Hyland shuffles painfully in, grunting, sighing, groaning and panting. He is master both of evocative sounds and mime. He looks terrifying in dusty grey make-up ( designed by Nicki Martin-Harper) with red eyes and mouth cutting menacingly through it.  Eventually he manages to shed his chains and tells us how he has came back from the dead to shake up his former business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge.

The story which follows is, inevitably, pared down and some of the detail cut  because this show runs just 75 minutes. Hyland jumps (often literally) from one role to another and his voice work is splendid. He uses fortissimo partrician for Marley but gives us a whole range of others for the Cratchets, Scrooge’s nephew, the people in the pub and so on. His female voices are particularly effective.

I have seen this show before: it’s one of several interesting, worthwhile one-man shows which Hyland does through his company, Brother Wolf. Last time, however, it was on a conventional stage so that there was definite fourth wall. It works especially well in the intimacy of the White Bear theatre with seating on two sides and no member of the audience more than a few feet away. It means he can pretend that we’re all guests at Mr Fezziwig’s party and that he is sometimes speaking direct to someone on the front row.

It’s an intensely compelling performance.

Photo: Johan Persson

It’s a story everyone knows so a new version has to present it with some fresh topical spin which is what Bhattacharyya’s script tries to do. We’re in a world where inclusion matters a lot  – and every animal matters – when Mowgli turns up. She’s played by Sarada Pillai and Thaaniya Nandakumar who alternate. I saw Sarada and she’s delightful – feisty but sensitive with lots of stage confidence.

As we work though the plot there are many big ensemble all-singing all-dancing numbers in which the young cast does pretty well.  Sadly, though, Ruth Chan’s music is generally unmemorable and sometimes samey except for an invigorating, energetic disco-type party held for Mowgli by the monkeys when the whole thing lifts off. It’s well played, however, by Collin Billings and his six piece out-of-sight band.

Everyone on stage is a specific, named animal and the costumes  designed by Ryan Dawson Laight are splendid. The loris has plastic glasses as big as tea plates, the mosquitoes have wings on their heads, the wolves have grey fur on their heads and shoulders and the buffalo have wonderful limbering horns. And all this is reflected in the nicely sustained movement work.

Although I don’t think this is the best Christmas show CFT youth theatre has presented in recent years, there were two unforgettable moments. First there’s Kaa, the snake, played with verve and talent by Spencer Dixon in the most glittery, sparkly costume I’ve ever seen. He writhes and purrs and it’s great fun. Second there’s a mini double act from a pair of porcupines (fabulous spiky outfits) with one making knowing post-modern comments on the other’s thoughts and it’s very funny.

A huge amount of work has gone into this show and, as ever, I find it moving and exciting to see young people achieving things. For example Jacob Isaacs, who looks very young, won a well deserved round of applause as the boy from village running away in panic from the village and screaming unflaggingly all the way up through the audience. And, at the other end of the age range, Freddie Lyons (who alterrnates with Luke Mechergui) as Shere Khan gets a good level of gravelly menace although in these days of tiger conservation, of course he doesn’t die at the end.

Another pleasing thing about a CFT Youth Theatre show is the inclusion of members of CFT Technical Youth Theatre and technical students from Chichester College as junior assistant stage managers, prop makes, costume assistants, wig, hair & make-up assistants, follow-spot operators and radio mic runners.

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  All photos: Johan Persson

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• First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/the-jungle-book-3/

This pantomime has some good features. Davood Ghadami has terrific stage presence and a splendid voice, although when he sings it’s mostly “singspiel”. The eight year old sitting behind me told me he thought “the baddie” was the best thing in the show and I agree with him – one of the best Abanazers I’ve seen for several years. And his pretend out-of-role asides are delicious.

Also strong – and that’s unusual in this relatively minor role – is Mark Peachey as the querulous, money-grabbing emperor. And any one that can do three back flips from standing still as rubber bodied Ross Dorrington does repeatedly as the Genie of the Lamp gets a big round of admiring applause from me.

The rest of the cast are competent but generally unremarkable. And why does the otherwise reasonably entertaining Charlie Guest as Wishee Washee have to pace/trot backwards and forwards across the stage almost the entire time he’s on it like a stressed lion in a cage? It gets very irritating after a while.

The curved, side thrust extensions to the stage, which make it C- shaped and create a sort of discrete band area for the three musicians led by Tom Knowles, are imaginatively used. Set design is by Jon Harris, Jason Bishop and Ian Wilson. Most of the backdrops and other flats and props are colourfully traditional and fit for purpose.

There are problems, though with Jon Monie’s script. Panto is always billed as being for the whole family. This one is far too wordy for the youngest children. The ones sitting near me were so restive, noisy and bored  that I missed some of the punchlines – although it has to be said that the timing of the jokes is often weak so that those punchlines are allowed to fall flat anyway. Many of the jokes are way over the heads of most children and some didn’t get a laugh at all although there was a loud adult chortle at a line about Prince Harry’s parentage. Moreover there are far too many gratuitous sex jokes which barely raise a titter from anyone and bypass the children altogether.

It’s always good to see something new in a panto, though and the scene in which Richard J Hunt as Widow Twankee and Charlie Guest pretend to be ballet dancers and perform a tortured scene with a balloon is fun. Otherwise we get a very boring slosh scene, hardly worthy of the name and a ghost scene which works adequately enough if you haven’t seen it 500 times before.

First published by Sardines:https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/aladdin-20/

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  Photos: Jack Dryden

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This is one of those rare shows which fully sold out for its entire run even before press night so it was very much a case of, to quote a different play, “Now sits expectation in the air”.  Well, I’ve seen plenty of A-list Macbeths over the years including Derek Jacobi, Roger Allam, Antony Sher and Jonathan Pryce along with dozens of less famous ones but David Tennant blew my socks off. He has an exceptional talent for making every word of Shakespeare’s text sound naturalistic and inclusively modern. I’ve noticed this before but never so much as in this startling, original production.

It will be remembered as “the one with the headphones”. Every seat has a pair with a clear channel to each ear and audience members are told that they won’t be able to hear the show without them. The effect is astonishing. The sound design (Gareth Fry) provides murmurs, cackles, and sinister breathing when the witches are about. There’s a raven which screeches from right to left so convincingly it’s hard not to duck. And it means that the cast doesn’t have to project vocally. You can have real whispers and muttering as well as soliloquies which really sound like thoughts. Tennant’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” was the most moving I’ve ever heard because it was conversational.  And the sound effects at the murder of Lady Macduff are almost unbearable. I suspect this might catch on  – and it provided a good opening line for the Glaswegian Porter (Jatinder Singh Randhawa – very funny)

For decades I’ve argued that Macbeth doesn’t need physical witches. They are figments of Macbeth’s disturbed mind and post- traumatic stress after the war (a point well made by hand washing at the beginning). And that’s what Max Webster has done here. There is some swarmingly evocative ensemble work in the second Witches scene but they aren’t really present in the traditional sense. And it works perfectly.

Cush Jumbo is both chilling and vulnerable as Lady Macbeth and the chemistry she and Tennant create together is wonderfully rich so the tragedy of that breaking down is desperately painful. Her sleepwalking presents a pitiful figure whose mind has completely blown and I liked the idea of substituting her for Ross before the Macduff murders to create a sense of female solidarity, helpless as it is.

There’s a strong performance from Noof Ousellam as Macduff. When he hears of the killings at Fife his reaction is electrifying although changing “dam” to hen” in “all my pretty chickens and their dam” sounds peculiar. And Casper Knopf did a fine job on press night (he alternates with Raffi Phillips)  as Fleance, the McDuff boy and Young Siward. The whole audience winces when Tennant despatches him in the latter role.

All this is set (designed by Rosanna Vize) on a big shiny white platform which becomes a table and looks hideously dramatic when blood-stained. Cast members sometimes walk round it at ground level too. Behind it is a mirrored glass screen with doors through which, at various points, we can see the ensemble  and the actor musos who provide atmospheric Scottish music (composed by MD Alasdair Macrae).

Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest play and if you cut the English scene pretty substantially, as here, you can bring it in at under two hours without interval. I’ve seen it done like this before and it certainly makes sense artistically. It means that the tension never flags even it costs the venue some income in the form of interval sales.

This could be a “marmite” production. Some people probably won’t like certain aspects of it but it stands for me as one of the most powerful and interesting takes on the play I’ve ever seen – and I am a bit of a Macbeth veteran. You might get a return, if you’re very lucky.  Worth a try.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/macbeth-23/

Photo: Davor Tovarlaza

Luke Adamson’s new play is a homage to pantomime. Funny in a bitter-sweet way, it’s partly celebratory but there’s also anguish – tragedy even – behind the scenes.

We’re in the dressing room of two men who are playing the ugly sisters in Cinderella and the rolling aside of a clothes rail (set design by Karl Swinyard) takes us neatly onto the panto stage, several times, so that we become the audience at this show within a show.

Mr Chancery (Matthew Parker)  is clearly better at the job and has other work to go on to after the panto run.  Mr Worth (Bryan Pilkington) is staler, corpses during the show and knows that his career is falling apart. These two men have evidently worked together many times before and there are ancient grudges which still rankle so they bicker.

Parker’s portrayal of Mr Chancery is of a man who knows his craft and can think logically about pantomime issues. His comic timing in the dressing room and his all-telling facial expressions are part of a fine performance. As Mr Worth, Pilkington gives us a sad, angry man who know that he is, almost literally, losing the plot but can do nothing to prevent the slide. The two men play off each other beautifully, especially in the final scene when their characters get out of their costumes (costume changes accompany much of the earlier dialogue) at the end of the show’s run and stop posturing. “You’re more likely to get cast if you’ve been on Love Island than if you’re been to bloody drama school” snarls Mr Worth. Adamson admits that much of this play is rooted in his own experience (like Mr Worth, he did his first panto at age 9) and I bet he has heard that bitter, truthful line said through gritted teeth in a dressing room somewhere

When the two men are on stage singing songs and doing routines there’s a lot of affectionate laughter. Of course the slosh scene is weak and the audience participation song excruciating but that’s the whole point. It’s a pretty lacklustre pantomime these characters are in. But they do all the “it’s behind you” and clumsy dances and songs in a hammy way and involve the real  Jack Studio audience as their panto audience. It’s a thoughtful, ingenious 65 minutes.

On Press Night the Parker and PIlkingon got five minutes into the show and the lighting decision seemed very odd because we could hardly see their faces. Then the Stage Manager announced there was a technical hitch and that we were going back to the beginning of the first song. That led to some cheerful adlibbing as the actors reversed the costume change they’d just done. It was all handled with smooth professionalism and the second time we had the lighting (designed by Robbie Butler) which meant we could see what was going on. It’s fun when things go wrong – as Pilkington quipped.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/oh-no-it-isnt/

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  Photos: Davor Tovarlaza

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