"the gross and scope of my opinion ..." Hamlet I,1.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
RADIANCE
Music of Light – The Writtle Singers at All Saints' Church
12.03.11
This satisfyingly ambitious programme was one of the Singers' best.
It began with plainsong – a form older than the building in which we were listening – with the choir processing to the four corners of the nave. Here they gave an impressive performance, from memory, of the challenging twenty-first century motet O lux beata Trinitas, a setting of words by St Ambrose.
James McMillan's Missa Brevis was the central work. Again, beautifully delivered, especially in the closing Agnus Dei, with its finely grained Miserere and its movingly humble Dona Nobis Pacem.
There was Bach, too, Brewer and Bairstow, whose I Sat Down Under His Shadow had a lovely diminuendo at the end.
Simon Harvey was at the organ – as soloist he gave Fireworks by Handel, and joined the Singers' inspirational director at the piano for a light-hearted duet from Fauré's Dolly Suite.
Secular music to finish, though in the lovely Saint-Saens Calme des Nuits it was really only the words that were secular. Not so in the delicious luminescent lollipops - On the Sunny Side of the Street and I'm Beginning to See the Light - sung with the same passion, the same precision, as the Holst, the Wood or the Rutter.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
BLACKADDER THE THIRD
Chelmsford Theatre Workshop at the Old Court
11.03.09
A week to go till Red Nose Day itself, but the Old Court is packed with fans and friends for three episodes from the penultimate series.
Director Dean Hempstead had chosen Ink and Incapability – the one about Dr Johnson's dictionary – Nob and Nobility – the one about the Scarlet Pimple – and Sense and Senility – the one with the actors and the anarchist. Had they been writing last week, Messrs Curtis and Elton might well have titled it The Prince Regent's Speech.
For we're in the Regency – the palace interior done up to match the new décor in the auditorium. Vivaldi joining Howard Goodall on the soundtrack, three marvellous Romantic poets, and best of all, the Prince George himself, a man “with all the wit and sophistication of a donkey”, obsessed with trousers, given a wonderful characterization by Kevin Stemp. I couldn't help being reminded of another idle scrounger scion of the royal line, the one who allegedly tells his 'Blackadder' to F*** Off every morning as he draws the royal curtains.
At the heart of the play, the relationship between Edmund and his sidekick, roles played again this time out by David Chilvers – not so “rubberfaced” as the original, but suaver and timing his laughs with consummate skill, and the comic genius Mark Preston.
A couple of guest appearances added to the gaiety of nations – Mike Nower as the Drury Lane thesp Keanrick, and Hempstead himself as the luddite Anarchist.
this production runs from March 15th to the 19th at The Old Court - ring 01245 606505 to check availability ...
Jim Hutchon saw the show for the Chelmsford Weekly News: There is a feeling among the audience at the start that we have been catapulted into the strange world of television. The characters are familiar and straight from the TV series, and the actors, especially David Chilvers as Blackadder and Mark Preston as Baldrick, stay superbly in character from the opening scenes.
That said, it quickly becomes apparent that a live stage play can take liberties that a TV series can’t, and the extra dimension adds enormously to the sheer fun and enjoyment of Dean Hempstead’s masterly production.
Kevin Stemp as the peanut-brained Prince George harrumphed his deluded way through the action, and his trousers really stopped the show. Another show stopper was Tony Ellis in an evocation of the effects of poison that was pure slapstick.
It says much for CTW’s depth of talent that even minor roles played by the group’s heavyweights are given added impetus. Actors such as Steve Parr as a marvellously convincing Dr. Johnson, Mike Nower acting as an effete Restoration actor and Robin Winder as a greasy Frenchie make this a genuinely enjoyable evening.
This is CTW’s contribution to Comic Relief, where the aim is to beat their previous Blackadder’s contribution of £2,000.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
PICK YOURSELF UP
Cut to the Chase at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch
“Make it another old-fashioned,please,” - coming right up, the first show of the new Queen's season, a gloriously enjoyable musical, giving the lie to those who moan that they don't write them like that any more.
Of course writer Stephen Wyatt has chosen his collaborators wisely – Cole Porter and Molière, though Pick Yourself Up is by Molière only in the sense that last year's hit “Forum” was by Plautus.
There are so many show-stoppers – my favourite from a thoroughbred field the Don't Fence Me In quartet – that you wonder how the plot can progress. And the 17th century stock characters are replaced by familiar stereotypes from the song-and-dance stage.
This is Bob Carlton's unique Cut to the Chase company, so the impressive dance band we hear in the overture is made up of the actors in the show, many of them familiar faces in this house.
The new boy first, though.
Greg Last plays a mean trombone and an even meaner hood – one of the two hitmen employed by Joe Hatchetface Tamales [Simon Jessop]. His partner in organised crime is the excellent Matthew Quinn [bass and guitar].
The Fred and Ginger of the Trocadero, East 47th, are Tom and Ruby [Elliot Harper and Natasha Moore] – both rising to the considerable challenge of hoofing, singing and slapstick, and both very watchable performers.
It's Tom - “terrible dancer and hopeless husband” - who becomes the reluctant shrink, donning a ridiculous false beard to effect a cure for lovelorn trumpeter Gloria [Sarah Scowen]. With a second opinion from the object of her affections, Harry [Jared Ashe, clarinet and sax].
A hit with the audience was Allison Harding's floozy Tallulah, who gave a breathtaking masterclass in musical comedy character work, proved a stylish drummer, and also spectacularly revived a couple of lesser known Cole Porters: Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love and Find Me A Primitive Man. The other revival was entrusted to Tom Jude's superbly characterized fiddle-playing maestro – The Leader of a Big-Time Band.
Rodney Ford's set – built as ever in the Queen's own workshop – caught the style exactly. The band-stand seemed to take up most of the performance area, but then, impressively, glided smoothly back on a truck, with screens sliding in to represent the street [hydrant, trash-can, lamp-post !] and Joe's mansion [lovely thirties fauna motif here].
“Times are hard at the Trocadero ...” - tell us about it, we might reply. But this superb extended revival, directed by Matt Devitt with Julian Littman in charge of the music, shows no sign of recession. It never puts a foot wrong, presses all the right feel-good buttons, and makes a superb pick-me-up for these difficult days.
This little jewel of a piece is simply a litany of letters. Letters penned, or typed, to an unseen supporting cast of family, friends, professional associates, by the young Thomas Lainer Williams.
Skilfully adapted by Steve Lawson, and faultlessly performed by Oliver Andrews, who takes the text and makes it come to life, with subtle changes of mood and meaning adding value to the words.
This is a totally believable Williams, with his waspish wit and his effete Southern drawl.
We follow the writer's colourful career – letters to publishers, waiting tables in a hospital canteen, selling Pictorial subscriptions, working in a shoe warehouse, living at the YMCA – and his travels – notorious cabarets in Paris, a gay whorehouse in Mexico – and his long struggle to get his plays staged.
American Blues is accepted; Tom adopts his nom-de-plume. He gratefully employs an agent, polishes a vehicle for Lana Turner, and works hard on The Gentleman Caller, which we know as the Glass Menagerie, “I think it contains my sister ...”, resisting producer pressure for a happy ending.
Tennessee's relationships are difficult - “sadder and wilder” than a Chekhov play. We hear his passionate letter of “robust manly love” to the dancer Kip Kiernan; we glimpse his fragile friendship with Laurette Taylor, the first Amanda Wingfield.
We are briefly aware of his being harassed by Blue Devils, and he reaches more frequently for the bottle of Bourbon on the sideboard. But we are spared the decline and the “accidental” death. The play ends as he resolutely types the final act of The Moth – the one where Blanche throws herself under a train in the freight yards.
One lady confided as we walked thoughtfully out of the studio, “ I'm so glad he decided to go on with it ...”
The setting is evocative - I loved the floorboards with his correspondents' names written on them – the props sparingly but eloquently used: the tailor's dummy, the gramophone just once, his sister's strange green dress.
“Tenn” is a restless letter-writer. He flits from desk to chaise longue, from hat-stand to suitcase, as he evokes his Southern puritan family, his one-night-stands, his grandmother's death, his sister's illness. And all the time we are aware that all these influences, all these characters, will shape the plays he is yet to write.
A wonderful tour-de-force from Andrews, engaging the audience, effortlessly persuading us that these long-faded letters are freshly penned as we eavesdrop. Through them, and his perfect performance, we are able to spend 90 minutes in the company of this “whining spineless cissy” whose plays have become classics of world theatre, and whose centenary we celebrate this month.
Two more dates fixed this tour: Keswick for the actual birthday at the end of March, and Clwyd in May.
A MAN WITH NO MORE ROLLS John Shuttleworth at the Civic Theatre
06.03.11
With no morals, it should have read, apparently. Too late now.
Shuttleworth – versatile singer/organist from Sheffield - burst onto the light entertainment scene way back in the 80s, propelled into the South Yorkshire limelight by his neighbour and sole agent Ken Worthington, with a little help from Graham Fellows. A quarter of a century on, and not a day older, he's brought his nearly-new touring show to the Civic, Chelmsford.
You've not seen him ? You'll not have been to the Scout Hut in Haversage or the St John Ambulance Rooms recently. You won't have been anticipating his punchlines, joining in with his catchy choruses or helping him out with the lyrics to Savoury.
Imagine if Fred Dibnah had been lured down by a contract to entertain at the Darby and Joan … Key to the humour is an obsession with minutiae and a mistrust of change. One song lamented the demise of the bar of soap, supplanted by the handwash dispenser, another the threat to Nimble and the humble roll from Peter's bread and Paganini. All to the strains of his touring Yamaha PSS keyboard: this time out he amused us by recognising, in his accompaniment, sundry seminal influences: UB40, Ultravox, New Order, and Nirvana [Smells like White Spirit].
A fascinating insight into the weird world of this unique entertainer and the people who live there with him, such as Sammy Martini, the personality vocalist with the quicksilver wit. Maybe they could tour together next time.
