THE ALCHEMIST

THE ALCHEMIST

Mercurius at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside

10.06.16

Ben Jonson was no stranger to the Rose, but this perfect farce was written for an indoor space, and, ironically given the plot, was premièred in Oxford thanks to the plague.

It was last done on this tiny, temporary stage some three years ago.

Mercurius's riotously lively production begins with Labrinth's Earthquake, shaking the concrete rafters as Subtle and Face unpack their paraphernalia, ready to welcome a succession of the gullible to the house they've “borrowed” in the Blackfriars. Peter Wicks is the duplicitous butler, sporting an eye-patch as the captain, tongs as the alchemist's acolyte. Benjamin Garrison makes a gloriously fruity, flouncy charlatan, flopping onto his chaise longue and wrapping himself in his astrological throw. Doll Commmon, their “colleague”, as the programme coyly has it, is Beth Eyre, just as clever as the chaps at assuming a disguised persona.

Amongst the varied victims, all splendidly portrayed: Monty D'Inverno's Dapper [he was also the angry Kastril], Clark Alexander [who also plays the absent Lovewit, master of the house] as Abel Drugger, seeking to feng shui his tobacconist's shop, and Jeremy Booth's excellent Sir Epicure, eagerly seeking the philosopher's stone and relishing some of Jonson's richest, ripest language. Alec Bennie is his sceptical side-kick Surly, soon to return in Spanish guise. Some of the playwright's sharpest satire is reserved for the Puritans: Charlie Ryall's Anabaptist Ananias and Beth Eyre's splendidly named Tribulation Wholesome. Ryall also gives us Dame Pliant, the widow who weds Lovewit in the deft dénouement.

The echoing void is sparingly, but effectively used – shadowplay for the quarrel, and Mammon's imposing arrival.

“Take but the cues I give you; it shall be brief enough...” Pared down to the statutory ninety minutes, Jenny Eastop's relentlessly pacy Alchemist is fast and furious fun – the tinkly little doorbell scarcely stops ringing. Just the thing to ruffle the cobwebs and rouse the glorious ghosts of the old Rose.

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

Guildonian Players at the Little Theatre, Harold Wood
11.06.16


Mike Kenny's adaptation of the E Nesbit classic – as seen at Waterloo and King's Cross - owes something of its narrative structure to Edgar's legendary Nicholas Nickleby.
The staging is simple, the story is moved engagingly along by the characters, with everyone chipping in. It starts, in fact with the three youngsters squabbling over details as they recall that summer when they became the Railway Children.
They're convincingly played by Genevieve Allen as Bobbie, the eldest, who becomes a grown-up thanks to the crisis that sends the family up to Yorkshire; Ben Sylvester as Peter, well-meaning and impetuous, and Abigail Farenden as Phyllis, acutely aware of being the baby of the family.
Two wonderful performances from Chrissie O'Connor as Mother, nobly coping with adversity, and Tom Hind as a genial, pipe-smoking Perks the Porter. And three cherishable below-stairs cameos from Carole Brand. Not to mention a clutch of actual children, including a tiny Edwardian tot in the opening scene.
Susie Faulkner's production has no rolling stock, but no shortage of theatrical magic. The sun comes out and a marvellous moorland backdrop is revealed. Revolving flats for slick scene changes, tunnel entrances framing the emergency exits, even a moving grove for the landslip disaster.
And in a triumph of total theatre, the techies run the show from a specially constructed signal box [doubling as ticket office], there's bunting in the buffet, and a fine collection of railway posters adorning the walls.

JACK THE RIPPER

JACK THE RIPPER

Blackmore Players at the Village Hall

09.06.16

for Sardines

We were promised fun, terror, song and dance, and Blackmore Players certainly delivered in this clever blend of music hall, melodrama and serial murder.

It all happens in the mean streets of Whitechapel and in the Steam Packet Public House, where Simon Haskell's genial Chairman tried to keep order amongst the dockers, pimps and whores who make up the clientèle and the chorus.

This chorus was on stage for most of the action – just as well, since getting them all on and off stage is a long process which inevitably slows the action. Pace generally was a problem, with cues picked up slowly, dragging dialogue and sagging gaps of silence between scenes.

But the show, directed by Steve Drinkall with Dave Smith the producer, had many ingenious touches. I liked the magic lantern projections for the shadow of the Ripper, and the instant switch from reality to pub stage, simply done with lighting and acting style.

Some fine performances amongst the large cast. Particularly pleasing to see a number of talented younger actors, bringing freshness and verve to the proceedings as well as boding well for the future of this enterprising village company.

The four lads had some nice comedy moments, and got to impersonate some of the usual suspects in Act Two. James Hughes especially impressive as Dan Mendoza – his Sing Sing duet the first of many telling contributions. Lisa Rawlings was excellent as the tragic Marie, one of several nicely characterized sisters of the night. “Step Across The River” the most successful of the serious songs. Good vocal work from Anna Green's Polly, and from Sandra Trott in the unlikely double of doss-house proprietrix and Empress of India.

Montague Druitt, aka Toynbee, was played with some style and exemplary clarity by Sam Haskell. An enigmatic figure, he's the villain of the melodrama, as well as Marvel the Mystic.

The question mark ending, with the final victim led off to the quiet canal path, and one last Ripper shadow high on the wall, was genuinely chilling.

The music – a prepared piano sound from the pit keys-and-drums duet – was in the capable hands of Shirley Parrott. And there were many lovely musical moments – the torch songs, the knees-ups, the a capella opening to the trio ...

Nice to see this rather neglected little musical again – chronologically and stylistically somewhere between Oliver! and Sweeney Todd – the history, the jollity, the gore and the pathos all enthusiastically tackled by the Blackmore Players.

production photograph: Richard Smith

JEKYLL AND HYDE

JEKYLL AND HYDE

Shenfield Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

08.06.2016

Not everyone's favourite show, Jekyll and Hyde, the musical in which the legendary Leslie Bricusse had a hand back in the 80s. It turns Stevenson's taut, psychological tale into an over-blown melodrama with one good tune, some leaden lyrics and some risible rhymes.

So it was lucky that Shenfield were able to bring a fine cast and skilled creatives to the bachelor party.

David Pridige is the eponymous tortured soul [“You don't seem to be quite yourself tonight, Dr Jekyll...”], switching from good to evil with a change of vocal timbre and a red scarf. He is a ruthless psychopath in this version, frightening ladies in the street and bumping off his enemies in a string of 'orrible murders, including the Bishop of Basingstoke [Lloyd Bonson], bludgeoned to death with his own crozier. Sir Danvers [Bob Southgate], who does die in the book, is spared, though, perhaps because he is to be Jekyll's father-in-law.

The cod-operatic score is well handled for the most part, with impressive work from the two women in the Doctor's life – Emma [Rachel Watson], his betrothed, and Lucy [Kate Smith], a whore he meets on his stag do in the Red Rat, a scene Stevenson somehow omitted, somewhere between La Cage Aux Folles, the Kit Kat Club and the Three Cripples. Their duet - “In His Eyes” - one of the best things in the show.

Solid support from a huge cast of Victorian characters [Alli Smith's Utterson, Jamie Fudge's Stride and David Ward's Herbert to name but three], with excellent use of the stage area and imaginative groupings and choreography: the quartet near the end of Act One, the Murder Murder opening to Act Two and the final tragic tableau, all superbly done. The lighting was starkly effective, especially for Jekyll's very modest laboratory.

Jekyll and Hyde is directed by Kerry McGowan, with Ian Southgate the MD.

LAWRENCE AFTER ARABIA

LAWRENCE AFTER ARABIA

at Hampstead Theatre
01.06.16


Here's Howard Brenton back again, doing what he does best, making an iconic historical figure a flesh-and-blood reality.
T E Lawrence a bit of a challenge in this regard, being something of a reclusive enigma as well as a self-aggrandizing fantasist.
Many of the factoids I recall about the man come from forty years ago, in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On – a memoir memorably delivered by John Gielgud. Nice to see these old friends again in this skilfully crafted play …


“Which is man and which is myth ?”
“I knew of Lawrence of course from his exploits in Syria, where he had been attached, though none too deeply, to the British Expeditionary Force.”
“Aurens the Arabs called him, for they are unable to pronounce their L's ...”
“He was taken for a Circassian eunuch ...”
“Shaw, or Ross, as Lawrence then called himself ...”

The action is set largely in G B Shaw's Hertfordshire home, beautifully realised, with photographic backcloth, in Michael Taylor's design, sliding off into the wings for the “garden of Allah”.
A fine cast, directed by John Dove, brings the characters alive. Not only Jack Laskey's gaunt, tortured Ross, but Jeff Rawle's “knobbly” Shaw, struggling to write St Joan, and Geraldine James's wonderfully touching, celibate Mrs GBS. William Chubb makes a ram-rod upright Allenby; Sam Alexander is the repulsive promoter hoping to cash in on Lawrence's celebrity.
The class divide, the home life of a great playwright - quince jelly and carrot cake - and above all Lawrence's guilt make for a thought-provoking, if not revelatory, drama. We see him promising freedom to Faisal and the Arabs, knowing that the region, far from being an Arab state with Damascus its capital, was to be carved up between France and Britain. As Brenton says more than once in the play, we are still reaping that whirlwind …