Gile’s Cole’s new play, which did well at the Brighton Fringe earlier this year, is an unashamedly traditional comedy of manners with undercurrents. A simple, often funny, four hander it is completely free of gimmickry, special effects, role doubling and fancy sound tracks. Brecht, Pinter and Berkoff are not in the room. And that’s all rather refreshing. Yes, you can still have a perfectly decent, entertaining evening in the theatre without overworked, fashionable “innovation.”

Two couples – all with a background in show business – are now retired, or semi-retired, but restless. The symmetry (another thing I quite liked) of Cole’s play gives us a scene with the two men, one with the two women and ends with them all together, two years later.

The opening scene with Graham Pountney, who also directs, as Charlie and Jeffrey Holland as Alfred is beautifully written and paced.  Two old mates are in a pub, as they are daily, chatting inconsequentially. Both actors use silence beautifully and Pountney speaks volumes just by crossing and uncrossing his legs. Holland does wonderful things with his face. Gradually we learn about their marriages and the tensions between the four of them.

The second scene with the two women Joan (Judy Buxton) and Marianne (Carol Ball) feels slightly more forced and less convincingly natural as it works towards some unexpected revelations. The final scene, however, which establishes that there are going to be major changes in future is pretty lively. Ball eventually finds a tender, delicate warmth in her character and Buxton gets spark into the idea that Joan isn’t quite what she’d always seemed – her Alfred has become very tedious after all.

In many ways it’s Holland’s Alfred who stands out in this show. He forgets words all the time and then, during the two year “gap”, has a mild stroke. The resulting slight speech defect and balance issues are immaculately well observed. And we end up sympathising more with him than anyone else.

First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/after-all-these-years/

Mike Kenny’s 2010 adaptation of E Nesbit’s famous 1906 novel has rapidly become a modern classic. I’ve seen it several times in the hands of various directors and companies and – tender, realistic, nostalgic but with plenty of bite – it’s always a sure fire winner. And Scott le Crass’s version for OVO with 6 adults and six children (alternating teams) is, of course, an enjoyable evening’s theatre.

It’s an ingeniously low budget show – the unrolling of a huge train banner to suggest the near miss railway crash is a brilliant idea. And the upstage gantry – part of all this season’s OVO shows at the Roman Theatre – works perfectly as a railway bridge. Less successful is the use of trunks and suitcases as a moveable set. Yes, they evoke the whole idea of trains and travel and work well enough as, say, tables or fallen rocks but there is far too much lifting and waving them around the stage for no apparent reason. It becomes a distracting irritant.

Kenny’s script gives us the three children looking back and telling their story as adults – often disagreeing about the details. That gets round their being adults but acting like children as neatly in this production as it always does. Charlotte Ware is warm and compelling as adolescent Bobbie although I was unconvinced by the “flirtation” with the broken legged boy in the tunnel because he’s half her size and at least five years younger. Will Kirkham gets all the right boyishness, decency and vulnerability that Peter needs. Best of the three, however, is Grace Bassett as Phyllis, the youngest Railway Child. Bassett pouts, stamps her foot, puts her oar in and then smiles through it all. It’s an outstanding performance. I really believed she was every nine year old I’ve ever known.

Charlie Clee plays all the male roles with a nice range of voices and gaits. And I liked the doubling joke when he is suddenly thrown the stethoscope and told he has to be the doctor and he says “But I haven’t got any more voices!” He then finds one – obviously  Emma Wright packs gravitas, and anxiety along with love for her children and yearning for her husband into Mother and Josie Rattigan adeptly plays all the other adult female roles with lots of good Yorkshire voice where required.

I wish, though, that more time had been spent training the juvenile ensemble to use radio mics properly. One of them occasionally gets a line or two to speak and they’re hard to hear which gives the show an amateurish feel at those moments. They could have been rehearsed more fully in stage presence too although their running through the “tunnel” is a strong moment.

My other reservation is Tom Cagnoni’s music which is both clumsy and bolted on. This is not a film – familiar as we all are with a famous film of this very story. We don’t need sudden (miscued?) bursts of incongruous, loud music. Michael Bird’s sound design, though, complete with steam train noises is quite effective.

Now in its thirty-second touring season, Illyria has developed and honed to perfection a very distinctive and outstandingly nippy way of working in the open-air. Oliver Gray’s version of Pride and Prejudice (which I have seen before) dates from 2003, uses five actors, mostly Jane Austen’s words and masses of high octane energy.

This talented bunch start by selling programmes dressed in simple. loosely Regency, cotton undergarments, and then spend the next two and a half hours hopping in and out of bonnets, frocks, coats, shawls and hat at top speed.  Pat Farmer’s costumes are a stroke of genius. Perhaps they’d like to let me know some time where I can buy a gorgeous statement long double breasted overcoat and top hat like the one Mr Darcy wears – and makes quite a power statement with.

Edward Simpson is curmudgeonly but very attractive as plain speaking Mr Bennet. He is also hilarious as the revolting Lady Catherine de Bourgh, benign as Mr Gardiner and a good, back-to-the-audience Darcy double in That Coat – among other things. It’s an extraordinarily busy show. Anyone who’s not actually playing a character has to be the coconut-clicking horse in one of the numerous carriage journeys.

One neat way of ensuring that we really hear Austen’s sardonic voice is to make Elizabeth also into the main narrator and Nicola Foxfield (alongside occasional appearances as a Brummy housekeeper) does this well. Her Lizzy is feisty and intelligent but also warmly human. She conveys the distress when she hears of Lydia’s devastating escapade very convincingly. And of course she reacts to the outrageous Darcy with hilarious fury before, eventually, we reach the conclusion we all know is coming complete with a good joke about the lake at Pemberley also being good for swimming in.

Sarah Pugh’s Mrs Bennet (among lots of other roles) is a joy. She has the obsessive nervous energy and general shallow dimness perfectly – hilarious to watch but utterly impossible if one had to live with it. And Rosie Zeidler’s Lydia really dialls up the likeness between them. Zeidler is very good too at the contrasting, sober, sensible pragmatic Charlotte Lucas and as Jane, the eldest daughter whose future hangs in the balance for so long.

Chris Wills is a fine actor. His Darcy – all charismatic haughtiness and outrageous, disdainful prejudice – is spot on and his oily-voiced Mr Collins an enjoyable contrast. Dancing as Mr Collins –  bowing, scraping, and bobbing up and down is lovely comedy. And, he’s good as the caddish Wickham.

Yes, there are lots of very enjoyable performances in this show which really runs with Jane Austen’s satire rather than trying to reinvent it. And it sits neatly on a simple open air set consisting of a big backing fan, a couple of flexibly used garden benches and two big costume boxes. I’m always delighted, moreover, to see  good quality live theatre reaching a pleasingly big audience in a setting such as Dartford Central Park at affordable prices.

Photo: Manuel Harlan

Rarely have I enjoyed a musical as much as I did Adam Penford’s fresh, vibrant account of Rogers and Hammerstein’s best known and final collaboration. It’s respectfully traditionalist but feels sparklingly new minted.

Gina Beck’s Maria is naïve and feisty, humble but passionate and joyful but troubled. She makes the part completely her own – and there is no sense that she has modelled it on That Actress in That Film which still usually tops the charts for the most viewings of any film ever. Moreover Beck’s voice is sweet, strong, beautifully modulated and of course her diction is perfect. If you can’t hear every word of “The Lonely Goatherd” then it flops. Here it is a show stopper.

Edward Harrison gives us an ideal Georg – initially worried, bereaved, lonely and hiding behind fierceness but eventually healed by Maria’s presence. He does the transition effectively and I loved the final moments when, every inch a loving father, he takes Gretl (Felicity Walton on press night – delightful) on his back and the von Trapp family sets off up the steps through the dark auditorium which represents the mountains to Switzerland.

Of course there are two teams of children  and what a lovely, appropriate idea to bring the non-performing team on at the press night curtain call. The team I saw exuded talent and are a fabulous credit to Lizzi Gee’s choreography – moving with impeccable slickness and singing with accuracy as well as charm. Sasha Watson-Lobo as Louisa stands out particularly: dancing effervescently and singing with charismatic gusto.

Another great strength in this production is the sung harmony, especially from the female ensemble as nuns. Musical Director Matt Samer (tucked away with a fine 14 piece band behind and above the stage) makes sure that we hear every harmonic shift and enjoyed every chord and cadence.

Robert Jones’s set uses revolving flats and a rising desk and chair to evoke different parts of the von Trap villa and Abbess’s office against a craggy mountain backdrop. As we all know, though, this is 1938 and Austria is being annexed.  Hayley Egan’s projection of real Third Reich footage at the top, when the mood changes, is chillingly evocative – as are the Nazi flags carried through the audience to the stage.

While it is true that one or two of the principals don’t sing quite as well as Beck and Harrison (although Penelope Woodman does well as Frau Schmidt), in general this is a faultless show. I might have given it four stars but for one thing – the reaction of my 47 year old plus one. He knew the film, of course, but had never seen the show live although he is in general a pretty seasoned theatre goer.  He was in tears for most of the first half  –  deeply moved by the sheer power of it all. Any show that can do that to a middle-aged man of the world more than earns the final star in my view.

In short, buy a ticket before it sells out. And take plenty of tissues.

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  Photos: Manuel Harlan

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Photo: AB Photography

The fourth version of Much Ado About Nothing I’ve seen this year, and the third in the last twelve days, is an antidote to all the others.

It’s an irreverent send-up predicated on the idea that the actress playing Beatrice (Flora Sowerby at the performance I saw – the cast rotates) is drunk or “sh!t-faced”. She therefore messes up the show with a lot of asides, falling about and disinhibition. Think – if this company’s modus operandi is new to you – Horrible Histories spliced with The Play That Goes Wrong and blended with an energetic adult pantomime.

Sowerby is a gifted comic actor and uses her height – nearly six foot of it – to great effect. She also exudes charisma along with the daftness and has the audience eating out of her hand. And the other five actors work seamlessly with her. It must be fun to develop a show like this. I wonder who came up with the line “Refrain from mounting my codpiece”?

But it’s a bit of an irritant that every time Beatrice swears – and there’s a lot of that –  the audience falls about laughing. Yes, it sounds modern and therefore incongruous but actually these words are centuries old and Shakespeare knew them as well as anyone. Witness the “country matters” joke in Hamlet. It’s funny at first but for me it quite quickly wears thin. It’s a show about drink, in a sense. Perhaps I should have drunk more while I watched it because I thought the chlamydia joke was over-egged too. Trouble is that at heart I don’t find the British obsession with drink and drunkenness funny but that’s a personal reaction. It doesn’t mean that this isn’t a fine show of its type. After all they do – sort of – wind their way through Much Ado and even speak some Shakespeare occasionally.

There’s a compere (Beth-Louise Priestley on press night) who acts as a quasi stage manager and pantomime-style liaison with the audience, along with some rather contrived audience participation: It’s the sort of thing which grates on me but that’s to do with personal taste and not a criticism of the show.

It is, of course, much harder to do something like this than it is to do a Shakespeare play “straight” even with a heavily cut text. You have to convince the audience it’s all spontaneous while at the same time keeping it carefully under control – quite an art and this company do that extremely well which why I’m giving it four stars. This is a classic case of a reviewer having to separate her own likes and dislikes from assessment of quality.

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  Photos: AB Photography

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