THE ALEHOUSE

THE ALEHOUSE

Bjarte Eike and the Barokksolistene
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

29.10.2017

The sound desk is under wraps, the seats in the pit have been removed, the candles are lit. It’s acoustic party night for Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene, making a very welcome return to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

This is the last gig of a very ambitious tour, and the nine musicians are clearly enjoying it as much as the packed playhouse.

The project has been running for ten years now; its origin was Eike’s research into London’s music scene during the puritan regime of Oliver Cromwell. Theatres were dark, church music was banned, and the professional freelance musicians took refuge in inns and taverns, where their skills were still valued. These Alehouse Sessions aim to bring back the spirit of those pub gigs – fortunate indeed the topers who heard anything like these nine superb musicians. They’re all successful in their own fields – Eike himself is Norway’s finest baroque violinist, Hans Knut Sveen, who plays the tiny portable harmonium, has an academic career at Bergen University.

The evening is a blend of folk club and period music concert. The musicians swig bottle-ale; there’s comedy and there’s dance – the excellent Steven Player, one of two British members of the group, channelling the spirit of Will Kemp. His Four Kinds of Drunkard and his fancy footwork – including one number with bells - were highlights of the show. There was a slomo pub brawl, and much fun with the groundlings packed into the pit.

The music was eclectic – sea shanties in which the audience raised its three hundred voices to excellent effect – Raggle Taggle Gypsies, Playford’s English Dancing Master, a Swedish Lament for a Dead Barmaid, a Travel Set, including an American contribution from the Globe’s Director of Music Bill Barclay. Henry Purcell’s Timon of Athens, his Bonduca – the second time I’ve mentioned Fletcher’s obscure history play this year – with O Lead Me ending with a beautiful a cappella chorus. The matinée audience also got the same composer’s comedy No Kissing duet from The Fairy Queen.

The evening ended with a second encore, improvisations on another Playford tune, showcasing the diverse talents and influences within this amazing ensemble.

Photograph: Matthew Long

ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS

ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

20.10.2017

A delicious confection for Emma Rice’s swan-song to the Globe: a brand new pocket musical, given in the intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Only a few token candles, but the musicians’ gallery is well used by Jim Henson’s superb ensemble.

Based on a much-loved French film, Rice’s adaptation has music and lyrics by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond. It tells the heart-warming story of two painfully shy people, brought together by chance and chocolate.

“Not everything can be translated,” our hero remarks. The play begins in French, but a glorious device – involving a taste of fine dark chocolate for everyone in the audience – switches the dialogue to English. In a range of regional accents, too, though the Allo Allo route proved impossible to resist at times.

The company of nine beautifully inhabit the characters, eccentric, lovable, charming; there is much deft doubling, notably by the superb Philip Cox as the Ghost of Jean-René’s father, the tongue-tied Pierre and a sympathetic concierge, and Gareth Snook as the suave chocolate magnate Mercier, a mumbling recluse and an outrageously operatic Madame Marini.

The chorus combine the functions of the Greek and Broadway varieties – telling the story, and giving us some lovely miniature production numbers. They are variously the employees at the Chocolaterie, and the members of the support/therapy group Les Emotifs Anonymes.

The couple – whose happy ending includes a nod to the Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, last year’s Rice musical in this space – are Carly Bawden, demure and self-effacing as Angélique, and Dominic Marsh as Jean-René, the epitome of sweaty-palmed social paralysis, seeking confidence from a course of self-help cassettes.

As we’ve come to expect, there is much under-scoring, with evocative instrumentation, and some lovely pastiche numbers – Savoir Faire, and, the best for my money, the toe-tapping Don’t Think About Love.

So much to enjoy – the excruciating scene in the restaurant, the squeaky office door, the tiny 2CV, the bonus track in the foyer during the interval. Like Angélique’s chocolates, a melt-in-the-mouth delight, an escapist treat as we wait for winter.

But the Playhouse added little other than warm intimacy – it’s to be hoped that this lovely little piece will be seen elsewhere. It would sit well in any cosy auditorium, even, dare I say, chez Menier, just around the corner ...

THE WOMAN IN THE MOON

THE WOMAN IN THE MOON

The Dolphin's Back at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

19.08.2017

Lyly's mythological fantasy – rebadged by The Dolphin's Back as an Astrological Sex Comedy – is a perfect fit for the “painted firmament” of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

It's a fascinating piece, foreshadowing A Midsummer Night's Dream. “All is but a poet's dream,” says the Prologue [Leo Wan, later a suave Sol]. His only play written in blank verse, it was quite possibly intended for his regular playing company, Paul's Boys. Certainly there's plenty of roles for younger men, and for women, not least the central role of Pandora, the largest female part, apparently, in any play of the time.

She's played here by Bella Heesom, with Julia Sandiford as [Mother] Nature, the Creator in this myth. Pandora's four shepherd suitors, a very entertaining Keystone Cops quartet in wellies and cable knit sweaters, include Adam Cunis's antipodean Melos, and James Askill's ukulele-strumming Iphicles. Among the “envious planets” - Pandora has robbed them of their finest attributes – are Tim Frances's priapic Jove, who invites Pandora to fondle his golden sceptre and inspires her with anger, Joy Cruickshank's slinky Venus, and Ammar Duffus's Hermes, who teaches Pandora deceitful wiles.

There's a lovely Gunophilus from James Thorne – this is Pandora's love-sick minion, surely another role for a younger boy. And Cynthia, the new-fangled, moody moon, in whose orb Pandora chooses to spend eternity, sharing her fickle, feminine nature, is beautifully played by Rachel Winters.

The staging is necessarily simple, with Pandora's circular bed - “the inconstant moon” – changing colour as each Planet wreaks revenge, and doubling as a convenient cave.

James Wallace's lively production – ninety minutes of non-stop action – adds to Lyly's classical wit and word-play a winning blend of broad farce, physical high-jinks and wicked innuendo. Thus cleverly bringing a sixteenth-century rarity alive for a grateful modern audience.

THE MOZART QUESTION

THE MOZART QUESTION

Shakespeare's Telling Tales at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

28.07.2017

Michael Morpurgo's short story about musicians who survived the concentration camps of the Holocaust comes to the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, with the master story-teller in person reading the role of Paolo Levi, who shares his memories over the mint tea, and Alison Reid covering the cub reporter and a host of other characters.

This unique presentation is made really special by the presence of four music stands, each with candles, for string quartet The Storyteller's Ensemble, who punctuate the narrative with appropriate musical offerings. They are fronted by the outstanding violinist Daniel Pioro, playing the music that made the fictional fiddler a household name. - “the most famous musician on the planet”.

So there's spirited, witty Vivaldi for Venice, Bach for Benjamin Horowitz the veteran busker, a seductive Czardas, Lascia ch'io pianga, and plenty of Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for the Camp, and, as a finale, a concerto movement representing Levi's 60^th Birthday Concert on the South Bank, with a heartfelt cadenza from Pioro. And not to forget the Quartettsatz for Scissors, conducted with a comb, an early memory of the barber's shop behind the Accademia.

A perfect blend of words and music, made more memorable by the candle-light and the wonderful acoustic. It deserves a longer, better publicised run – the 2018/2019 Winter Season, perhaps.

image: one of Michael Foreman's illustrations for the original book

THE WHITE DEVIL

THE WHITE DEVIL

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
26.01.2017

An early look at the penultimate show in this winter's Playhouse Wonder Noir season.
Annie Ryan gives this dark tragedy a duly dark production. The total blackout at the start is barely troubled by single candles as the protagonists gather. The stage, strewn with corpses at the close, seems to be stained black.
Webster's tale of hypocrisy, seduction and revenge is played out in a vaguely dystopian setting, with Jamie Vartan's stylish costumes suggesting the 19^th century, as does the mechanism for the conjuror's “spectacles of glass”.  
Ryan fields a strong cast, including Garry Cooper as the Cardinal and Fergal McElherron in a clever double as Camillo and the banished Lodovico. Jamie Ballard is Brachiano, Joseph Timms [lately Sebastian and Lucentio] a laddish Flaminio, Mercy Ojelade Isabella (and Gasparo), Kate Stanley-Brennan Vittoria, and Anna Healey a strong Cornelia.
Tom Lane's music – cello, accordion, fiddle, trumpet, dulcimer – is very effective; an even fuller score would not have come amiss, perhaps.
All a far cry from the RSC's strange disco production of 2014, with its female Flaminio. And much closer to Webster's own vision, I would think, first staged, not too successfully, at the Red Bull on a dismal winter's day in 1612.
The White Devil is at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until April 16.

COMUS

COMUS
Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

26.10.2016

Masques make themselves very much at home in the Playhouse.

Milton's Comus gets the full dramatic treatment in Lucy Bailey's brilliant production, the first show of Emma Rice's first indoor season at Shakespeare's Globe.

As with All The Angels – getting a return run after Christmas – there is a behind-the-scenes frame, in this case a gently subversive, richly comical look at how the masque came to be staged, all closely based on the historical facts, it appears. The commissions, the family scandal, the children and the servants pressed into performance. And Mr Laws, deferentially directing, and taking the Prologue and the Attendant Spirit.

Patrick Barlow's brilliant script – fear not, Milton survives almost unscathed – and Lucy Bailey's imaginative direction make for a fascinating 100 minutes.

There's a fine cast, including Globe regulars Philip Cumbus as Laws, and Danny Lee Wynter as the satyrish Comus himself, somewhere between Prospero and Caliban. The youngsters are Rob Callendar and Theo Cowan as the brothers, and Emma Curtis as daughter Alice who plays the Lady, and takes Comus' tabor at the end, refusing to accept the subservient conclusion Milton might suggest - a “different lesson” indeed.

Lots of magnificent Playhouse effects – the Spirit flies in, the Monstrous Rout – dissolute dryads, hideous-headed monsters of the woods - are all but washed away by the stream that runs from beneath the stage and flows through the pit and out into the foyer. It's also the home of Natasha Magigi's splendid Sabrina.

“Warped and wonderful” is how it's being sold. And so it is, a very promising start to the winter of Wonder Noir.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

28.09.2016

This is the Globe touring production that's been delighting audiences all summer. Now it's back home, stuck slightly awkwardly in the candlelit playhouse. It's too big, bright and bold for this intimate space; it's a pity there was no slot for it in the great Globe itself.

Nonetheless, its charm, its passion and its sense of fun survive.

Set in 1966, it begins with a beige group of youngsters bopping to the hits of the day, merging seamlessly into the daft plot. The onstage band – this is a company of actor/musicians – are in a garish booth at the back of the stage. Its roof, accessed by vertical ladders, is a further acting area. Both Kate Sykes, the designer, and James Fortune, the composer, have embraced the flavour: a telling contrast between Verona, that beige backwater, and Milano, where it's at, fashion capital then as now.

Performances are excellent, the timing honed over a long tour. Guy Hughes and Dharmesh Patel are the gents in question; both give hilariously silly interpretations. The girls [Aruhan Galieva and Leah Brotherhead] have a bit more depth, especially at the tearful end with its touching lament.

Amongst the rest, doubling furiously and reaching for their instruments to form the backing band, Amber James gives us a lovely Thurio and a cheeky Lucetta. Charlotte Mills takes Launce by the throat, with musician Fred Thomas as the dog Crab. And, taking over from Adam Keast, injured in a stage fall [those ladders], T J Holmes works the audience wonderfully as the other fool, Speed.

As the Swinging Sixties declined into the safer Seventies, there was a Broadway musical based on this same comedy. Very much of its time, I recall, and not nearly so faithful, or as much fun, as this stylish summer show.

THE INN AT LYDDA

THE INN AT LYDDA

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

15.09.2016


Ending its short run in the Jacobean playhouse, John Wolfson's intriguing play is a welcome addition to the richly varied offer at this Bankside address.
In fact it began life here, years ago, as a rehearsed reading [with Sam West no less], before turning up on Radio 4.
We're promised “A Meeting of Caesar and Christ” - the Caesar in question, in AD33, is the notorious Tiberius. He's dying, and pins his hopes on an Eastern healer he's heard about. But too late – his man Pilate has already executed the miracle worker from Nazareth. If not historical, then this much is at least apocryphal. But there's no evidence that the ailing emperor ever made the journey to Judaea, or talked face to face with the risen Jesus.
Despite some uneven writing, it makes a thought-provoking play, the theology and the history leavened in Andy Jordan's simple, lively production with a good deal of humour, ranging from cerebral wit to crude anachronisms.
The Magi, now elderly but still following the Messiah whose birth they witnessed, have some of the best lines, Joseph Marcell's Caspar particularly good. Philip Cumbus owns the stage as a divinely decadent Caligula, and David Cardy is an engagingly down-to-earth astrologer.
The two men-gods at the philosophical heart of the play are Stephen Boxer's rambling, raging Tiberius, well contrasted with Samuel Collings's serene Jesus.
John the Evangelist – a strong presence from Matthew Romain – is left to explain how some things are better left out of the history books...

production image: Marc Brenner

THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK

THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK

Kneehigh 
at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
24.06.2016

This is Emma Rice's Kneehigh swansong. And, from the Bristol Old Vic, she's brought it to her new home, Shakespeare's Globe.
Sophia Clist's bold, bulky wooden structure sits slightly uneasily in the Jacobean playhouse, but the enhanced candlelight suits this atmospheric, nostalgic tale perfectly, while the intimacy of the space brings a powerful emotional heft to Daniel Jamieson's lively, wistful two-hander.
Marc Antolin and Audrey Brisson play painter Marc Chagall, child-like, Chaplinesque, and his muse, and first wife, Bella Rosenfeld.
“We can pack all the things we love in Vitebsk into our minds and take them with us,” she tells him, and so they do – the green cows, the rabbis, and of course their airborne alter egos travel to Petersburg, Paris, New York … The devoted Bella sees Marc brush off war, revolution, anti-semitism, fatherhood, as he focuses passionately on his work.
Past blends with present in a playful, poignant piece which resonates long after the music has faded. Ian Ross, the MD, with James Gow, provide an evocative accompaniment, as well as supernumerary support. The old Inkspots number which opens the show is reprised as an encore, suiting the narrative and the mood to perfection.
Back in the 90s, Rice played Bella, we're told. This revival, exquisitely directed, full of imaginative touches and flowing, flying movement, blends theatre and fine art in a moving memoir of the painter as a young man.

HENSLOWE'S DIARY IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

HENSLOWE'S DIARY IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

Passion in Practice at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
26.05.16


Not a diary in the modern sense. A business day-book, perhaps. And this entertainment does not confine itself to the commercial jottings of the great theatre manager, proprietor of the Rose and the Fortune.
We meet his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn the actor, writing home to Joan while he is away touring with Lord Strange's Men. Peter Street, theatre builder, Moll Cutpurse, roaring girl, Simon Forman, medic and astrologer. All brought to life in their own words, spoken, as far as we can guess, in their own accent.
But centre stage, in a bravura performance, is the man himself, celebrated this year along with his acquaintance, and rival, W.S. “the other feller”. In Will Sutton's wickedly enjoyable characterization, we see him shelling out for a new script – from £3 – and for “Street's dinner and mine” - from 6d; he enthusiastically promotes bear-baiting, and is keen to make money however he can. But he's far from the illiterate rogue of popular imagination, and despite the stress, is a keen man of the theatre. And, almost certainly, once owned the land on which we sit.
Much of this all-too-brief candlelit concoction is improvised, and the word-of-mouth evidence is fleshed out and explained by the uniquely fascinating team of David and Ben Crystal.

Like last week's Faustus, it would certainly bear repeating in the even more appropriate, if less atmospheric, arena of Henslowe's own Rose, just yards away from the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

DR FAUSTUS IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

DR FAUSTUS IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

Passion in Practice at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

22.05.16


Marlowe's mighty line rang new-minted around the candlelit Playhouse, in an eloquent, pocket-sized production by Passion in Practice.
A candle burns on Faustus' simple table, a bowl, a bottle at the front of the stage. And books scattered everywhere. The action begins with Marlowe himself, perhaps, in the person of the learned doctor, composing the “thousand ships” piece [cf Shakespeare in Love] before scrumpling the parchment and throwing it to the floor. Later, with a couple of quills, it makes an improvised dragon, a typically inventive touch. Helen's face is confined to a flimsy postcard, just like the prospects of Paris, Naples and the rest, seen from the soaring creature's back.
Aslam Husain makes a human, often humorous, “man that in his studio sits”, without losing any of the intensity. At the end, he vows to burn his books, and walks upstage to hell with a quiet, determined acceptance of his fate. The pact with the devil is brilliantly done.
Emma Pallant – a super Beatrice on tour a couple of years ago – is an equally intense Mephistophilis - “Why this is hell ...” chillingly done. A very youthful Lucifer from Alex Boxall, and Jennifer Jackson completing the cast. They are also, inter alia, Valdes and Cornelius, and, tellingly, the students in the final scene.
Improvised music helps the ambience, and the Original Pronunciation [Ben and David Crystal] brings extra energy to the relentless rhythm of the lines.

THE TEMPEST

THE TEMPEST

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

06.04.16

Whether or not this is the Bard's farewell to the stage, it makes an ideal envoi to mark the end of Dominic Dromgoole's ten years at the helm of Shakespeare's Globe.

In the candlelit intimacy of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, there's room for the story to unfold on many levels. The opening storm itself gives a triple whammy. A model vessel against a hand-held wooden ocean, then a riotous pitching deck, the mariners and their passengers threatening to spill over into the audience. And finally the echoes of the voices of the drowning calling down from the galleries, for all the world like Captain Cat's shipmates in Llareggub.

There's plenty of knockabout fun from the clowns Dominic Rowan and Trevor Fox, supplementing Shakespeare's text with quick-fire adlibs. Some of the Globe's best comic actors bring wry humour to lesser roles too, notably Christopher Logan as Sebastian. Fisayo Akinade is a fine, proud Caliban.

Tim McMullan's Prospero is grave, with a rich voice matched in gravitas by Joseph Marcel's Gonzago. Not heard the poetry delivered so beautifully since Gielgud. He bids farewell to Caliban and to Ariel, the earthly and the ethereal aspects of his art, as he prepares to break his staff and drown his book.

Pippa Nixon is his Ariel [like the mariners, everywhere and nowhere in the magical candlelight] moving curiously through the mortals and along the parapet separating pit from gallery. And his Miranda, Pheobe Price, is a credible teenager, marvelling at the brave new world of men, including Dharmesh Patel's excellent Ferdinand.

A very enjoyable chamber Tempest, fun and fantastical by turns, with all the hallmarks of Dromgoole's robust approach to his hero Shakespeare, honouring the text while entertaining the playgoers.

Photograph: Marc Brenner

THE WINTER'S TALE

THE WINTER'S TALE

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

30.03.16


One of the four “late romances” staged in the Indoor Jacobean Playhouse this winter – Dominic Dromgoole's farewell to Shakespeare's Globe.
A sad tale's best for winter, Mamilius reminds us, and there is sorrow in Michael Longhurst's sumptuous production, but there's passion and humour too, and a warm glow to match the candlelight.
The space is exploited to the maximum – actors and musicians all over the stage and spilling into the auditorium. Garlands for the shearing, bright light for Bohemia, but stygian gloom for Leontes' court and the marauding bear.
Insanely jealous Leontes is played by John Light, his obsessive rage melting into grief and regret. Rachel Stirling is his Hermione, coolly regal with flashes of wit and passion. Tia Bannon makes an excellent Perdita – on both sides of the 16 year interval [nicely narrated by Sam Cox's ancient shepherd], and Niamh Cusack is a feisty Paulina.
James Garnon, a regular on the Globe stages, extracts every ounce of humour from Autolycus, with what sounds like a banjolele in his hand. The music is a constant presence, Simon Slater the composer, with a versatile band in the gallery, led by Stephen Bentley-Klein on violin.

CYMBELINE

CYMBELINE

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
16.01.2016


Could this be the year of Cymbeline ? The RSC's production of the “rarely performed romance” [their words] – with a female Cymbeline – opens in April; the great Globe itself has Matthew Dunster's version, rebadged as Imogen, in September. In the meantime, in the candle-lit Jacobean space, Sam Yates' colourful production stresses the knockabout fun as well as the weirdly tragic.
It is very much Imogen's play – here she's Innogen, an old typo redressed – excellently done by Emily Barber, especially compelling when disguised as the youth Fidele. Her Posthumus is Jonjo O'Neill, her evil step-mother done with gleeful gusto by Pauline McLynn, who also appears impressively as the deus ex machina Jupiter, stretching the authenticity of the production to its limits in a wonderful moment of stunning stagecraft. Joseph Marcel makes a grave monarch in the title role.
There is blood, and pathos, but much comedy too, especially in the OTT dénouement. An impressive ensemble – Globe stalwart Brenda O'Hea is outstanding as the exiled Belarius, Trevor Fox an engagingly blunt Pisanio. Not without its disappointments: there is much more to the doltish Cloten than we get from Calum Callaghan, and Fear No More the Heat of the Sun, though credibly performed as a gauchely improvised eulogy, has little magic here – elsewhere Alex Baranowski provides some marvellous music, plangent cello to the fore.

ORPHEUS

ORPHEUS

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

30.10.2015

Rossi's Orfeo was one of the first operas to be staged in France. Like many other operatic versions, it explores the ancient myth of the musician who loves Eurydice and loses her in the Underworld.

But Orpheus's fatal backward glance is only one element in a complex plot which gives comic prominence to Eristeus, rival suitor to Eurydice. Before the tragedy of the final act there's much comic fun to be had from mortals and gods in Christopher Cowell's witty, sometimes earthy, new translation.

The intimate, candle-lit stage, despite its restrictions, sees some excellent movement and dance, as well as some stunning stage effects, all of them authentically low-tech. The wedding feast plunged into darkness, Venus flying down, the red thread spun by the Fates. Keith Warner is the inventive director.

Musically, the piece has been sidelined by Monteverdi, Gluck and others, but there is some gorgeous arioso work, as well as choruses and instrumentals – Christian Curnin and the Early Opera orchestra are up in the gallery as they were for last year's L'Ormindo. Music and drama fuse most successfully, perhaps, in Orpheus' lament, powerfully wordless at first. There's a gorgeous duet for the lovers at the end of Act One, too.

I was lucky enough to hear two Orpheuses [?Orphei]. Mary Bevan's rich tone particularly moving in the final act. For the early performances, a throat infection meant that the title role was entrusted to Siobhan Stagg, who gave an engaging performance that was remarkably polished both dramatically and vocally. The other castrato role – Aristeus – was excellently done by Caitlin Hulcup, seizing every opportunity the score and the translation offer. Both Hulcup and Bevan, in the gentle candle-light, could well pass for counterfeit counter-tenors. The boy Cupid, too, is brilliantly convincing in Keri Fuge's cheeky characterization. Louise Alder is a strong Eurydice, Sky Ingram a splendidly elegant Venus. Graeme Broadbent brings his rich bass and comedic flair to Pluto and the Satyr.

This early opera, originally twice the length, and conceived for a much bigger stage, fits well into the Jacobean jewel-case of the SWP. It is a considerable achievement to give 21^st century audiences a sense of what it might have been like to experience this experimental music drama back in 1647, and more importantly, of how gloriously enjoyable it might have been.