THE MUSIC MAN

THE MUSIC MAN

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

21.03.17

Meredith Willson's old-fashioned family musical comedy is given an enjoyably old-fashioned family production by Billericay Operatic.

Directed and produced by Wayne Carpenter, who modestly takes his place as the assorted Iowans oompah up and down the Brentwood stage. He's very watchable as the charismatic shyster “Professor” Harold Hill – confidently talking the talk, eyeing up the folk of River City from front stage, enjoying a great vaudeville duet with Matthew Carpenter as his old mate Marcellus, flirting suavely with his Librarian Marian – an excellent performance from Anna Green, even if it's hard to see her as an old maid …

A lively Tommy from Harry Reeves, Tia Warboys is the Mayor's daughter who's his love interest. Mayor - “watch your phraseology” - Shinn is strongly played by Mark Clements, with Jane Granby as his pretentious wife Eulalie. And there's a very promising performance from young James Nash as the 10-year-old problem child Winthrop, matching the Professor in panache and stage presence.

“Well done, lads !” whispers one of the ensemble as they troop off after the hugely challenging railroad number that opens the show. Well done, indeed, damn near faultlessly delivered, and nicely staged with luggage, newspapers, hats and loud check suits.

The ensemble work maintains this high standard; gossiping ladies, kids, townsfolk, and a very polished Barbershop quartet, delivering numbers like Lida Rose with just enough tongue in cheek. Shipoopi is an impressive production number, and the finale – the triumph of the “think system” - is suitably spectacular.

It is a long show, and a little dated in places. The scene changes, in varying degrees of darkness, are swiftly done, but none-the-less cause the action to drag, especially in the dénouement.

But it's a great evening out, a reminder of how good the old shows can still be. The music is in the capable hands of Gerald Hindes; his little band, hiding stage left, includes trombonist Mark Vokes – one man doing the work of seventy-six ...

OLIVER!

OLIVER!

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

12.03.16

A tremendous Oliver! from Billericay Operatic. The whole stage used to excellent effect, with thirty orphans banging their bowls of gruel on the floor. Consider Yourself, too, a great success, with the street traders joining in as Fagin's den, kettle on the hob, is unobtrusively set behind.
Lots of other felicitous staging moments – the pick-pocket chain, the dramatic close to Act One, Who Will Buy, the adoring urchins at the end of I'd Do Anything. Jane Granby the choreographer.
Wayne Carpenter's ebullient production boasts some impressive performances, not least his own in the role of Fagin, long hair, goatee beard. Nancy is compellingly played by Sian Hopwood – blowsy with a big voice for the torch song, but touchingly dreaming of the domestic bliss she'll never know. MD Andy Prideaux is her leering Sykes.
A copybook cameo from Freda Timms as Old Sally, a knockabout double act from Bob Southgate and Gail Carpenter – a naughtily bawdy climax to I Shall Scream, a saturnine Sowerberry from Mark Clements with Annabel Lowman as his harridan of a wife.
Oliver and Dodger double cast: I saw Hamish Baumber as a convincingly vulnerable orphan, twice left alone and friendless, with Jack Beazley as his older, wiser mentor. Nice work from Charlie, too, uncredited in the programme.
Andy Prideaux's band, tucked away at the side, play their hearts out from the atmospheric overture to the last glorious encore.

CHESS

CHESS

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

03.03.15

Tim Rice and ABBA are the brains behind this Cold War musical. A strong, political story, a challenging, often operatic, score, much of which sounds like Lloyd Webber treading water. “I know him so well” the exception in a string of unmemorable, if dramatic, numbers. Even the chorus sometimes struggle to recall the convoluted lyrics.

Musically, though, the standard is high [MD Andy Prideaux – his first outing with this group] with some excellent voices in the prologue ensemble and strong choral singing throughout, as well as powerful soliloquies and duets. A shame that, as so often, there wasn't always enough bridging music for the scene changes.

Sian Hopwood is outstanding both vocally and dramatically as Florence, the Hungarian/American whose loyalty is divided between East and West. Represented at the chess board by Wayne Carpenter's troubled Anatoly and Jon Hare's brash Freddie. Bob Southgate is the sinister KGB minder, and Fiona Whittaker Anatoly's Russian wife. Trevor Lowman plays the genial CIA man Walter, and our Arbiter and Master of Ceremonies is an imposing Gail Carpenter.

This production, directed by Wayne Carpenter, has a strong dynamic and striking staging. Giant chessmen, black and white design with splashes of local colour for Merano and Bangkok. A video screen, too. And impressive movement on this modest stage [choreography by Jane Granby]: the balletic confrontation of the two Blocs, the cheerleaders, the classy curtain calls and the priceless Vodka sequence, with drunken Soviets cavorting around the still figure of their new Red hope [Adam Popplewell] lost in his tiny chessboard.

PARADE

PARADE

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

08.03.14

Ethnic tensions, trial by media, a true story. Jason Robert Brown's first Broadway musical is richly, if unmemorably scored, with a compelling book by Alfred [Driving Miss Daisy] Uhry.

Wayne Carpenter directed a powerful production for Billericay, as well as giving a nuanced performance as Leo Franks, a Jew out of his element in the Deep South of a hundred years ago.

Using a multi-level setting, and a large cast, the story was tautly told, though there was still some tension lost in silent darkness.

Excellent work from the principal players. No mean feat to make the score – a patchwork of folk, anthem, vaudeville and more – sound better than it is. Under the Musical Direction of Ian Southgate, Nik Graham did, as the drunken janitor and star witness, and Bob Southgate as the smooth-talking prosecutor. Impressive work too from Peter Brown as the “Georgian” hack, Fiona Whittaker as Frank's wife, mousy at first, feisty in his defence, and Gail Carpenter as the Governor's Lady and Minnie, the family cook.

So encouraging to see so many talented young performers on stage; notably Nicole Clements as the young victim – she was the right age, and had a lovely pure voice, – and Simon Johnson as the young Confederate soldier who has to start the whole show with a demanding solo – The Old Red Hills of Home.

The staging set big production pieces – the mob, Memorial Day, broadsheets brilliantly used - against lonely protagonists – the fantasy picnic, Frank's soliloquies – nowhere more successfully than the ending, with Leo poignantly isolated in his office.

Had this been fiction, Franks would have been reprieved at the last moment, and the real murderer exposed - maybe rabid bigot Watson [Mark Clements]. But, tragically, real life is not so tidy, and although Franks was eventually pardoned, by that time he'd been dead 70 years, hanged by a lynch mob back in Marietta.

Mary Redman joined me on the Press Bench ...

Subtitling an off-Broadway show as An American Musical Masterpiece is giving a bit of a hostage to fortune as it were and challenging to boot. On the other hand with a book by the acclaimed Alfred Uhry it had a pretty good pedigree. The result, in the lively hands of Billericay Operatic, was a show that entertained while informing and moving its audiences.

It started with an equally big challenge for lanky teenager Simon Johnson, his build contrasting with his powerful, beautiful singing voice, and set the drama in motion.

It's century-old story of an outsider, hounded by the tabloid press, paying with his life for being an alien in a backward part of the Deep South of America. A story of trumped up murder charges and ignorance which, unfortunately, still exists world wide.

Wayne Carpenter carried off with panache the difficult, demanding roles of director of the very large cast and leading actor. As Leo Frank, mild mannered accountant his singing voice also stood him in good stead while his acting made him believable in his bewilderment. Fiona Whittaker as his initially meek yet later firecracker of a wife seeking justice for her husband, used her beautiful singing voice to add to the drama affecting them both.

With such a very large cast the excellent support given by many of the cast included Nik Graham as the lying factory worker framing Leo; Brian Plumb as the arrogant Governor; Bob Southgate using his powerful singing voice to advantage as the lawyer determined to convict and hang Leo; Peter Brown as the snake-like tabloid journalist; Cheryl Johnson as the grief-stricken mother of a murdered girl. We are accustomed to Gail Carpenter using her physical form to create showy roles but here as the shrunken, lying Minola McKnight she was virtually unrecognisable by contrast with her other role as the flamboyant Governor's wife.

A special word of praise for the other teenagers in the cast such as Matthew Carpenter's assured, well sung Frankie Epps and Nicolle Clements as the charming young victim Mary Phagan.

The set was a useful multilevel series of acting areas put to especially chilling use at the end of the show. There were drawbacks including the effective costuming being let down by a lack of period corsetry framing the dresses. The over enthusiastic use of unnecessary blackouts between many scenes slowed the action in a very long show.

Music, in the safe hands of Ian Southgate's band was not catchy, yet a pleasing, relevant use of traditional airs with dramatic, Sondheimesque chords creating dark atmosphere.

It was what the profession calls a big sing and I'm very pleased to have seen it.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

16.04.13

Tradition celebrated, challenged, overturned – that's the timeless story of Fiddler on the Roof. A canny banker for Billericay Operatic after last year's award-winning On The 20th Century.

An impressive stage design again, practical, solid and evocative, with plenty of space for bottle dancing, pogroms and all the other comings and goings in Anatevka.

This is very much Wayne Carpenter's show. Producer, director and Tevye the Milkman. A very likeable performance, sitting between the shafts of his cart, perched on a churn, forever bothering his God for favours great and small. Two of many choice moments are his domestic duet with Gail, his very own Golde, and the touching Chava sequence, as the last of his daughters [Jaz Cook] flies the nest. He has five in all – nice work from Alice Wesson's Tzeitel, who escapes Mark Clements' butcher to wed Kieran Hynes' poor tailor, and Georgia Redgwell's Hodel, who goes off with Perchik, confidently characterized by Matthew Carpenter.

On opening night the pace suffered from some slow scene changes, though there is welcome youthful energy in Miracle of Miracles, and eventually in Lo Chaim, good ensemble from a large company [some accents more convincing than others] in the Rumour number, Frume Sarah's scene, Sunrise Sunset. Telling stage pictures, too, not least the Evening Prayer, and the final moments, with the weary line of refugees and the Fiddler himself [Callum Johnson] hitching a lift on Tevye's cart.

ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Billericay Operatic Society

at Brentwood Theatre

11.02.12

Sixteen hours, and a crazy back-stage drama is played out on a state-of-the-art train. That's 'On The Twentieth Century', Comden and Green's warm and witty look back at the Thirties, with Cy Coleman's music recalling everything from operetta to the silent movies. [MD for this show was Derrick Thompson.]

A very enjoyable performance of a rarely-seen show in the tiny Brentwood space, the train represented by newsreel clips and two ingenious, if not especially glamorous, trucks.

Wayne Carpenter's production used the large cast to excellent effect, in the duets, quartets and ensembles that drive the implausible plot forward. Every single performer radiated energy and enthusiasm, for instance in "Together", eagerly anticipating sharing a journey with a superstar. Other stand-out numbers were the Indian Love Call pastiche, the infectious title song, the stylish Legacy and the OTT Veronique, allegedly Lily's first hit [and fairly blatantly ripped off from Brel's Madeleine of 1962].

Carpenter himself was the Little Corporal, the impresario whose career is on the line, and the girl he plucks from the Bronx to be Lily Garland was Fiona Whittaker, bringing her impressive vocal skills to a demanding role. Staunch support from his henchmen, Trevor Lowman and Matthew Carpenter, in the face of enemies Bruce Granit [Brian Plumb], the "two-bit ham hock" who's Lily's leading man, and upstart rival Max Jacobs [an amusingly youthful Simon Johnson]. And Gail Carpenter made the most of the religious maniac, urging everyone to "Repent" and gaily stickering the audience.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre

06.10.10

It's Frederick's birthday – for his party he's chosen a Pirate theme, complete with “alarming costume”. With this master-stroke, director, choreographer and birthday boy Wayne Carpenter brings Gilbert and Sullivan into the 21^st century.

Though not of course to 2010. Adrian Rilstone has an interestingly pedantic note in the programme, so I don't mind pointing out that the nearest we can manage for this particular birthday is 2009, with Frederick finally free from his indentures in 2072.

The ladies who surprise the lads on Penzance beach are fitness fanatics, dressed for the gym, and kept on their toes by Major-General Stanley [retd.] their personal trainer.

The whole show was done with style and relish; chorus movement used the tiny space ingeniously, and there were continual clever touches – the armorial weapons, the stashes of CDs, the truncheons and swords for the bridal arch, the patter songs encore. I think Gilbert would have been tickled.

Billericay did have the advantage of having some very seasoned performers to bring this novel interpretation to life: Brian Plumb's urbane Pirate King, Mark Clements' cynical Sergeant, Fiona Whittaker's impressive coloratura as Mabel, and John Larking as Stanley.

The Carpenters were very much to the fore: Wayne was an engaging Slave of Duty, Gail a wonderful Ruth, excellently sung and acted, and Matthew made a fine right-hand-man.

I wasn't convinced at first that this space and these forces needed sound re-inforcement, but it did work, and John Pitts's clever reduction was impressively served by Derrick Thompson's musicians in the wings.

WE'LL MEET AGAIN


Billericay Operatic Society at Brentwood Theatre


02.03.10


A broad enough target, World War II.
Billericay Operatic still aimed pretty wide in the “nostalgic journey”, from Rule Britannia [1740] to a number from a musical about the American Civil War [1999]. And in between, Marie Lloyd and any amount of stuff from the Great War.
It's not as if there's a shortage of material. We had the Forces' Sweetheart in White Cliffs and We'll Meet Again, both beautifully sung. But where was her naughty sister-in-arms, Florence Desmond, to show us The Deepest Shelter in Town ? We had the kids Swinging On A Star, but how about at least one of the rude songs they would have been singing about Hitler ?
Admittedly there's no equivalent of Oh What A Lovely War for the Second World War, but Happy As A Sandbag might have been plundered instead of Cowardy Custard, maybe.
Though it would have been good to have more narrative drive, like the telling moment when the boys came running home from war, there was much to enjoy in this jingoistic concert party: the Stateside medley that began Act Two, Albert Evacuated, the women blending Siegfried Line and Run Rabbit, and a new number to me, If I Had Lots of Coupons.
Much of the contemporary verse was little better than doggerel, though I Left My Heart In An English Garden made an effective scene setter, even though it first saw the light five years after the blackout ended …
We'll Meet Again was devised and directed by Wayne Carpenter, with Derrick Thompson at the keyboard.

GODSPELL

Billericay Operatic at the Brentwood Theatre

07.10.09

It's so long since I heard Godspell that I'd forgotten the Babel of philosophers at the start. Their confusing theories, in Tebelak's creation, are replaced by the word of the Lord, a message so simple a child could understand it.

And that is the key to the show. This is a Sesame Street Testament, all primary colours and boundless enthusiasm. Sometimes, in Wayne Carpenter's energetic production, the PlaySchool parables did begin to pall. But the show was saved by the verve and vigour of the large cast, and by Stephen Schwartz's timeless songs, well reproduced by MD Derrick Thompson.

The classic numbers include big happy clappy choruses – Day by Day, Bless the Lord – as well as solos and duets, like Prepare Ye, Turn Back O Man – both brilliantly delivered here – and the catchy All for the Best, in the safe hands of the only two credited soloists, Philip Cousins and Wayne Carpenter.

Carpenter, in casual fatigues, was a strong Baptist, as well as Judas in Act 2. Cousins, in cool white, looked liked an American TV evangelist, but was a sincere singer with a very pleasing vocal style, accurately capturing the heart and soul of the show.

Good use was made of the small stage, with Paradise “to let” as a backdrop.