SPAMALOT

SPAMALOT
A Made in Colchester Production at the Mercury Theatre Colchester 

28.04.2017
for The Reviews Hub



Is this what a definitive Spamalot would look like ?  This perennially popular show, originally a Python spin-off, has found success on Broadway and in the West End, not to mention on the am-dram scene, as this very professional company cheekily remind us.
Over the years, from celluloid to stage, it has acquired many traditional trappings. Most of them – the fish-slapping and the bible-bashing – are honoured here, but Daniel Buckroyd's production, at once irreverent and respectful, manages a good few laugh-aloud surprises on the way to Camelot.
Where the West End productions – and associated tours – have tended to make a virtue of necessity, celebrating the shoe-string, the Made in Colchester version is glitzier, meatier and much closer to a proper musical.
Or a panto, which it often emulates. A link strengthened by the inclusion in the cast of festive favourite Dale Superville as Patsy, King Arthur's side-kick, Baldrick or Sancho Panza.
His expressive features and his skill as a mime are employed to excellent effect; he's one of a very accomplished company, who enter into the spirit of Spamalot with infectious glee, never self-indulgent, playing the absurdities for all they're worth. Patsy and Arthur apart, they all play many roles, not least the two indefatigable Laker girls [Gleanne Purcell-Brown and Sally Frith] – on the plague cart one minute, in the French army the next, fan dancers and Knights of Ni. Notable turns too from Simon Shorten as Sir Lancelot, the Frenchman, and Tim the Enchanter, making a hilariously apologetic big entrance, John Brannoch as Sir Bors and many more, Matthew Pennington as a priceless Prince Herbert and a Starkeyesque Historian, Norton James as Sir Galahad and Herbert's gruff father, Daniel Cane as a gloriously gawky, moustachioed Sir Robin, and Marc Akinfolarin as a differently whiskered Mrs Galahad and Sir Bedevere.
Bob Harms plays a straight bat as Arthur King, and is all the funnier for it; his Lady of the Lake is Avenue Q survivor Sarah Harlington, giving a superb vocal performance and lighting up the stage with her star personality.
The staging and the choreography [Ashley Nottingham] are inventive and constantly diverting: the foot of God, the Spam can tap dance, the brollies for Bright Side, the actors stepping out of character for All Alone, the spinning nun, Guinevere appearing through the mist in a little canoe with a big chandelier. It's Stars not Jews this time, and there are fresh references to Harry Potter, Trump and Gandalf, as well as local name-checks for TOWIE and Darren Day. 
There's an orchestra pit for Carlton Edwards' band, and the setting is picture-book pantomime, with a lovely little round castle, moving about like a chess piece. There's even a sing-along finale, though the enthusiastic audience scarcely needed the words flown in … a fine end to a sharp, smart, scintillating production, guaranteed to help everyone to look on the bright side.

production photograph: Robert Day

ROMEO AND JULIET

ROMEO AND JULIET

at Shakespeare's Globe

29.04.2017


Opera directors are used to controversy. To the point of audiences booing their work.
That would never happen at the Globe, of course.
With opera, experts say, you can always close your eyes. Whatever else is done to Traviata, or Meistersinger, the music survives more or less intact. Not so Shakespeare.
Daniel Kramer, Artistic Director of ENO, makes some radical choices in this, his first Shakespeare and the first show of Emma Rice's farewell season – The Summer of Love. The stage design suspends two black war-heads over the stage, with more black draping obscuring the musicians and the gallery for many in the audience.
The action emphasises violence and death. Civil brawls, black friars and funerals. Much of the text is delivered with a veneer of irony, or simply played for laughs. There is relentless extraneous business and in-your-face choreography; the bawdy badinage and phallic fun quickly wear thin. The music ranges from Keep Young and Beautiful [1933] to Dinah Washington – This Bitter Earth, movingly performed – and Sinead O'Connor, substituted for the last pages of the play – the scene ends here with Juliet's “Let me die.” There is an underscore for much of the play, as is fashionable now at this address, after the manner of video-game music - quite discreet and effective, with MD Laura Moody on cello.
The actors generally speak the text well when allowed to do so: the Queen Mab speech – no irony, no underscore – a good example from Golda Rosheuvel's Mercutio. Microphones are used, but mainly to balance speech with music. Edward Hogg's Romeo delivers lines from amongst the groundlings with exemplary clarity. Like his Juliet – Kirsty Bushell – he comes across an ageing teen, with all the annoying mannerisms and little of the charm of an actual youth. Their wooing is frequently undermined by the laughs: “He jests at scars ...” is lost beneath the guffaw that greets some irrelevant business elsewhere.
Blythe Duff makes a fine Scottish nurse; Martina Laird a ridiculously overplayed Lady C. Friar Lawrence is a very ecumenical Friar, giggly and cuddly; Gareth Snook a violent Lord Capulet. “My fingers itch...” was cut, I think, since he had already rained kicks and blows in the general direction of his wayward child.
DMs and YMCA seem symptomatic of a certain stylistic laziness; Capulet's cur pees over the stage. The bed/tomb, centre stage for much of the piece, is a powerful symbol, though hardly original, and the use of overlapping scenes lends real pace and energy to the second half. But these are not enough to rescue a misconceived, self-indulgent interpretation of a play familiar to many. Hoping that this OTT pantomime will bring people to Shakespeare is like hoping that the Roly-Polys will bring a new audience to contemporary dance.

EDUCATING RITA

EDUCATING RITA
at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

25.04.2017

for the Reviews Hub

Willy Russell's classic two-hander is revised - “revitalised” according to the publicity – in this production at the Queen's.
Two things set it apart: the stage is extended into the auditorium, with audience on three sides of Frank's untidy university study. And the action has been transported from Merseyside to our own Essex, perhaps in the hope that Rita's inspiring story will find a new resonance, and enhanced relevance, for the theatre-goers of Havering and district.
In truth these are of marginal significance. There is more space to fill with the nicely designed chaos of Frank's filing system – though as so often the books on the shelves fail to convince. The two actors, though, spend much time moving around in order to vary the view. And the setting, as always, is a fantasy – an Open University student getting one-to-one tutorials in a seat of learning that is redbrick, if not older, all within easy reach of, say, Romford High Street. No chance, squire.
Ros Philip's pacy production boasts two fine performances from teacher and student. Ruairi Conaghan, scruffy, bearded, piss-artist and “British poet” neatly captures the frustration of the lecturer who's tired of the academic life. He's particularly effective in his drunken collapse, sleeping on a heap of essays, and in his more thoughtful moments. Smoking hunched over his Remington a memorable stage picture. Danielle Flett is superb as the gobby hairdresser: eager, nervous, hungry to learn everything, starting with the meaning of “assonance”. She's totally convincing in her metamorphosis to confident, articulate young woman. Her flirtatious approach to Frank is tellingly done, culminating in the stylist's seduction which ends the play. A riveting performance.
Written in 1980, this is very much a play for its time, and Hornchurch wisely resist the temptation to update as well as uproot. The short scenes are punctuated by juke-box hits: The Police, Abba, Madness, Status Quo. With folk and the Four Seasons on Frank's transistor – cultural relativism one of the underlying themes.
The main theme, of course, is the transformative power of education – in this case English Literature: Blake and Forster, Yeats and Shakespeare. As a perceptive essay in the programme points out, much has changed since Rita burst through the door into the alien world of academia. Students now incur heavy debts for what was free back then. Few now seriously consider learning for its own sake to be an engine of social mobility. And the shared assumptions that made Russell's comedy so successful for years are largely gone.
Nonetheless, this straightforward, honest production still packs a punch, and raises awkward questions about education in today's classless society, even if cathartic laughter is in short supply.

production photograph: Mark Sepple

13 THE MUSICAL

13 THE MUSICAL

Young Gen at the Cramphorn Theatre

28.04.17

Jason Robert Brown's ground-breaking musical – now almost ten years old – was notable for casting players, and musicians, entirely from talented teenagers.

Now, in the cosy Cramphorn, our own talented youngsters give this rather uninspired show a lively, polished outing, directed by Jimmy Hooper. There's plenty of teenage humour, and all the accents are consistently convincing, too.

It's the story of young Evan who leaves New York for Indiana after his parents split up, and as he prepares for his bar mitzvah, discovers, to no-one's surprise, how awful kids can be to each other, and how hard it is to be thirteen.

He's played by Charlie Toland, very good in his final speech, and convincingly awkward and insecure, though he might have earned more sympathy by using eye contact to connect with the whole audience. Two other “losers” are excellently played by Oliver Gardner as Archie, using his life-limiting illness to manipulate his peers, and Heather Nye as the bookish Patrice – the freak – a very engaging performance, impressively sung.

Villains of the piece are bone-headed jock Brett [Matt Barnes], well supported by a terrific trio of cronies – their numbers some of the best moments of the evening. And the horrendously jealous, controlling Lucy, very effectively characterised by Hope Davis. Victim of her wiles, the wholesome cheerleader Kendra, appealingly played by Phoebe Walsh.

The huge ensemble is inventively used, from the energetic opening number, through the movie theater to the stunning “Brand New You” finale. I liked the gossip number, and the mad moment of Heidi wigs and Busby Berkeley. And I was pleased to see the Rabbis replaced by five geekish cameos for Being A Geek.

The set wisely doesn't try to bring us the gymnasium, the Dairy Queen or the girls' bathroom. Instead there are ingenious revolving panels and two staircases, all plastered with stickers and collages. And, high above the action, Bryan Cass and his musicians, driving the rock and reggae rhythms.

production photograph: Barrie White-Miller

RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET

RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET

WAOS at the Public Hall, Witham

24.04.2017

Shakespeare's forgotten rock and roll masterpiece takes to the Witham stage in a production packed with energy and attack.
On an impressively high-tech set – flashing lights and giant plasma screen - the company throw themselves whole-heartedly into this irreverent mash-up of the Complete Works and high-camp hits of the 50s and 60s.
Claire Carr's production is assured in every department. Technically, the lighting is superb, with striking Close Encounters silhouettes; the monster and the air-lock [smoke and fan] are both highly effective. Video and animation are beautifully done. Musically the familiar songs are given barnstorming performances, with spectacular choreography: Who's Sorry Now – with the Swinging Space Cats – and Mr Spaceman – with silver lamé cowboy hats – among the many memorable production numbers. The pit band, conducted from the keyboard by James Tovey, provide very authentic instrumental support; special mention for the powerhouse drumming of Paul Codling. And the acting matches the camp, OTT style of the music.
Captain Tempest – the heart-throb hero – is David Everest-Ring, striking poses and selling the songs. His Navigation Officer, on this equal opportunities spaceship, is an excellent Rhianna Howard. Diana Easton makes a wonderful Gloria, with commanding stage presence and a great way with her numbers – Go Now, especially. Cookie – the simple, homespun lovesick lad - is the seriously talented Harry Tunningley: dancing, singing and verse-speaking all very accomplished. His duets with the Bosun [Emma Loring] are tremendous fun. He does however have a body double from the band to accompany his air guitar, since this is a company of dancers rather than actor-musicians. The inhabitants of the isle of D'Illyria are Stewart Adkins' mad scientist Prospero, making the most of Lear's storm, Claire Rowe's delightful Miranda, and, as the rolling Coke can Ariel, Tim Clarke, resplendent in his costume and skilled on his roller skates. A nice cameo in the Patrick Moore video role of Newsreader from Richard Cowen, who's also a member of the polished ensemble.
Hugely enjoyable from the opening Wipeout to the Great Balls of Fire finale, this is a laudably virtuosic production of a demanding musical theatre classic.