TENORISSIMO

at the Civic Theatre

02.04.05

the published review:

Despite their name, these “natural tenors” are decidedly British, though they look to Italy for their material and their style. They are Morgan Lee James, son of a Welsh miner, Geofrey Coles from Yorkshire, and James Fitzgerald, just back from entertaining on the QEII.

They are certainly not a Three Tenors tribute band, though their Sole Mio was a clone of the Rome original. They keep alive a valuable British tradition; the crossover repertoire of Richard Tauber, John McCormack and David Whitfield, whose shades were always in the wings in this unashamed wallow in the nostalgic potential of a powerful pair of lungs.

They were last here in February 2004, and it was disconcerting to hear almost all the same numbers, the same gags, the same ad libs. A welcome innovation, though, was Dave Smith at his superb symphonic keyboard, though it did mean stadium-strength amplification for the singers.

The most successful moments for me were when the singers spoke of the influences that shaped their musical careers – Al Martino, Josef Locke, Heddle Nash – and revived some forgotten gems from the repertoire: The Soldier’s Dream [with audience participation, this year], Here in My Heart.

They left us with the Brightman/Bocelli Partiro, and Leopold’s cod Goodbye from White Horse Inn. They said they were looking forward to their next visit. Perhaps they might leave it a little longer than 14 months, or mine the rich seam of the neglected tenor repertoire for some new material.

and my April 1 spoof - sent to Jim Hutchon only !

TENORISSIMO

at the Civic Theatre

02.04.05

They first worked together in Blackburn, in the dim and distant days of 1998. Their biographies are vague on their performing pedigree; “natural tenors” to a man, they are masters of audience-pleasing numbers of the can belto school.

Think Il Divo with dentures. Think Russell Watson when “The Voice” is going, and you have an idea of the unsubtle sound they make, amplified to make the Civic sound like the Albert Hall.

Morgan Lee James, who is tenor only in the sense that Michael Ball is a tenor, can sell a number with the best of them. His embarrassing Barber of Seville, and his appalling Pirate King, did no favours to Rossini or to Sullivan, but pleased the mature audience; though I did notice that the couple in front of us were sufficiently compos mentis to realize that they’d seen the same show this time last year, and left in the interval.

Nessun Dorma featured twice, Vesti la Giubba was milked to death, and the West End was raided for some less worthy material to murder.

Geoffrey Coles and James Fitzgerald have the remains of a voice, though most of their singing was a triumph of technique and showmanship over actual singing.

“With an act like this you have to keep moving,” quipped Morgan. Change the act, or move on, I say.

date line April 1 2005

THE MEMORY OF WATER

Little Waltham Drama Group

01.05.04

“All memories are false.”

Shelagh Stephenson’s black comedy starts with an apparition, and affectingly dissects the mother/daughter relationship.

We see the three recently orphaned women share a joint as they sort the crimplene into bin bags. They bicker, they laugh, they each have a moment of revelation.

Mary, the amnesia specialist, strongly played by Billie Bond, Karen Wray’s perceptive character study of Teresa, the health food guru who recites recipes to meditate and seeks truth in Teacher’s Whisky. And Catherine [Susan Butler], garrulous, hypochondriac, superb as she hears the news from Spain.

Their men are less richly written. Mike Lee never really convinced as a TV doctor, though Peter Travell enjoyed his Ratner moment of truth. Vi, the confused matriarch who confronts her offspring from beyond the grave, was convincingly suggested by Gill Haysham.

The play has its Alan Bennett moments – the funeral director’s plastic hand, the herbalist in Whitby – and its darker Joe Orton side. But this is an original voice, writing in speech patterns that were not always easy for actors not from “up here”.

Mags Simmonds’ fluent and touching production brought out the best in the play, with a lovely final tableau, and an evocative set: matrimonial bed, massive dark-stained furniture, and cracks appearing beneath the grimy wallpaper.

SYLVIA'S WEDDING
Writtle Cards
Cramphorn Theatre
26 June 2003


Vicars in anoraks, honeymoons in Fleetwood. We're in familiar comedy country here. But Writtle Cards have skipped Ayckbourn and Bennett in the dramatists' directory and ended up with Chinn.
It's a mixture of gentle comedy and pathos says director Bill Piggott. It's an insubstantial confection of caricature and cliché, we reply.
It wasn't badly done, but you'd need much harder work from a much better cast to squeeze laughs from these lame one-liners.
Liz Smith had the best of the a varied crop of Northern accents as the worldly-wise neighbour, and Peter McManus did a nice drunk routine as the hunky virgin who eventually marries his drippy betrothed - a senior sales executive with the Gas Board - played by Sarah Wilson. Jeremy Pruce kept his hat on throughout as the bigoted father-in-law-to-be, ably supported by an assured performance from Barbara Llewellyn.
I liked the split stage which came into its own in a strong final confrontation, and there were many promising moments - Yvonne eating crisps as she was fitted for a truly hideous frock, for example. But other opportunities, like her narrow escape from Stanley's randy hands, went for almost nothing.
In this, Writtle Cards 35th year, Wodehouse comes to the Village Hall in October in a brand new adaptation of Much Obliged Jeeves.

THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

Chelmsford Young Generation at the Cramphorn Theatre

27.12.01

Irita Kutchmy's musical version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was a good choice for CYGAMSChristmas show. It involves loads of youngsters, and is a popular, perennial story. It's been sold out for weeks.

Purists will not like the Disneyfied travesty of much of the plot and many of the characters, but these young actors, directed as ever by Ray Jeffery, went to enormous lengths to capture the period feel and the poetry. Generally, though, performers of all ages could usefully have projected a little more strongly.

On the opening night we saw the left-hand cast - of these, I greatly enjoyed Amelia Burns as Susan, and Keeley Allen as a warm, outgoing Lucy, looking and sounding just right as a feisty evacuee. Mr Tumnus the faun was neatly personified by Mitchell Raymond, who delivered his lines with feeling and moved with poise and grace. The White Witch was not well served by the script, but Helen Morris gave a strong panto performance, a worthy match for Paul Synott's majestic Aslan.

The production crowded the Cramphorn stage, but the wartime prologue was effective, and I liked the lamp-post and the snow like fondant icing over the rocks and trees. And despite the clunky lyrics and the forgettable tunes, the audience, like the visitors to Narnia, happily forgot all about the real world for a magical couple of hours.

HMS PINAFORE

Opera della Luna at the Civic Theatre

25.10.01

Baldrick and Lady Bracknell in one evening ? A chance not given to many actors, but seized gleefully by Graham Hoadly in Opera della Luna’s sparkling pocket Pinafore at the Civic last week.

Eight singers and five musicians worked with enthusiasm and panache to give us the essence of G&S - doubling Deadeye with a formidable Aunt was just one ingenious example of making a virtue of necessity - I also enjoyed the Overture sequence, and the exquisitely Victorian opening to Act II, leading into the Captain’s equally Victorian ballad.

Ian Belsey was the middle class captain, with Joseph Shovelton looking and sounding just right as the patriotic pleb. Sarah Ryan’s pure, if slight, soprano was well suited to Josephine, and Louise Crane made a strong bumboat woman. The reliable David Timson gave a hilarious First Lord, true to tradition and relishing every word.

Not all conventions were ignored - the trio, with its encores, was only slightly sent up - but Jeff Clarke’s stripped-down version, which was first launched on the QE2, made the most of the ridiculous class-ridden snobberies behind Gilbert’s original libretto, whilst preserving the period charms of Sullivan’s music.