Press ESC or click the X to close this window

Make student loans more inclusive

A degree won’t make you an actor if you don’t have the potential to be one. Neither will any other formal qualification. What you need, almost certainly, is systematic, detailed, intensive, individualised vocational training from people who know – really know – the industry first hand. And that doesn’t mean that they last worked on a West End show in 1996. Effective teachers have recent/current experience of a continually changing, shifting industry.

But the schools which hold their nerve and continue to offer such training have real problems, most of them financial.

Last week I had the privilege of seeing, and reviewing, London School of Musical Theatre’s Lend Me A Tenor at Bridewell Theatre. It was stonkingly good. Deeming it the best drama school show I have ever seen (and I’m no stranger to them) I gave it five stars and I’ve never done that before.http://musicaltheatrereview.com/london-school-of-musical-theatre-lend-me-a-tenor/

In the interval founder/principal Adrian Jeckells told me that it’s now harder to recruit the right students since career development loans have been axed. Students in independent, non-degree training establishments do not have access to student loans.  CDLs were the last bastion of funding for these students. Now it’s a question of getting private sponsorship, win a scholarship, pay the fees yourself up front or go and work in IT instead. TheMTA, Fourth Monkey and a number of other excellent training organisations have the same difficulty.

“But I’m determined not to lower standards in order to fill the course or to go down the degree route” Jeckells told me. And I admire him for that.

Over the last 20 years or so, since the introduction of tuition fees, most colleges have opted to convert their main courses to degrees. Some – like Rose Bruford and Trinity Laban – even now have their own degree awarding powers.  Schools such as GSA and East 15 have gone the whole hog  and merged with universities (Surrey and Essex respectively) at the cost, one observes, of a certain amount of autonomy.  Most are accredited by an outside university. Drama Studio London is one of the most recent with its new three year course accredited by De Montfort University Leicester.

“It’s all about money. Our students need access to student loans” Kit Thacker, DSL’s Managing Director told me the other day.

So where does that leave the independent providers, some of which are doing outstanding work and producing top notch industry ready performers every year, but who don’t – and won’t – offer degrees?

It narrows their recruitment pool. Just as everyone – government, Arts Council, the industry et al – trumpets inclusivity and says it doesn’t want performing arts to be staffed entirely by “rich kids” the powers-that-be cut off all means of support to anyone who wants to train via a non-degree course.

It’s ignorant, inequitable and immoral. Why can’t independent training providers, who can show that they deliver the goods, be registered as bona fide organisations whose students are entitled to student loans? There is no logical reason why student loans should be so rigidly tied to degrees. And in this industry, in particular, it makes no sense at all to insist that a degree is the be-all and end-all.

Featured image: Fourth Monkey, Julius Caesar 2018

Screen-Shot-2019-04-24-at-16.32.46

LSMT Lend Me A Tenor, 2019 (Credit: Scott Rylander)

 

I seem to have spent the whole of the last week playing hide and seek with My Loved One.  Lucas and I have both mentioned the mystery of the vanished hand basin plug – which I have now, I’m happy to report, managed, at last, to replace on the third attempt to find one which fits. Don’t let anyone tell you these things are standard even when they all purport to be one and a half inch.

Since then I have removed drinking glasses from the cats’ cupboard, items of fruit from the bedroom and his cardigan (more than once) from the housekeeping cupboard where the vacuum cleaner, spare lightbulbs et al live. Boxes of tissues and toilet rolls frequently walk round the house and goodness knows why, the other day, he took all the crackers out of their tin and put them in with the sweet biscuits.

The other form of the game is finding things for My Loved One which he says have “gone” but they haven’t: his toothbrush, glasses, watch etc are always “disappearing” but of course, actually, they’re exactly where they should be.

Then there’s a new habit of forgetting to turn taps off. I now have a new last-thing routine whereby I check that the taps are all off at the same time that I make sure all the doors and windows are locked.

It all happens when he’s alone. If I’m upstairs working in my office (which I often need to be) and he’s downstairs he’ll potter about, rather than settling to anything for more than a few minutes. Then when I go down after, say an hour (dare not leave it any longer) I never know what bits of muddle I shall have to sort out. Why, for example, has the ice cream scoop been removed from the dresser drawer and put in the hall? What’s the washing up liquid doing on the dining table?  The same applies if I’m out working in the evening and there’s a half hour or so gap between the carer leaving and my getting home.

In itself, it’s all very trivial stuff, but the totality is intensely tiresome and irritating. And I’m afraid patience isn’t a strength of mine. I haven’t succeeded in two careers and always had more than one job on the go at a time by sitting about patiently. I’ve done it by striding ahead at speed and being totally focused on the goal. None of that helps a jot now. It just compounds the frustration because I’m having to act a very slow role in which I am woefully miscast.

My lovely Yorkshire-based friend, with whom I had four glorious days’ respite earlier this month, talked to me at length about “seeing someone” to talk all this through. Well, I’ve always respected the counselling industry but hey, I come from a family in which we all put our heads down and get on with it. We’re strong. We don’t “do” airy-fairy psychology. It seems to work for others but I had long been convinced it wasn’t for me.

My friend, however, was very persuasive so when I got home I found a local practitioner – walking distance – who has strings of qualifications and accreditations along with 20 years’ experience. Last week I had a session with her. Let’s call her L.

To my surprise I enjoyed every minute of it. To sit in L’s peaceful, professionally set up, sitting room and to be allowed to pour it all out – all those unsayable things which I’ve been bottling up for a very long time – was absolute bliss.  Real life conversations are punctuated with interruptions and more often than not the other person highjacks the conversation perhaps because they feel awkward.  This was quite different.  It was just me and my situation for a whole hour.

And L did make some really helpful observations. She pointed out, for example, that the man I married in 1969 has already gone. The person I now live with, mostly now incapable of any form of sequential conversation, is someone completely different. I am in a sense already widowed. Now, in truth, I had already worked that out but it was a huge relief to hear someone else overtly articulating it.

She also listened attentively to my account of what I have to do: showering (at least twice a day and often more) and cleaning up an increasingly disabled person, supervising him 24/7, shouldering every domestic task including cooking, gardening, admin and more laundry than Widow Twankey along with a demanding job as a journalist /author. “But, Susan, no wonder you’re pissed off” she said simply. “You’re doing three separate full-time jobs”. Spot on. That’s it, exactly. And it isn’t what I want at all. I’d quite like my life back.

L made two linked practical suggestions. She thinks I should have a proper focused discussion with both our sons (together) about possible strategies for the future. She also thinks I should check out some local care homes which might, just possibly, be useful in the future if only for respite. It’s always better to have provisional plans in place than to have to make hasty decisions when an emergency strikes. I have all this in hand.

I now realise I’ve been undervaluing the importance of “off loading” your problems for most of my life. No woman is an island, as John Donne nearly said.  I have made a follow-up appointment with L.

Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, 13 April 2019

You’d expect mature, measured work from octogenarian Herbert Blomstedt and that, in this enjoyably focused concert is what we got. Mr Blomstedt now moves stiffly when he reaches and exits the platform but his unshowy, baton-less conducting is free and fluid, mostly from the wrist, with little or no reference to the score in front of him and rarely anything as humdrum as beating time. He reminded me, in different ways, of both Boult and Klemperer – both of whom I caught live towards the end of their careers. And the Philharmonia clearly responds well to his understated style.

Rather unnecessarily entitled Musical Heroes, this two work concert brought together Mozart’s powerful 40th symphony with all its stirring G minor and Beethoven’s Eroica – larger forces on stage –  which unfailingly manages to sound ground-breaking over 200 years after it was written.

Blomstedt gave us plenty of understated elegance in Mozart’s opening molto allegro followed by an exquisite andante. I really liked the way he allowed the woodwind interjections to glide through the texture – which also speaks volumes for the pleasing acoustic in the Marlowe which, unusually, works just as well as a concert hall as it does as a theatre. There followed an incisive third movement and a fourth characterised by mercurial tempi and precision.

And so to a memorable Beethoven performance. Blomstedt had the Philharmonia configured with first and second violins facing each other with timps angled off to his right and basses to his left. This meant that the principal cello struggled for eye contact with the leader and, owing to the conductor’s forward position, the leader couldn’t see his face most of the time. It looked awkward but didn’t seem to affect the sound.

Blomstedt doesn’t do everything at “authentic” Beethoven prestissimo as Norrington or Eliot Gardener routinely do which means we were treated to a lot of detail – with every rhythmic and melodic nuance coaxed and shaped by his expressive hands. I especially liked the management of the tension preceding the convention-breaking horn discords in the first movement and its contrast with the lyrically evocative passages. The second movement was, frankly, eccentric with too many exaggerated dynamic and tempo changes but the nicely judged fugal section and the rich string sound in the scherzo made up for it. So did the grandiloquence of the finale in which friskier moments highlighted the strength of the legato, fortissimo sections.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

Barbican Hall, 14 April 2019

Kirill Gerstein’s account of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was very arresting. You could see and feel him breathing the music, especially in the first movement and he makes sure you notice every flamboyant, jubilant grace note in the finale. I liked the yearning intensity he brought to the beginning of the largo too, going on to play it with so much rubato that it sounded in places almost like a smoochy jazz arrangement. I was not surprised to read later in the programme that Gerstein originally trained partly in jazz piano before deciding to specialise in classical.

Gerstein – who looks more like a nightclub bouncer than a stereotypical virtuoso pianist – has a palpable rapport with Mark Elder on the podium and brings an intimate chamber music quality to the work as he leans round sensitively to look at the string principals. There was some splendid work from the orchestra throughout the concerto too. The impressively played bassoon and flute duet in the largo was a high spot, for example.

Then we nipped forward a century and went from a work I have heard performed many dozens of times (and twice played the second violin part in) to one I had never before heard played live: Charles Ives’ Second Symphony written in the early years of the 20th century but not performed until Bernstein finally premiered it in 1951. As Elder observed in his illustrated introduction after the interval, Ives followed the advice of Dvorak in America ten years earlier, that American composers should exploit their own heritage rather than slavishly emulating Europe. The piece is so referential – hymns, band tunes, square dance music, popular tunes and more – that it’s almost more of a sectional medley than a symphony but the imaginative scoring and orchestration must mean it’s fun to play and it’s certainly engaging to listen to.

Elder brought out all the beauty in the central cantabile and I admired the warm richness of the string sound in the third movement. First violins did well with the square dance theme and getting the two trombonists on their feet to play the big, overstated tune at the end was an inspired musical joke like the cacophonous final chord – the traditional way a dance band indicates that the party’s over.

An interestingly programmed concert of contrasts from the LSO in good form.

First published by Lark Review: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story continues at the Hope Theatre, London until 20 April 2019.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

This chilling revival of Stephen Dolginoff’s musical take on one of the most famous murders in the history of the USA is engaging theatre.

Bart Lambert as Nathan Leopold, about to be granted parole in 1958, recalls what actually happened when he and fellow law student Richard Loeb (Jack Reitman) murdered a boy in 1924.

The piece explores the psychology of cold-blooded, planned infanticide and most British audiences will be reluctantly reminded of the murder of Jamie Bulger in 1993.

In this case the killing – or at least the planning – and the arson which precedes it is partly an aphrodisiac which drives the sexual relationship between the two men so the issues here are complex and thoughtful …

Read the rest of this review at Musical Theatre Review: http://musicaltheatrereview.com/thrill-me-the-leopold-and-loeb-story-hope-theatre/

The Elephant Man

CODA

Director: Owen Moore

The story of John Merrick is well documented. He had what doctors now think was a severe case of neurofibromatosis and/or Proteus syndrome which presented as hideous bodily deformation. Initially paraded as a circus freak he was taken in by Frederick Treves a doctor at the London Hospital who found, and developed, the intelligent human being in Merrick’s body as well as studying his condition. David Lynch’s 1980 film starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins put the story firmly on the map.  Bernard Pomerance’s earlier play explores the friendship between the two men, the tug of Victorian commercialism and disdain for disability among other things.

The play has a large cast which makes it a good choice for a community company like CODA. Its problem is that it’s written in 20 scenes, mostly featuring just two or three actors and it’s very bitty. And – attractive as the theatre at Royal Russell School is –  like all school and college theatres it has a very large playing area to accommodate lots of students. In this instance that means an awful lot of walking on and off. It’s a directorial challenge which this production doesn’t quite deal with. Blackouts between short scenes quickly begin to seem contrived, tedious and old fashioned. It might have been better to keep actors closer in all the time – watching from the sides perhaps – and/or to have reduced the size of the playing space with flats.

There is some pleasing acting in this production. Rob Preston is excellent and very convincing as Ross, Merrick’s “manager”. He is repugnantly gruff with his charge at the beginning and later completely plausible as the coughing, cajoling ruined man down on his uppers begging Merrick for help.

Alfie Bird, his mouth twisted and his right arm held useless before him, finds all the strange, articulate stillness and dignity that John Merrick needs. He isn’t, however, grotesque enough. Looking at him in this production you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about – particularly as Treves (Tom Mcgowan) describes the deformities pretty graphically in a lecture early in the piece. The last time I saw an amateur production of a play about Merrick the actor wore a huge, symbolic metal cage, mask-like, on his head and that made the point rather better.

Tom Mcgowan has a large role as Treves and he carries it off much of the time. The lecture scene, for example, is strong. He addresses the theatre audience and a heckler/questioner voice booms across from the back. Some of his scenes with Bird are affecting too.

CODA’s production uses a cast of 16.  Some of these actors really run with what they have to do in their small character roles  – Keith Preddie as a Belgian policeman and Alison Lee doubling Countess with one of three Pinheads, for instance. Others are sometimes a bit wooden and in one or two cases inaudible from the back where I was sitting.

This was the first CODA production I’ve seen and I look forward to seeing them in action again. I gather they stage a wide range of shows so I’m keen to experience some of that versatility.

HMS Pinafore

Kings Head Theatre

Charles Court Opera

Star rating: ****

It’s astonishing how topical this familiar old (1878) favourite still is in the right hands. As Sir Joseph Porter, Joseph Shovelton’s self satisfied, self interested grin – and the revolting panache with which he delivers the famous “When I was a lad” song – is instantly recognisable. You’d find him “reckoned of by dozens” on both sides of Parliament and all over public life in 2019.

It’s a bijoux HMS Pinafore, cleverly arranged for eight so that the principals sing the choruses often as quartets and trios which highlights some exceptionally fine singing. I have rarely heard the Act 1troubled love duet between Ralph (Philip Lee) and Josephine (Alys Roberts) so exquisitely and sensitively sung. Roberts, in particular – dressed here (costumes by Rachel Szmukler) as a 1960s “dolly bird” – is an outstanding performer.

When you work with such a small cast you have to contrive imaginative ways of covering all the singing parts. Director John Savourin and musical director David Eaton have come up with some witty and effective solutions. For a start the Kings Head Theatre, configured end-on for this show uses the single aisle as part of the performance space which allows them to keep singers in the mix when they’re off-stage as well as making it all feel intimate and immersive. Second Jennie Jacobs, a rich voiced, delightfully attractive, charismatic Buttercup (so of course Matthew Palmer, strong as Corcoran on press night, fancies her like mad) doubles as one of Sir Joseph’s cousins (“His sister and his cousin – not even half a dozen”) and there’s a wonderful joke to get round the aunt who’s usually part of that chorus. One of the sailors is female (Hannah Crerar – excellent) too.

Matthew Kellett is a suitably ugly, surly Dick Deadeye (excellent make up job) trying to scupper everyone else’s happiness and he’s a find bass singer bringing chocolate ripple richness to the texture. I also loved the toothy earnestness – as well as lovely singing – of Catrine Kirman’s Hebe, cousin to Sir Joseph too. She wears the most outlandish shorts, headscarf and glasses and is an enjoyable actor

This nippy, succinct production respects WS Gilbert’s text without being slavish. It may  be styled 1960s but the most of the language is unashamedly Victorian – and it works. This is a good example of how G&S should be done in the 21st century: lovingly but tempered with innovation.

I review many dozens of professional shows every year ranging from tiny scale two-handers on the extreme edges of the fringe to West End blockbusters and big touring shows. Fortunate to have a range of outlets and editors, I also cover a fair amount of classical music including opera and ballet.

When it’s professional work being reviewed I work to a set of criteria, usually suggested by, or agreed with, the editor in question. In most cases we attach a pretty clear star rating along with the comments. I think my critical judgment is fairly sharp although the joy of the whole criticism industry as that often we don’t agree with each other. Sometimes we disagree diametrically and that doesn’t, obviously, mean that anyone’s pro critical opinion is any better or worse than anyone else’s. The deal and the modus operandi is both open-ended and clear.

I do have a difficulty, though, with reviewing non-professional work which I quite often do.  One of my outlets specialises in it – and, anyway, I believe quite strongly that these for-the-love-of-it  people have worked very hard on their show and deserve informed feedback. The companies must think so too or they wouldn’t invite people like me.

Well, you simply can’t apply the same criteria. Although the standard of am-dram has generally risen enormously in the last generation or two, they are still amateurs. Most of them have had no training. They rarely have voice coach support and they get to rehearse for fewer hours and less intensively than the professionals do. Objectively, the standard is often lower but to praise something which may not actually be very good in order to encourage (or not upset – some of them are very volatile) these worthy folk seems unacceptably patronising.

In practice, the best community or amateur theatre – both straight plays and musical theatre – comes from companies which hire in a professional director. Someone like, Chris Cuming, for instance, who does a lot of this work, knows exactly how to coax the very best performance out of every single cast member some of whom will end up achieving things they never dreamed they could. Witness some of Cuming’s work with Cambridge Theatre Company.

Or sometimes there’s someone in the company – such as Lynne Livingstone at Shakespeare at the George, Huntingdon who trained as an actor but whose day job is now something else. She directed Richard III last summer and the end product was pretty accomplished.

Sadly, it usually does nothing for standards when someone in the company, who’s done a bit of acting, fancies trying her or his hand at directing. Non pro companies need very strong, skilled, experienced direction if they are to produce watchable theatre.

So I’m left – notebook and pen on my lap – with a problem. I solve it (sort of) by focusing on aspects of the show which really work well and ignoring the rest of the production. Thus there are always some individual actors whose work deserves commendation. Often the choreography, set or band are good. Only if a directorial, casting or other key decision is woefully misjudged do I mention it and then only briefly. And, thank goodness, we don’t put star ratings on non-pro shows.