THE CEMETERY CLUB

THE CEMETERY CLUB

Ian Dickens Productions International Ltd at the Mercury Theatre Colchester

18.06.2012

for The Public Reviews

This comedy drama, first seen some twenty years since on Broadway, tells the tale of three Jewish widows, who meet each month, chat over tea, then head for the cemetery to commune with their late hubbies.

It's a piece still popular with amateur groups, or, as here, as a Golden Girls-style vehicle for doyennes of the stage.

Audiences drawn by the names on the playbill will not be disappointed: there are some skilled, sentimental characterizations on offer here.

Anita Harris is Ida, a no-nonsense widow who wouldn't say no to a new man in her life, and, sure enough, becomes a blushing teenager when Sam [Peter Ellis] comes on the scene [at the cemetery, of course]. Her confusion and her disappointment, when her affections seem to be spurned, are palpable; her scenes with the "butcher who delivers", tender and truthful, are some of the best moments in the show.

Elsewhere, we might expect, given the time already spent on the road, a slicker, crisper delivery. The conversation where ages are never mentioned is nicely done, though, and I enjoyed the drunken wine, cake and cha cha cha, followed by the inevitable morning after. Both of these come in the second half, where most of the soul-baring goes on, including a moving few minutes when these three widows wistfully recall their first meeting with their man, a sad showdown where home truths are shared, and the not entirely unexpected dénouement before one final visit to the cemetery.

Shirley-Anne Field is Lucille, the man-hunter – very elegant as she acquires mink after mink. Anne Charleston, as Doris, the career widow whose Abe has been gone just four years, gets closest to the cutting Jewish repartee which pervades Menchell's so-so script. And Debbie Norman makes the most of the few minutes she has as Sam's new fancy-woman, wonderfully garrulous with the most irritating of laughs.

Designer Alan Miller-Bunford has given Ida a bijou flat, compact enough to fit the smallest stage, dressed with the kind of furniture she might have bought when she married. The problem is that we need to go with the girls on their monthly pilgrimage to visit their late husbands, and this involves trucking a very cramped cemetery in front of the set, while we stare at the tabs and listen to the Rat Pack.

We want to share the joy and pain of these three ladies, but it would take a classier production, and swifter scene changes, to give them the attention they deserve.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

WHEN CHILDREN RULE THE WORLD

WHEN CHILDREN RULE THE WORLD

Tomorrow's Talent at The Cramphorn Theatre

17.06.12

It's been an amazing year for Tomorrow's Talent. Their CM1 Glee Club made the national finals on the BBC, and they have alumni in Matilda, Singin' in the Rain, Shrek and Oliver.

This summer showcase celebrated those successes, with impressive unplugged spots from the Glee crowd, and Isobelle Molloy reprising an affecting circus fairytale from Matilda.

But it was also an opportunity for every student to strut their stuff and show what they can do under performance pressure. So the bedtime story was followed by Hushabye Mountain – lovely choral singing directed by MD Kris Rawlinson. There were intimate individual moments, like Erin Jacobs' choirgirl confession, and big production numbers, like the appropriate triple threat scene from Fame, a cleverly devised "book" sequence, the title song [from Whistle Down the Wind], a snippet from Cats, an exhausting burst of Hairspray, and that classic exit number, So Long Farewell from The Sound of Music.

Everyone, from the tiniest to the tallest, showed commendable discipline and stagecraft, making for a very entertaining hour in the Cramphorn, produced by Gavin Wilkinson and directed by Emma Tapley.

The Senior Group are presenting Rent in the Civic next month, and we were treated to a tantalizing trailer – Seasons of Love - amazing even unamplified.

SUMMER CONCERT

SUMMER CONCERT

Waltham Singers in the Parish Church

Celebrating the Diamond Jubilee and the joys of summer – despite a damp sky and cool breeze – the Waltham Singers brought us some very polished singing, and some fine pianism as well.
The summery pieces included a controlled but expressive Brahms' Zigeunerlieder, in the original German, and Bob Chilcott's hugely enjoyable Fables from Aesop. The words crucial here too, and I was very impressed with the articulation, especially in the titles and the morals – Slow But Steady, Much Ado, Sour Grapes and so on – which were models of choral speaking.

Alan Bullard's Summer Garland was commissioned by the choir ten years ago for the Golden Jubilee. "Pleasantly pastoral" I called it then, and it was good to hear it again, given two performances astride the interval. The busy bee, with buzzing and description tossed around amongst the voices, the idyllic acrostic epilogue from Alice, and the lively dance of the holiday Summer Queen were all imaginatively set and beautifully performed. Britten's Choral Dances – opening with a joyous peal of bells – also harked back to the Coronation.

The accompanist was Tim Carey, who gave us bonuses by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and, delightfully appropriate, Grainger's jolly Country Gardens, in duet with Kate Hanson.

MARGARET CATCHPOLE

MARGARET CATCHPOLE

Eastern Angles 

at the Hush House

23.06.12

To celebrate their 30th year, Eastern Angles have revived one of their greatest hits, performed for the Millennium in village halls all over their patch.

But this time Margaret Catchpole has been re-imagined on a more epic scale.

Epic in its design. The broad arena of the Hush House – a revelation in the site-specific Bentwater Roads of 2010 – allows us to have a shoreline, with shingle, and impressive landing stages that do service as smugglers' boats, and, memorably, as a man'o'war.

Epic in its performance. We have four musicians, and as well as a cast of six, the impressive forces of the Community Chorus: no mere supernumeraries, but real Suffolk characters, including a nicely nuanced vicar from

Tony Barnard.  And some big set pieces, like the battle and the Harvest Home, with singing and dancing.

Appropriately for Olympic year, Alastair Cording's piece celebrates a folk hero and noted horsewoman, as she struggles between her duty to her father and to her employers and her "unfortunate fixation" for the "Freetrader" Will Laud, played with just the right balance of swagger and sincerity by Francis Woolf.

There's a Dickensian sense of injustice, of broken hopes, of the harshness of fate, of lives balanced between good and evil, all well brought out in Ivan Cutting's production. There's a pleasing symmetry to the dramatic structure: the urgent knocking at the doctor's door, the desperate bareback ride. Australia is a leitmotiv, whether as a New Start or as a penal sentence.

Pete Sowerbutts is Margaret's father, his life destroyed by her ill-advised liaison, and also the local doctor, who sees her as a wild child who must be tamed. Two excellent characterizations.

Her first love, the shy but determined John Barry is sympathetically drawn by Liam Bewley – his determination survives as he joins the Revenue Men, sworn enemies of those who land moonshine at the Sizewell Gap, not least his rival for Margaret's hand, and his accomplice Luff [Gareth Hinsley].

Margaret herself is Rosalind Steele, who makes us feel the distress of this remarkable woman, sharing her joy at reading a letter, her sorrow at her many setbacks. There's a "cheerful alteration" in her life when she is taken on by the Cobbolds. Elizabeth [Becky Pennick], wife of the brewery owner, treats Margaret more like a sister than a servant, teaches her to read and write, and remains true to her even when her trusts are betrayed.

This is a fine revival, well worth schlepping out to remotest Rendlesham for, full of memorable theatrical triumphs: Margaret's plaintive "Ride the White Horses", her imagined roan mount, Laud's letter which she painstakingly reads as he prompts her from across the ocean, and the final tableau, the whole company frozen in farewell as our heroine walks into the infinite exile of the Hush House tunnel.

production photograph: Mike Kwasniak

ALL SHOOK UP

ALL SHOOK UP

Springers at The Civic Theatre

16.06.12

"Quote Shakespeare and peel me like a banana!"

The Bard has had a hand in many a musical comedy – West Side Story, Two Gents, Kiss Me Kate, Your Own Thing, and my favourite, Return to the Forbidden Planet – but this is his joyous juke-box show [with said juke-box prominent on the porch stage right] which takes plot elements from the plays, and songs from The King's back catalogue, and puts them all through a bobby-sox blender.

Nothing much original, then, with nods to Grease, Footloose and the rest, but very impressively done by Springers – their chorus work excellent, their choreography [Mel Smart] neat and nimble, even if we might have wished for more raunchy rock'n'roll, their costumes spot on. It opens in the jailhouse: a visually stunning sequence against the stylised set. Equally strong was the Act One finale, with all the love-struck leads singing Can't Help Falling In Love With You.

A very accomplished cast, too, though some of them had only cyphers to work with. Ian Pavelin stood out as roustabout and mischief-maker Chad; his tongue-in-cheek teddy-bear Lothario was warmly characterized and very watchable. Honours too to Alison Gosling as the cross-dressing grease monkey, Jon Newman as the geeky side-kick Dennis [his There's Always Me tellingly delivered, with great instrumental support from the pit] and Colin Shoard as Jim, trying to release his inner teenager.

All Shook Up was directed by Drew Shepherd, with Ian Myers as Musical Director.