WE’LL MEET AGAIN

Civic Theatre

08.04.07

Ted Ray did it. Vic Oliver, too. But I never thought to hear the violin played on the variety stage again. Andy Eastwood is the proud inheritor of the tradition, and on Easter Day in the Civic fiddled a selection of patriotic favourites, as well as playing banjo and Formby ukulele. He rightly lamented the demise of the comic song, though the selection he brought was ample proof of why they did not deserve to survive.

Duggie Chapman’s nostalgia-fest, appropriately entitled We’ll Meet Again, is in its fifth irony-free, over-amplified year. As well as the excellent Mr Eastwood, we had Shelley James, with memories of Ann Shelton, Vera Lynn and Our Gracie, and likeable innuendo from comic Steve Barclay.

The matinee began with a medley, or switch as we might have called it back then, and managed to cram in The Ovaltineys, Donald Peers’ Babbling Brook, Tex Ritter’s Deck of Cards, Good Night Sweetheart and two of Jimmy Perry’s pastiche songs from TV.

The show was perfectly timed, with a plethora of memories of entertainment’s finest hour. ENSA – Every Night Something Awful – was never like this.

Musical Director was Martyn St James, working brilliantly at a versatile keyboard, its possibly unpatriotic logo obscured by a huge Union Flag …

ANYTHING FOR A TENOR

Iestyn Edwards at the Cramphorn Theatre

23.02.07

Life imitates art. A troupe of 13st Russian ballerinas starts a UK tour this week, playing the big ballets for laughs.

Madame Galina got there first, hilariously ticking the funding boxes, dancing better than ever, and auditioning hapless hopefuls – well done, Nigel – for La Bayadere.

Perhaps it’s rubbing up against all those squaddies in her new role as Forces’ Sweetheart – she’s danced in Iraq and Afghanistan since she was last in Chelmsford – but the masterclass seemed a little coarser: we certainly needed the “gone too far” monitor in the front row.

While she did her slap and her stretches in the Green Room, Iestyn Edwards warmed us up with an artless, affectionate autobiography. From Southwark Cathedral to Aldeburgh, with portraits of his Country and Western father, stage psychic mother, and his Aunt Sophia, who surely merits a show of her own.

A crazy crossover mix of music, too, with his own piano accompaniment. Cole Porter, Ave Maria, Feed the Birds. The Queen loved it, apparently.

I found it fascinating, poised between the knowing and the naïve, the touching and the tawdry.

TENORISSIMO

at the Civic Theatre

02.04.05

the published review:

Despite their name, these “natural tenors” are decidedly British, though they look to Italy for their material and their style. They are Morgan Lee James, son of a Welsh miner, Geofrey Coles from Yorkshire, and James Fitzgerald, just back from entertaining on the QEII.

They are certainly not a Three Tenors tribute band, though their Sole Mio was a clone of the Rome original. They keep alive a valuable British tradition; the crossover repertoire of Richard Tauber, John McCormack and David Whitfield, whose shades were always in the wings in this unashamed wallow in the nostalgic potential of a powerful pair of lungs.

They were last here in February 2004, and it was disconcerting to hear almost all the same numbers, the same gags, the same ad libs. A welcome innovation, though, was Dave Smith at his superb symphonic keyboard, though it did mean stadium-strength amplification for the singers.

The most successful moments for me were when the singers spoke of the influences that shaped their musical careers – Al Martino, Josef Locke, Heddle Nash – and revived some forgotten gems from the repertoire: The Soldier’s Dream [with audience participation, this year], Here in My Heart.

They left us with the Brightman/Bocelli Partiro, and Leopold’s cod Goodbye from White Horse Inn. They said they were looking forward to their next visit. Perhaps they might leave it a little longer than 14 months, or mine the rich seam of the neglected tenor repertoire for some new material.

and my April 1 spoof - sent to Jim Hutchon only !

TENORISSIMO

at the Civic Theatre

02.04.05

They first worked together in Blackburn, in the dim and distant days of 1998. Their biographies are vague on their performing pedigree; “natural tenors” to a man, they are masters of audience-pleasing numbers of the can belto school.

Think Il Divo with dentures. Think Russell Watson when “The Voice” is going, and you have an idea of the unsubtle sound they make, amplified to make the Civic sound like the Albert Hall.

Morgan Lee James, who is tenor only in the sense that Michael Ball is a tenor, can sell a number with the best of them. His embarrassing Barber of Seville, and his appalling Pirate King, did no favours to Rossini or to Sullivan, but pleased the mature audience; though I did notice that the couple in front of us were sufficiently compos mentis to realize that they’d seen the same show this time last year, and left in the interval.

Nessun Dorma featured twice, Vesti la Giubba was milked to death, and the West End was raided for some less worthy material to murder.

Geoffrey Coles and James Fitzgerald have the remains of a voice, though most of their singing was a triumph of technique and showmanship over actual singing.

“With an act like this you have to keep moving,” quipped Morgan. Change the act, or move on, I say.

date line April 1 2005

THE MEMORY OF WATER

Little Waltham Drama Group

01.05.04

“All memories are false.”

Shelagh Stephenson’s black comedy starts with an apparition, and affectingly dissects the mother/daughter relationship.

We see the three recently orphaned women share a joint as they sort the crimplene into bin bags. They bicker, they laugh, they each have a moment of revelation.

Mary, the amnesia specialist, strongly played by Billie Bond, Karen Wray’s perceptive character study of Teresa, the health food guru who recites recipes to meditate and seeks truth in Teacher’s Whisky. And Catherine [Susan Butler], garrulous, hypochondriac, superb as she hears the news from Spain.

Their men are less richly written. Mike Lee never really convinced as a TV doctor, though Peter Travell enjoyed his Ratner moment of truth. Vi, the confused matriarch who confronts her offspring from beyond the grave, was convincingly suggested by Gill Haysham.

The play has its Alan Bennett moments – the funeral director’s plastic hand, the herbalist in Whitby – and its darker Joe Orton side. But this is an original voice, writing in speech patterns that were not always easy for actors not from “up here”.

Mags Simmonds’ fluent and touching production brought out the best in the play, with a lovely final tableau, and an evocative set: matrimonial bed, massive dark-stained furniture, and cracks appearing beneath the grimy wallpaper.

SYLVIA'S WEDDING
Writtle Cards
Cramphorn Theatre
26 June 2003


Vicars in anoraks, honeymoons in Fleetwood. We're in familiar comedy country here. But Writtle Cards have skipped Ayckbourn and Bennett in the dramatists' directory and ended up with Chinn.
It's a mixture of gentle comedy and pathos says director Bill Piggott. It's an insubstantial confection of caricature and cliché, we reply.
It wasn't badly done, but you'd need much harder work from a much better cast to squeeze laughs from these lame one-liners.
Liz Smith had the best of the a varied crop of Northern accents as the worldly-wise neighbour, and Peter McManus did a nice drunk routine as the hunky virgin who eventually marries his drippy betrothed - a senior sales executive with the Gas Board - played by Sarah Wilson. Jeremy Pruce kept his hat on throughout as the bigoted father-in-law-to-be, ably supported by an assured performance from Barbara Llewellyn.
I liked the split stage which came into its own in a strong final confrontation, and there were many promising moments - Yvonne eating crisps as she was fitted for a truly hideous frock, for example. But other opportunities, like her narrow escape from Stanley's randy hands, went for almost nothing.
In this, Writtle Cards 35th year, Wodehouse comes to the Village Hall in October in a brand new adaptation of Much Obliged Jeeves.