INTO THE WOODS

INTO THE WOODS

Melabeau Productions at Brentwood Theatre

07.10.15

Sondheim's Into The Woods is such a great choice for a youth group. It's a wonderful show by a master at the height of his game, with loads of wonderful roles.

Sondheim's Into The Woods is not such a great choice for a youth group. It presents huge challenges both dramatically and musically, and is not easy for the audience, either.

Melabeau fielded a very young cast, who successfully managed the style of the piece, with some very promising performances. Lots of dance, with corps-de-ballet trees, a great tap duet from the Wolf [Ellie Mead] and Shayley Robinson's “excited and scared” Little Red Riding Hood. Another impressive duet from the Principal Boy Princes Courtney-Lee Collins and Abigail Bliss.

Alfie Aves had superb presence as young Jack, Ella Catterick made a lovely operatic Rapunzel. The Baker and his wife, whose quest is the heart of the story, were confidently done by Clarke Peek-Pullum and Rosie Griffiths. Outstanding in the ensemble, for all sorts of reasons, Jimmy Fordham-Reed's Little Boy Blue, with his sparkly jazz shoes.

The production looked good, with inventive costumes [Cinderella, for instance] and a stunning reveal as the black tabs opened on a haunted forest with slender trees in front of a spooky back-drop.

Intonation was an issue for some of the young vocalists, and standing still is a skill worth learning. The narrator, Sophie Neal, had a huge task, not only talking us through the complex plot, but also trying to keep the momentum and the excitement alive.

Into The Woods was produced for Melabeau by Nick Campbell, and directed by Elaine Spires with musical direction by Julie Barker.

image by Czech photographer Janek Sedlar

IVANOV

IVANOV

Chichester Festival Theatre

03.10.2015

Three early Chekhovs presented by a hard-working ensemble at Chichester.

The relatively well-known Seagull preceded by the first, Platonov, and Ivanov, from 1887.

Not the Stoppard version, but the earlier translation by David Hare – sometimes stilted [“It wasn't at my wish.” ?], and not as radical as one might expect.

But very well served in Jonathan Kent's stylish production. Tom Pye's set is atmospheric – a real stream, with weeds, bare-branched trees, grass growing in the cracks of the paving. Impressively transformed into the Lebedev's drawing room, card games, smoking and gossip. And Ivanov's “tap-room” study, with sketches and maps on the walls.

Sam West's Ivanov is already poring over his accounts by the light of an oil lamp as we arrive: he's a caring, ambitious young man, who tries to do things differently, to take risks, but is beset by problems of all kinds.

Nina Sosanya and Olivia Vinall both excellent as the women in his life: the Jewish wife, playing the cello [echoed in Jonathan Dove's evocative score] and dying of TB, and the young innocent whose infatuation with Ivanov brings about the tragic dénouement, as the cello is heard one last time and the wall disappears to reveal the suicide's recumbent form.

A glorious gallery of characters surround them – the satirical portraits of local celebrity: Brian Pettifer's tedious card-player, Peter Egan's Callow-ish Count, big, bearded and bombastic.

Jonathan Coy – a Chichester regular – is the harassed council chairman, Des McAleer outstanding as the estate manager, and James McArdle gets under the skin of the “honest” young doctor who constantly criticises Ivanov, threatening to expose his alleged intentions.

Not forgetting Mark Penfold, making the most of the ancient retainer Gavrila.

This is not Chekhov at the height of his game. Sometimes the symbolism – the fireworks, the owl's screech – seems overwrought.

But it's revealed as a fine drama, nonetheless, in Kent's passionate production, set in its dramatic context in this “Birth of a Genius” trilogy.

before curtain-up from my seat in the front row ...

THE LADY'S TRIAL

THE LADY'S TRIAL

Edward's Boys at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

27.09.2015

Ford's final dramatic work was performed in 1638 at the Cockpit Theatre.

For years, scholars have struggled to imagine what that performance might have been like. Their imaginations will be hugely helped by this revival, by the boys of Shakespeare's old school in Stratford, in the candle-lit space of the Sam Wanamaker, a theatre very similar to the Cockpit off Drury Lane.

Perry Mills gets remarkably mature performances from his young actors. Finlay Hatch is a confident Auria, the Genoese nobleman whose departure to fight the Turkish foe sets the complex plots in motion. His friend, the faithful Aurelio, is James Williams. Little Adurni [Pascal Vogiaridis], tempted to seduce Auria's abandoned Spinella, is perhaps the most clearly spoken; Dominic Howden makes a pleasingly fey Futelli, while Dan Power and George Ellingham wring every ounce out of the comedy Spaniard and Dutchman, suitors to the lisping Amoretta [Ben Clarke].

It's the “girls” who have the toughest job, of course. And provide the most fascinating insight into how Elizabethan, Jacobean – and here Caroline – playwrights may have seen their female characters come to life. An amazingly talented cohort here: Joe Pocknell's poised Spinella, Charlie Waters as her kid sister Castanna, and an incredibly accomplished Levidolce from Jack Hawkins.

The production, though necessarily simple and uncluttered, does have some inspired moments – the picture-frame prison, the glee, and the heart-stopping fermata before the weddings and the epilogue.

Epilogue and prologue both mix 21^st century and period costume [not to mention school uniform], and the present day, in the shape of students seated on the stage, is intriguingly woven into the action.

A rare chance to see this Ford – rarer still to see it in something approaching the form it would have taken when acted by “both their Majesties' servants at the private house in Drury Lane” ...

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH
Mercury Theatre Colchester, Brian Eastman and Christabel Albery at the Mercury Theatre Colchester
29.09.2015

for The Reviews Hub

Another brand-new classic musical comedy, this time wedding the songs of Irving Berlin to the much-loved British Lion film from the 50s.
The “matchmaker” here is Thom Southerland, co-writer and director of this seriously charming piece of escapism.
The central plot and the main characters survive; sympathetic tweaks bring the story closer to the world of Top Hat and Blue Skies.
Encouraging signs from the glorious set [David Woodhead] evoking the rococo flea pit with its sweeping staircase – the wonky proscenium curtain flies out and the railway bridge flies in for the opening scene in the pub. And from the overture, arranged for cinema organ, though not alas rising from the depths.
There is an upright piano, though, for Liza Goddard's lovely Mrs Fazackalee, duetting wonderfully with Leo Andrew's Simon before the fatal yard of ale carries him off, leaving the Spensers to inherit the Bijou Kinema …
They are played, in fine period style, by Laura Pitt-Pulford and Haydn Oakley [star of Betty Blue Eyes here last year]. Brian Capron is Quill, the Peter Sellers role, big-hearted behind the boozy, belligerent exterior. Callow commissionaire Tom is played by Sam O'Rourke, blessed with a fittingly Fifties face, and remaining perfectly in character even in his fantastic, fancy-footwork Fred Astaire routine with Christina Bennington's Marlene, whose vaudeville talents help save the Bijou from the wrecking ball. When stage fright strikes, junior partner Carter [Matthew Crowe – clearly a song and dance man from his first entrance] steps in with a priceless “female impersonator” version of They Love Me [from Mr President].
Villains of the piece, owners of the rival Grand, are Philip Rham and Ricky Butt, mistress of the one-line put-down.
A sparkling script, with snappy choreography from Lee Proud, and all the conventions of the genre scrupulously observed – we have follow spots, a tap routine, a novelty number [Shaking the Blues Away for the deep-clean makeover, with mops, brooms, feather dusters and carpet beaters] big anthems either side of the intermission, and a chorus line curtain call to a final reprise of Blue Skies.
The musical numbers, an astute mix of the familiar and the forgotten [like When Winter Comes from the Sonja Henie vehicle Second Fiddle], fit snugly into the narrative, often interwoven with the dialogue. The dolls' house buildings, first seen from the Paddington-Sloughborough train, make an effective distant back-drop, and concealed behind it, the pit orchestra [no actor-musicians here] under MD Mark Aspinall.
The whole show is polished to perfection, an effervescent cocktail of film and musical comedy, Bijou and Berlin, a perfect night out for anyone who appreciates a good story and a toe-tapping tune.

Image: Alastair Muir

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Theatre at Baddow

30.09.15

I was only aware of one stage version – a 39-Steps-style spoof of a few years back – so was intrigued to see how American playwright Tim Kelly handled this most popular of the Sherlock Holmes novels back in the 70s.

Turns out to be Conan Doyle as re-imagined by Agatha Christie. Wisely, the hound himself is audio only, the moor glimpsed by lightning flashes through the french doors. The action is confined to the sitting room of Baskerville Hall, dominated by a huge portrait of the ill-fated Sir Hugo.

The familiar characters [less Lestrade] come in and out, leaving clues and question-marks behind them. There are six scenes, most of them ending with a melodramatic curtain line and mysterious music.

Dave Hawkes' hyperactive Holmes – crawling under the desk, jabbing at the forehead of Bob Ryall's dapper Doctor Watson – is an impressive “calculating machine”, excitedly piecing together the evidence. And of course he's kitted out with hand lens, deerstalker, inverness and calabash.

Very encouraging to see such good work from the younger cast members: Laura Bradley as the elegant “Miss” Stapleton, Jade Flack as Mrs Lyons, and Bruce Thomson as Sir Henry, resplendent in plus fours.

The plot, devoid of the atmospheric Great Grimpen Mire, sometimes seems preposterous, but the lighting [gas lamps fading convincingly] and the lively pace of John Mabey's production keep the spirit of the original serial alive.