A WINTER'S TALE

A WINTER'S TALE

at the Mercury Theatre Colchester

26.09.11

for The Public Reviews

Shakespeare's late romance is a tricky play. It plunges deep into tragedy before finding happiness and redemption. It has a bear, a living statue and several clowns. Set in Sicily and Bohemia, it manages to reference both the oracle at Delphi and the Russian Empire.

Sue Lefton's elegant and imaginative production manages most of the mood swings with aplomb, and keeps its audience gripped by the very human drama at the heart of the piece.

The setting is simple – reminiscent of “modern” Shakespeare stagings of the mid 20^th century. The “watery star” - red and threatening – hangs over a staircase tower, with a white piano beneath. The Sicilian court is dressed in well-cut grey; Bohemia is rough-spun and autumnal.

The two childhood friends who are separated by jealousy are clearly still “lads” at heart, until the unfounded suspicions of Leontes [a not particularly noble Tim Treslove, who nonetheless movingly suggested the anguish of his tortured mind] drive a wedge between him and the charmer Polixines [Ignatius Anthony]. Impressive work from David Tarkenter as a wide-boy cheap-jack Autolycus, and Ben Livingstone [also the musical director] as the Old Shepherd who raises the abandoned princess as his own. But it was the women who shone here, especially in the speaking of the verse. Nadia Morgan was a defiant Hermione; her animated statue was beautifully done. And Shuna Snow made a superb Paulina, an “audacious lady” indeed, in her businesslike tailored suit.

The fresh-faced lovers were nicely brought to life by Emily Woodward and Fred Lancaster. The Community actors, now a welcome fixture in the Mercury's season, filled the stage for the rustic revels, and, sober-suited, heard the dénouement proclaimed.

The production was full of memorable, meaningful ideas. The schoolboy's spinning-top, the “fermata” for the first stirring of the green-eyed monster, the oracle brollies, the shadow bear, and Perdita's party dress echoing the swaddling clothes of sixteen summers before.

A clearly told Winter's Tale, set in a magical fairy-tale landscape of balloons and billowing silk, umbrellas and Mackintosh chairs.

production photograph: Robert Day

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

THE SIXTEEN

THE SIXTEEN

Choral Pilgrimage 2011 at Walsingham

24.09.11

The shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is celebrating 950 years. New etched glass windows in the Chapel of Reconciliation tell the story of Richeldis's vision, and a series of celebratory events culminated in a visit from The Sixteen.

Harry Christophers' choir has been making choral pilgrimages for years, but few of their concerts can have been more appropriately hosted, in a building whose prime function is to receive pilgrims from all over the world.

And its wooden vault, plus the fact that no listener is more than 10 metres from the choir, meant that we were treated to a warm, immediate sound from the 18 singers, directed on this occasion by Eamonn Dougan.

The programme explored, appropriately, the Marian music of Tomás Luis de Victoria, who died four hundred years ago. It ended with the sublime Litaniae Beatae Mariae, a glorious tapestry of prayers and supplications to the Virgin.

This year's pilgrimage began in March, and ends in Brighton in November.

OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR

Oh What a Lovely War

Blackeyed Theatre at Civic

15.09.11

Jim Hutchon was in the trenches ...

Director Adrian McDougall’s take on this savage WW1 satire combined the inexhaustible energy of a team of five music men, with superb touches of imagination and pointed video backdrops to bring out the pointless butchery of the war to end wars.

Although all the actors are seasoned professionals, the tone of the production was almost student-like in enthusiasm and boundless talent as the players slipped easily – and with split-second timing - between the 30+ characters they portrayed. A nice imaginative touch was that as each took on the different persona, their costume stands stood as white crosses, so that, by the end of the show, the stage was littered with them.

It is, first and foremost, a musical, and each of the players performed expertly on a variety of instruments, with, generally, excellent voices. Occasionally though, some of the monologues were a bit overwhelmed by the closeness of the trumpets and saxes. The jokes were also well-timed and pointed, frequently leaving the audience feeling guilty at laughing.

This was an evening of real entertainment – a fresh coat of paint to a familiar classic - and the near full house audience left the theatre smiling and humming the memorable songs.

AN EVENING WITH M R JAMES

AN EVENING WITH M R JAMES

Chelmsford Ghost and Phantasmagoria Society in the Antiquarium

Dan Segeth and Roger Johnson

16.09.11

On the fringe of the Altogether Now festival, two Ghost Story fans took us on a journey from the steps of the Shire Hall, with a short pause at the porch of St Mary's, to the “Antiquarium”. Tindal Square has its shared of ghosts: here's the old Corn Exchange – on this spot when M R James was safe in King's – and a little further back the old White Hart. The mystery venue turned out to be a deserted, abandoned bookshop, not even a shadow of a shelf remaining, but eerily lit, and festooned with lost leaves – illustrations and random pages from the tales of the supernatural we were about to hear.

The three M R James stories they chose were The Rats, set in an old Suffolk inn, A School Story, a tale of Latin grammar and sympathetic ink, and, after an interval for refreshment [Judge Tindal's Tavern doing the office of Stalls Bar] Martin's Close. This last tells, not without humour, of a ghastly murder and God's revenge, as the killer is pursued by justice, in the person of Judge Jeffreys, and by the hapless victim from beyond the grave.

Mr Segeth and Mr Johnson shared the reading, their contrasting styles helping to bring life to these chilling Edwardian stories.

GOD OF SOHO

GOD OF SOHO

Shakespeare's Globe

18.09.11

“We are so shit ...” chorus the cast of Chris Hannan's new play, a less than impressive endpiece to an otherwise successful Globe season.

They're being hard on themselves; there's some pointless shouting, but in the main they do their best with a meandering, unfocused look at celebrity, the new divine.

I would particularly single out Will Manning as New God, and Richard Clews as a “mental” down-and-out.

Some felicitous poetical lines, and great music from the band [King Porter Stomp], but not enough to transcend a script that never really settles on a style or a theme.