TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

28.09.2016

This is the Globe touring production that's been delighting audiences all summer. Now it's back home, stuck slightly awkwardly in the candlelit playhouse. It's too big, bright and bold for this intimate space; it's a pity there was no slot for it in the great Globe itself.

Nonetheless, its charm, its passion and its sense of fun survive.

Set in 1966, it begins with a beige group of youngsters bopping to the hits of the day, merging seamlessly into the daft plot. The onstage band – this is a company of actor/musicians – are in a garish booth at the back of the stage. Its roof, accessed by vertical ladders, is a further acting area. Both Kate Sykes, the designer, and James Fortune, the composer, have embraced the flavour: a telling contrast between Verona, that beige backwater, and Milano, where it's at, fashion capital then as now.

Performances are excellent, the timing honed over a long tour. Guy Hughes and Dharmesh Patel are the gents in question; both give hilariously silly interpretations. The girls [Aruhan Galieva and Leah Brotherhead] have a bit more depth, especially at the tearful end with its touching lament.

Amongst the rest, doubling furiously and reaching for their instruments to form the backing band, Amber James gives us a lovely Thurio and a cheeky Lucetta. Charlotte Mills takes Launce by the throat, with musician Fred Thomas as the dog Crab. And, taking over from Adam Keast, injured in a stage fall [those ladders], T J Holmes works the audience wonderfully as the other fool, Speed.

As the Swinging Sixties declined into the safer Seventies, there was a Broadway musical based on this same comedy. Very much of its time, I recall, and not nearly so faithful, or as much fun, as this stylish summer show.

TWO

TWO

The College Players at Brentwood Theatre

01.10.16

Jim Cartwright's 1989 classic passes a typical evening in the Unicorn, a pub somewhere up north. We meet the publican and his wife, and a cross section of regulars and strangers, rendez-vous and couples, coppings off and fallings out. Lubricated by double Dubonnets and pints of Old Mayor.

The College Players bring a strong cast and a superb set to the piece. Anchored by the landlord and his missus, their life devoted to this place, pulling pints, exchanging banter with the punters, nipping out to fetch glassware or replenish supplies. But it's clear from their snippy bickering that there's little love lost between them; it's not till the unexpectedly dark dénouement that we learn why. This emotionally charged final scene, though it seems to belong in a different play, is excellently done by James Wild and Lindsay Hollingsworth – facing off over the bar, finally united in silhouette, lit only by the neon sign behind them.

Fine cameos from those who drift in and out of the bar. Notably from Jacqueline Parry – memorably fantasising about big men before she's joined by her feeble cloth-capped runt of a husband [Nick Wilkes] – I don't think it helps to have him on early, though. And Pat Gunton as a resentful carer and the butcher's secret admirer; a moving performance of one of the best pieces of writing in the show. Elliott Porte, too, a natty widower outwardly quiet and lonely “having a good time within”. Comedy gold from Bob O'Brien and June Fitzgerald, plus-size pensioners who've come in to eat crisps and watch a Western on the telly [that dates the piece, doesn't it?].

There's Moth from Merseyside [Matt Hudson], with his Liverpool shirt and his roving eye, with his bird Maudie [Kirstin Devlin]; a loathsome bully [Mark Griffiths] and his mousy, abused wife [Lauren Bracewell], and, after closing time, a promising début from Millie Waters as the lost little girl who prompts the publicans to confront their past.

Beautifully written, often poetic, Cartwight's classic is given a polished, enjoyable outing by this talented company, directed by Claire Hilder.

But, like Ayckbourn's Intimate Exchanges – also sometimes done with a larger cast – it is, as the title suggests, a two-hander. So a major element of the theatrical experience – the versatility, the lightning changes of mood and costume – is inevitably lacking. And it does seem strange to have the busy bar peopled by invisible drinkers, while the turns drift in by ones and twos.

AS YOU LIKE IT

AS YOU LIKE IT

TWAS Theatre at St Martin's Church, Colchester

30.09.2016

Old tyres, the obligatory traffic cone, discarded toys. Could be another part of Butterworth's Jerusalem.

But no, this is the French court, re-imagined as a community of Travellers, where Orlando is “rustically at home”. This bold transposition, though it sits uneasily with talk of noble birth, successfully suggests the passion and violence of the sibling rivalry, and evokes the exotic aristocracy of the Travellers.

Most of the play is set in the Forest of Arden, and this is delightfully transformed into a Folk Festival, allowing scope for the many songs [composer and MD Adam Abo-Henriksen] and for Jacques' open-mic stand-up Seven Ages, compellingly delivered by Thomas Edwards.

Shakespeare's text survives the transition very well, with excellent verse speaking across the company.

Roisin Keogh makes a superb Rosalind, setting off with a bed-roll for the Festival, sharing confidences with her friend Celia [Charlotte Luxford], dressing as Ganymede in baseball cap, bomber jacket and hosiery cod-piece. We can see in her open, honest face how deep she is in love; she has some lovely chemistry with her Orlando [ a youthful, assured Alec Clements] – taking his hand, offering her services, snatching a kiss.

Though we lose Touchstone and Audrey in the forest, there is inevitably some serious doubling. Most bizarrely Charles the red-masked wrestler and Phoebe the Proud Shepherdess, both memorably done by Benjamin Power. Phoebe, a vision in pink, certainly not for all markets, even steals the Epilogue from Rosalind. And milks her Adele moment in the best known number.

A little too long, perhaps, as are some of the other songs. Generally the pace is good, and the cuts bring this touring show in at under two hours, plus interval.

Just eight actors, which seems to be the magic minimum for most of Shakespeare. It's the number that Shakespeare's Globe tours with, and they could do worse than to borrow Tom Foster's lively, contemporary take on the pastoral – it would work wonderfully with a picnic in the open air.

BARNUM

BARNUM

CAODS at the Civic Theatre, Chelmsford

29.09.16

What a trooper !

Phineas T Barnum, showman extraordinaire, master of flim-flam and humbug, is, he might boast, a role in a million.

And here's charismatic, cheeky Simon Bristoe thwarted at the final hurdle by an unfortunate accident. In the West End, of course, that'd be another big-name no-show. But not for CAODS. Brave Mr Bristoe limps gamely through the show – no high-wire for him, of course, and limited dance, but a performance of admirable pizazz and pathos as the legendary impresario. He has an excellent voice for the role, too, though microphone problems robbed us of the opening Sucker number.

Not quite a three-ring circus, but by no means a one-man show. Stand-out performances from Rachel Summers as the Swedish Nightingale, Oli Budino as a lively Tom Thumb [an excellent number with a giant chair and stilt-walkers] and Claire Carr as PTB's long-suffering proto-feminist wife. Great work too from Barry Hester's Ringmaster and Bailey, and Tamara Anderson supplying smoky vocals in the impressive Black & White number. Brad Wendes contributed his circus expertise and some thrilling stunts.

Ray Jeffery's energetic production was a treat for the ear [Bryan Cass the MD] and the eye: the gilded chorus girls, the bright, breezy Follow the Band, and, amongst the quieter moments, the reprise of Colours of My Life, with the passing of Charity poignantly suggested by a muted chorus of jugglers.

The show-stopping Circus number was a carefully crafted crescendo of tricks and tumbling, stopping just short of the circle of fire …

Excellent work from a huge company, colourful and constantly enjoyable. Much more impact than the recent Chichester production; as Colonel Tom Thumb reminds us, Bigger is not always Better.

production photographs Christopher Yorke-Edwards

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS
A Queen's Hornchurch production
at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch


26.09.2016

for The Reviews Hub

This gentle comedy from sitcom master Bob Larbey celebrates its thirtieth birthday this year. Its West End production, starring George Cole, won Best Comedy of 1986. Jason Robards played Senior Citizen Cooper in the American version the next year.
But, though the piece continues to be popular on the amateur stage, this Hornchurch production is its first major revival since then.
Cooper – no-one calls him John – is living out his end days in a well-appointed Surrey rest home (a believable set by designer Anthony Lamble, opulently old-fashioned, but with an annoyingly reflective rear window). Along with his mucker Aylott, he endures the round of mealtimes and visiting hours, the palliative platitudes (“I hope I'm as lively as you at your age!”) as well as the natural shocks that flesh is heir to. The staff are the Panzer Division, the demented are the Zombies.
Variously described as a dirty old man and the acceptable face of senility, Cooper is engagingly played by William Hoyland, hardly ever off the stage, pottering about his spacious room, confiding in the audience. Jonathan to his David, Aylott (Robin Hooper) is a fussy little man, physically much more spry, but terrified of losing his mind. Their final scene is almost unbearably affecting, played with sensitive timing and understated emotion.
Good support from the staff: Connie Walker as the elliptical Mrs Baker, with her carpet sweeper and her obliging song. And Anna Leong Brophy as Nurse Wilson, caring for Cooper perhaps more than she should, touchingly human beneath the starched uniform. Cooper's daughter and son-in-law, whose reluctant monthly pilgrimages from Milton Keynes give the play its title, are Sophie Russell, whose scene alone with her father is one of the strongest, and Gareth Clarke, as her flat-roofed husband who could have strayed in from an Ayckbourn, a fine study in awkwardness.
“There's no drama, it just goes on ...” says Cooper of his life in the luxury of the home. And, as with Waiting for Godot, we see the day repeat itself: the mantras - “Much the same … mustn't grumble” and the difficult micturition. 
Russell Bolam's production has some lovely moments – the mime at the start of the children's second Sunday visit – and delightful dream sequences between the scenes, flashing lights, an ironic Wakey Wakey from Billy Cotton, bizarre characters entering through wardrobe and fireplace, sand-dancing nuns, WG Grace, Aylott as a punk on skis. The song and dance to Flanagan and Allen's Miss You is particularly poignant.
The play is not always convincing – the children's change of heart in particular – and though there are chuckles of recognition there's little comfort for the silver heads in the stalls; the corridor, with its occasional tables and walking aids, runs through the auditorium. But the ending, with the 11th man in the 1947 MCC side still un-named, strikes just the right note of wry resignation.

photograph: Mark Sepple