NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

Ad Hoc Players at Brentwood Theatre

04.06.2014

Ayckbourn's state-of-the-nation play has a very topical feel – ordinary people sliding into extreme actions, their fears magnified and exploited.

Hayley Joanne Bacon's production raised chuckles of recognition from the first night audience, and although this is far from vintage Ayckbourn, there is some fun to be had from watching the do-gooder Christian siblings [played convincingly by Wendi Sheard and David Lintin] organize their neighbours to fight the perceived threat from the sink estate just down the hill.

Good character support from Shealagh Dennis as the nosy-parker from the local paper, and Paul Carey as the angry little engineer with an unhealthy interest in medieval instruments of torture.

This rather predictable piece, with none of the playwright's trademark theatrical devices, needs a deal of help from the performers, more perhaps than it gets here, where hesitation and uncertainty affect all the actors to some degree.

The challenging opening monologue – a funeral eulogy to the brother lost in a police shoot-out – is confidently done but seems overlong. The closing scene [all the rest is flashback] sees his mansize monument unveiled, but we are left in the dark about the future of Bluebell Hill and its unhinged residents. A sequel from Sir Alan, maybe …

and for Remote Goat:

This was Sir Alan's 75^th play, and was well received [even by the critics] a few years ago in Scarborough, and in New York.

Hard to see why, based on Ad Hoc's slow-paced production. The unlikely story centres around Hilda and Martin, sister and brother, annoyingly devout busy-bodies [Jesus always lurking in the bushes] who set up a neighbourhood watch group to defend their green and pleasant development from the threat without. Hilda, who has the long funeral prologue, was done with some style by Wendi Sheard, and the pompous Martin was nicely characterized by David Lintin, with more than a hint of that comedy genius Jim Broadbent.

They are joined in their green lounge by assorted neighbours. Good work from Shealagh Dennis as Dorothy, fifteen years on the local rag [though only taking small ads, it transpires] and from Paul Carey as Gareth, forever tinkering in his shed and dreaming up medieval chastisement for his wayward wife [Leanne Gibbs, who had a promising alphabetical duologue with Lintin but elsewhere was often hard to hear].

Rod – ex-army, security mad and a close cousin of Harvey in Season's Greetings – was played by Stewart Goodwin. He has some of the best lines - “The country’s flooded with them … Eastern Europe. Never should have torn down the Iron Curtain. Biggest mistake we ever made.” - but unfortunately had his words [and his eyes] glued to his clip-board. Martin Wilderspin was menacing as Luther, the violent voice of sanity [but an unlikely Guardian reader], with Candy Lillywhite-Taylor as his kindly clarinet-teaching wife.

The room – with its controversial wallpaper – was well furnished, and the fire next door was effective. It was a shame there was no light for the garden and the other rooms; or even a glimpse of the stocks and the razor wire …

Hayley Joanne Bacon's production was sometimes a little static, but had some lovely moments of conflict and [occasional] intimacy. The chief obstacle to our appreciation of this dark, late Ayckbourn was the uncertainty of the actors – no prompts, it's true, but far too much hesitation and approximation. Comedy needs confidence and careful timing.

M.A. SHOWCASE

M.A. SHOWCASE

Christopher Marney at the Crypt on the Green, Clerkenwell

03.06.2014

Fifteen years after he left the Central School of Ballet – and the inspirational guidance of Christopher Gable – Christopher Marney has been back at the School, developing his choreographic work for a Master of Arts.

In an historic crypt in Clerkenwell, this impressive showcase sampled all the pieces he's devised during the last eighteen months, performed by dancers from Ballet Black and Ballet Central.

The focus is on narrative dance. In the two extracts from War Letters [Ballet Black] we saw first a lively Dance Hall, with a conga line, lots of swirls and lifts to Shostakovich and the dreamy Moonlight Serenade. And throughout, there is eloquent interaction between the girls and the GIs on the floor …

And then The Heavy Coat, an interpretation of Vicky Feaver's poem in which the coat becomes a character in its own right, as well as a potent metaphor for love and loss.

Anon!, which I first saw in Ballet Central's 2013 tour, uses Delibes' Sylvia music for a cheeky tale of fantasy football as the geeky girl [engagingly danced by Amelia Jackson] meets Duncan Anderson's somewhat abashed soccer captain. A proud pyramid, some lovely slomo, and a tender pas-de-deux.

Two of a Kind [Ballet Black] follows the journey of a relationship – the warmth and subtlety of the interpretation made it easy to believe in the feelings the four dancers expressed.

The finale – a highlight of this year's Ballet Central tour, too – was Carousel Dances, Marney's tribute to the dream ballet world of the classic musical. Clearly a labour of love, the piece is also underpinned by thorough stateside research, talking to dancers involved in early productions and studying Agnes de Mille's original choreography. This is a dazzlingly inventive work – with minimal lighting and four striped poles it conjures up the world of the showgirls and the barkers, and the merry-go-round itself, in a moving, hugely enjoyable celebration. The full-blooded pas-de-deux [If I Loved You] was exquisitely danced by Duncan Anderson's Barker Boy and Emma Walker's Louise.

Marney is probably best known for his work with Matthew Bourne. But as this showcase proves, he is an inspired choreographer in his own right, and we eagerly await more of his work in this narrative genre especially. Next spring, he's creating a new piece for Chelmsford Ballet Company – 18^th to 21^st March – it's in the diary already …

production photograph: Dave Morgan

Coat

Sometimes I have wanted

to throw you off

like a heavy coat.

Sometimes I have said

you would not let me 

breathe or move.

But now that I am free

to choose light clothes

or none at all

I feel the cold 

and all the time I think

how warm it used to be.

THINGS TO COME - CTW'S NEW SEASON

CTW announce their next season

So here it is, CTW's new “bums-on-seats” season 2014-2015. A whiff of weekly rep, perhaps, with farce and Christie in the mix, but a varied season, including sure-fire favourites at the Old Court like Stags and Hens, Terry Pratchett and Blackadder.

It all kicks off in September with Irish playwright Connor McPherson's 2009 reworking of the Daphne Du Maurier novella The Birds, best known of course in its Hitchcock incarnation.

And I'm pleased to see in amongst the crowd-pleasers one of the most innovative shows to come out of the National Theatre in recent years, Mike Bartlett's Earthquakes in London, and to end the season, Midsummer, a “play with songs” by David Greig & Gordon McIntyre, which had a successful run on the London Fringe - part love story, part Edinburgh guide, part drama and part philosophical treatise about today's middle-class, thirty-somethings ...

here's the complete season list:

The Birds by Connor McPherson (Daphne Du Maurier)
September 2014
The Haunting of Hill House by F. Andrew Leslie
October/November 2014
Blackadder's Christmas Carol by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton
December 2014
No Sex Please, We're British by Alistair Foot
January 2015
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
March 2015
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
April 2015
Earthquakes in London by Mike Bartlett
May 2015
Stags & Hens by Willie Russell
June 2015
Midsummer by David Greig & Gordon McIntyre
July 2015

CONNECTOME

CONNECTOME

Royal Ballet at Covent Garden

31.05.2014

This eagerly-awaited new work from Alastair Marriott, starring Natalia Osipova, is based on Sebastain Seung's book, which tries to show how the wiring of our brain makes us who we are.

Not sure that we'd know that without being told. I think we might have guessed, though, that the concept originated with the designer, Es Devlin, with whom he worked on the Closing Ceremony for the London Olympics.

It does seem, sometimes, that the dancers are almost secondary to the effect of the stage pictures.

The design is certainly stunning. 400 suspended Metallic poles, like a glitter curtain, cast stark diagonal shadow stripes across the stage floor. Later, projected behind the dancers, neural strands like seaweed or birch twigs rotate slowly. And finally, there are brightly coloured strands, which die back to black as Osipova is left alone on stage.

Each section of this 30-minute piece explores a different aspect of our conscious experience: human interactions, creativity, death and loss. The music is Arvo Part, including the much-played Fratres – piano, woodblock and violin are prominent [the fiddler took a well-deserved stage call with conductor Barry Wordsworth and the dancers.

The dancing is vigorous and fluent, with lots of floor work. Osipova is joined by Steven McRae and Edward Watson, plus a corps of four young male dancers. The skimpy costumes recall the gymnasium; the style has elements of tai chi. Some of the dancing, despite being made on three of the best performers in the business, struggles to compete with the design, but at its best – as when McRae is held aloft as a sacrifice, danced to an ethereal solo voice floating around the dome – is memorably effective.

This world premiere is framed by two repertoire favourites.

Ashton's Dream – an hour-long reworking of Shakespeare to Mendelssohn's familiar music. Very Victorian fairies, a striking Titania from Roberta Marquez, partnered by McRae's spectacular Oberon. Paul Kay's Puck, though engaging, is a little on the earthy side, but Bennet Gartside is a brilliant Bottom, enjoying a lovely hoof-point pas-de-deux with Marquez.

Gartside stars again in Jerome Robbins' Concert. On a bare stage, a pianist [Robert Clark, the Royal Ballet's Head of Music Staff] sits down at the grand piano to play Chopin. The audience enters one by one, bringing their own folding chairs, and a nice little intrigue emerges: Lauren Cuthbertson is hilarious as the myopic would-be dancer, pursued by Gartside's errant husband, to the fury of his nagging harridan of a wife [amusingly done by Laura Morera]. It's obvious stuff, in the main, but the constantly diverting ideas – the ragged pas-de-six, the Raindrop umbrellas, the Papillon butterflies chased off at the end by a frustrated Clark with his butterfly net – keep the audience audibly amused.

A satisfying sandwich, this – excellent value, too, with two masterpieces superbly recreated and an inspired new work beautifully realised.

And a timely reminder of Ashton's delicious Dream, as Northern Ballet tour their new version – a ballet company on a train trip from monochrome to technicolor – and the Mariinsky bring their Balanchine ballet to this very house ...

QUARTET

QUARTET

Greville Theatre Club

The Barn Theatre Little Easton

24.05.2014

Mary Redman was at Table D in the Barn ...

Ronald Harwood is well known for his accurate portraits of life upon the wicked stage such as The Dresser. This affectionate picture of life in a genteel retirement home for geriatric professionals, though peppered with theatrical injokes that were new long before Noel Coward was a boy actor, is great fun for audience and cast alike. Sample black joke about “being the guest of honour at the crematorium”.

Against the background of a cosy but elegant set designed by Jan Ford and directed by Pam Hemming, four of Essex's most experienced thespians assembled for curtain up. All playing retired opera singers who had appeared on stage together years ago.

We were treated to not just an entertainment but a lesson in growing older. Either gracefully or disgracefully, depending on whether they still had most of their marbles or had lost a few over the years, plus how nimble their limbs had remained.

Ramrod straight and smartly besuited Mel Hastings's grumpy Reginald's prim and proper, pedantic and governed by rules person, bitterly resented his treatment by the care staff on whom he wasted his vitriolic anger.

His more urbane, sex maniac fellow inmate Wilfred was given a roistering performance by Michael Gray. He created plenty of laughs from the word go with his character's delight in his own jokes and with his lecherous leanings towards Jan Ford's delightfully dotty and simple Cissie. This was a beautifully restrained performance. Wilfred's lasciviousness now confined by age to verbal “attacks” only, but resembling in looks the modern comic actor Kris Marshall. It was very good to see Michael in a comedy role so hopefully this won't be his last swansong.

Into this settled situation came an intruder. Diana Bradley's oh-so-elegant Jean, once married to Reginald and horrified by the ravages of age. With her cool exterior she came trailing ex-husbands in her wake, including of course the resentful Reggie.

They were then asked to come out of retirement to appear at a concert which led to much twittering in the dovecot but was successfully resolved with hidden modern technology.

Sound by Steve Bradley was excellently timed especially when a Doppler effect was needed as a door opened and closed on a rehearsal. It was a pity that Richard Pickford's lighting was pooled so that as the cast stood up and moved around their faces went from light into shadow.

This was a thoroughly entertaining evening. Thank you Greville.

production photograph by Adrian Hoodless