BUGSY MALONE

BUGSY MALONE

CCHS and KEGS at King Edward VI School

10.07.14

A ground-breaking collaboration between the two great schools on Broomfield Road fills the wide stage with an impressive team of Lower School performers. Peopling the child-friendly Chicago gangland of Alan Parker's timeless musical with colourful characters.

An elegant, arrogant Tallulah, contrasted with the sincerity of Blousey Brown, the excellent auburn torch singer who holds the stage with those big numbers, and dreams of Hollywood. Good work too from Malone's laid-back, wide-tied narrator and speak-easy boss Fat Sam – nice accent and promising stage presence. Not to mention the monosyllabic Leroy, and the enjoyable comedy duo of Smolsky and O'Dreary, incompetent cops.

In Act Two especially, some lovely moments: the death of Knuckles, the strong soup-kitchen ensemble, the slomo rumble, Babyface seizing her moment. And to finish, a spectacular splurge-gun showdown – real suspense during the countdown, and then cascades of deadly foam transforming the gangsters into white statues before the clever curtain calls, the large cast slipping and sliding through the routine.

Bugsy Malone was directed by James Russell, with Becky Chant the musical director in charge of the toe-tapping little pit band.

WAR AND PEACE

WAR AND PEACE

The Stondon Singers at Ingatestone Hall

08.07.14

William Byrd was a frequent visitor to Ingatestone Hall, and to his patron the first Baron Petre. More than four hundred years on, he'd be slightly surprised, perhaps, to find the Hall still here, and lived in, and the eighteenth Baron in the audience for this concert.

War, the theme of Brentwood Arts Festival, is also still with us, of course, and Byrd's Civitas Sancti Tui, graphically depicting the desolation of Jerusalem, reminds us that nothing much has changed since the time of Isaiah.

A very different take on the battlefield in La Guerre, a highly coloured description of a French victory [in Italy, in 1515] by Jannequin, jingoistic avant la lettre, performed with relish by the Stondon Singers under Christopher Tinker.

Their a cappella polyphony sounded especially delightful in the panelled hall. Their themed programme, which also included Tallis, Victoria and two guys named Lobo, ended with an optimistic lollipop, one of Byrd's few secular works, the madrigal This Sweet Merry Month of May. 

for those not fortunate enough to be at Ingatestone Hall, or Stondon Church the previous week, here are The Kings Singers with two of the key works ...

BLESS 'EM ALL

BLESS 'EM ALL

Brentwood Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

06.07.14

Popular songs run through the Great War – from recruiting drives to the trenches, where phonographs were prized possessions, and impromptu concert parties [as in the stage show of Birdsong] relieved the tedium and eased the terror. And of course there's O What A Lovely War, a savage satire with jolly songs.

Brentwood Operatic's approach was different. In a touching entertainment, specially devised for Brentwood Arts Festival, we see the war through the eyes of a close-knit little community, as it affects the lives of sisters, sweethearts, munitionettes and musicians.

The opening is brilliantly conceived – an invisible bugler sounds the Last Post, with Pack Up Your Troubles in poignant counterpoint. In a bleak church hall, the people are preparing patriotic paper-chains and bunting for an evening of Music Hall.

An ensemble show, with much the same community feel as their predecessors a century ago. But standout turns from Juliet Thomas as Mabel, Marcia Alderson as Lizzie, Alli Smith as the dashing drummer in the touring band, and Jamie Fudge as battle-scarred, shell-shocked Jack, whose death is subtly suggested by a heart-rending reprise of Till We Meet Again.

Musical leitmotivs run through the piece – Bless 'Em All is another, though we never hear the cruder words the Tommies sang. I'd always thought of it as a WWII song, George Formby's fault, no doubt, just as Oh Johnnie is linked to the Andrews Sisters [a super trio here, excellently choreographed]. But no, they belong to the earlier generation. Great to discover some “new” songs from the war, too – Harry Hilbert's American offering, Someday They're Coming Home Again, or the hilarious finale Higher In Hawaii.

The poetry, too, mixed the familiar with the lesser-known. Jessie Pope's tub-thumping The Call, and Owen's bitter response. But also Marian Allen's The Wind on the Downs, and Marjorie Wilson's To Tony, Age 3 -

all his joy he gave,
His love of quiet fields, his youth, his life,
To win that heritage of peace you have.

Musical Director, and orchestrated by, Becca Toft

Co directed by Becca Toft and Amy Newland

Script by Amy Newland.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Brentwood Shakespeare Company and Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.07.14

In the bosky brakes of Ingatestone Hall, a Dream that mingled the traditional and the iconoclastic. A large cast included many seasoned players, and Lisa Matthews' production for the Brentwood Arts Festival was not short of ideas.

Not least the attempt to get back to the spirit of Shakespeare's playhouse; indeed this could easily have been a [generously funded] troupe of itinerant actors pitching up at the Tudor Hall with a rough grasp of the drama, a trunk of assorted costumes and a dog or two to steal the odd scene. Hence their panic, perhaps, when Quince [Keith Morgan] mentions “tomorrow night”, and hence, for some, their shaky acquaintance with the text.

Breeze and aircraft are a challenge to the actor [though the vintage planes made a change from the police helicopters that plague Shakespeare's Globe]. Not everyone was audible all the time. Most successful in this regard were Elliott Porte's Theseus, and Nik Graham's amusingly narcissistic Lysander. And the scene between Sarah Thomson's Fairy and Chrissie O'Connor's charismatic Irish Puck was a model of crispness and clarity.

Assured comedy performances from David Lintin in his Del Boy Bottoms Up t-shirt, Ian Russell as an initially coy, later histrionic Flute, and June Fitzgerald as a lovely cuddly Snug the Lion. The lovers' spat was nicely done, and the fairies had some spectacular choreography to the eclectic score.

Chris Burr's acting edition [in the trim-and-rewrite tradition of the 18^th and 19^th century Shakespeareans] sets the action in prehistoric Britain [though the lovers looked pretty Athenian to me], and Mark Godfrey's blokish “Sandman” Oberon has some rough magick of his own; a pity, though, to rob Puck of her valediction for the sake of some Wiccan silliness ...

ELGAR AND THE GREAT WAR

ELGAR AND THE GREAT WAR

in Brentwood Cathedral

05.07.14

This magnificent collaboration made a mightily impressive opening to the 2014 Brentwood Arts Festival.

Elgar's Spirit of England, written in the darkest days of the war, sets words by Laurence Binyon for massed choirs – here the Brentwood Choral Society, the Cathedral Singers, the Hutton and Shenfield Choral Society and the Ingatestone Choral Society – and soprano. Emily Onsloe's pure, powerful voice was heard to stunning effect, especially in the second movement, “To Women”, and echoing the familiar words of “For The Fallen” - We Will Remember Them. Wonderful to hear this unique wartime cantata live, in all its patriotic glory – dedicated by the composer “to the memory of our glorious men, with a special thought for the Worcesters”.

The concert, with support from the Elgar Society, included some lesser known works from the period: Carillon, a rallying cry from 1914, accompanies a poem by Emile Cammaerts, its mood ranging from dying leaves and sacrifice to martial vengeance. And Le Drapeau Belge in similar vein from three years later. The texts magnificently delivered by actor Malcolm Kimmance. We heard the familiar Sospiri, and Polonia, a sort of Pomp and Circumstance for Poland. The superb orchestra was the ELMS Symphony, conducted by Andrew Wright.

Brentwood student Julia Cockcroft joined them as soloist for Elgar's moving Cello Concerto, written in the aftermath of war, and deeply nostalgic. She played it with an eloquent legato, the phrasing in the Adagio third movement particularly poignant, while the orchestra, under David Pickthall, captured the elegiac majesty of Elgar's last great work.