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Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella (Susan Elkin reviews)

Marlowe Theatre and touring

Prokofiev’s lush score – with all its minor key melody and those evocative rhythms – dates from 1946 and part of it was written during World War II. Matthew Bourne’s idea of setting it in the London Blitz therefore makes sense, and the “Ball” in the Café de Paris – which was bombed on 8 March, 1941 – is beautiful, poignant and apt. And there are some lovely conceits, such as Cinderella (Ashley Shaw in the performance I saw) being whisked off to the dance by her angel (Liam Mower) on a white motorbike and sidecar. There’s a cinema framing device with lots of Pathe news footage too which works a treat.

This production, which has been around for a while, is currently touring nationwide and Matthew Bourne did a post-show question and answer session for the first night Canterbury audience.

Shaw first appears as Cinderella, drab in grey and bespectacled at home with Alan Vincent, her wheelchair-bound father. Given that this character doesn’t dance other than with his arms it might have been appropriate to cast a wheelchair user which Vincent isn’t – an opportunity missed?

She is bullied by a stepmother (Anjali Mehra – strong) and a chorus of individually characterised step-siblings, each of them good value in the way they convey greasy nastiness. Then, of course, she is whizzed off the glitzy Café de Paris, despite having been denied her invitation, in glittering white. Cue for some lovely muscular dancing by the men and, then for some very engaging duet work between Cinderella and her “prince”, Harry the Pilot who is styled to look like John Cleese but who dances with verve.

Like all the best ballet performances it’s an ensemble piece. The real star is Bourne’s spiky, fluid, story-telling choreography. There is no point work so the dancing feels very natural –  effectively a movement based, Brechtian drama. There’s a splendid scene, for example, when Cinderella is in hospital and her family visit – moving as one round the screens which form doors, pecking menacingly like a flock of vultures. The tiny visual subplot in which a pair of gay men fall for each other is nice too.

The second (but not by much) best thing in this show are Lez Brotherston’s stunning designs for sets and costumes. Most of the clothes are black, white and grey with filmy, flowing 1940s dresses for the women and various sorts of uniform for the men.  He provides a spacious family room at the beginning, a very convincing café de Paris amongst bombed buildings followed by shocking devastation at the end of Act 2. And we even get Paddington station and a rather good train.

This is the sort of show which could, I think attract new audiences to dance productions. Without a tutu or pair of tights in sight it feels much more like a moving piece of musical theatre than a “classical” ballet. Bravo!

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

 

Stage Traffic Productions. Trafalgar Studios

Katy Brand’s debut play shows a phenomenal talent for dialogue writing. And in the hands of three actors are talented as Anita Dobson, Debbie Chazen and Maisie Richardson-Sellers (with Oliver Greenall as the waiter) directed by Michael Yale, it’s a sure fire winner.

Suzanne, 40 (Chazen) is to marry tomorrow. Her generous, decent fiancé has paid for her to have a night in an expensive hotel with her mother (Dobson) and eighteen year old daughter (Richardson-Sellers). The play then spends its 80 minutes – which feels like much less – exploring the complex relationship between the three of them and unravelling a great deal of family history and baggage along the way.

It’s strong too on the opportunities women had, have, might have – or not – ranging from Dobson’s character recalling her grandmother who campaigned with the suffragettes to Richardson-Sellers as Laurie idealistically anticipating a gender-free future for the human race. Billed as a comedy, 3 Women is belly-laugh funny in places. It’s also a very thoughtful play which eventually becomes deeply moving.

Dobson is an extraordinary actor. She did the best wicked queen in Snow White I have ever seen at Tunbridge Wells. I still measure all other wicked queen’s against hers. And she was a fine Gertrude in Hamlet as well as her EastEnders role and masses of other theatre. In this show her character is brittle and she drinks. On the surface she’s an ordinary 60 something widow left reasonably well off and definitely not “letting herself go”. Gradually we realise that she has felt unfulfilled all her life and is desperately disappointed in the daughter who has, in her mother’s view, wasted her opportunities. Dobson has a wonderful knack of delivering bitchy lines with deadpan rapier timing. Yet she also gets our sympathy. At one point she turns away from the others and stares into the corner of the auditorium with audience within an arm’s length, silent and shaking. You can see her thoughts on her face. Then she weeps. She even manages to smudge her mascara. It’s a masterclass in convincing acting.

Chazen plays off her beautifully. She is, in contrast to her mother, bosomy, comfortable and “into” new age life style and counselling. But she too has demons to deal with including having grown up with her difficult mother and having had a child as the result of the very brief relationship when she was 22. Chazen’s silent looks often convey as much feeling as half a dozen sentences of dialogue.

Meanwhile Richardson-Sellers is very calm, poised and mature as Laurie – trying to keep the peace between her mother and grandmother. We then see a different side to her when first when she tells her mother something she knows Suzanne would rather not hear and then when – nice bit of sit com for light relief – she has a quick one with the waiter. It’s a nicely nuanced interpretation of character.

Because Trafalgar Studios’ Studio 2 is so small and intimate, 3 Women feels in scale almost like fringe theatre until you remember that you’re in the heart of the West End, watching a top notch cast and sitting alongside three household name critics. It is actually a play with real weight and I predict that it has a rosy future.
 First published by Sardines http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-West%20End%20&%20Fringe-3Women&reviewsID=3214

 

Birmingham Repertory Company. Marlowe Theatre and touring

It’s encouraging to see a revival of Terence Rattigan’s fine 1946 play which really allows this modern classic to shine. Rattigan was an exceptionally good dialogue writer and his plays – The Winslow Boy in particular – respond well to the sort of direction and acting you see here from Rachel Kavanaugh and her strong cast of eleven.

Based on the real life Georgie Archer-Shee case, The Winslow Boytells the story of an alleged theft of a postal order by a boy at a naval boarding school run by the Admiralty. Convinced of his son’s innocence, his father brings the rest of the family to near ruin in trying to prove it through the courts.

As the boy’s father, Arthur Winslow, Aden Gillett is plausible, reasonable, determined and affectionate. He is also gradually succumbing to arthritis and other illnesses which worsen during the two year trajectory of the play. Gillett’s performance is both convincing and moving. He is well matched by Tessa Peake-Jones who plays his wife as a motherly, homely sort – in an Edwardian middle class way – until, at last, she loses some of her poise and confronts her husband about his recalcitrant stubbornness and that’s impressive to watch too.

There is also some splendid work from Dorothea Myer-Bennett as their daughter Catherine, a sardonic supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. Myer-Bennett gives us an intelligent character who is variously amused, socially conventional, and desperately upset and it’s pretty compelling. So is Timothy Watson as Sir Robert Morton the very expensive lawyer who, intially seems terrifying and very unpleasant but who turns out to be much more human and humane that anyone thought. It’s a gift of a part and Watson makes a fine job of it especially in the last scene when he and Catherine discover they have a rapport.

Also enjoyable are Soo Drouet as the well meaning but untrained and over familiar Violet, the family servant and an entertaining cameo from Sarah Lambie as a patronising but penetrating journalist.

And it all takes place on Michael Taylor’s delightful set – the sitting room of the Winslows’ house – complete with a huge mahogany bureau, dark wood chairs and lots of pictures on the walls, some of which are taken down by stage crew as the Winslows begin to feel the pinch. Taylor also designed the gorgeous Edwardian costumes including attractive dresses for the women. Peake-Jones, in particular wears several pretty, fitted outfits with sweeping long skirts.

This production is high-quality theatre. What a pity, therefore, to see the matinee I was at so sparsely attended. The Marlowe was less than half full. I hope other performances there and elsewhere during the tour have attracted the numbers this show deserves.

First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Marlowe%20Theatre%20(professional)-The%20Winslow%20Boy&reviewsID=3211

West Wickham Operatic Society at Churchill Theatre, Bromley

Cats is a unique musical. You simply can’t discuss it by comparing it with anything else. Arguably, it has the strongest score Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever written and it’s effectively a ballet with dramatic songs. It dances eclectically from music hall to be-bop, to hints of Mendelssohn and Wagner, interspersed with the odd anthem and much more. And you get T.S. Eliot’s slick, funny words, bonded here and there with a bit of clever Richard Stilgoe. It requires terrific dance technique – which tends to mean a youngish cast – and a great deal of imagination. The rights holder, The Really Useful Group stipulates that sets, costume and direction must be different from the original professional production.

No wonder very few amateur companies have, so far, taken on this challenge. West Wickham Operatic Society, however, has tackled it with expertise, talent and aplomb and it’s a fine evening in the theatre by any standards. It pulses with energy from the first note to the last.

Of course, because I saw the show on the opening night there were a few very minor teething problems with radio mics and lighting cues but I’m sure these will be sorted for subsequent performances. Full marks to the company for sailing on though the hiccoughs with unfazed professionalism.

The setting is a derelict 1920s funfair with lots of flashing lights, and, a neat device, silver foil curtains for characters to duck beneath. The costumes – mostly tight fitting lycra suits with long tails at the back and other bits added to personalise each cat – were bought from one of the few amateur companies who’ve done this show and adapted. WWOS designed individual make up for each cast member and they all worked on their own wigs. The result is, visually, as good as I’ve seen anywhere and I think I’ve seen this show performed professionally five times, including with the original cast at London Theatre, Drury Lane which included Brian Blessed, Bonnie Langford, Wayne Sleep and Elaine Paige.

The show itself is, paradoxically, episodic and well as seamless. WWOS sets the tone at the beginning with a big chorus of Jellicle Cats pounding the rhythms. Choreographer Danielle Dowsett is highly skilled at making the very most of the talent she has at her disposal and the company has managed to cast enough young or youngish performers to provide an impressive central dance corps, many of whom also have solo spots because that’s the way this magnificent ensemble piece is structured. On the edges are other dancers who are slightly less agile and/or haven’t had dance training. And I gather from the programme that there’s another group of older WWOS members singing in the wings.

Michael Flanagan and Carrie-Louise Knight are show-stoppingly engaging as the spirited Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, playing off each other and dancing athletically together as a duo. Thomas Fitzgerald delights as the kilt-wearing Skimbleshanks rocking his way to Scotland by train, spitting out every witty word. And Tracy Prizeman gives us a really impassioned, throaty account of Memorybefore she eventually disappears into the “Heavyside layer” (the flies) in a circus hoop. Justin Jones is strong too as Bustopher Jones with his lovely musical hall-type number

You can’t miss Robert Sharples either. He’s an outstanding professionally-trained dancer. As a black and white cat, he contributes a huge amount to the ensemble and finally comes into his own as the leaping, spiralling Magical Mr Mistoffelees.

Among the older cats, Kevin Hayes is good value as the Elvis-esque, hip-gyrating Rum Tum Tugger and Terry Gauntlett is appealing as the elderly, paw quivering Gus the Theatre Cat. In this version the younger Gus, recalling the play about the Growltiger adventure on the Thames is played – with lots of humour and panache – by Philip Netscher. Kevin Gauntlett, who also directs the show, plays the fatherly Old Deuteronomy and sings his big number The Ad Dressing of Cats with suitable bass gravitas.

I arrived at the theatre wondering what on earth WWOS was going to do about a band for this ambitious show. I needn’t have worried. A ten-piece orchestra, conducted by David Bullen, and out of sight, took the bull by the horns and ran a musical marathon with it. It sounded terrific, with a lot of very clear work by individual instruments especially cello and horn.

We don’t give stars in this publication but if we did my finger would be hovering over a fifth star for this show.

First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-WWOS%20(West%20Wickham%20Operatic%20Society)-Cats&reviewsID=3208

So it’s Alzheimer’s Awareness Week. Well, yes please, we need plenty of that.

I’ve also just spotted, in newspapers and on the Tube, adverts for the “Alzheimer’s Show” at Olympia next month as if Ms Alzheimers’s hapless victims were like Ideal Homes, yachts or fancy cars. An Alzheimer’s joke? We don’t get many of those. In all seriousness, there’s not a lot that’s “showy” about this horrible illness but I suppose it all helps with awareness.

Meanwhile back at the sharp end I find myself worrying increasingly about balance. All the advice from experts is that you should keep your Alzheimer’s person doing as many normal things as possible for as long as you/he/she can – even if it means that tasks aren’t done properly. Well it makes sense but I suspect the advice comes, in general from people who, well meaning as they are, don’t actually have to live this illness 24/7.

I am trying to get our “new” (we moved into our present house 20 months ago) garden into shape. Among other things I bought a bottle of bug spray and a bottle of weed killer. “Here you are” I said to My Loved One, handing him the latter. “This is a present for you. Now you can sweep the brick paving and spray between the cracks on the drive way.”  He’d mentioned several times that it needed doing and it was always his job to keep the brick paving tidy in our old house.

On Sunday afternoon I put my old clothes on and went out to do some serious weeding. Ten minutes later MLO was hovering nearby. This is the usual pattern these days when I start any domestic job. He stands and watches me. I can never decide whether it’s because he’s critical of the way I’m doing something (emptying the dishwasher for example) which he used to do and no longer can, merely curious or suffering from some sort of anguished envy.

Anyway, there we were in the back garden. The next time I looked up from the dandelions he was trying (and failing, fortunately) to open the weed killer spray. Opening almost anything is a problem these days. “I’ll just spray those aphids on the roses” he said. “NO!” I shrieked which led to a quite cross rejoinder: “Why do you always shout at me when I try to help?”

Well, I know I’m supposed to let him do things but that certainly isn’t going to include passively allowing him to spray weed killer onto the plants I’m trying to nurture. In the end I opened both sprays and got them working and sent him firmly round to the front with weed killer where he made an adequate job of the tidying up. It took him all afternoon, he was exhausted at the end of it and I later found two little piles of leaves and bits which he’d forgotten to sweep up … but never mind. I haven’t bothered to try and explain that we have two sorts of pest – weeds and bugs aka as flora and fauna – and they need treating differently. In the old days, of course, he would have known that as well as I do.

He still manages a bit of shopping with one of those geriatric four wheeled trolleys. I get all the groceries delivered and just send him to choose fresh fruit and vegetables which is genuinely useful and I feel virtuous for facilitating it. The walk – about a mile each way – is doubtless good for him too. It takes him well over two hours but he’s not exactly time poor. He does other single task errands too such as walking to the post office with a packet or collecting one from the sorting office – as long as I’m there to let him in when he gets back because he can’t operate keys in locks.

And he’s obsessed with going to banks for statements. I’ve told him repeatedly that I now have everything online and he has only to ask and I will tell him or show him the balance and transactions on any of our accounts. But I suppose getting a statement for himself makes him feel independently grown up  and, I frequently have to remind myself, that’s very important.

It’s still jolly difficult, though, to strike a loving balance between enabling that independence and getting everything done when you’re jolly busy – as I am, coping with all this at home as well as working full-time.

It’s not unlike looking after a small child – the one who says brightly “Can I help?” when you’re in the middle of something and you say “yes” to humour the child but it would be much quicker to do it solo. When I change the sheets on our very large bed, for instance – a Sunday morning routine – he invariably appears and starts “helping”. I then have to issue a continuous flow of instructions such as “Can you pull that hem straight please” and “Now tuck it in your side” as well as racing round the bed to show him when he doesn’t understand. I could finish it in half the time if I were just allowed to get on with it. But there’s MLO’s self-esteem to manage too. And, incidentally, I really never dreamed I’d be comparing him with a pre-school child when he’s still only 72.

I continue to do what I can to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s – this week in particular. I think I’ll give that show at Olympia a miss, though. Cosi Fan Tutte at Opera Holland Park and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Watermill, Newbury – both booked for MLO to come with me next month –  look like a lot more fun. Music and drama are probably a better way of keeping an ailing brain active than constantly thinking about your own illness.

 

 

Do you have to be paid a fee by a publication in order for your review to be critically valid?

Personally I don’t think it matters in the least whether you’re writing for a national newspaper, your own website or a small organisation which doesn’t pay for reviews.

The important thing is that you can, and do, provide an informed critical assessment of the show.

Age and experience are advantages, of course, but we would all do well to remember that even Michael Billington once saw Macbeth for the first time. And I expect he formed an opinion, even then. The industry needs a mixture of seasoned critics and young fresh ones.

I review three or four shows (and concerts) most weeks. Some of the outfits I work for, and with, pay a fee and others do not.

For me it’s all work and I make no distinction. Fortunately I get enough paid writing work to enable me also to accept some voluntary reviewing. I do every job as professionally and promptly as I can irrespective of who the client is.

I review amateur theatre, including student shows, sometimes too. Why not? Companies and colleges are often welcoming of rigorous, honest, professional feedback. They can learn from it and it shows they’re being taken seriously.

In many cases the fee for reviewing is so modest that it’s almost an irrelevance, anyway. The Stage, for example, pays £25 for a standard review – even less for pantomimes and certain other sorts of show. And it isn’t alone.

By the time you’ve travelled say, two hours to the venue, watched a two hour show, travelled another two hours home and then used at least an hour to write the review you have spent 7 hours working for around £3.50 an hour –  less than half the national minimum wage.

And yet, in the opinion of some critics who have shouted quite loudly on social media in recent weeks, working even for a derisory fee makes you a “professional” and therefore worth heeding.

I review theatre and other performance mostly because I like doing it and it forces me to see a wider range of work than I probably would if I were simply choosing shows for pleasure.

And it’s always good to have your horizons widened. Don Giovanni in a gay nightclub with all the genders reversed, for instance, Freud the Musical and, only a week or two ago, a debbie tucker green double bill at Chichester.

I’m also keen to support worthwhile organisations such as Musical Theatre Review and Sardines magazine which are run by just one or two very committed people who need some professional contributors – and there’s more to “professionalism” than the size, or existence, of the fee.

What bothers me far more – so I’m very strict about it –  is the relationship between me as a critic with the producer of the show and its PR machine.

It is standard to be given one or two tickets, a programme and often a drink. Accepting that is part of the deal and no one should ever feel under any obligation to review favourably because of it.

The producer, directly or indirectly, invites critics and has to take on the chin what they write.

So I get very cross indeed if they carp afterwards. I have, almost unbelievably, several times been approached and asked if I will change negative or condemnatory opinions. Well of course, I won’t.

If I’ve misspelled a name or something then that’s fair enough, let’s correct it. Otherwise I stand by what I wrote. Always.

And sometimes I’m asked, by producers, to attend shows in very inconvenient places or at difficult times. So I explain that although I have publications which would probably take a review I cannot justify the time and expense.

Occasionally that has triggered an offer of a rail fare, accommodation or both. Well no, I’m not going there. I will review only if I’m totally at liberty to be completely disinterested and impartial.

If I’d accepted further freebies from the company I’d feel awkward if its show forced me to write a hatchet job.

I am A Professional. And I’ve capitalised it deliberately. So are many other reviewers who aren’t necessarily always paid a derisory fee.

 

 

Last week was pretty high profile. Barbara Windsor’s husband Scott Mitchell announced that his wife has Alzheimer’s. That immediately led to a lot of very useful discussion about the wisdom of “going public.” It became quite a news story although the press seems to have completely forgotten that  actor Timothy West did exactly the same thing several years ago when he told the world that his wife Prunella Scales has the dreaded disease too.

In response to the Barbara Windsor news, the Daily Telegraph (for which I have been a contributor on and off for 25 years) asked me to write a piece detailing our own experience about being up front about living with Ms Alzheimer’s. It was published on Friday. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/husbands-alzheimers-diagnosis-has-agony-wont-let-become-dirty/

Then, on the back of that, I was invited to go on LBC radio’s Andrew Pierce’s show on Friday night to discuss the same topic further. All in a day’s work for  a journalist  and I’ve chatted about all sorts of topics on radio (and occasionally television) over the years but it feels a bit odd when the subject matter is something at the very heart of your own life. By bedtime, I certainly felt that I’d done my bit for Alzheimer’s awareness.

While I was talking live to Andrew Pierce on the landline in my office upstairs, MLO was downstairs listening to it on the radio. I’d carefully tuned it in for him before going up to take the call. When it was finished, he came up to my office, eyes shining approvingly, and said “How about that then? I never thought I’d be talked about on the radio! You did well”

I believe passionately that problems are best confronted head on and with honesty. And it’s something MLO and I agree about completely.  If there’s an elephant in the room then it makes sense to say “Hello Nellie. How are we going to deal with you? Would you like a bun?” Pretending she’s not there will not get rid of her. You’ll just be on your own with a roomful of elephant dung. Similarly, you have to say to other people “We have an elephant to contend with” rather than letting them notice and wonder while politely pretending not to.

Frankness means that you can have proper conversations with other people. They will respond in the same way – almost always with sympathy and kindness – once you’ve said matter-of-factly “My husband has Alzheimer’s” It confers permission on other people to be open. And that applies whether it’s a till operator at the supermarket, the dentist, the window cleaner or anyone else, And it’s an illness. You don’t have to apologise for it.

Of course I informed close, and then wider family and friends, very soon after diagnosis. Like Barbara Windsor, My Loved One, finds this a relief. “If people know about my problems then they make allowances for me which makes life much easier” he says, not always managing to articulate the end of the sentence but I know what he’s trying to say.

Increasingly, though, I have to report, that they know about his problems whether we say it overtly or not. The shuffling, shambling gait is a giveaway. So is the blank stare.  .

And sometimes it’s surreal. When we arrived at a concert in a local church at the weekend MLO solemnly asked the usher “Are these seats preserved?” which still makes me giggle several days later. Aspic? Vinegar? Formaldehyde? It’s the same Latin root as “reserved” (MLO was taught Latin by the redoubtable Mr Rayburn at Alleyns school)  and only one letter away, I suppose. Even Ms A occasionally finds her sense of humour.

Barbara Windsor is – very happily it seems –  married to a man who is 25 years her junior. She is 80 and Scott is 55. They’ve been married 18 years having first met in 1992 when he was only 28. Under the circumstances that’s a huge advantage because he can take care of her, ensure she has what she needs, make the decisions without having to worry about his own health and demise.

When – as we are – a couple are close in age it’s a real worry that illness will catch up with the carer before the caring job is complete. Keep eating your broccoli and taking long walks, Susan.

 

 

 

 

Alexandra Dariescu (piano)
Lindsey Russell (narrator)
Jessica Duchen (story)
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD542

It’s an attractive package – a slim CD-sized book, perfect for small hands, with a slot for the CD inside the front cover. The idea of a narrated account of the Nutcracker story with piano transcriptions of the music is interesting too.

The young reader can follow the story in the attractively illustrated (by whom?)  book as she – or let’s hope he – listens to the CD. My children used to love following stories as they were narrated and I think it helped them with reading skills. I shall happily pass this CD and book on to my seven year old granddaughter, who already loves ballet, when I’ve finished with it.

Dariescu plays the transcriptions (by various people) beautifully and some of them require terrific technical skill with contrary rhythms across the keyboard. She also ensures that we hear a lot of colourful left hand work – melodic lines which are often lost in the orchestral texture. The musical interludes are quite long too so that it’s free to be narratively expressive and it feels respectful rather than in any way dumbed down.

Duchen’s story presents Clara as an ambitious child pianist who goes on an adventure with her Nutcracker-turned-Prince. He shows her that she can, with work and determination, be a virtuoso. He teaches her to believe in herself by taking her through doors to exotic countries to hear music and watch dance. Drosselmeyer has gone. The mice are more realistically saurine than the baddies they’re usually portrayed as.  It’s ingenious and attractive with some really pleasing lyrical prose such as flying to the Land of Sweets “on the wings of the music” and admiring the “ornate turquoise tiling and filigree metalwork”. It’s also compelling, uplifting and affirmative – just what children need. Lindsey Russell gets the right  story telling tone too. She sounds slightly breathy, childlike and enthusiastic.

The CD is presented in 14 bands to represent the scenes – pretty much as they occur in the original although of course it’s heavily abridged. It means that you can select just one section if you wish which could be useful for parents and teachers seeking to introduce The Nutcracker by drip feed.This CD and book are a quasi preview of the stage show which Dariecu (also the artistic director and producer for this project) is touring this year. I shall be seeing and reviewing it for Lark Reviews in October.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=6