|
Calendar Girls: The Musical – ★★★★
|
|
By Gary Barlow and Tim Firth (part of a UK tour)
|
|
performance date: 05 Sep 2018
|
|
venue: Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury
|
|
|
|
★★★★I have rarely shed so many tears in the theatre – mostly of laughter but quite a few of the other sort as well – as during this glorious, joyous musical version of Calendar Girls. There can’t be many people who aren’t familiar with this upbeat, true story about a group of Yorkshire WI members who posed for a nude calendar in aid of a memorial for a friend who had died of cancer. Tim Firth’s film was terrific, as was his “straight” stage play. Now comes this musical version in collaboration with Gary Barlow (they’ve been friends since childhood) which ran to great acclaim in the West End last year and is currently touring. It’s the laughter I shall long treasure. I remember the film and play as being amusing but not hilariously funny. But Karen Dunbar’s bottom flash, the line “you can’t get pregnant after a curry” one character telling his wife that he didn’t marry her for a “smooth path” but for “crazy paving – and much much more – kept me chortling all evening. Yes, the book is beautifully written with real character depth and lots of emotion worn, for the most part, cheerfully. But what really drives this along are Gary Barlow’s songs and the commensurate skill of a large cast. Under director, Matt Ryan, the whole edifice purrs along with warmth and slickness. Barlow provides a character song for each lead actor at some point. Ruth Madoc, for example, is sparky as the elderly retired teacher and her vibrant singing voice in What Age Expects of You, once she gets going, is like operatic honey. Dunbar, as the organ playing vicar’s daughter and single mother, does a very enjoyable medley of “alternative” Christmas carols, her voice a powerful alto and her “naughty” personality sparkling through everything her character says and does. She has a knack with innuendo. Rebecca Storm as Chris sings supremely well too. Her full belt is – well – full and her portrayal of her irreverent, witty, sometimes troubled Chris is fine acting. I also like the way Barlow has created opera-style recitative for Annie, impressively played by Anna-Jane Casey. She has to deal with widowhood and is, at times, very sad. The thoughtful, sung emotion works very effectively. Casey adeptly manages the development of her character as she gradually sinks herself into the challenges on the new project too. Also noteworthy is the use, in this version of the story, made of the tension between the generations in the community. Two teenagers in the village (Tyler Dobbs and Danny Howker – both good)) somehow have to cope with what their mothers are doing and it’s both well observed and very funny. There’s good work from Isabel Caswell as the girl they team up with too. It’s cheerful fun, ably supported by a six piece live band with Tony Higgins as MD. There’s plenty of brass in the score to remind you that this is Yorkshire. Nostalgia and comic timing are a powerful mix. You leave the theatre feeling uplifted and with lots of tunes in your head. What more could you ask for? |
| This review was first published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Marlowe%20Theatre%20(professional)-Calendar%20Girls:%20The%20Musical%20-%20%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85&reviewsID=3314 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You are not supposed in 2018 – George Orwell’s Thought Police have certainly arrived – to notice or comment on the body shapes of actors. Critic Philip Fisher offended actor Nicola Coughlan and many other people this summer for referring to her character in Donmar Warehouse’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as an “overweight little girl”, for example
It’s a strange mindset, when you think about it, because actors have always been cast for their ability to look the part as well as act it. The text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example, demands that Hermia be shorter and darker haired or skinned than Helena. Falstaff is definitely a fat man although most actors playing him don fat suits.
Odd is it not, that it’s perfectly acceptable to cast a slim actor (remember Simon Callow as Count Foscoe in The Woman in White on TV and in the West End?) and fatten him or her up with prosthetics. No one says “You should have cast an obese actor – opportunity missed”. And of course it is quite easy to make a thin person fat. But all the clothes and clever devices in the world will not make a plump person thin on stage at least. It might be different with film.
And that’s why I worry about some of the young people I see graduating from drama schools these days. Of course, I’m as delighted as anyone to see that size and weight are not precluding recruitment as it once did. Talent and potential should be the criteria – always.
I recently watched a technician making a tutu for a corps de ballet member of the cast for Royal Opera House’s Swan Lake. Yes, each one has to be individually made to fit because dances are no longer a stick thin uniform size, I learned. And it’s true. When I saw the production I could see that they varied – but, of course, none was obese.
There are, though, very often obese young actors in a drama school cohort. And very good some of them are too. Then you see their graduation shows and showcases and notice that they are – especially if they’re female – almost always cast in older, matronly or very bossy roles even at drama school. And it will apply even more out in the working world. If you weigh 12 stone you are unlikely to be cast as Juliet or Viola. It’s possible but the odds are against you. And that’s not me being judgemental. It’s a fact of the industry. Does anyone tell these young people this?
At my younger son’s recent wedding I had a long chat with his nice new father-in-law, who is keen on theatre, about this very topic. He was troubled because he’d just seen a professional performance of a well known musical and been distracted by the unhealthy size of several cast members. He felt, rightly or wrongly, that they’d been miscast. Well it’s this sort of widespread “traditional” attitude amongst punters which producers have to negotiate in order to ensure bums on seats – which is why my point stands. It isn’t a criticism of chubby actors.
Rotund performers, however good they are, will almost certainly have more limited opportunities than their svelte mates. That’s why drama schools – who have these people in their hands (as it were) typically for three or two years – should be doing everything they can to support the transition to a healthy weight during training. Yes, of course I know that the causes of obesity are many, various and complex but no one is born fat. Almost everyone can maintain a healthy body shape – and that doesn’t mean whippet-thin either – if they eat and exercise appropriately and get all the help and advice they need. It’s no good getting all huffy simply because someone had the temerity to mention size.
There’s another issue here too. Actors and other performers have to work incredibly hard. This is not a profession for wimps or the faint hearted. And in order to maintain that energy and stamina you need to be as fit and healthy as you can possibly be and that is unlikely to include being several stone overweight.
Photograph credit: Eric Martinez
Last Saturday our younger son married his lovely, tolerant, kind, long-term partner at Lewes Register Office (a very pretty venue). In effect the weekend was one long joyous party, continuously redolent with more glowing happiness than I can possibly describe here.
Of course, Ms Alzheimer’s, who tagged along with My Loved One and me, was the least welcome guest but she’s not, unfortunately, a presence you can simply strike off the list of invitees.
I drove us both (or should that be the three of us?) to nearby Alfriston on Friday where we stayed overnight in a hotel with my sister and brother-in-law. Logistics were complicated and I tried to tell MLO only what he needed to know from hour to hour. I feared that otherwise that he’d get very confused. And I was right. He kept asking me on Friday whether lots of people were coming (including when we stopped – just the two of us) for a pub lunch in Burwash. He ricocheted all day between thinking we were going somewhere to celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary (coming up next spring) and it being a birthday party for our son, who was actually born in March but, thanks to Ms A, calendar awareness is slipping away rapidly.
For the first time ever I had to supervise his packing closely ensuring that he had the right shirt, cufflinks, tie, decent socks etc as well as the suit which I carefully laid on the backseat of the car. Unfortunately I missed the fact that there was no razor in his wash bag so he had to make do (grumpily) with my little plastic one. Packing a male razor has never, until now, been on my radar – but I’m learning.
On Saturday morning he found he’d forgotten how to tie a tie. Absurdly (considering I did it every day at school for seven years) so had I. Later, my very efficient nephew tied the most perfect Windsor knot for MLO and made him look suitably respectable.
The arrangement was that I would leave MLO in my sister’s charge early Saturday morning while I drove my car into Brighton so that it would be in the right place at the end of the day. I then met MLO and co at the register office, having trained it into Lewes with other family members after brunch in Brighton. It all worked out but I have to say that MLO looked bemused and puzzled for most of the day. He was OK during the really rather lovely ceremony (poem read by GD3 and her bridegroom dad – tears all round) but of course after that there were a lot of people all thoughtfully trying to talk to him but actually fazing him even more. Great, of course – and a sort of break for me, incidentally – to have every single member of the immediate family on hand to watch out for him.
I’d been asked by the best man (whom I’ve known for 40 years since he and the marrying son were in nursery school together) to make a mother-of-the-groom speech. There wasn’t, of course, a person in the room who didn’t know why they were getting me rather than the bridegroom’s father. I quipped – I’m fairly used to addressing crowds one way and another – that it was a blow for feminism. The truth was sadder.
A sit-down meal, chosen/collected from the cooking area isn’t ideal for MLO either. He has become shaky on his feet, clumsy and no good at squeezing through tight spaces. So I told him to sit still while I fetched him some food. Another problem is dizzy spells which are, apparently, a recognised Alzheimer’s symptom in some sufferers. It’s just one more example of Alzheimer’s being much, much more than memory loss and that’s rarely understood by people who haven’t lived with it. In MLO’s case it means he really can’t stand about – which is exactly what you do at weddings often for quite lengthy stretches of time. Wherever we go I seem to be continually looking for places he can sit down and the wedding was no exception although being in the presence of so many understanding people helped.
He has never liked loud music and the evening’s entertainment was a live seven piece Soul band for dancing – and very good they were too. Predictably, MLO found the volume stressful and he spent quite a while sitting outside with our other son who fielded his dad with unobtrusive care. Hurrah for a brilliant family.
We were booked on the earlier hired bus back to Brighton with the two youngest GDs and our elder son and daughter-in-law. By then – 10pm – I’m not sure who was more tired and disorientated: MLO or GD4, aged 3, who’d had a wonderful day wowing people as a very engaging bridesmaid to her mum.
On Sunday, and since then, MLO was/has been able to remember and talk quite coherently about the wedding and some of the people who were there. And he seemed relatively focused on Sunday when the new Mr and Mrs E returned to their home which was still full of unwinding over-nighters, and we handed back the children. I doubt that it will be long, though, before it all falls off his brain’s hard drive.
Ms Alzheimer’s is a ruthless companion. She makes no exceptions for weddings however special and memorable they are for everyone else.
Lewes Register Office
When the Arden Performance Edition of Othello arrived recently from Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama) the friend who was staying with me was incredulous. “Surely they don’t think you need a copy of Othello at this stage?” she said. Then I showed her just how different these editions are from the academic Arden editions she and I used in college and have often dipped into since. The side notes focus on what an actor or director needs to think about – verse speaking, making meaning clear and so on. Welcome to the latest in the series.
Also hot off the press from Bloomsbury is ShakesFear and How to Cure It by Ralph Alan Cohen. Once you’ve stopped groaning at the punning title it turns out to be a very practical guide for teachers. It starts with useful general advice and then discusses specific plays – all with lots of suggestions for classroom activities.
And still on Shakespeare do read Emma Smith’s Shakespeare’s First Folio: four centuries of an iconic book (Oxford). We’ve all seen it referred to and admired it in museums. I was once lucky enough to handle an original sitting in the offices of one of London’s theatres. My host happened to own it. Golly. What Smith’s book does is to trace – very accessibly – the history, ownership and influence of the First Folio.
Beyond Shakespeare, various useful, down-to-earth “how to” books have reached me in recent weeks. David Zoob’s Brecht: A Practical Handbook (Nick Hern Books) for instance, cuts through the usual intense theorising and focuses firmly, with plenty of suggestions for class and individual work, on how the performer can use Brechtian methodology to enhance her/his work.
Or take Puppetry and How To Do It by Mervyn Millar (also Nick Hern Books). It starts with “Bringing things to life” and works towards an account of different sorts of puppets. This isn’t a book about how to make puppets. Rather it shares ideas for developing imaginative and innovatory puppetry performance techniques. It’s based on the workshops Millar developed for War Horse.
Performers – in all genres – need to guard their own physical health because the body is each person’s unique tool. Kate Kelly’s Before the Curtain Opens (Triarchy Press) is about the Alexander Technique and its importance in an actor’s life. It’s often a matter of changing life long “bad” habits in sitting, standing, breathing, speaking and reacting. Kelly’s advice, techniques and guidance are rooted in her experience both as an actor and as an Alexander Technique teacher.
Stand-up comedy is a very specific art form and there isn’t much practical advice around. We tend to think entirely of the person on stage too. What about the director behind the scenes? Enter Chris Head’s A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-Up (Methuen Drama). He interviews directors, such as Simon McBurney and John Gordillo and demonstrates just how collaborative the process of presenting stand-up can/should be.
And finally for something slightly more cerebral try Will Tosh’s Playing Indoors (Bloomsbury) which explores The Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and its potential for historical research. A great deal has been learned from this new (it opened in 2014) space about staging early modern drama and it’s examined in this engaging book.
|
The Hound of the Baskervilles – ★★★★
|
|
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
|
|
performance date: 02 Sep 2018
|
|
venue: Coolings Garden Centre, Knockholt, Kent (part of UK tour)
|
|
|
|
★★★★Illyria’s trademark physicality, humour, multiple roles and unapologetic hamming up works well for The Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s a also a good choice for open-air theatre because you can have fun with darkness and light when you’re on the moor or in the mire – none of it, of course, taken seriously. Conan Doyle’s most famous novel presents Watson (and clandestinely, Holmes) going to Devon to investigate a suspicious death in a landed family. There’s an old family legend about a terrifying dog out on the moor but Holmes believes only in science and reason. Cue for lots of complicated plotting and shennanigins about inheritance, cads, bounders, jilted girls, wives pretending to be sisters and lots of dogged canine references. Four actors work wonders with this creaky old story with some very slick acting and gloriously chirpy gender-blind casting. Lee Peck, in particular, is very adept indeed leaping between characters with a delightful range of gestures and voices. He trained at East 15, renowned for character work, and it really shows. He’s great fun and very impressive to watch. Liv Spencer, thought to be the only woman to have played Holmes on a tour of this size, plays him more mannishly than most men, pipe in hand and using her height to dominate the stage. Like every one else in this show she enunciates each final consonant like a singer which means that the entire text is fully audible and clear despite the acoustic drawbacks of playing in the open air, including aircraft. Nick Taylor’s Watson is bluff, funny and the foil to Holmes he has to be. Rachel O-Hare’s voice work is splendid from the Southern States drawl she finds for Sir Henry Baskerville to the anxious, abused Laura Lyons and other roles. The transport is entertaining in this show too. Director Oliver Gray repeatedly uses the old knocking coconuts for horses’ hooves and does it on stage with characters rocking in the carriage – wittily effective. When a train draws out of a station it’s the person left on the platform who sashays sideways. It gets a laugh every time but it works. And there’s a lot of walking on the spot. It looks absurd but actually it really does convey what it’s meant to. All in all it’s an enjoyable evening’s theatre – despite the chill which set in on the night I saw it. I’ve seen Illyria in action three times this summer and this was the first time I didn’t get soaked. Hurrah! |
| First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Illyria%20(professional)-The%20Hound%20of%20the%20Baskervilles%20-%20%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85&reviewsID=3312 |
|
Six – ★★★★
|
|
By Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss. Produced by Kenny Wax Ltd and Global Musicals Ltd
|
|
performance date: 01 Sep 2018
|
|
venue: Arts Theatre, London
|
|
|
 Photo: Idil Sukan
★★★★Most school children can recite “Divorced, beheaded died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” Many can list Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr. Their stories are familiar except that they’re not. This witty, sassy, sexy show presents the six women as a sextet competing with one another until they realise that they’re all identified only in relation to Henry. What about giving each of them her own voice? The underpinning feminism is worn lightly but it’s the crux of the piece which also features a splendid all female on-stage band led by Katy Richardson. Gabriella Slade’s costumes are metallic and revealing (inspired by Madonna?) with hints of Tudor. There’s a lot of leg, bosom, fishnet and body-revealing gaps. It’s deliciously incongruous – think Horrible Histories crossed with a pop concert which references Beyoncé, Lily Allen, Adele, Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Alicia Keys among others. Each Queen presents her case in song which means a range of sounds and styles. They’re all very strong in personality, charisma and voice with lots of hilarious anachronistic asides. Alexia McIntosh is especially memorable as the fourth wife, Anna of Cleves who managed to extricate herself and then spend the rest of her life living in luxury at Henry’s expense. “Tragic!” comments McIntosh, eyes flashing tellingly, before her terrific I’m the Queen of the Castle number. Jarneia Richard-Noel is a hot, angry Catherine of Aragon wearing spikes on her head like the Statue of Liberty. Millie O’Connell’s Anne Boleyn is ruefully funny and Aimie Atkinson’s Katherine Howard has a nice knowing way of tipping her head as she details the men she had before Henry. As Jane Seymour, Natalie Paris is more actorly and Maiya Quansah-Breed finds warm seriousness in Catherine Parr. The contrasts add up to an effective balance in a very accomplished cast. Lights flash, bodies pound and the jokes come thick and fast in this energetic show. Lucy Moss (who also wrote this show with Toby Marlow) and Jamie Armitage certainly know how to direct in a way which really exploits talent and coheres as slick, arresting theatre. It had massive acclaim in Edinburgh where Kenny Wax saw it and offered to produce it. It runs at London, Arts Theatre until 14 October and then tours until the end of the year. There will be a lot of standing ovations. Photo: Idil Sukan |
 |
|
|
| This review was first published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-West%20End%20&%20Fringe-Six%20-%20%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85&reviewsID=3311 |
A Winter’s Tale was performed by Youth Music Theatre UK at the Rose Theatre, Kingston.
There’s a lot of valiant hard work in this show, directed by Bronagh Lagan with Greg Arrowsmith as MD, but the storytelling is far from clear (changing some actors in roles between acts doesn’t help) and in places it feels musically under-rehearsed.
The opening chorus, for example, was very ragged indeed at the performance I saw. Singers were neither together nor with the (good) five-piece band …
Read the rest of this review at Musical Theatre Review: http://musicaltheatrereview.com/a-winters-tale-youth-music-theatre-uk-rose-theatre-kingston/
If ever a concert proved that you don’t have to be a glitzty, glamorous visiting orchestra to produce something stunning, this one was it. The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, under their Principal Guest Conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada, quite blew me (and most of the spellbound audience) away with this account of Verdi’s finest opera, sorry, Requiem.
Logistically it isn’t easy in the Royal Albert Hall to stage a work of this magnitude. With two rows of choir on the tiers behind the orchestra and the rest in the lower rows of the designated choir stalls the furthest singers are a very long way from the conductor, who wisely took it all at a measured pace, focusing on musical detail rather than metronomic extremes to accommodate the time lag. Also potentially problematic was the distance between the sopranos and altos across the orchestra but if they were having difficulty hearing each other it didn’t show. And as for the poor tenors and basses standing within inches of the bass drum, they too seemed unfazed. All credit to them. I sang this work standing next to it once in the front row of the altos. Every time the percussionist hit her bass drum in the Dies Irae the vibrations left me literally senseless and unable to breathe or sing for the next three bars.
But Orozco-Estrada, who mouthes with the choir and supports his soloists (including mezzo, Sarah Connolly who stepped in at the last minute) very carefully, ensured that none of that mattered at all. And his focus on sensitive dynamics packed in all the drama Verdi wanted. His opening pianissimo introit was almost imperceptible in its softness. The later forces of the Dies Irae and Sanctus were rivetingly powerful. And I loved the radiant tuba mirumsection which, at the performance included the intriguing cimbasso – a form of angled bass trombone.
Also beautifully milked for emotion and melody was the deliciously sensuous lacrymosa with soprano Lise Davidsen and Sarah Connolly in duet against the brass section. Their agnus dei was nicely balanced and sung too.
All four soloists did a good job but tenor Dmytro Popov was utterly outstanding. His Ingemiso section of the Dies Irae brought the sort of clarity and brightness which makes you sit bolt upright in your seat in astonishment and admiration.
The choir (chorus master: Neville Creed) rose to the challenge and did magnificently well too. At full pelt I should think they could be heard down by Harrods – with their excellent tuning and crisp timing, especially in Verdi’s glorious Sanctus.
And finally to that quivering, passionate Libera Me which Davidsen delivered with such intensity that the audience was completely stilled – and that is rare at the Proms. Bravo!
First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3