THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN

THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN

The Phoenix Theatre Company in Christchurch Hall

16.10.2014

Mary Redman was at the opening night:

Inishmaan Island is off the far west coast of Ireland whose nearest due west neighbour is America. This impoverished part of the country was known during the 1930s as one of the most backward areas where tiny villages relied on fishing and keeping a few animals to survive. Education was lacking and gossip thrived amongst both women and men.

This is the setting for Martin McDonagh's “Comedy Drama” which was chosen by Phoenix for their latest production with Sarah Wilson as director.

This wasn't an easy play to stage with its difficult demands on the cast's acting abilities and their voice projection.

The atmosphere livened up a bit, however, with the arrival of Syd Smith's Johnnypateenmike with his “news” of events further afield. Gemma Anthony's Helen, a sparky young lady not given to tolerance, proved to be the most strikingly lively cast member whose words were easily audible to the hall.

The hero of the piece Billy, a young man with physical impairments who had been teased all his life as “Cripple”, was thoughtfully played by Liam O'Connor. In addition to his existing problems he receives the news that he also has a fatal form of tuberculosis (and no treatment where he lives).

Really the play came to full life whenever the adult male cast were down on the beach and so much nearer to the audience. We could hear every word from Geoff Hadley as BabbyBobby preparing his boat to go to sea. Another bright spark was Clare Woodward's Mammy O'Dougal with her drinking and eccentric ways. There was also enjoyable use of old film of the fishing industry of the time.

Chris Saxton's design incorporated a tiny shop and its living accommodation plus the really clever use of a rowing dinghy and pebbles on the auditorium floor. This led to one of the major difficulties of the production. Sarah had chosen to block the back wall of the stage with a long shop counter. This meant that a useful acting area was obstructed, many of the cast were upstaged and the cast's voices were too weak to travel the sheer distance in the long hall. The counter could have easily been on one side and further downstage.

Pace would have been helped if some of the cast had been surer on their words, as we heard the Prompt fairly frequently.

And when amateur groups are deciding what to perform they really do need to take into account their knowledge of the background to the play. If a troupe from Inishmaan had tried to put on a play about Essex Girls the result would more than likely have been much the same as this production. To have heard every word would have been great.

THREE ONE-ACT COMEDIES

THREE ONE-ACT COMEDIES

Phoenix Theatre Company at Christ Church

13.02.14

When AmDram Goes Wrong – it's a popular subject for the playwright, from the Rude Mechanicals via Farndale Avenue to Chorus of Disapproval. And during their eventful history, Phoenix have done them all.

World Première, by one Charles Mander, is not in the same league, but certainly had its comedy moments, with frequent knowing laughter from the audience. Wickham ADS [not to be confused with the Company on the Hill] are staging the village hall première of the latest by their “ageing producer” [Syd Smith]. Among the all too recognisable members, Jo Fosker's put-upon prompt, Sarah Wilson's ball-breaking leading lady, Geoff Hadley's randy leading man, and Angie Gee as “Bunnie”, character actress and lush. Angie takes the part by the throat, with both hands, and gives a very enjoyably OTT performance. Just what this so-so script needs.

A sad irony that the actual prompt was not entirely redundant; even more in evidence in the linked pieces by Jim Sperinck in the first half.

Major Bennington-Smythe and his memsahib [Geoff Hadley and Helen Langley] are seeking to move from their Baker Street flat, driven to despair [and drink] by their celebrated neighbour strangling the Stradivarius upstairs. They end up in the no less stressful house of Dr Jekyll …

There are some diverting Spoonerisms and Malapropisms, some remarkable transformations behind the desk, a nice cameo from Bob Ryall as Lestrade, and an accomplished performance from young Liam O'Connor as the gorilla who turns into a dashing young blade in blazer and boater.
These three inconsequential comedies are directed for Phoenix by Tricia Childs.

THEY CAME TO A CITY

THEY CAME TO A CITY

Phoenix Theatre Company at Christ Church

12.10.12

Social Justice is not a fashionable concept these days, but in the darkest years of the last war, our greatest writers were keen to visualize what utopia might rise from the ashes.

In Priestley's intriguing period piece, nine characters from all ranks of 1940s society, with their jealousies, frustrations and disappointments, are shown a shining city; they may choose to stay or return to their earthly lives. The capitalist and the aristocrat are amongst those who leave, the char and the heiress amongst those who remain.

In Angela Gee's production, the nobility were less convincing generally than the plebs. Fine character work from Syd Smith and Tricia Childs as a henpecked banker and his domineering wife, and from Helen Langley as the salt-of-the-earth char.

What Priestley is advocating, of course, is that we take the vision of the city where "men don't work for machines and money" back to our imperfect world, building a new Jerusalem in place of the dark Satanic mills. And it is left to mechanic Joe [well portrayed by Andy Millward] and shopgirl Alice [the Googie Withers role excellently done by Jean Speller] to leave us on that optimistic note.

But despite the NHS and the Welfare State and Comprehensive Education, I suspect that, seventy years on, Joe and Alice have still much work to do to make Whitman's Great City a reality.

The Great City
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where money is plentiest,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,
Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and loves them in return and understands them,
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons,
Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,

Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority,
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves,
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Phoenix Theatre Company and Writtle CARDS

20.06.12

Shakespeare would have known and loved local amateur dramatics.

Nowadays, village productions of his plays are rare, thanks to waning enthusiasm and higher audience expectations.

So good to welcome this joint effort, directed by Michael Lewis.

Plenty to enjoy, in a version lasting only just over two hours including the interval, with a choice of customized punches. And I don't mean just the hiccups and the wardrobe malfunction when a cummerbund went the way of Thisbe's mantle, to the audible delight of two ladies in row F.

The crew of patches, led by Syd Smith's Quince and Geoff Hadley's Bully Bottom – nicely dressed as tradesmen – came into their own in the excruciating rehearsal and the chaotic "show" – Chris Wright's nervous Flute a particular delight.

Neil Smith and Kenton Church played the testy rivals, their lovers were Leila Francis, who also assisted the director, and Laura Bennett, whose characterization – jealous, frustrated, tearful – was excellent. I liked the way their "weeds of Athens" got more and more distressed during that eventful night in the woods. Other stand-outs in a large cast were Daniel Curley's irate Egeus and Jean Speller's beautifully spoken Titania.

This ambitious undertaking, supported by the RSC's Open Stages scheme, boasted an atmospheric forest, designed by Les Leeds, and some very young apprentices – playing the fairies, mothered by Sarah Wilson's Merry Wanderer, but also lanthorn, dog and Philostrate – shared by cleft-apple twins. The Bard would surely have approved.

THE MONKEY'S PAW and THE HORRIBLE THING IN THE GARDEN

THE MONKEY'S PAW

and 

THE HORRIBLE THING IN THE GARDEN

The Phoenix Theatre Company

Christchurch Hall, Chelmsford

10.02.12

Mary Redman was in the audience ...

Can it really be six years since I saw a Phoenix production? The attrition rate has been high with many of their former prize fighting thespians having transferred their loyalties elsewhere in the amateur world; although a joint Dream is promised for the summer.

Under their former name of Moulsham Lodge Amateur Dramatic Society they built up a reputation for the weird and wonderful with some stirring Grand-Guignol productions, so they should have been at home with WW Jacobs's tale of horror and a “macabre comedy” by Mary Neild.

The enormously wide stage and even bigger hall at Christchurch doesn't make life easy when your play is set in the living room of an old cottage on the outskirts of Fulham in the early 1900s. From the projection point of view it leaves your characters talking into a void rather than intimately to each other and occasionally your audience left out. This got better when they all huddled round the fire to hear the increasingly drunken tale of Geoff Hadley's excellent Sergeant-Major Morris. The incredulous White Family gradually realised that the paw might work to their advantage, despite its habit of wreaking vengeance on those who dared to make a wish with it.

Syd Smith's father was cautious but Richard Langley's Herbert, a youth much endowed with a magnificent head of hair contrary to the customs of the times, had no such qualms. The result of egging his father on was a fortune laced with tragedy, thus breaking his mother Julie Lissamore's heart. Les Leeds made an appropriately spectral bearer of doom-laden news

The performance as a whole felt a bit quiet. Then I realised it was the second night of the run which is when unwary actors give in to a sense of thank goodness the first night is over and give rather subdued performances when they really need to give it some welly. To conquer that immense stage, a false exterior to the cottage would have brought the sides in and the cast forward, thus increasing the intimacy between cast and audience. Oh, and in the days of coal fires and poverty we didn't leave interior doors open in our houses – “Were you born in a barn?” being the usual sarcastic comment.

All was sweetness and light and Come Into The Garden Maud at the start of The Horrible Thing when the cast gave us a much more out front production. This very short play gave its cast plenty of opportunity to have fun with their genteel characters Miss Violet Throstle (Helen Langley); and Miss Rose Throstle (Angela Gee's vision of blonde loveliness with red roses running riot all over her dress plus decorated wellies); the horror story-addicted char Mrs Honeybun (Joan Lanario) and sensible travelling hairdresser Marlena Honeybun (Leila Francis) respectively.

Of course it all turned out to be a scarecrow causing a storm in a bone china tea cup but it was an amusing treat for the audience.

Tricia Childs directed both plays. Now there's a Titania for you – the dramatic, beautiful looks combined with dramatic experience.

MURDER BY THE BOOK

MURDER BY THE BOOK

Phoenix Theatre Group at Christ Church

07.10.11

Jim Hutchon was in the Hall at Christ Church

Director Chris Wright's treatment of this complex, funny and stylish comedy murder thriller is to keep the throttle pressed firmly to the metal from line one. He kept the speed and pressure up as the actors were allowed to develop really very convincing characters. The improbable murder plot had innumerable twists and turns which were dealt with by a talented cast with a lot of comic potential between them.

Andy Millward keeps up an almost Noel Coward repartee as a novelist and critic planning to do away with his estranged adulterous wife, while she, Tricia Childs, giving as good as she gets, plans a similar fate for him. Both seek the help of an hilariously confused Syd Smith as his publisher and her lover. Steve Holding痴 dark brooding looks lighten up considerably with impressive comic talents as the fluent-talking neighbour who is not what he seems, and boy friend of the secretary, Jean Speller, who has her own agenda.

In this Christie meets Coward amalgam, nothing and nobody are what they seem, but, after a while any weaknesses in the plot are swallowed up in growing laughter. There were occasional dead spots in the narrative drive, but the Friday night audience left with a sense of a really entertaining night of fun.

BAD DAY AT BLACK FROG CREEK

Phoenix Theatre Company at Christ Church, Chelmsford

11.06.11

Guest director Kenton Church – no stranger to Black Frog Creek and its comedy characters – had an impressive saloon set, with a cleverly-used window by the swing doors, and he had managed to get some credible performances from his cast.

The script glories in bad puns, word play and jokes that were old before the West was won. The key thing with this material – think Round The Horne – is never to be the slightest bit diffident or apologetic. Complicity with the audience is essential. “I'd rather be watching TV, given half a chance,” and I quote.

Outstanding in this respect were Jean Speller's sassy Diamond Tooth Lil, and Joan Lanario's likeable Ma Treacle - “Keep yer eye on me pie!”. Peter White looked good as Filthy Frank, and Les Leeds had a mean Lee Marvin sneer as Tex. Angela Gee gave her all and had a ball with Hairy Hannah, one of the comedy trio of villains.

Richard Langley was engaging as young Yipee Brown, though his performance could have been bigger and bolder, and Neil Smith made a suave Sheriff.

Lots of fun ideas – the varmints nicked with a line of knickers – though sometimes the pace needed to be sharper to get away with the material – the concussed sheriff, for instance.

But a refreshing change for this long-established group, which tends to go for 'comedy thrillers', 'hokum' and 'pot-boilers'. Perhaps next they might try a good modern play …

THREE SHORT PLAYS

Phoenix Theatre Company at Christ Church

12.02.10

Chekhov very much the man of the moment – we celebrated his 150th birthday just the other week.

And it was his “Celebration”, a Joke in One Act, which was top of the bill in this pick'n'mix programme.

Successful banker Shipuchin [Neil Smith] is a stickler for style, but his world crashes round his ears, thanks to the interventions of his clerk – Andy Millward, holding our attention with his grumpy misogyny – and two women, his larger than life windbag wife [ a nice character study by Joan Lanario ] and a hilariously determined Irish suppliant [Faye Armstrong]. Michael Lewis's production convincingly charted Shipuchin's descent into weary, nervous collapse.

Hamlet's famous question is referenced in the Chekhov. We were up to speed with it, since we'd just seen Stoppard's brilliantly filleted Shakespeare, in which Millward played a surly Dane, supported by a hard-working cast including Leila Francis as both Gertrude and Ophelia, Reg Peters as a tragic Laertes, and Chris Wright as practically everyone else. No attempt at the world record here, with a deliberate pace marked by the slow change of scene, and a surreal trumpeter playing random hits from the repertoire. I liked the chairs for the encore, though here, I think, a manic pace is de rigueur.

The great Russian master of the 19th Century. The greatest dramatist ever, through the eyes of one of the 20th century finest dramatist. And Jim Sperinck. His Cobblers' Ball was a lame look at the melodrama, only partly redeemed by Rob Francis's laconic simpleton and Angela Gee's man-eating aristocrat.