RUMOURS

RUMOURS

Guildonians at the Little Theatre, Harold Wood

14.06.2014

Something of a stylistic exercise for playwright Neil Simon – the challenge of farce too hard to resist, maybe.

He's managed a classic of the genre – mistaken identities, frantic activity, improbabilities piled high. This is the British version, relocated to Surrey, though without the nuances of class and milieu that might suggest.

Chrissie O'Connor's hugely enjoyable production for Guildonians was pacy and meticulously plotted. The set-pieces – lost ear-rings, phone duologue – were stylishly and confidently done. The six-door split-level set was a masterpiece, and the Eighties were lovingly evoked – big hair, shoulder pads, La Bamba on the huge stereo, hostess trolley … The guests at the party were elegantly dressed, though not everyone convinced as the sort of moneyed person who flits from one charity do to another.

But there wasn't a single weak performance in this ten-strong cast. Particular plaudits to Kevin O'Connor as Ken – hilarious when deafened – and Charlotte Jones as his wife Chris, with a nice line in terminal exasperation. Copy-book comic timing from Tim Tilbury as Len, with a brilliant monologue in the closing minutes, and a splendid stock character from Tony Szalai as the weary copper who tries to make sense of all the stories.

PRESSURE

PRESSURE

Chichester Festival Theatre at the Minerva

11.06.2014

As veterans invade the French coast to mark the 70^th anniversary of Operation Overlord, David Haig's Pressure travels south from Edinburgh to the Minerva,

This timely new play takes a behind the scenes look at the run-up to D-Day, with weather expert James Stagg its real-life central character.

It is a fascinating story, and given the known outcomes, remarkably tense.

Haig, who also plays Stagg, cleverly manipulates the disagreements between the Scottish expert and his US counterpart to give dramatic conflict. There's also the hint of an affair between Eisenhower and his Irish “dogsbody”, and a slightly strained sub-plot involving Stagg's wife, in a difficult labour, with high blood pressure giving a third dimension to the play's title.

Little is known, much is disputed about what went on in those crucial days in Southwick House.

Giving scope for invention and creative tweaking, which results in a very satisfying piece of historical theatre, directed with an eye to detail and a keen sense of humour by John Dove.

The setting is splendidly realistic, with the large room simply furnished with makeshift desks, and french windows [taped in case of bomb blast] for the sunshine, the storm and the sound of drill, a reminder of the thousands of troops awaiting the word of command. Glenn Miller's Stormy Weather an obvious but effective soundtrack.

Dates and times for the countdown are projected onto the back of the set. But no such hi-tech solution for those all-important weather charts – the changing patterns of pressure are meticulously drawn on vast sheets, hoisted up in turn from a box on the floor.

Haig is compelling as the dour forecaster, expert and enthusiast in this “science governed by intuition and experience”, demanding better facilities and more telephones, raging like Lear at the storm. His breakdown under the strain is movingly done; his modest triumph is understated, his disappointment tangible when it becomes clear that neither he nor Kay Summersby [Ike's right-hand girl, engagingly played by Laura Rogers] will see Paris or Berlin …

Malcolm Sinclair gives a superbly lifelike Eisenhower, all bonhomie and bluster, but capable of tenderness in ten minutes snatched with Kay, sharing a precious orange. Outstanding too is his speech about his eve of battle visit to the Airborne Division at Newbury, given as the three of them celebrate with doughnuts and Tallisker single malt.

Colonel Irving P Krick, meteorologist to MGM, is in stark contrast to Stagg, cocky, flashy, a “salesman”, seemingly up-to-date but relying on older methods. He's played with a supercilious smile and a nasty streak by Tim Beckman. The other characters are less clearly drawn, ciphers, stuffed shirts, with some doubling in the ten-strong cast. None more successfully than Michael Mackenzie, who gives us an old school Admiral Ramsay and a terrific talkative Brummie telephone engineer, who, like the chippie from Chad Valley, is detained in the compound till after the balloon goes up, knowing too much about the Allies' plans …

The invasion map he glimpsed is still in situ, apparently, on the ops room wall in that Georgian pile outside Portsmouth.

OMEROS

OMEROS

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

07.06.2014

This lovely staging of Derek Walcott's epic poem comes to the Globe's Wanamaker Playhouse by way of the Lakeside at Essex University.

Written in Dante's terza rima, and inspired of course by Homer, it moves the action to the poet's own St Lucia, to a fishing village where Hector and Achille are fishermen, and rivals for the beautiful Helen.

The ever-present sea, and Walcott's rich language, are echoes of the great Greek writer. But there's plenty of humour, and colourful evocation of the Caribbean and of Africa.

Bill Buckhurst's simple staging, and the Jacobean candles, focus our attention on the two actors who share the storytelling and inhabit all the characters: Jade Anouka and Joseph Marcell. The other performer is the versatile musician Tayo Akinbode, up in the gallery with a collection of interesting instruments.

And the beautiful programme features Walcott's own Omeros sketches, including some done especially for this production.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Deafinitely Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe

07.06.2014

Deafinitely Theatre had a Globe to Globe hit in 2012 with their Love's Labours Lost.

They were asked back this year, and chose A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Using an eloquent blend of British Sign Language, Visual Vernacular and Shakespeare's verse, it tells the familiar story in an engaging, entertaining couple of hours.

Director Paula Garfield sets the play in the City – not Athens, but London's Square Mile. With Theseus and Hippolyta CEOs of rival banks. There's an ecological fable in there somewhere too.

The “flowery bed” - a constant presence and eventually the stage for Pyramus & Thisbe – is surrounded Emin-style by garbage. Bottom's transformation uses recycled materials, too. The wall is made of box files, the mechanicals are now Middle Management. As so often with the Dream, it's these comic characters who go down best with the audience – Peter Quince would fit in well in The Office, with his self-importance and his iPad, patronisingly signing and mouthing at his actors, including a lovely lanky Flute from Jason Taylor, and a hilarious Bottom from David Sands.

The Lovers are well cast and well characterized too: Fifi Garfield's small dark Hermia against Charlotte Arrowsmith's maypole Helena.

Anna-Maria Nabirye plays a fairy who, along with Alim Jayda's excellent Puck, gives us some of Shakespeare's own words – it is Puck who holds the audience at the end, before the inevitable applause, both signed and audible.

There is music, too, used much as in a silent movie, to underscore the action and add atmosphere, with some witty references in the P&T show. It was composed especially by Philippa Herrick, who is also the musical director.

OUT THERE

OUT THERE

a new play for children by Danny Segeth

Chelmsford Theatre Workshop at the Old Court

07.06.2014

Alison Woollard was at the Old Court matinée ...

Danny Segeth has taken the world of the Mexican Day of Dead and imagined what might happen if the dead could come back and strike up friendships with the living. This might sound like a morbid theme for a children’s play but the idea is interpreted with such charm and humour that the theatre was soon full of laughter and the young members of the audience seemed at ease with the idea that a skeleton could make a good friend.

Many theatrical devices were used effectively to create the world of the living and of the dead. Puppet skeletons created an instant rapport while shadow puppets conjured up fantasy worlds in the imaginations of the audience. Adult actors, James Christie and Leanne Johnson, quickly persuaded us that they were children full of enthusiasm, while Sarah Chandler, Dave Hawkes and Fabienne Handley manipulated the puppets and other props with energy and skill, creating busy roads or quiet graveyards in seconds. The Spanish flavour of the story was conjured up by the beautiful guitar playing of Kate Hutchins.

There are three performances of Out There still to come: Friday 13 June at 7.45, and Saturday 14 June at 11.30 am and 3 pm.