All photos: Danny Kaan

I may be prejudiced (all right – I am) but I was predisposed towards this show as soon as I saw the band: two violins, cello and keyboard – almost a classical quartet. I guessed we were in for something lyrical, thoughtful and human and I was right.

John and Jen is a two hander chamber musical dating from 1991 but composers, Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald worked with director Guy Retallack to update it for this production so the long time trajectory now ends in 2023. I don’t suppose that was difficult to do because the story and the issues are timeless. And although it is firmly set in America the messages are universal.

It’s a play in two very distinct halves. In the first John (Lewis Corney) and Jen (Rachel Tucker) are siblings growing up in a troubled, often abusive household. Jen, who is older does as much as she can to protect her little brother but it isn’t enough – she is, after all, a teenager with a life to lead.  By the interval she seems to have failed him.

But, in an unexpected twist (no spoilers) she then gets a second chance. Of course she tries so hard that she comes within a hair’s breadth of blowing it. Thus the whole piece is about family relationships, nurturing loved ones, respecting each other and letting go. So it speaks to every one of us.

Tucker is convincing at all stages of Jen’s life – whether she’s being a stroppy teenager or an overzealous middle aged woman. The music, which is often naturalistically sung dialogue rather than songs or numbers, suits her voice and we hear a wide range of registers. There’s a pretty spectacular full belt number in the second half which got a spontaneous round of applause on press night.

She and Corney have palpable chemistry between them. He finds a pleasing range of moods for John – good as trusting child, an anxious adolescent, a troubled young adult and there’s a hilarious baseball scene. I liked the way Lippa sometimes puts John’s tenor line higher than Jen’s mezzo one in duets – it changes the dynamic in their relationship at times.

And as for that band, yes they make a lovely sound in a pretty complex  score blending together attractively with music director  Chris Ma on keys. It’s a nice touch to have them in full view at the side of the stage.

John and Jen

Half Cut theatre certainly knows how to entertain family audiences. And this show, complete with strong story telling, versatile acting, sea shanty-type songs and a wackily witty take on Cha Cha Slide is a fine example of it.

Most people know Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Jim Hawkins sailing off with a shipload of goodies and baddies in search of treasure and this 80 minute take on it (devised and developed by the company) works because it keeps dropping in little dollops of inappropriately modern language thus never taking itself too seriously. It’s very funny in places. I love the idea of cheese-loving Ben Gunn coming home to run a cheesemonger stall in Leeds Market, for instance.

It’s also splendidly feminist. Verity Kirk plays Jim as a feisty girl with an astonishingly powerful voice. Sophie Wilkinson gives a really sparky account of the complex  Long John Silver full of Scots menace and lithe charisma. And I don’t know whose idea it was to play the parrot as a louche, scarf draped female in yellow tights rather than the usual small puppet but James Camp is great fun in the role.

Francesca Barker, like the rest of the cast, hops adeptly in and out of roles and hats and finds a nice authoritarian stance for the Captainess. George Readshaw is a suitably nasty Blind Pew and hilarious as Ben Gunn who talks to the ducks because for many years they were his only company. And Alex Wilson is good value as the Squire Trelawney who never quite manages to be in charge.

I’m struck, again, by how well this company uses a wide range of accents to underpin the multi-rolling and make it so clear that even the youngest child in the audience will know who is who at all times.

I’m so glad that Half Cut Theatre has a good tour booked for this show and hope the rain continues to hold off for them as it did at Kentford, near Newmarket where I caught it.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is so familiar that you might think that there’s not much scope left for originality. You’d be wrong as this interesting and highly competent production shows. Yes, why not have Demetrius and Lysander physically scrapping at the back like schoolboys during Egeus’s tiresome fulminations? Why not set the Rude Mechanicals’ burgomask to a clumpy accelerating version of the clog dance from La Fille Mal Garde with the three couples joining in? Why not put the Mechanicals in identifier placards for Pyramus and Thisbe so that they further subvert their own play? And those are just examples.  Directorial good ideas show up in nearly every scene – possibly because it is, unusually, directed by a quartet rather than by an individual.

The large cast – drawn via open auditions from amateur companies across the London Borough of Bromley – have not worked together before because Bromley Community Arts Theatre is a new venture. But, my goodness, they work smoothly as a team. The lovers’ quarrel in the wood is so slick and funny that it got a spontaneous round of applause in the performance I saw. Sarah Kidney simpers and sneers as Hermia. Alice Foster gets more and more upset and angry. And Robert O’Neill and Daniel Pabla as Lysander and Demetruis respectively have worked up a finely nuanced double act.

I really liked David Evans as Oberon. He has a very musical delivery managing both high and low “notes” with total clarity and audibility. He also conveys all the necessary charismatic gravitas and sinister other worldliness. Like all the cackling and hissing fairies, he wears floaty grey and black robes with lots of black and white makeup.  The rest of the cast are more or less in a fairly spiky form of modern dress with Hippolyta (Alicia Clarke, who plays her rather engagingly as quasi dominatrix with feminist sympathies) sporting a magnificent scarlet dress and gloves for her wedding.  Costumes are subtly colour coded too which is a neat touch. The nobles are in red and turquoise and the mechanicals in brown.

Most outstanding of all is Chris de Pury as Bottom. He commands the stage and knows exactly how to squeeze every possible laugh out of every word. His soliloquy when he wakes from the dream is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It is notable that he, like almost everyone else in this cast, manages to make the text sound freshly minted and very clear. The audience were laughing not only at stage business and situations but at the text itself and that is an achievement for any company.

The show sits beautifully in the amphitheatre in the park which, I gather, has not been used for a proper play for 20 years. The enormous trees and the lake provide a perfect setting and I’m pleased to learn that there are now plans to use the space again.

Bromley CAT has managed to stage this enjoyable production under extraordinarily difficult circumstances including Covid, restricted rehearsals and having to change venues three weeks before the opening. Warmest congratulations, therefore, to everyone involved and I look forward to seeing more work from this company very soon.