PRIVATE PEACEFUL

PRIVATE PEACEFUL

at the Civic Theatre

07.11.2014

The Civic stage – bare save for a camp bed which doubles as a dug-out – is peopled with countless characters from the not-quite-eighteen years of life of Private Thomas Peaceful. . All of them brought vividly to life by Andy Daniel in Simon Reade's brilliant staging.

As in the novel, his monologue is punctuated by reference to Captain Wilkie's "wonderful watch" given on the field of battle to brother Charlie, who later bequeaths it to Tommo himself.

It's five past ten, and he has the whole night ahead of him. He'll refer to the watch as dawn approaches, wishing that it would stop and morning never come.

As he waits, he remembers milestones on life's road, from Sunday School to the Somme, with childhood incidents foreshadowing the Great War: his father's death the carnage of battle, the schoolyard the regimentation of the men, the yellow biplane the dogfight over the trenches.

The writing, and the unaffected delivery, evoke the lost, often bleak, world of Edwardian country childhood, with its woods, streams and puppy love, and the terrors of conflict, with rats, lice and rain. But even in Belgium there are idyllic moments, with Anna from the estaminet and birdsong when the guns fall silent.

There are many memorable character sketches – Mollie the childhood sweetheart, the jingoistic recruiting officer, simple-minded brother Joe, the vindictive Sergeant Hanley.

The end, when it comes on the stroke of six, is as uncompromising as the rest – a brief Miserere and, we imagine, a terse telegram home to Iddesleigh.

THE FITROVIA RADIO HOUR'S DRACULA

THE FITROVIA RADIO HOUR'S DRACULA

Mercury Theatre Colchester and Fitzrovia Productions

04.11.2014

for The Public Reviews

Fringe favourites Fitzrovia bring their unique Dracula to the well-appointed 1930s wireless studio on the stage of the Mercury.

It could be argued that the rough edges and the cheap and cheerful approach is part of their charm, but fortunately the enhancements and the extensions work well here: the Count wandering down the aisles, or gliding, then flying, across the stage, the tumescent Bach to open Act Two, Mina warbling The Moon Got In My Eyes, the smoke, the frosted glass.

The golden age of steam radio is lovingly spoofed, of course. We're given a brief tour of the studio – the Foley paraphernalia for the spot effects, the matinée idol, the ingénue, and Mr Mallaburn's impressive organ. At which, as we enter the auditorium, he plays a tasteful selection of tunes – Top Hat, Lilacs – flashing a Pepsodent smile whenever he strikes a bum note.

Jonathan Harker [a debonair Jon Edgley Bond] tells his familiar story, with melodramatic music and of course the noises off: the flower-pot sarcophagus, the magnetic tape forest floor, the rubber glove bat, the matchwood shipwreck. Deliciously deadpan performances all round: Fiona Sheehan a fragile Mina, Dan Starkey in a wayward wig a manic Renfield, as well as the announcer, and Joanna Wake a constantly hilarious pleasure as the forgetful grande dame – somewhere between Dame Sybil and Betty Marsden – playing everything from a sensual succubus to a Cockney paperboy. She alone is allowed the joke teeth, and by heavens does she make the most of them …

David Benson is Alucard,a guest artiste from Romania, whose sinister presence blurs the line between fiction and reality, as innocent necks around Broadcasting House [including the legendary Alvar Liddell] fall victim to his fangs. His timing, his accent are exemplary – the portraits of his “aunt's sisters”, his longing to see Essex's celebrated “airfix hobby”. The horrific dénouement is chillingly effective – you can tell things are getting serious when the protective apron goes on – with messy melons, a quick wipe of the lips with Starkey's toupée, and an impressive elevation to end.

The scripts flutter page by page to the floor, there are silent arguments behind the cut-glass dialogue, thunder, by divine providence, augments the cabbages, balloons and coconut shells on the effects table. Perhaps because of the larger auditorium, or unfamiliarity with the genre, the laughter seems a little more restrained than I would expect; the filth in particular is politely received.

Nonetheless, a warm reception for this masterclass in an increasingly popular format, appositely timed for Halloween and the various Gothic seasons currently on offer.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.11.2014

As Herbert Pocket might have pointed out to his protégé Pip, it is the custom in London society to wear the waistband somewhat higher …

In Ingatestone's production, directed by Lisa Mathews, Ian Russell makes an affable Pocket, and Sam Robinson-Thorley a believable blacksmith's boy turned gentleman. Strong Dickensian characterizations from David Pitchford as the convict Magwitch, William Wells as put-upon Joe Gargery and Jenny Godwin as an imperious, melodramatic Miss Havisham. Interesting doubling elsewhere, with David Linton playing both Jaggers and his clerk, and Vikki Luck both the women in Pip's affections.

Tim Murphy is Drummle, hardly on stage long enough to register, and the Aged Parent, bizarrely going through a pantomime of physical jerks before subsiding into his armchair.

Satis House and its world of shadows could have benefited from more atmospheric lighting, and the large stage could have been better used. It is effective to have scenes changed, characters metamorphosed, before our eyes; pity not to do it more instead of the tedious blackouts.

And if we can have a young Pip [nicely danced by Cameron Maddock to Rebecca Kerby's Estella] in a weird ballet to Lana del Rey, why not in the iconic graveyard scene ?

GODSPELL

GODSPELL

Brentwood Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

05.11.2014

All those YouTube philosophers, draped in blackout curtains, swept away by the colourful hippie world of John the Baptist [happy vest] and Jesus of Nazareth [tasteful white and grey].

Jacob Allan and Ian Southgate [director and musical director for BOS] have given us a stripped down Godspell – all the colour is in the costumes – with lots of cheeky detail: the mineral water, the wristbands, the selfie.

Musically, it was a real pleasure to hear these familiar numbers done unplugged; the choral singing was excellent, in We Beseech Thee, for instance, which was also very successfully staged. Some impressive solo work, too, from Emily Funnell in Day By Day, and Fleur Moore-Bridger in Learn Your Lessons to name but two. By My Side is superbly, touchingly done by the Women Taken In Adultery [Nicole Campbell and Jennifer Bell]. There were opportunities for most of the performers to shine, such as Jack Lloyd in Beautiful City. Good use of percussion, too: drum for the Parable of the Debtor, wood block for All For The Best, nicely put over in a circular vaudeville style by Ben Martins as The Baptist [later Judas] and Stewart Briggs as a gentle Jesus. His voice is on the light side, but his performance is sincere and engaging; this Messiah is a consummate communicator.

The stories and parables, acted out literally and naively by disciples and converts, risk slowing the action and making the actors look like Play School presenters. But generally there was enough enthusiasm and inventiveness [the Ark, the political hypocrites] to carry the narrative from Jordan to Gethsemane and the Crucifixion.

THE MIST BENEATH THE SMOKE/TUPILAQ

THE MIST BENEATH THE SMOKE/TUPILAQ

Theatre at Baddow Studio, The Reading Rooms, Great Baddow

31.10.2014

Mary Redman was at the opening night:

Theatre at Baddow Studio is a series of productions of plays by local writers. In this case John Mabey and Daniel Segeth; both of them acting and directing members of Chelmsford Theatre Workshop.

To paraphrase the football writers, it was a programme of two halves, the subject appropriately enough played out on Hallowe'en, complete with fireworks right outside the windows of the intimate little auditorium.

Admittedly John Mabey in The Mist Beneath The Smoke had a somewhat easier task in that he was adapting a ten-year-old documentary in which people told their own stories. Even so he had created and directed a fascinating collection of stories including some astonishing facts and figures relating to the London Underground after hours.

Carrying over a billion passengers a year, the question is what happens when the commuters are gone, escalators shut off and a few staff patrol the lines and stations, often alone. As Mabey says they are “real life accounts of unexplained phenomena on the world's oldest underground railway.”

Mabey had chosen his cast well starting with Roger Johnson's sonorous voice as the Narrator setting the scene for each actor's account of their character's experience.

So Roger Saddington, Amanda Cox, James Oakley, Jesse Powis, Martin Baker, Bob Ryall, Terry Cole and Michael Gray told their gripping tales of ghostly and ghastly figures often seen in places where gruesome events had taken place in the past. They were joined by Steve Holding-Sutton as a sceptic experiencing something that just could not have happened.

Apart from being gripped by the accounts we learned about the technology of how the Underground with its 408 lifts and escalators keeps going or is shut down for overnight maintenance.

The production was all the better for being straightforwardly told without any great drama or melodrama.

By contrast Daniel Segeth's Tupilaq was overflowing with melodrama: James Christie's novice Arctic explorer faced certain death while writhing around on the floor in pain and remembering past conversations with Leanne Johnson as his wife back home. Basically he was learning in his naivety the sharp contrast between pure science and commercial interests.

With so much of the rather limited action taking place on the floor or sitting down sight lines were badly affected in the auditorium lacking raked seating or a stage.

This was clearly a work in progress as what you have written immediately sounds vastly different when you hear other voices saying your words. To me it felt rather more like a radio play than a work of theatre but we know that Danny has written other plays so a tightened up version of this one may reappear in the future, just like the Inuit's Tupilaq that they don't believe in.

photographs by Pauline Saddington