JUSTIN AND THE ARGONAUTS

JUSTIN AND THE ARGONAUTS

Common Ground Theatre Company at the Wolsey Studio, Ipswich

09.01.2016


Ipswich is well served for alternative pantos – besides Aladdin [starring Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee] at the Regent, we've been offered the rock'n'roll Sword in the Stone at the Wolsey, Holy Mackerel at the Sir John Mills, and now Justin and the Argonauts, ending its tour in the Wolsey Studio.
This year's offering from Common Ground is a typically off-the-wall, on-a-shoestring show, packing in loads of Greek mythology, tons of puns and groan-aloud gags, plus some catchy songs by director Pat Whymark.
All very enjoyable, even if still a little rough at the edges. The cast of five, all of them masters of the shameless style, is held together by newcomer Matt Jopling, who plays the narrator and hero, the weedy 1930s schoolboy Justin whose Aegean cruise somehow turns into a romp through the ancient world of gods and monsters.
The others all play countless roles. Julian Herries is the Ancient Greek Heracles, as well as Zeus, the old thesp Pelleas, a Gorgon, a Yorkshire Prometheus and many more. Lorna Garside is the tomboy Atalanta and Medea, Alice Mottram Hera and Acrustes, and Joe Leat is excruciatingly funny in a host of juicy character roles, including the groundsman [at Peggy Mount School], an Irish Centaur, a sulky Orpheus and a tiny Eros.

Running gags include lunch box delicacies and the “Interval” - the strait between Scylla and Charybdis. Lion wrestling, pickled onion jar opening, the golden fleece hairpiece, the squid and the kraken, all ensure a pleasurable quest round the wine-dark sea, an evening of merry myths and surreal silliness.

BRITTEN'S GOT TALENT

BRITTEN'S GOT TALENT

A Chamber Musical with cabaret songs

Allegra Productions at the New Wolsey Studio, Ipswich

22.11.13

for The Public Reviews

What better birthday celebration for Baron Britten of Aldeburgh than this irreverent musical comedy by Suffolk writer Robin Brooks ?

Despite the flippant, catch-penny title, there's plenty of food for thought to be savoured along with the birthday cake, mixed in with the silliness and the cabaret songs.

Not, alas, Ben's own cabaret songs, to Auden's verses, but workmanlike, clever little numbers from Damian Evans: “At Home in Aldeburgh”, “Pacifism” and the keynote quartet “Britten is Blessed”.

The musical oeuvre, generally, is in short supply. In one final black comedy moment, it's that Mahler Adagietto on the Lido that proves the final straw for this “silly old heart”. The finale, though, has the composer conducting his Young Person's Guide, coincidentally the closing music for Bennett's Habit of Art, which covers some of the same uneven ground.

Brooks has imagined a compelling drama, a dreamscape of the Kafka kind, where time flows in all directions and the shadow of a mysterious “tribunal” hangs over Britten's head.

So there are anachronistic pops at The Scallop, and a scathingly witty critique of Grimes on the Beach.

The Dirk Bogarde deckchair is not the only reference to Death in Venice. There's a mysterious, and very versatile, Death figure, done with some relish by Sam Dale. Like the baritone in the opera, he's a sort of ferryman, and the barber who speaks of the sickness driving people away, not from La Serenissima, but from Suffolk's “Notting Hill on Sea”.

The piece has a lovely central performance from Keith Hill as Britten. He catches exactly the boyish enthusiasm, the innocent sense of fun, the insecurities - “ping-pong and the piano: all done on the nerves” - and the relentless pursuit of youthful beauty.

The young Polish boy who embodies that beauty [excellently acted and sung by Sam Bell, alternating the role with Theo Christie] shares several key scenes with Ben – and in this play he does speak to the child – ducks and drakes, fear of the storm, swimming in the chilly North Sea, but not going in too deep, or too far …

Death apart, the characters are all drawn more or less directly from life: Pears with his college scarf [Jonathan Hansler], Miss Hudson the housekeeper [Hansler again], and Charles Mackerras with his salty Australian gossip about “The Twilight of the Sods”. David Hemmings is quoted but not named. Other characters are an amalgam – the rejected librettist with his science-fiction opera and his version of Mansfield Park, and the tragic Marcus, who hangs himself before his wedding and comes back, in cricket whites, to haunt Ben who's sleeping in the boy's old room at Mallards. One of the most affecting aspects of the drama, this, beautifully played by Joseph Reed as the boy grown too old, thrown over for a new tennis partner … As he tells us, he speaks for all Britten's boys. Joy, his mother [Gilian Cally] and Sir James his disapproving father, also represent many members of the Aldeburgh society with its ambivalent attitudes.

A brief mention for the programme, one of the cheapest and classiest in recent memory, based on the Letts schoolboy diary that Ben famously used well into his twenties.

Not everything works, not all the numbers are as sharply scored as they might be. And it would help to be up to speed on Britten and all his works. But the concept is great, and a clutch of fine performances from the cast of six makes this a uniquely affectionate tribute to this most famous son of Suffolk.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Action to the Word at the New Wolsey Studio Ipswich

27.09.2013

for The Public Reviews

Anthony Burgess was not happy about the way his seminal novel transferred to the screen. The amoral adolescent gang-lads seemed much more vivid, more threatening, more iconic.

Whatever would he have made of this amazingly physical re-working of that 1952 tale [based on his own stage version], with ten young men giving energetic expression to the homoerotic dystopia extrapolated from the original story.

There's much he would recognize. Plenty of Ludwig Van, sonata as well as symphony, sharing the soundtrack with David Bowie, The Scissor Sisters, Eurythmics, Queen and Placebo [Battle for the Sun]. The moloko – the spiked milk which is the recreational drug of choice for young Alex and his friends the Droogs. Not forgetting the Nadsat, a crazy, casual Russian-inspired patois, heightened at times with cod Shakespearean formality. And of course the ultraviolence, much of it glamorously choreographed by director Alexandra Spencer-Jones.

Adam Search is a fine, charismatic Alex: cocky, depraved, insolent. A suitable case for the Ludovico treatment, aversion therapy with Beethoven as backing track.

And cured he is, nauseated by sex and violence, robbed of the freedom to choose, unable to respond to the temptations paraded before him, despised and rejected by family and friends, tempted to suicide.

The ending – Burgess's famous Chapter 21 – in which our hero grows up and finds a steady partner is perhaps less convincing, even with the direct appeal to the audience.

This production has boundless physical energy, spectacular movement work but relatively little in the way of real drama or believable characters. Its world is increasingly, teasingly, orange: an egg cup, a flat cap, the carrots and the clementines in the nightmare ballet. And there are welcome flecks of comic relief amongst the the kicks, the blows and the groping, the camp nurses, for instance.

Excellent work from a strong young ensemble, with the occasional standout characterization: F Alexander the Writer, the Minister of the Inferior, and the impressive doubling of Mr Deltoid, social worker, with an Irish hellfire chaplain.

Action to the Word's Clockwork Orange has been successfully revived several times – London fringe, Edinburgh – and now, slightly longer, it's on the road again, ending this tour in Hong Kong by way of Inverness.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

VERNON GOD LITTLE

VERNON GOD LITTLE

The New Wolsey Young Company

at the Wolsey Theatre Studio, Ipswich

18.04.2012

Since winning the Booker in 2003, Pierre's dark comedy has been adapted at least twice as a theatre piece. This is the version done by Tanya Ronder for the Young Vic in 2007. Another challenging piece for Ipswich's enterprising young company – fourteen actors [age range 16 to 21], all of them involved in the music which is an integral part of the show.

Director Rob Salmon points out that gun massacres will always be topical, but this week's trial in Oslo reminds us that they are not confined to the USA – the play is set in the ironically named Texan town of Martirio. The central character, described by one critic as "Holden Caulfield on Ritalin" is thirteen in the novel.

Here, Joe Reed plays him 16 going on 17, an angry, aggresive presence, his name in lights behind the action, helpless as he finds himself framed for the High School Massacre and more.

The show begins with Jesus Navarro, the Mexican boy who flips and shoots his classmates, singing his theme song – Patsy Cline's Crazy. It's a powerful moment, and his shade is often present, bloody but unbowed, a merry spirit in Mexico, a tragic figure on Death Row, perched on the tech desk for the trial of his friend. Excellent, intense work from Jack Tricker.

Aidan Napier is the tv man, immoral and menacing, a well sustained, creepy performance. Television, reality and otherwise, is a constant in this redneck Jerry Springer world: Lally presents to camera, the lyrics of the Country Music are flashed up on the screen, which could usefully, and realistically, have been twice the size.

The young cast certainly enjoyed some of the more grotesque characters, with impressive performances from Steve Withers as, among others, an advocate with a shaky grasp of English and a Pastor, and from Jack Brett as the randy shrink Dr Goossens and Lally's blind mother.

Armonie Melville was strong as Taylor, the wasted girl who frames Vernon, and Keisha Banya brought his confused, needy Mom to frightening life.

The staging – the johns, the chairs on wheels – was ingenious, and the show was crackling with energy, with a wacky, cartoonish style which suited the story. A little more light and shade, a little less indistinct shouting, would have helped the audience follow the plot, especially in the wordy second act.

But the overall effect was infectiously enjoyable, the broad satire, the foul-mouthed fights, the moral message, the music and the manic acting adding up to a good night out for anyone, theatre-buffs or first-timers, fans of DBC Pierre or not ...

production photo: Mike Kwasniak

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews