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Let’s all learn BSL – especially drama students

OliverWatermans

I am fascinated by signing. When I watch BSL in action I love the balletic fluidity of it. I find it arrestingly theatrical too.

Imagine my excitement, then, at seeing not one, but two, shows last week in which signing played an integral role. First there was My First Ballet: Cinderella presented by English National Ballet and English National Ballet School. I caught it at Orchard Theatre, Dartford but the production is touring quite widely.

Now ballet, of course, is itself a sign language of sorts. Every movement connotes something specific. Real ballet buffs understand every nuance of the choreographic narrative. But this Cinderella is meant for children as young as three so accessibility is its main thrust. As well as having an on stage verbal narrator in the form of actor Sarah Goddard, BSL vocabulary is tucked into the movement where possible. It segues so well into the language of ballet that you hardly notice it happening but it’s jolly effective. Rarely have I seen a story danced with such clarity.

Then came Krazy Kats Theatre Company with Oliver in the Overworld. I saw it at Watermans in Brentford – the start of a substantial tour. Well, it can’t be easy to sign as you sing (or sing as you sign?) but that’s what the accomplished three hander (plus musician) cast led by brilliant mime specialist Kinny Gardner do in this imaginatively fresh show about a clock which goes in search of its memory.  Again, it’s meant for very young children so the signing supports meaning and story telling even when hearing impairment is not an issue. It’s integral to the action and grafted in so neatly that someone, somewhere on stage keeps the signed narrative flowing seamlessly. The end product is utterly delightful.

Signing should be part of everyday life. Not only is it beautiful to “listen” to but it invites in audience members of all ages who might otherwise be excluded. But it needs to be more widely known and used.

BSL is clearly being taught on some vocational performing arts courses at least in a small way. It should, surely, be available at least as on option on every course? I realise there probably wouldn’t be time to take it to the highest level but I’m pretty sure that in three years you could programme in enough to get the rudiments taught and to encourage students to take it further in their own time. At the very least some awareness raising is certainly called for because, if you’re an actor or performer, this is a skill which could get you a job. But I don’t ever remember seeing it on a graduating student’s showcase CV and I’ve read thousands of those in my time.

cinderella

As for the rest of us well perhaps we should all make the effort to learn some signing too. I understand that some nursery classes teach a bit of it. What a good idea. I do hope it catches on. Then trainee performers would at least have a base to build on.

Established pub names are worth fighting for. In fact there should be some sort of preservation order on them. We have to stop self-styled trendy landlords from throwing away time honoured declarations of local history and, sometimes, centuries of tradition

The Jolly Caulkers in Rotherhithe, for example, was close to the docks. Caulkers were the chaps who resealed joints on boats –  it’s all there in the name. The Travellers’ Rest at Hollingbourne in Kent is on the Pilgrim’s Way and it – or buildings on the same site which preceded it – has done what it said on the sign since Chaucer’s time. It should never have been renamed The Dirty Habit.

Sometimes sense prevails. The Black Horse and Harrow in Catford  had a long stint with a silly modern name despite the “proper” name being engraved in the Victorian coping above. It is now, praise be, back to being called The Black Horse and Harrow and we can all happily recall that when my grandfather was a London child in the 1890s, Catford was a rural place visied by poor East End children on Sunday School Trips.  The Hoops in Great Eversden, Cambridgeshire dates from at least the 1830s, presumably, named for local barrel makers. Today it is The Hoops Tandoori restaurant and three cheers for the enlightened person who decided to retain the old name.

At some point in the last twenty years, someone in the department of transport  quietly decided that every roundabout and major junction should have an official name, often confirming the one already in use by the locals. Good idea and quite often – unintended consequences – that helps to preserve an old pub name. The A249/A2 junction at Sittingbourne in Kent is called Key Street after a long demolished pub. The big intersection on Bromley Common is called The Fantail although the eponymous hostelry has long since been called something else.

Pub names offer all sorts of quirky insights into history and we should not be casually throwing them away in the interests of minimalist modernisation. Yes, pubs are closing rapidly because the need for, and popularity of,  the traditional pub has dramatically declined but we shouldn’t let the names slide away too. The Green Man at Bellingham in South London has gone but there’s a community centre on the site. It’s named the Green Man Community Hub and they have the old pub sign outside the café. Even the bus stop has Green Man in its name. It’s a good example of what should happen but usually doesn’t.

And there is no excuse whatever for changing the historic old Railway Tavern into The Tart’s Knickers or renaming The Carpenters’ Arms  Fred’s Fries.  OK, I made those up but you get my drift and it’s happening all over the country all the time.

 

 

 

This spin off from the popular CBeebies show Sarah and Duck walks a fine line between being appropriately gentle and just plain dull.

Sarah and her aquatic friend – life-size two-hander puppets alternating with tiny stick puppets on Laura McEwen’s colourful set – want to stage a circus birthday party for their friend the Scarf Lady (played by an actor inside a much larger puppet). So they spend the first half rehearsing it and the second half performing it for her. The structure is hardly original and there’s a lot of clumsy fumbling by the four performers ….

Read the rest of this review at https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2017/sarah-ducks-big-top-birthday-review-polka-theatre-london/

Integrated signing ensures that every child present understands every word and nuance of Oliver in the Overworld.

Krazy Kat’s show takes the form of an imaginative and original quest story. The narrative is passed fluidly among the characters as is the puppet Freddie, the character at the centre of the piece ….

Read the rest of this review at: https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2017/oliver-overworld-review-watermans-london/

King’s Head Theatre

This frisky, oddly old-fashioned show (music by Wayne Moore; book and lyrics by Chandler Warren), did very well at Edinburgh last year and it’s easy to see why.

A five-hander with jolly songs ( it wittily explores gay experience through the template of the Adam and Eve story. The jokes are hilariously disrespectful of history and chronology. There’s even a half-hearted Donald Trump joke …

Read the rest of this review at http://musicaltheatrereview.com/adam-eve-and-steve-kings-head-theatre/

Upstairs at The Gatehouse.

The real joy of 1960s music – and the secret of its lasting popularity – is that the melody almost always sits at the top of the texture, unlike so much of the bass-driven stuff which has come since. The lyrics were clearly articulated too. Add to the mix those wonderful full circle skirts supported by layers of stiff gauzy petticoats and you’ve created a crowd-pleaser, if nothing else.

Neil Sedaka was an astonishingly prolific songwriter in the early 60s and this vehicle for his music provides plenty of those early songs, along with some later numbers. And the presence of a fine four-piece band (led by MD Oliver Hance on keyboards) ensures that every one of them comes off with chirpy panache ….

Read the rest of this review at: http://musicaltheatrereview.com/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-upstairs-at-the-gatehouse/

cinderella

This miniature production presents Prokofiev’s ballet in an hour long version intended for children of three and over. The story is told in pictograms in the programme, ballet movements are reinforced with borrowings from British Sign Language and there’s a narrator to translate verbally. You couldn’t do more to make the story clearer to children of all abilities and levels – including those with special needs.

This is the fifth such show English National Ballet School – with choreography by 2010 alumnus, George Williamson – has mounted in collaboration with English National Ballet since 2012. It works at several levels. The production provides invaluable on-the-road and on-the-boards experience for second year ENBS students.  At the same time it has all the advantages of ENB’s production values including its costumes and sets – stunning outfits in muted dark blue for the eight-strong corps de ballet at the ball, for example. It’s a pity about the pre-recorded music (Moscow Film and TV Symphony Orchestra) which inevitably leads to occasional choreographic imprecision but it’s hard to see how they could get this show affordably on the road in any other way.

Sarah Goddard narrates the story as an older Cinderella, dressed as a princess recalling her past. She uses a rather odd (faintly irritating) lispy voice although there’s a warmly wistful smile in it too. The words are well paced against the music although, inclusivity issues apart, the show would work perfectly well without commentary as its original creators intended.

Each episode is very short and even the youngest most fidgety audience (and the one I was part of was actually very quiet and engaged) doesn’t need a 15 minute interval after only 25 minutes. High spots include two entertaining duets by Cinderella’s step sisters dancing “badly” in heavy 3/4 with the Prince and a lovely dance full of youthful energy and good leaps by the Prince’s four (male) friends. The final love pas-de-deux is very pleasing too.

It’s the graphic colour and beauty of Prokofiev’s evocative score which really carries the show, though. It may be less well known than his Romeo and Juliet but it is every bit as fine. The production is on tour until 27 May.

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

Local Amateur Musical Players (LAMPS)

EM Forster Theatre, Tonbridge School

It is 90 years since the Tonbridge Local Amateur Musical Players (LAMPS) mounted its first production and, almost incredibly, there was a venerable lady in the audience with me who was involved, as a young child, in the very first show. So the 2017 celebratory production of The Mikado, directed by Helen Thorpe, is quite something – both enjoyably traditional and glitteringly fresh. It isn’t often you hear a completely written Little list AND a modernised Mikado’s song – all good fun except that in places the diction could have been clearer to make these numbers even more effective. And I loved the car names in the song which WS Gilbert originally wrote in cod-Japanese,

The EM Forster Theatre – because it’s designed as a training theatre for the students of Tonbridge School – has a large playing space which allows choreographer Adele Ebbage plenty of scope for some imaginatively staged sequences. When you have, as most non professional societies do, far more women in the ensemble than men it’s a good idea to hive off five of the younger ones and used them as dancers while the others sing, grouped in other ways. It looks good and it ensures that everyone has plenty to do. Re-inventing the opening number as “we are citizens of Japan” (as opposed to WS GIlbert’s original “gentlemen” is an inspired 21st Century solution too.

The seven-piece band – traditional with strings – plays beautifully from the side of the auditorium under Mark Mortimer. Small numbers of string players can sound very thin and strained but not on this occasion – the mix was rich and vibrant. There were often problems with getting band and chorus (and even sometimes soloists) absolutely together, however. Mortimer is an energetic conductor but, head usually down. he doesn’t make enough eye contact with his singers. They can see a monitor screen for the beat but they need much more than that. Having said that, the madgridal in the second act was sung as perfectly as I’ve ever heard it.

And so to the cast. Leila Di Domenico as Katisha is in a league of her own. She sings (almost growls) those deliciously threatening bottom notes in a powerful, old fashioned contralto in the style 0f Kathleen Ferrier or Janet Baker. She looks fabulous with cat-like tribal markings on her face, a dramatic frizzy wig, long finger nails and lots of glittery jewellery. And she acts with every fibre of her body – eyes, tongue, feet and even at one point her extra long fifth finger nail. Her crumbling into sentimental submission during Koko’s (James Klech) Tit Willow is masterly. It’s a bravura performance.

Klech is an enjoyable chubby, estuary speaking, bespectacled Koko. Barry Shyvers makes Nanki-Poo much more interesting than he usually is with some witty acting and an attractive tenor voice. Eleanor Bell’s Yum-Yum is another fine and amusing performance with masses of “girlish glee” and a glass-breaking soprano voice. Peter Emmanuel as Pooh Bah, looking suitably grandiloquent, usually makes a good fist of rolling WS Gilbert’s pompous words round his mouth and this show adds a few new ones. His bass singing voice is resonant too but I could have done without his introduction (when I would rather have listened to the orchestra playing Arthur Sullivan’s lovely overture which was playing beneath him) and sometimes, at the performance I saw, he appeared to lose his way in his words.

It’s a strong, original take on an old chestnut which gets a well-judged balance between the way everyone expects it to be done and staging a good piece of musical theatre for 2017 with plenty of surprises.

First published by Sardines http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Local%20Amateur%20Musical%20Players%20(%20LAMPS%20)-The%20Mikado&reviewsID=2817