MURDERED TO DEATH

Ian Dickens Productions at the Mercury Theatre Colchester

for The Public Reviews

06.09.10

The title says it all, even before we meet Miss Maple [sic] and the aptly named Inspector Pratt.

Peter Gordon's 1993 play is an affectionate pastiche of your classic Country House Murder Mystery, with shoals of red herrings and a Cluedo collection of whodunnit suspects and weapons.

A near-capacity house at the Mercury enjoyed it on all kinds of levels, though the riper innuendo sometimes needed pointing. We were kept guessing to the end, as miscreants were unmasked and motives revealed. The script was amusing, with one or two really strong sequences, and Giles Watling's experienced touch helped a battle-hardened cast make the most of it.

Roland Oliver was crusty Colonel Craddock – loads of bluster and the odd touching moment, with Sandra Dickinson magnificent as his mem-sahib – tremendous presence and a voice from the Betty Marsden school of comedy characterization.

Darren Machin had the moustache, the macassar, the froggie accent and the two-tone shoes, all unmistakeable marks of a cad. I liked the way he used his entire body to express his feelings – most amusing. Elizabeth Williams stepped into the sensible shoes of Margaret Rutherford and Joan Hickson as the interfering spinster sleuth. Michelle Hardwick was the acid-tongued Elizabeth, in an unconvincing wig, Chloe Newsome the dowdy Dorothy, with Erin Geraghty as the doomed mistress of the manor. Christopher Elderwood worked hard as the hapless constable, sidekick to the clueless detective.

The two plum parts went to the priceless Victor Spinetti, as the dotty butler Bunting, squiffy on sherry and lurking suspiciously, and Norman Pace as the Inspector, bungling, accident-prone with a way with words John Prescott might envy. It's a gift of a part, and Pace grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, with admirable comic timing, a nice line in slapstick and a huge range of physical expression.

The “quaint room”, unaccountably referred to as The Lounge, was nicely dressed, though the paintings didn't pass muster even as forgeries …

Some would say that the genre is beyond parody. Others might prefer Stoppard's dazzling scalpel. But Gordon's cosy hommage, the first in his Pratt Trilogy, makes for an undemanding couple of hours' entertainment, guaranteed to keep the punters amused by the acting and bemused by the Byzantine plot.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

SHOW HITS 2010

Latchingdon Arts and Drama Society at The Tractor Shed

03.09.10

No “auto-tune” in evidence here – and only the most rudimentary sound re-inforcement.

The “strange journey” through the musical comedy canon began with Rocky Horror – lively gothy punks tapping and Time-Warping.

We also visited Fame, Footloose, Funny Girl and the Fandango Ballroom for a nice sequence from Sweet Charity, including smoke and silhouettes for Big Spender, an excellent Something Better trio and a hippy Sixties Rhythm of Life. A welcome drop of nostalgia with Bosom Buddies [from Mame], but also bang up-to-date with Legally Blonde – pink divas squealing Omigod You Guys – and Avenue Q, featuring some very impressive puppets and a cameo from the show's tireless MD Kris Rawlinson.

In the first half we had Dorothy and some cute Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, and in the second, the phenomenally successful Wicked. I imagine its success is not down to the quality of its melodies, but this young company brought boundless energy [and a unicycle] to the stage to suggest the spectacular style of the original.

Two 'front-cloth' items while the chorus changed. If they'd been listed in the programme I would have thought only a madman would try to recreate two classic routines forever linked with their creators. But Jake the Peg and Tommy Cooper's “Hats” sketch both worked surprisingly well, painstakingly reconstructed and confidently delivered.

ShowHits 2010 was directed by Cathy Hallam with Mandi Tickner, and the choreography was by Vicki Bird, assisted by Vicky Cumbers.
photos by Sethski Woolf

LADIES DOWN UNDER

for The Public Reviews

Cut to the Chase at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

28.08.10

Fortified by a bargain bottle of Victoria Bitter, I join the Queen's crowd for this season's opening production – the “feel-good, laugh-a-minute chick flick for the stage” that is Ladies Down Under.

If you saw Amanda Whittington's Ladies' Day, also from the Hull Truck stable, you'll know that the ill-assorted mates from the fishpacking sheds had a big win at Royal Ascot. Now they're re-united, determined to spend, spend, spend and live the dream in Australia, where Jan's fella Joe is already in residence.

In what would be a pre-title sequence in the cinema, we learn that bush fires have prevented him getting to Sydney airport to meet them, so off they go on an odyssey through Oz that will see them “finding themselves” in the outback, watching the sun rise at Ayers Rock, and proudly joining the rainbow ranks of the Mardi Gras.

We can't help caring about the fate of these four feisty women, with their issues and idiosyncrasies. At Hornchurch they are nicely delineated by Diana Croft as Jan, who thinks she's been jilted, Helen Watson as Pearl, who has a Shirley Valentine moment with beach bum Charlie, Lucy Thackeray, constantly engaging as the ingenuous Linda, and Sarah Scowen as shallow Shelley. She's the girl who has most to lose, perhaps, and in a nice piece of symbolism is parted from her designer baggage, only to realise she doesn't need it after all.

One of the more successful extended scenes, although its outcome is a little predictable, has the four women camping out and discovering themselves – Pearl spouting Measure for Measure for all the world like Russell's Rita. I liked the way the women were suddenly travel-stained and jet-lagged, and even more layers were stripped away for the excursion to Never-Never. I was less convinced by the clichéd Chorus Line climax, done to a disco remix of I Am What I Am. In a welcome surreal touch, even the airport tannoy becomes involved in the dénouement.

Simon Jessop and Oliver Seymour-Marsh play four fellas each, working hard to change from surfer to drag queen, hippy Charlie to pommie Joe, whose dream of Down Under is already tarnished. I loved their airline stewards, gleefully subverting the safety announcements.

As usual at the Queen's, the design [Claire Lyth] is striking and effective, with the outback backdrop changing with the dying light.

Not sure who will love this show, getting its first professional outing here since the 2008 tour. For sure the fans who followed the Ladies to the Races. But it's not as sharp as Shakers, not a scream-along girlie night out, though it does boast four strong, ultimately life-affirming women, and some clever comic lines. Steel Magnolias out of Hull Docks, perhaps, or as the Queen's publicity machine has it, “Sex and the City meets Calendar Girls”.


photograph: Nobby Clark

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

A CELEBRATION OF RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN

BBC Prom 49 at the Royal Albert Hall

22.08.10

Since I saw John Wilson's MGM Prom on television last year, I'd been looking forward to his return to the Albert Hall.

And thanks to my colleague from Musical Opinion, I had an excellent ringside seat.

It was an intensely enjoyable hour and three quarters. Wilson's hand-picked band, led by Andrew Haveron, were on sparkling form, and put heart and soul into these movie classics. Yes, these were the Hollywood arrangements we were hearing, written for similarly stellar bands in the 50s and 60s, in Wilson's new performing editions.

The non-stop music began and ended with Oklahoma, the Overture and Main title leading into Julian Ovenden's Oh What A Beautiful Morning. We were impressed by his Sondheim work a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed equally at home in this more innocent world. He was joined by the excellent Sierra Boggess [Christine in Love Never Dies] for a delicious People Will Say We're In Love.

Carousel was equally strong, with its intoxicating Waltz and the touching Soliloquy [Ovenden again] as well as a roof-raising June Is Bustin' Out All Over from Kim Criswell and the Maida Vale Singers, who gave sterling support throughout, including some character work – Nothing Like A Dame, for example, from South Pacific. Anna-Jane Casey and Rod Gilfry were the duettists here, in the twin soliloquies leading into Some Enchanted Evening.

The climax was Climb Every Mountain [Criswell, perhaps lacking the register for the role] but for me Boggess's inhabiting of the Julie Andrews numbers - I Have Confidence and Something Good – best represented the Sound of Music. The women from Maida Vale gave us the most classical piece of the afternoon, an A Cappella anthem; since the RAH organ was pressed into service for Sondheim, I was a little disappointed not to have the Processional for Maria's Wedding ...

No doubt, though, who the star of the show was, with his style and stage presence, complete with tail coat and red towel – for the hot and humid Albert Hall – John Wilson, whose enthusiasm and intuitive understanding of these wonderful scores made this a highlight of this year's Promming.

EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON

EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON

National Theatre at the Cottesloe

21.08.10

I escape the V Festival in Chelmsford by going clubbing in the Cottesloe. The National's poor relation has undergone a transformation, in Miriam Buether’s radical design, into a trendy bar, with stools and a standing area for the braver punters. There are videos all around the walls, and two strange widescreen letter box stages halfway up the end walls.

The occasion is Mike Bartlett's new piece – twice as long as his previous shows, and ambitious in its intellectual and emotional scope. More does not necessarily mean better, and I wonder how essential the production numbers are. But the playwright explicitly encourages the director, Rupert [Enron] Goold - this is a co-production with Headlong – to throw everything at the piece. So we have a burlesque strip show, sinister mums with Silver Cross prams, clubbers and lowlife crowding the S-shaped catwalk which snakes the length of the auditorium.

This is theatre for people who like their eclectic playlist on shuffle. Me, I prefer standard sonata form, but I could not help being swept along by the excesses of the production, and of course by the narrative as it unfolded.

Three sisters are disowned by their climate scientist father, who thinks it would have been better had they never been born. Watching their lives unravel, you had to sympathise with his view. The youngest, excellently if uncomfortably played by Jessica Raine, is a wild child, permanently, confrontationally unhappy – memorably, she seduces her own brother-in-law, an impressive Tom Goodman-Hill. Freya [Anna Madely] is pregnant, but desperately unsure whether she can bring a child into this doomed world. The elder sister [a strong, cold Lia Williams] is a Lib Dem minister in the coalition government. Her portfolio is the environment, and like her father she is tempted by the corporate dollar.

The whole seventeen-strong company is excellent – Maggie Service has some lovely cameos as a dismissed employee, a saleswoman in an unrecognisable Liberty, and, touchingly, a war widow nostalgic for a vanished world. Bill Paterson is the curmudgeonly paterfamilias, preaching Armaggedon as he watches the wildlife and waits for Gaia to redress the global balance.

The “Matter of Life and Death” finale sits strangely with the visceral energy of the rest, but there's no doubting the power of the piece, and its timely message.