrative archive footage and photographs. Thirdly is pianist Ben Dawson seated at grand piano and oddly underused. He occasionally plays a few bars to link anecdotes and he accompanies a valedictory song which Humphries sings, not particularly well, at the end although the rhyming of frolics with alcoholics is fun. It must feel like a pretty light evening’s work for Dawson and, I would have thought, a bit frustrating because he’s clearly very accomplished.

Humphries wears brightly coloured odd socks and a flamboyant red velvet jacket in the first half. The blue jacket he sports after the interval reflects the fact that he’s slightly less flippant and more serious in the second half, especially in the account of his recovery from alcoholism in the 1960s which involved several sojourns in expensive centres for “thirsty people”. Sober now for many years, he talks quite movingly of finding happiness as a result of that change.

Born in Melbourne where he studied law at university, Humphries started acting in student shows and we see pictures of him as Orsino in Twelfth Night where he was so embarrassed by his tights that he lurked behind the furniture on stage. “You’re naturally ridiculous” the director told him. He had difficulty learning lines too – cue for a hilarious account of corpsing in Noel Coward’s play Design For Living. So he started to invent characters and eventually Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson were born and evolved.

Humphries sits in a big armchair from which he rises often and quite adeptly although he is evidently now a slightly shaky mover. He makes a lot of jokes about age. When he walks over to the piano facing away from the audience and then turns round wearing Dame Edna glasses, the audience cheers and whoops in delight but the familiar Edna voice is not as firm as it once was.

The highlight of this show is probably the archive footage of Dame Edna grilling a very boyish looking Boris Johnson on her TV show. He cycles in and she greets him as a future prime minister as he talks dead-pan about encouraging British people to go and live in the parts of France which once belonged to England – while everyone else on the sofas look horrified, spaced out or bowled over. It shows that Johnson once had a sense of humour. There’s an interview with a young Donald Trump and his wife too. Humphries tells the audience that he was told afterwards that Trump had not understood Edna’s “complex indentity” and declared her a very nice woman. Oh my, I do so hope that’s true.

It’s certainly a very entertaining evening but it’s self indulgently long at nearly two and a half hours. Yes, we get the sense that Humphries is simply chatting although of course every word is scripted – witness the slick piano cues – apart from one or two bits of banter with front row audience members. It feels padded out in places.

First published by Sardineshttps://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/barry-humphries-the-man-behind-the-mask/