THE OPINION MAKERS

THE OPINION MAKERS

Made in Colchester at the Mercury Theatre

29.10.13

for The Public Reviews

Into the dingy basement office of Fernsby Market Research bursts its MD, just off the PanAm from the US, full of new ideas and stateside jargon.

This brand new musical comedy is set firmly in the 1960s, the design, the language, the pre-permissive society, bath buns and bathing costumes. The show itself seems almost like a throwback to that innocent era, its creators happily acknowledging the influence of the legendary Boulting Brothers. It's gentle satire, genially poking fun at lazy staff and gullible clients.

And a strong, hard-working ensemble of musical theatre and comedy stars do their best to breathe life into this unlikely saga of generic brands and product relaunches. Campbell's Lotion, used by generations as a cure for everything from diarrhoea to torpor, is to be rebranded as Gemini ...

Justin Edwards is the lanky, awkward Fernsby, crisp comic timing and laconic delivery squeezing every last laugh from the script. His mousy secretary, loyally carrying a torch for her hapless boss, is played by Mel Giedroyc, in a big-hearted, lovable performance. David Mounfield clearly enjoys his two caricatures – the Scottish snake-oil mogul with a dark secret, and a florid, pedantic MP, both given a lovely patter song.

Stacey Ghent and Benjamin Stratton are kept busy playing all the rest, including brown-overalled stage-hands who manhandle the lamppost, the office and the public bar in a triumph of scene shifting.

From the musical stage, we welcome Daniel Boys, who also gets two characters – Fernsby's other employee, frantically faking questionnaires in the Waggon and Horses, and Abramovitz, the hippy creative brought in for the relaunch. The excellent Julie Atherton is Campbell's unlikely American bride, entrusted with some of the best numbers – her seductive Thinly-Veiled Metaphor is one of the highlights of the score.

The onstage musicians are wonderful, recreating the jazzy sounds of the sixties from their onstage bandstand – Tom Kelly is the Musical Director.

But the inspiration is inconsistent. Not every number reaches the same sublime heights of ridiculousness as Airport Carousel; the paean of praise to the good old British pub, for example, is a huge disappointment. But the score is serviceable, with a good deal of enjoyable pastiche, and it's all delivered with commendable flair and enthusiasm.

Sara Perks' design is superb – the street and the office beneath, the pub, the truck for the band, even a Scottish baronial bedroom – and Daniel Buckroyd's direction is deft and pacy, skilfully recreating the comedy style we enjoyed before Carry On coarseness crept in.

The crazy plot comes home to roost with Mr Fernsby's new American ideas brought to bear on the political world, with a New Jerusalem of focus groups and consumer surveys. So that's who's to blame ...

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT

The Just Imagine Company at the Cramphorn Theatre

02.11.13

Seasonal stories in the Cramphorn: for Halloween, two twisted variations on the vampire legend, and for Remembrance-tide, a soldier's tale of ghosts, the trenches and good red wine.

This was Duncan Wood's The Known Soldier, performed by Callum Monk McGowan. Framed by soundscape of war and archive film footage, a student, busy with a dissertation, consoled by Fats Waller, makes a killing by selling a victory medal online, and is haunted by the hero who won it. McGowan's voice and movement brought much to the narrative, though the words sometimes sounded awkward.

Kate Millner brought her mesmeric stage presence to the two very different vampire pieces. In Sister of Mercy, by local author Simon Mawdsley, whose Housebound impressed at this year's One-Act Play Festival, a severe nurse in a grim Victorian hospital is entranced by a sick soldier and brings peaceful release to her elderly charges. A chilling story, told by a character realised with subtlety and some sympathy.

Sympathy too for the Wicked Stepmother, whose voice told the first offering, Neil Gaiman's 1994 Snow, Glass, Apples. “A witch, not of the story kind”, a wise woman gifted with fangs as a wedding gift from Snow White, the villain in this deftly re-imagined version.

Not simple story-telling, as Ben Haggerty might do, nor dramatized readings, nor monologues, but an engaging, if sometimes uneasy, blend of all three.

The evening was presented by Just Imagine – part of an event that also included sessions for younger audiences. Let's hope they will be encouraged to bring us more stories, such a valuable part of our literary and dramatic landscape.

OLIVER!

OLIVER!

Witham Amateur Operatic Society at the Public Hall

02.11.13

Against a splendid period London panorama, the big ensembles were a highlight of Vikki Mundell-Poole's lively Oliver! for WAOS.

The well-drilled orphans [part-singing and fancy footwork] in their subdued uniforms, dreaming of Food, Glorious Food as the Beadle's feast was carried past under their noses; most of London's lowlife crowding the stage for Consider Yourself, with a Punch and Judy show squeezing in stage right; the different levels cleverly used for the cheeky knees-up in the Cripples; the maids with brooms for Who Will Buy; the tattered brollies for I'd Do Anything. All with pin-sharp choreography and tight ensemble singing.

Charlie Smith made an engaging Oliver [though perhaps not “in proportion”], excellent in Who Will Buy, and a plucky match for nasty Noah Claypole [Edward Tunningley]. If I were a starving urchin, though, I think I might have tucked in to that apple, and to hell with diction …

Fagin – convincing hair, beard and East London accent – was George Lambeth, at his best in the reflective Reviewing the Situation, his musings nicely matched by Sandy Tate's clarinet.

Robyn Harrington sang beautifully as Nancy, and stayed firmly in character throughout her big number.

Underworld characters Dodger and Sykes were confidently done by Max Lenoir and Patrick Willis – Lenoir with cocky charm, Willis with gravel-voiced menace and a casually violent manner. Qualities not shared by Maisie, his affectionate attack dog – though, like the chorus, she was well trained and gave a very professional performance.

A large supporting cast included Liz Watson and Tim Clarke as the disgraced workhouse management, Richard Herring and Deborah Anderson as the funeral directors, Alice Tunningley as young Bet, Ron Howe and Emma Loring as the charitable Brownlow and Bedwin, and Stewart Adkins giving a consummate character cameo as Grimwig.

A very effective, versatile staging, with the double death of Nancy and her Bill one of many striking stage pictures.

The band, under MD Geoff Osborne, were on top form throughout, and while we might have welcomed more extrovert energy all round, this was a most enjoyable reminder of Lionel Bart's one and only hit show.

DON'T LOOK NOW

DON'T LOOK NOW

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre, Little Easton

01.11.13

Du Maurier's short story made a controversial, cult film. It does not transfer quite so well to the stage.

Neil Leyshon's version has countless short scenes, making it hard to establish a mood.

But Chris Plumridge's production for Greville did achieve several effective moments, and told the story, such as it is, with admirable economy and clarity.

The grey stage and the monochrome backdrop focused attention on the characters, and the action moved swiftly from hotel to canal-side to cathedral; a minimum of furniture was swiftly reset – and could have been done in low light rather than black.

“There are things out there that we can't see ...”. “Don't look now!” is a recurrent refrain. The psychic powers in this tale are not confined to the two mysterious sisters, but seem to be shared by the outwardly stoical John, bringing Laura back to Venice ten years after their honeymoon, desperate to come to terms with the loss of their young daughter to meningitis.

Like Aschenbach, he's repeatedly warned to leave the city, a danger to tourists suggested but hushed up by authorities fearful of their profits.

Adam Thompson ably suggested the conflict within his character, although he appears to be written as more stiff-upper lip, colonial-old-school than he came across here; a more expressionless, buttoned-up characterization might have made a better contrast with Carol Parradine's needy Laura, agonising over her lost daughter and her young son, lying sick back at school in England. Parradine's performance was gripping, a moving mixture of guilt and grief.

Excellent work too from the Old Ladies – Marcia Baldry-Bryan and Jan Ford – who did much to conjure the sad, sinister atmosphere. Mixed fortunes, though, for the Italian character roles which provide local colour and move the plot along.

The sound – salon musicians, ghostly voices – enhanced the production; the hallucinated voices in the nightmare sequence were less successful, partly because they were not well reproduced. Better, surely, to have the actors do this live, perhaps turning away for the “unreal” lines. I'm sure the production would have liked to use more sophisticated lighting, and it would have helped to create the dark alley, say, or to keep the weird sisters in sombre shadow.

I liked the red-cloaked figure on the staircase, though the final effect was compromised by not having a tiny shape luring John to his death. The Act One ending was genuinely chilling, and the triptych of grief, which occurs twice, was beautifully realized.

DRACULA

DRACULA

Early Doors Productions at Ingatestone Hall

31.10.13

Did Bram Stoker ever see Ingatestone Hall, on his way from Dublin to Golders Green [via Whitby] ?

His classic Gothic horror Dracula has been popular on stage for many years, but this site-specific production, using Liz Lochhead's free adaptation, must be one of the most unusual. And thankfully light on fangs and gore.

We sit in the long, narrow gallery, watching rapt as the simple staging, fluently directed by Amy Clayton, tells the chilling tale, moving swiftly from Carfax to London to Hungary and back again. A company including many of the very best local actors ensure an unforgettable encounter with Paul Sparrowham's Doctor Seward [Julie Salter his sluttish nurse], Justin Cartledge's innocent Harker, the deranged Renfield [excellently done by Darren Matthews], the powerful Carpathian Count himself [an imposing Lionel Bishop], Alan Thorley's vampire hunter, and three seductive succubi …

Clayton herself plays a great Florrie the Maid [not in the original], and the two sisters who are the object of Dracula's predations are played as very modern young ladies by Hayley Webber and Laura Newton.

Flickering candlelight, ancient panelling, solid furniture and the remote setting add an extra thrill to this inventive version of a familiar chiller – just the thing for Halloween.

and for Sardines

An ambitious Halloween choice for Early Doors Productions. Liz Lochhead's imaginative reworking of Bram Stoker's story, itself almost a classic now. And, well outside their studio theatre comfort zone, the atmospheric sixteenth century gallery of Ingatestone Hall. Is that a “Tudor chimney breast” ???

This rather wordy version is perhaps a little long for this venue, but it is well served by an excellent cast, working in a small acting area, lit by hundreds of candles and a few carefully placed lamps.

Central in every sense is the padded cell – a small cage in this production – inhabited by Renfield, one of the patients in the madhouse of Dr Seward [a powerful performance from Paul Sparrowham]. Impressively played by Darren Matthews, Renfield has some excellent speeches, raving and railing in “moon talk and baby babble”.

The Count himself is Lionel Bishop. Palpable stage presence, an aura of evil, and that hypnotic voice “library dust on every syllable”. His beautifully timed entrance stage right, his imposing figure framed in the doorway are typical of a meticulous, memorable performance. Innocent Jonty Harker, the lawyer lured to Dracula's lair by a property deal and then detained there, is Justin Cartledge; Alan Thorley brings gravitas and energy to the crucial vampire-slayer Van Helsing.

Lochhead makes Lucy and Mina sisters, and I might have expected her to make them more interesting as characters. But they are well played here, Hayley Webber as the playful teenager [excellent as a vampire, too] and Laura-Leigh Newton as the bride-to-be. It's the servants who get the best of it: Julie Salter as GriceSeward's nasty, feisty assistant in the asylum, and the show's director, Amy Clayton, superb as Florrie, the maidservant, another canny invention of Lochhead's.

The historic setting comes at a cost: not everything is audible, or visible – Renfield in his cage is a disembodied voice for most of the capacity audience.

But certainly worth it for the frisson of footsteps on the stone flags, the brush of the Count's heavy cloak, the ancestors staring in disbelief from the walls and those candles lighting the dark wooden panelling.

This is a nightmarish, often erotic, vision, dwelling on blood, blackness and bats, dreams and the immortal soul. The soundscape [the baying, screaming “children of the night”], and the music, enhance the atmosphere further.

And outside, in the gloom of the Hall's courtyard, nine tombstones, each engraved with the name of an actor and their part in the dark, demonic drama of Dracula.