Belly of the Beast (Susan Elkin reviews)

Belly of the Beast

By Saana Sze

Finborough Theatre

Star rating 3.5

Schools are political organisations. And we are almost all have experience of them as pupils or parents. Many of us, moreover, have worked in them as teachers or in another capacity. But what, exactly, are schools for?   Saana Sze’s play, set in a school in the East End in the present time, takes us to very familiar territory.

A richly written two hander, Belly of the Beast presents Martha, who has a troubled education history of her own, now enrolling as a trainee teacher. Sam Rampoe-Parry plays the teenage Martha, mostly at one end of the traverse space, and Shiloh Coke plays her at 30 something, mostly at the opposite end of the playing area. Their alternating speeches are aimed knowingly past each other until eventually they meet face to face as one merges into the other.

The issues come thick and fast. Martha arrives at the school on her first day, with another trainee to find that the Head of English isn’t expecting them – oh yes, a situation I can identify with. Communication within schools has never been foolproof. YoungMartha, meanwhile, is in trouble at school, and trying to deal with an evangelical mother who knows Martha’s head teacher through church. And it’s so easy, and such fun, to go on Facebook and access personal information about your teachers.

We also share NowMartha’s early attempts to teach Macbeth to Year 9, and as a former teacher, I can feel (shudderingly!) the pupil sneering, mistrust and insolence as they test her out – nicely done.  Both actors tell stories by acting the voices and stances of the people they have conversations with and they’re good at it although when Rampoe-Parry gets really intense and talks very fast there is a tendency  to stumble over the script.

The real issue at the heart of this play, though, is transgenderism. Martha is non-binary and just beginning to think about and come to terms with that in her YoungMartha incarnation, when it isn’t making her life any easier. In adult life she is married to Claire – “white and straight-passing” who gives her plenty of advice and support. How much should she tell the school authorities? She doesn’t want to be addressed as either Miss or Sir but eventually, reluctantly settles for Miss and keeps quiet. For school she symbolically removes her breast binder – incidentally, trying to fasten such a fiddly garment under your vest in front of an audience must be pretty stressful but she manages it after a tense few moments.

Then there’s an incident. A student named Q has recognised what Martha is and sent her a coming out email. Of course Martha, assisted by her mentor, tries to be supportive. Then the you-know-what hits the fan. The Head tells her “We don’t have any of that nonsense here”. The mentor loses her job and Martha’s position is on the line.

I have rarely seen a play which provided quite so much food for thought relating to an environment I know so well. I’m just sorry that there were only ten people in the audience at the performance I saw. It deserves better than that.

Fresh Mountain Air

Michael Eichler

Directed by Penny Gkritzapi

Drayton Arms Theatre

Star rating: 3

This tight little thriller should never have been interrupted by a tension-damaging interval, just 35 minutes in. If the intention was to enable the pub to sell more drinks then it really doesn’t work because most people simply stayed put at the performance I saw.

Three middle class, well educated American women, who don’t know each other, arrive at a well equipped and comfortable hiking lodge somewhere in the remote forests of Washington State.  Kayla is from California, Leslie is from Colorado and Alyssa from Texas so their backgrounds are very different. They are teamed to hike together for the next three days while the landlady provides meals. There is no wifi and they’re 20 miles from the nearest town.

Then the landlady unaccountably disappears as do the three hire cars in which they’ve driven themselves there from the airport in Seattle –  and they realise there’s a lot more to worry about than possible encounters with bears. Suddenly we’re in the realms of tension and mystery with some pretty alarming news on the old fashioned transistor radio, the only link with the outside world because someone has cut the landline cable. It’s quite a treat to watch an edge-of-the piece like this when you have no idea where it’s going.

Olivia Cordell is outstanding as Leslie, the brittle clever cynic. She prowls round the set not tolerating the shortcomings of the other two (except when she’s terrified) and is richly convincing.  Julianna Galassi’s character Alyssa, a hiking first-timer, is a gentler soul who suffers from xylophobia (fear of woods) but, since she has grown up in Houston, is the only one who has ever seen a gun. Galassi finds all Alyssa’s nuances, terrors and inner turmoil amd makes sure we share them. Kayla (Julia Thurston) is a brasher character who speaks very loudly and feels a bit false which may, of course, be a deliberate directorial decision to contrast Kayla with the other two.

Michael Eichler’s dialogue pounds along naturalistically, especially when the chips are down and two characters do an outrageous volte-face.   And director Penny Gkritzapi makes imaginative use of every inch of the roomy playing space and set. This enjoyable 70 minute piece is pretty well paced too – or it would be if we didn’t have that glaringly unnecessary break.

The Pirates of Penzance

WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

Directed by Donna Stirrup

Conducted by Martin Handley

Pirates (Penzance) Ltd in association with Tarantara Productions Ltd

Chichester Festival Theatre

Star rating 4

It’s a real pleasure to see a G&S production in which both the director and the conductor trust the material and allow it to shine in its own way. Stirrup has moved the scene forward 40 years so that we’ve in 1919 which adds some nuances. Otherwise this is a delightfully “faithful” take on Pirates, a very old friend to me and, I’m sure, to many of the Chichester audience. Yes there were many walking sticks and silver heads but there were also quite a few children in the audience at the performance I saw. As someone who was taken to her first G&S show at age 5 and fell in love with it for life, there and then, I’m always thrilled to see children embarking, I hope, on the same journey.

The first pleasure is the orchestra.  Seated on a raised platform behind the action on CFT’s thrust stage, under conductor Martin Handley, they play Sullivan’s tuneful score beautifully. The sound is always well balanced with the singing, possibly because the musicians are upstage rather than in a pit.  Many directors these days feel obliged to bolt fussy, unecessary action on to the overture but Donna Stirrup allows us to listen – really listen –  to it  in the stillness it deserves. I liked Handley’s nippy tempos too. And it’s a splendid idea to bring every player to the front at curtain call. I’d like to see more of that wherever it’s possible.

The only visual extra during the overture is an enigmatic figure sat in the shadows contemplatively smoking. This was Sioned Taylor as Ruth who, once emerged and involved in the action, sings with rich warmth and looks like Helena Bonham-Carter playing Queen Mary – wonderful feathered hat in the second act. It is one of Laura Jane Stanfield’s many delightful costumes.

This production is staged on a raked dais in the middle of the space. It’s made of planks and surrounded by posts so that it works both as a ship and as the beach with breakwaters or the ruined abbey in the second act. Because it’s half a metre or so off the ground, characters can leap or crawl on and off it and it provides a hiding place for various people at times when the action needs it. It’s simple but ingenious. The set is also by Stanfield.

A small chorus – just two or three to each part – means that every note, harmony and word are clear and  there’s some very convincing action. The pirates (presumably World War One leftovers and misfits) are a motley crew of individuals with Jonathan Eyers as a magnificent pirate king, very tall and looking like the mafia in brown suit, dark glasses and trilby hat.

The women are, for once, plausible as the Major General’s daughters because with Mabel (Ellie Laughharne – excellent) there are only six of them – in their gingham frocks and cardies, keen to get their stockings off and paddle.

In a production full of strengths, Guy Elliot, with his fine tenor voice, brings Frederic to life and Benjamin Bevan runs to good effect with that gift of a part: the Sergeant of Police.

Barry Clark is very funny at the Major General but a few of the words in his famous big number “I am a very model …”were lost from Row F – and bear in mind I already know every word. It would be better, perhaps, if he and Handley were to negotiate a very slightly slower tempo.

This production is touring to Eastbourne (15-18 January) and Cheltenham (28 January to 01 February).

Sancho and Me

Written and Performed by Paterson Joseph

Music by Ben Park, associate director

Co-directed by designer, Michael Vale

Chichester Festival Theatre

 Star rating: 3.5

This enjoyable, educative and often witty show is an unusual blend. It weaves Paterson Joseph’s own North London background as the fifth child of Caribbean immigrants with the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho. He was an unusual eighteenth century former slave who became a musician, author, householder and British voter – rubbing shoulders with the likes of Samuel Johnson,  Hogarth and Handel on the way as well as meeting George II.

We start with Joseph in a casual T shirt and trousers addressing the audience as himself and referring to Sancho, alongside musician Ben Park who provides almost continuous music, some live (electric double bass and more) and some recorded and cued to accompany Joseph’s words. In the second half Joseph is dressed as Sancho in a pretty accurate representation of the clothes worn in the Gainsborough portrait, a copy of which is displayed on stage. As Sancho, he refers to “Mr Joseph” and the things he has discovered, including the 2022 novel The Secret Diaires of Charles Ignatius Sancho, which is – of course – on sale in the foyer. It’s quite a conceit to pull off but Joseph has all the charisma needed to carry the audience with him. After all, his status is such that he gets a round of applause simply for arriving on stage as the beginning so there’s plenty of warmth in the room.

One of the most accomplished actors of his generation, Joseph demonstrates some fine voice work in this show from his own father’s heavily accented St Lucian accent to the strange hybrid voice of Anne Osborne, whom Sancho adores and marries, and the rather clipped RP of Sancho himself. He also talks with his body and eyes to such an extent that he changes almost beyond recognition as he shape-shifts from role to role. Moreover, self-deprecating as he is about his musicianship, he’s a passable singer and ukulele player and his high-speed turn on the hand-held drum is quite a show stopper.

After the interval Joseph invites questions from the audience to him as Sancho which requires a certain amount of adept ad-libbing but mostly he deftly turns the questions to relate to his prepared script. It works reasonably well and creates a sense of immediacy as he walks up the Minerva’s aisles to address individuals.

I read Joseph’s novel when it was first published and interviewed him last year in connection with it, so I was keen to see this show which has already toured extensively.  So I was familiar with this extraordinary story of boy born and orphaned on a slave ship, taken in by three spinster sisters in Greenwich and then befriended and sponsored by John Montague who had all the connections needed to launch Sancho into society, but this show presents it in a new light.

As himself, Joseph stresses that black people have always been there –  obviously. And they weren’t all slaves and servants although, until recently, that’s how they tended to appear in the theatre and in public imagination.  He didn’t discover Sancho until he was in his 30s when he started reading extensively. He uses a pile of books on stage to stress this. Thus, this pleasing show gently helps to promote black history and raise awareness in a predominantly white audience, although it wears its political agenda very lightly.

The Mirror Crack’d

Agatha Christie, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff

Directed by Dan Usztan

Tower Theatre Stoke Newington

Star rating: 4

This sparky adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s best novels is ideal for Tower Theatre’s spacious triangular stage. It allows characters to sit downstage, stationary and listening while scenes are “recounted” – acted out – behind them, sometimes several times in different versions as the story unfolds.

A local woman dies at a drinks party, given by Hollywood film star, Marina Gregg (Lucy Moss), who has recently bought the local manor house and is filming nearby. It soon transpires that she has been poisoned and Chief Inspector Craddock (Sebastian Chrispin) arrives to investigate. At the same time he visits his quasi-aunt, Miss Jane Marple (Alison Liney), who is laid up with a sprained ankle. No prizes for guessing who eventually solves the mystery.

It’s quite a challenge for an actor to make Miss Marple convincing and loveable because we are so used to iconic TV adaptations and several very famous faces. Alison Liney more than nails it. She is gentle, feisty and mentally indefatigable – every inch the sharpest of brains pretending, when it suits her, to be a mildly batty tea-obsessed old lady with a twinkle in her eye. It’s moving at times too because Liney finds real depth and warmth when, for example, Miss Marple discusses childlessness with Moss’s troubled Marina Gregg.

There’s admirable work from Chrispin too. His lanky, raincoated, bespectacled Craddock is trying hard to do a professional job and really could do without interjections from his elderly “aunt” –  except that he can’t because her intuition and observation are more effective than his formal procedures. Chrispin and Liney work well together with a lot of active listening and naturalistic conversation.

There’s a competent support cast of nine, some of whom double in minor roles in the party and film-set scenes. Sangita Modgil, for instance, is fun as the absurdly snobbish Dolly Bantry and Paul Isaacs good as the dead woman’s husband who tries so hard to be heard.

Haidee Elise’s costumes are a 1950s delight. The tangerine suit and hat worn by Lauren Budd as Lola Brewster and Miss Marple’s elegant blouse with brooch at the neck are richly evocative of the period.

You have to hand it to Agatha. She still brings in the punters. The Tower Theatre was fuller for this show than I’ve seen it in a long time and I was pleased for everyone involved in this enjoyable show.