PICK YOURSELF UP

Cut to the Chase at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch

07 March 2011

for The Public Reviews

“Make it another old-fashioned,please,” - coming right up, the first show of the new Queen's season, a gloriously enjoyable musical, giving the lie to those who moan that they don't write them like that any more.

Of course writer Stephen Wyatt has chosen his collaborators wisely – Cole Porter and Molière, though Pick Yourself Up is by Molière only in the sense that last year's hit “Forum” was by Plautus.

There are so many show-stoppers – my favourite from a thoroughbred field the Don't Fence Me In quartet – that you wonder how the plot can progress. And the 17^th century stock characters are replaced by familiar stereotypes from the song-and-dance stage.

This is Bob Carlton's unique Cut to the Chase company, so the impressive dance band we hear in the overture is made up of the actors in the show, many of them familiar faces in this house.

The new boy first, though.

Greg Last plays a mean trombone and an even meaner hood – one of the two hitmen employed by Joe Hatchetface Tamales [Simon Jessop]. His partner in organised crime is the excellent Matthew Quinn [bass and guitar].

The Fred and Ginger of the Trocadero, East 47^th, are Tom and Ruby [Elliot Harper and Natasha Moore] – both rising to the considerable challenge of hoofing, singing and slapstick, and both very watchable performers.

It's Tom - “terrible dancer and hopeless husband” - who becomes the reluctant shrink, donning a ridiculous false beard to effect a cure for lovelorn trumpeter Gloria [Sarah Scowen]. With a second opinion from the object of her affections, Harry [Jared Ashe, clarinet and sax].

A hit with the audience was Allison Harding's floozy Tallulah, who gave a breathtaking masterclass in musical comedy character work, proved a stylish drummer, and also spectacularly revived a couple of lesser known Cole Porters: Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love and Find Me A Primitive Man. The other revival was entrusted to Tom Jude's superbly characterized fiddle-playing maestro – The Leader of a Big-Time Band.

Rodney Ford's set – built as ever in the Queen's own workshop – caught the style exactly. The band-stand seemed to take up most of the performance area, but then, impressively, glided smoothly back on a truck, with screens sliding in to represent the street [hydrant, trash-can, lamp-post !] and Joe's mansion [lovely thirties fauna motif here].

“Times are hard at the Trocadero ...” - tell us about it, we might reply. But this superb extended revival, directed by Matt Devitt with Julian Littman in charge of the music, shows no sign of recession. It never puts a foot wrong, presses all the right feel-good buttons, and makes a superb pick-me-up for these difficult days.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

A DISTANT COUNTRY CALLED YOUTH

Through the Looking Glass Productions at the Mercury Studio, Colchester

04 March 2011

for The Public Reviews

“The play is memory.”

This little jewel of a piece is simply a litany of letters. Letters penned, or typed, to an unseen supporting cast of family, friends, professional associates, by the young Thomas Lainer Williams.

Skilfully adapted by Steve Lawson, and faultlessly performed by Oliver Andrews, who takes the text and makes it come to life, with subtle changes of mood and meaning adding value to the words.

This is a totally believable Williams, with his waspish wit and his effete Southern drawl.

We follow the writer's colourful career – letters to publishers, waiting tables in a hospital canteen, selling Pictorial subscriptions, working in a shoe warehouse, living at the YMCA – and his travels – notorious cabarets in Paris, a gay whorehouse in Mexico – and his long struggle to get his plays staged.

American Blues is accepted; Tom adopts his nom-de-plume. He gratefully employs an agent, polishes a vehicle for Lana Turner, and works hard on The Gentleman Caller, which we know as the Glass Menagerie, “I think it contains my sister ...”, resisting producer pressure for a happy ending.

Tennessee's relationships are difficult - “sadder and wilder” than a Chekhov play. We hear his passionate letter of “robust manly love” to the dancer Kip Kiernan; we glimpse his fragile friendship with Laurette Taylor, the first Amanda Wingfield.

We are briefly aware of his being harassed by Blue Devils, and he reaches more frequently for the bottle of Bourbon on the sideboard. But we are spared the decline and the “accidental” death. The play ends as he resolutely types the final act of The Moth – the one where Blanche throws herself under a train in the freight yards.

One lady confided as we walked thoughtfully out of the studio, “ I'm so glad he decided to go on with it ...”

The setting is evocative - I loved the floorboards with his correspondents' names written on them – the props sparingly but eloquently used: the tailor's dummy, the gramophone just once, his sister's strange green dress.

“Tenn” is a restless letter-writer. He flits from desk to chaise longue, from hat-stand to suitcase, as he evokes his Southern puritan family, his one-night-stands, his grandmother's death, his sister's illness. And all the time we are aware that all these influences, all these characters, will shape the plays he is yet to write.

A wonderful tour-de-force from Andrews, engaging the audience, effortlessly persuading us that these long-faded letters are freshly penned as we eavesdrop. Through them, and his perfect performance, we are able to spend 90 minutes in the company of this “whining spineless cissy” whose plays have become classics of world theatre, and whose centenary we celebrate this month.

Two more dates fixed this tour: Keswick for the actual birthday at the end of March, and Clwyd in May.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

A MAN WITH NO MORE ROLLS
John Shuttleworth at the Civic Theatre

06.03.11

With no morals, it should have read, apparently. Too late now.

Shuttleworth – versatile singer/organist from Sheffield - burst onto the light entertainment scene way back in the 80s, propelled into the South Yorkshire limelight by his neighbour and sole agent Ken Worthington, with a little help from Graham Fellows. A quarter of a century on, and not a day older, he's brought his nearly-new touring show to the Civic, Chelmsford.

You've not seen him ? You'll not have been to the Scout Hut in Haversage or the St John Ambulance Rooms recently. You won't have been anticipating his punchlines, joining in with his catchy choruses or helping him out with the lyrics to Savoury.

Imagine if Fred Dibnah had been lured down by a contract to entertain at the Darby and Joan … Key to the humour is an obsession with minutiae and a mistrust of change. One song lamented the demise of the bar of soap, supplanted by the handwash dispenser, another the threat to Nimble and the humble roll from Peter's bread and Paganini. All to the strains of his touring Yamaha PSS keyboard: this time out he amused us by recognising, in his accompaniment, sundry seminal influences: UB40, Ultravox, New Order, and Nirvana [Smells like White Spirit].

A fascinating insight into the weird world of this unique entertainer and the people who live there with him, such as Sammy Martini, the personality vocalist with the quicksilver wit. Maybe they could tour together next time.

CIRCUS OF HORRORS

at the Civic Theatre

08.03.11

Fifteen years ago someone had the notion that circus, conjuring tricks and sideshows could be enhanced by stadium-strength rock music, strong language, fake blood and random obscenity.

After that trail-blazing Glasto gig there's been no stopping the Circus of Horrors, and last week, with their scary front man Dr Haze, they made their second visit to the Civic, playing to a packed house of fans who bought the tee-shirts and joined in with the gestures.

After some half-hearted humiliation of the audience, the warm-up man was shot, and we were into the freak show …

We were warned that chavs and cissies should stay away - I might add anyone uncomfortable with sexism and racism.

Chap next to me reckoned this show was much improved over the one they brought five years ago. He'd brought his field glasses, but hardly used them this time – sometimes, apparently, things happening on the periphery are just as interesting as the main attraction – the only example I spotted was a trio stage right sawing away at their wrists with violin bows while the contortionist was doing her act.

The lighting was powerful but poorly designed, so that we were often distracted by performers, and not just the hard-working band, wandering about behind the action. Worse still, the three black acrobats [crow-barred into the plot as “Aztec Indians”] had their first act ruined by the clown mugging behind them in a silly sombrero.

As my mentor pointed out, it's a mixture of classic magic, circus skills and elementary physics [fun with electricity]. And there was much to admire. So if you didn't care for the pierced punk sword swallower you could enjoy the juggler, or the girl swinging by her hair, or the limbo-dancer [the ever-popular flaming bar] or the “Aztec” acrobats.

But by the time we reached the fire-eating finale, the relentless attack, sometimes literally in-your-face, had begun to pall a little. This tour calls itself Four Chapters from Hell. I wouldn't argue. You can call me old-fashioned, but I'm not convinced civilization is enhanced by the freedom to watch a midget attach a bowling ball or a hoover to his penis ...

KING LEAR

Artisans Drama Society at Brentwood Theatre

01.03.11

Nicola Stacey's bold interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedy tried very hard to be interesting. The programme – an excellent guide to the play and the production – explains the style and the focus on dementia and decline.

I liked the bare stage, the armorial banners, the original music [Mike Coy]. The grey costumes worked well, and the opening scene, with the ten actors ceremonially donning the details that define their characters, was impressive.

Doubling Fool and Cordelia is strongly suggested in the text, and Alice Stacey brought a youthful freshness to both, though her performances needed to be bigger to match the style of the rest. Her sisters [Bernadette Rodgers and Emma Feeney] were suitably evil, but a little more steel and stillness would have made them stronger. I was less sure about the three Lears. The idea was to show the descent into madness, but all three men [Matt Jones, who had the lion's share, Neil Gray and Darren Matthews] were powerful actors who were better at the king's rage than his weakness. But the moments when all three shared the role – the storm, the death of Cordelia – were chillingly moving.

Some things should have been axed during rehearsal. The eyeballs – although I was genuinely shocked by the red stiletto – and the heartbeats in the background.

But there was much to admire in this flawed exploration of the infirmity of age, and I would always support innovation and risk, as we strive to “take upon us the mystery of things” …