GHOST

GHOST

LODS

at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff

22.10.15

for Sardines

Screen to stage is a much tougher transition than stage to screen. In the case of this classic weepie, the technical challenges are considerable, and the score, though serviceable, is never going to match the spectre of Unchained Melody, attractively referenced and recycled in the show.

LODS have done wonders with the staging. What look like king-size bedsheets, with phone-pictures of Sam and Molly growing up, fly out to reveal the apartment, with its “statement” fridge. There's much use of back-projection – busy monochrome New York, with smudged shades of passers-by, a wonderful Brooklyn streetscape. The supernatural is slickly done, too – walking through the door, shape-shifting, out-of-body deaths. Particularly impressive are the ghost in the subway sequence, and the Blithe Spirit moment with the poltergeist in Carl's office.

Musically, they do what they can with some pretty anodyne pop numbers – backing chorus and dancers to match. Most successful are the proper trios, dramatically significant, like the Act One finale, Molly's moving With You, and the rappy Focus from the Subway Ghost. Are You A Believer is a nice Gospel number from Oda Mae and her acolytes, but simply serves to slow the action.

Director Peter Brown has a fine cast to work with. Stuart Woolner and Jenny Peoples make believable lovers, with superb stage presence and a confident approach to the score. Outstanding character work from Lawrence Harp as the angry, paranoid Subway Ghost, and from Helen Sharpe as the “storefront psychic”, whose quirky character does much to cut through the sentimentality, a memorable “closing the account” routine a comedy highlight. Lewis Sheldrake is the treacherous Carl, Neil Lands the nasty Lopez.

The ensemble – commuters, tourists in Oda Mae's fantasy – are kept busy with stylised choreography by Gemma Cohen. But the show would work just as well as a chamber piece, without the production number padding. Though the umbrellas at the end of the first act and the rain at the start of the second make for good continuity. The closing scene, with Sam, invisible at first, finally re-united with Molly, and sharing one last dance, thanks to the medium, is touchingly done. I liked Carl being dragged down to hell like Don Giovanni, and the curtain call, with the lovers left alone together at the end.

Excellent work from the orchestra – Paul Day the Musical Director – soulful strings underscoring the emotional moments, bright guitars and reeds elsewhere.

In the West End, the projections were accused of upstaging the passion. The balance in the Palace seems about right, though a better score [and lyrics] would help make a more worthy musical of this iconic celluloid fantasy.

HORRIBLE HISTORIES – GROOVY GREEKS

HORRIBLE HISTORIES – GROOVY GREEKS

Birmingham Stage Company at the Civic Theatre

20.10.15

Just how groovy were the Ancient Greeks ?

Well, we learned that their architecture was brightly coloured, their gods fiercely competitive, but their Olympics a tad underwhelming.

Four brilliant actors, a lively soundtrack and digital back-projection led us through the history and the heroes, with the main themes cleverly presented in the style of our favourite tv shows, all written and directed by Neal Foster.

Taking a cue from Homer, the Trojans also featured Marge as Helen of Troy, Bart as Achilles and so on. Slaves were sold on the shopping channel, the philosophers gathered in the Big Brother kitchen – Archimedes in the bathroom, Pythagoras with pi embroidered round his hem, Socrates evicted to drink hemlock. Hippocrates starred in Casualty, with a guest appearance from young Stanley, whose earwax and snot were tested by tasting. [Not really, Mum.]

The BGT gods rather outstayed their welcome, though Zeus's Thunderball and Lightning number was one of the best things in Matthew Scott's score.

As in Terry Deary's books, there were loads of facts crammed in amongst the jokes about Boris, bums and bodily functions. And the Civic was packed with primary schools who screamed at the 3D spiders, voted Athena top god and sang along happily with Hannah Boyce, Ashley Bowden, Laura Dalgleish and Charlie Buckland.

NELL GWYNN

NELL GWYNN

at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

17.10.2015

At the end of a long and varied season, an end-of-term treat: a crowd-pleasing love-song to the playhouse.

Eleanor Gwynn, as every schoolboy used to know, sold oranges to the punters before being talent-spotted, first by the management, then by the monarch.

Jessica Swale's play sticks closely to the biography, apart from the upbeat ending. Christopher Luscombe brings a joyous exuberance to the story. Nell the performer is the focus here, one of the first women to appear on the Restoration stage. She's played with bright-eyed effervescence by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Leading man Charles Hart [Jay Taylor] coaches her, David Sturzaker's Charles II is smitten.

There is a whole host of supporting characters, all delightfully larger than life. Sarah Woodward gets two of them – a hysterical Queen Catherine and Nell's drunken madam of a mother, puffing on her pipe and pinching a pint from the groundlings. Graham Butler is John Dryden, Greg Haiste is superb as the affronted Kynaston – one of the last surviving lady boys of the English theatre, the star of Stage Beauty. And Amanda Lawrence steals all her scenes as Nan, the dresser. Coaxed onto the boards, she keeps us in stitches as she misses her entrances, and stands rooted on her exit, pursued at this final performance, by a stray pigeon.

The scene is set backstage, with fly-lines and weights, a few scene flats and a suggestion of a dressing room stage right. The musicians' gallery is transformed into King Charles's royal box. The structure harks back to the Restoration, with Angus Imrie making a mess of the prologue. And, yes, there's a real spaniel, too.

A joy to watch, and a heart-warming story with plenty of proto-feminist jests and jibes. One of the Globe's best offering this season, it began last year back at LAMDA, and surely deserves a longer life.

 Photograph: Tristram Kenton

INTO THE WOODS

INTO THE WOODS

Little Theatre Company

at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff

15.10.15

for Sardines

Photo: © GP Photography

“Children will listen,” sings the Witch in the finale of Sondheim's twisted fairy-tale. And, at the Thursday matinée, the stalls are full of listening children, drawn by the Disney movie perhaps.

Their attention is skilfully held by an accomplished company; the production looks and sounds impressively professional.

The set starts out as a triptych on trucks, disappearing to reveal a deep wood – cut cloths and two-dimensional trees that look very at home on these hundred-year-old boards. But it's left to sound and lighting to create most of the magic – the Giantess's demise, the Witch's transformation. The scene in Granny's cottage is appealingly if underwhelmingly done in shadow-play.

Sondheim's tricky score makes huge demands on the singers – without exception they rise to the challenge, and manage to make rounded characters from the story-book figures.

Sarah Pettican is a superb Witch, with and without her hooked nose and chin; she has great presence and a real understanding of the idiom. The two Princes – straight out of Viennese operetta – are a constant delight, too, guying the dialogue just enough, and relishing the Agony. Chris Lidgard is suitor to Rapunzel [Hannah Allwright]; Louisa Strachan's excellent Cinderella is wooed by Simon Bristoe, who also makes the most of the big, bad, sexy Wolf.

The boy Jack - “sunny but vague” - is played by Tobias Smith; his mother a lovely warm characterization from Carla Cater. Sally Lightfoot juggles three roles, including an endearing Granny and a formidable, if faceless, Giantess. And an outstanding Little Red Ridinghood – though not especially “pink and plump” - from Rebecca Perry-Gamble.

The Baker and his Wife – whose longing for a child is the motor for the convoluted plot – are played to perfection by Jamie Redgate and Victoria Tewes – her “Moments in the Woods” is one of many musical highlights.

The genial, suited Narrator, and the melodramatic Mystery Man in beard and tatters, are, maybe meaningfully, doubled by Julian Cottee.

In part two – an ironical happy-ever-after – the story is less Disney, more Grimm. There's infidelity, forgiveness, a morass of moral issues. The Baker's Wife's lusty romps behind a handy tree providing much-needed light relief for the Upper Juniors in the audience.

But some of the best operatic moments are kept for this second act: the “Your Fault” quintet and the “No One Is Alone” quartet both impeccably done.

Rachael Plunkett is Musical Director, with Clare Penfold conducting a fine pit orchestra.

So much to enjoy in Dave Lobley's carefully crafted production of a piece that seems to offer more every time I see it. The bird mobile on the end of a fishing rod, with a careless stage hand on the other end, the country dancing at the close, the Uglies in their undies, the radio-controlled Hen, the Cow on wheels. And there must be a mention for the splendid programme booklet, with excellently atmospheric photographs by Jeff Hooker.

THINGS TO COME - DON'T LOOK NOW

As the nights start to draw in, the Queen’s Hornchurch resident company presents the chilling thriller Don’t Look Now, playing from 23 October – 14 November.

The Daphne du Maurier short story - and the better-known film - tell the story of John and Laura Baxter who travel to Venice, hoping to save their troubled marriage after the loss of their young daughter, Christine. Amidst the romance of the city, they start to come to terms with their tragedy and it seems a new chapter is beginning.

But then, strange things start to happen… The couple meet a pair of elderly ‘psychic’ sisters who claim to be able to see Christine and urgently warn them to leave the city. And just who is the mysterious figure in red? Don’t miss this tragic, haunting drama – full of twists, turns and brimming with chills and thrills…

Don’t Look Now was originally published in 1971 as part of Not After Midnight – du Maurier’s collection of short stories with supernatural themes. The hard-hitting, controversial film adaptation is now hailed a modern classic. Starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, it famously featured what was considered at the time to be an outrageously explicit love-making scene.

It presents huge challenges in the staging. But this production is directed by Simon Jessop, the Queen’s acclaimed Associate Director known for his audacious work and inventive style of theatre-making – to help tell the story, he’ll use a wonderful blend of live performance, film projections, inventive light design and a fantastically atmospheric score. Audiences and critics hugely admired his most recent Hornchurch productions – The Elephant Man in April and last spring’s The Great Gatsby, which was nominated for an Off West End Award.

Joining the cast will be two stars of The Elephant Man - Tom Cornish, playing John Baxter, and the very much respected Queen’s stalwart Stuart Organ (also known of course for his many years playing Mr Robson in TV’s Grange Hill). This production also features Gilian Cally and Tina Gray, stars of the Queen’s current play Steel Magnolias, as well as much-loved company regulars Callum Hughes and Sam Pay, who audiences will recognise from their numerous Hornchurch roles.

The Queen’s is delighted to welcome two enormously talented actresses – Charlotte Powell, playing Laura Baxter, who has worked with a multitude of theatre companies across the UK, and Karen Anderson, whose hugely impressive film credits include appearances on smash hits such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Maleficent.

Set and costume design is by Norman Coates, musical direction by Steven Markwick, lighting design by Mark Dymock and vocal coaching by Mary Viscomi.