DR SCROGGY'S WAR

DR SCROGGY'S WAR

Shakespeare's Globe

27.09.2014

Abelard, Anne Boleyn, and now Harold Gillies.

He's the pioneering plastic surgeon who gave new faces, and hope for the future, to the mutilated of the Great War. He's also, though this doesn't become clear till Act Two, the eponymous Scroggy [another triumph for Globe star James Garnon], bringing champagne and bluff good cheer to his patients in their darkest hours.

Brenton's play has other, more predictable threads. We follow young Jack Twigg [Will Featherstone], a London mudlark whose Oxford career is cut short when he enlists, with his posh pal Lord Ralph [Joe Jameson], in the London Irish. Much to the dismay of his proud, salt-of-the-earth parents.

It all happens so fast – an eve of embarcation ball given by Sir John French [Paul Rider, champers in hand, given to Shakespearean soliloquies], a night of passion with the Honourable Penelope Wedgewood [Catherine Bailey], the battle of Loos, the trenches, the gas. We see the VADs tagging likely patients [guinea-pigs for Gillies], whose fate back in Blighty is the focus of Act Two.

Brenton has a light touch, even in the unspeakable horrors of war. His Irishman [nicely played by Will Mannering] is a delight, and the friction between French and Haig [the excellent Sam Cox] is beautifully done. The royal visit [Katy Stephens gives us her Queen Alexandra as well as Jack's "silly" mum] and the Broken Doll drag act also work well as set pieces.

The absurdity of war is well caught, patriotism is questioned, and the fatal attraction of fighting in the front line is revealed as an inevitable motor of conflict. Jack can't wait to get back to the action – his future is left uncertain at the sudden end of the play.

John Dove's production is lively and accessible. The music, by William Lyons, uses a tiny band with cello and trumpet for the rousing ditties and the mournful elegies. And the deafening din of battle is superbly evoked, as is the tradition here, without electronic assistance ...

LEND ME A TENOR

LEND ME A TENOR

Cut To the Chase at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch

06.10.14

Mary Redman joined the Press Bench for the red-carpet gala opening ...

Ken Ludwig, the writer with “Showbiz in the Blood”, created this popular spoof that premièred on Broadway in 1989. It's a thoroughbred farce with plenty of extracts from grand opera as Tito Merelli, an over-pampered Italian tenor, tries to avoid an unwanted singing engagement in a luxury hotel, his fiery wife and three enthusiastic female fans.

The first star on stage is Mark Walters' colourful and gilded to within an inch of its life French Baroque hotel suite set, against which the women's mouthwateringly delicate, embroidered glitzy frocks (all made in house), emphasise their every movement.

And there's plenty of movement on stage since Director Matt Devitt has gone for oodles of energy and pace, all punctuated by satisfyingly noisy slamming of the many doors. As all good farces should have.

Fred Broom is a chunky, self-absorbed Pavarotti-style tenor with sharp comedy skills and a fabulous singing voice. Greg Last as the trainee hotel manager is equally gifted with a superb voice, even picking up a perfect a cappella cue. His love interest is the attractive daughter of the opera manager played by the beautiful and very human Sarah Scowen but they don't get together until much later as she's busy chasing Tito.

As Tito's luscious Italian wife Sarah Mahoney makes the most of this showy role while Georgina Field's ripe Julia would welcome Tito to her bed and Christine Holman's Diana is a zany platinum blonde.

Two more masters of physical, verbal, dancing and singing comedy masters are Sean Needham's Saunders whose temper is tested by all the things that go wrong around him and the rapturously silly Steve Simmonds as the Bellhop providing comic relief for the comedy all around him.

Such fun, and thoroughly entertaining, the show runs until October 25. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket!

and I penned this for The Public Reviews

Cut to the Chase on cracking form in this riotously funny revival of Ken Ludwig's back stage farce.

But as the stunning set by Mark Walters and the Queen's workshop reveals, we're not in the wings, or the green room, but a shamelessly tasteless suite – blue and pink, dripping with gilt moulding – of a hotel in 1930s Cleveland, Ohio.

Not much of a view from the big window, but lots of identical, stoutly built doors for the manic comings and goings which give the show its energy and its panache.

The suite is reserved for Il Stupendo, Italian opera star Tito Merelli, slated to give his Otello at the opera house next door.

But he is late, tired, briefly dead and then locked out and on the loose. The intrigue involves jealousy, unrequited love and mistaken identity, as doormat factotum Max blacks up for an unexpected début on the lyric stage. Fortunately, or un-, Tito always travels with two costumes in his baggage …

Think Comedy of Errors with Moors for Dromios, Noises Off with two tenors for three burglars.

Joining a fantastic company of Cut to the Chase regulars is Fred Broom, who makes a wickedly comic Tito, relishing every moment as lover, luvvie and hen-pecked husband. Signora Merelli is played by Sarah Mahony, perfectly pitching the accent and the outrage.

Seasoned farceur Sean Needham is the harassed General Manager Henry Saunders – some marvellous physical moments, and he “loses it” with some style when his gala seems doomed; there follows a beautifully played duologue in which he persuades young Max to step in …

Max – frustrated opera singer and fan of Merelli – is Greg Last, following his impressive lounge singer with an equally brilliant opera star, saving the day for Saunders, stealing the show and getting his girl with a final phrase – Vien Venere Splende – from Otello's big love duet. The singing is superb too – the showpiece Verdi duet is wonderfully done by Broom and Last, and even the bellhop – a cheeky camp cameo from Steve Simmonds – gives us a snatch of his Barber.

Georgina Field – elegant in her thirties gown, as are all the ladies – is the birdlike grande dame Chair of the Guild, who can't wait to meet Tito, an infatuation shared with Sarah Scowen's Maggie and Christine Holman's seductive soprano Diana. Satisfaction all round, we hope, as the action climaxes with ingenuous double entendre, Max pops his cork and there's a beautifully choreographed double coupling.

Typical of Matt Devitt's impeccably paced production, crammed with delicious moments: the bath bubbles, the photos, and the chase music rustled up by room service...

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

production photograph: Mark Sepple

GOD OF CARNAGE

GOD OF CARNAGE
Headgate Theatre Productions at the Headgate Theatre, Colchester
03.10.2014




"How many parents standing up for their children become infantile themselves ..."
That's God of Carnage in a single, slightly awkward, sentence. The kids involved can have no idea what their lunchtime scrap has started, as rational reconciliation slowly degenerates into drunken name-calling, the carpet strewn with clafoutis crumbs and gladioli as Dylan's lyrics add an ironic coda.
Christine Davidson's hilarious production shifts the action from Paris, not to New York, but to London. The métro aérien becomes the District Line, though the Picardy pudding, sadly, hasn't morphed into Dorset Apple Cake.
In Kerry King's stylish, simple set, dominated by an aggressively abstract artwork, the four parents make small talk, exchange recriminations, shout, weep and feel sorry for themselves.
A quartet of accomplished actors bring the protagonists amusingly to life. The home team – confident, relaxed, well-heeled but arty Guardian types, are an impressively hirsute Patrick Willis, and Eleanor Kent-Dyson, outstanding as the assertive Veronica. Less complicated pleasures from the performances, by Jeremy Battersby and Catherine Bailey, of visitors Alan and Annette, nicely contrasted at the start, ill at ease in their sombre attire. He's a corporate lawyer, a slave to his smart phone, demolishing the dessert and timing every laugh line to perfection. She's in wealth management, apparently [although she might be a phoney]. The evening goes particularly pear-shaped for her: she pukes spectacularly over the collectable Kokoschka, and gets creatively rat-arsed as she necks Michael's Santa Rosa rum.
I've said before that I regret that Reza's work is known in the anglophone world in Christopher Hampton's versions. The tone and the language sit uneasily in English. I'm pleased that "a former marriage" has gone; other literalisms I would have spent more time re-casting include "everything's in order" and "fallen out of the sky". "He did well to hit him" is not the same as "He did right to hit him". And we don't say "The Educational System".
But wherever it's set, however it's played, God of Carnage remains an intriguing, compellingly entertaining drama. As allegiances shift, new alliances form, the stakes are raised and violence escalates, we seem to be witnessing a mad metaphor for war and the breakdown of civilization.

DAD'S ARMY

DAD'S ARMY

Theatre at Baddow

02.10.14

Dad's Army on stage ? I recall the Seventies spin-off, featuring almost all the original cast in a kind of variety bill of songs and sketches, and then of course there was the Leslie Grantham vehicle which revived some of the lost episodes.

TAB's offering is a more straightforward staging of three favourite episodes.

A brilliant opening, with the huge cast singing Mr Hitler and marching into the very hall where the real-life local LDVs drilled seventy years ago. And a moving finale, with everyone singing along to We'll Meet Again, led by chanteuse Mandy Oliver, whose superb solos helped to bridge costume and scene changes.

A company of twenty or more, including a U-Boat crew best described as motley [Liam Mayle their “insolent swine” commander] and a bevy of ladies for “Mum's Army” [Rita Vango outstanding as Mainwaring's Brief Encounter].

These are familiar stories, with lines and characters we've loved for years. Of the principals, Terry Cole captured Mainwaring and his dyspeptic smile to perfection, and in a much smaller role, Chris Piper recreated verger Yeatman with uncanny accuracy.

Elsewhere, the spirit if not the persona of the platoon members was affectionately invoked by, amongst others, Peter Eyre's ga-ga Godfrey, Bob Ryall's eager Jonesy, David Saddington's wild-eyed Frazer and Martin Baker's fresh-faced Pike. Roger Saddington purred through his laid-back “Jack Buchanan” Wilson, and John Mabey brought a cheeky comic energy to the incorrigible spiv Walker.

Inevitably, pace and energy were sometimes sacrificed to scene changes, and the subtle punchlines proved hard to recreate on stage, but nonetheless a very enjoyable homage to one of the best ever British sitcoms.

production photograph: BeccyPphotography

IDA BARR'S GREAT WAR MUSIC HALL

IDA BARR'S GREAT WAR MUSIC HALL

at the British Library

30.09.2014

Not the most atmospheric venue for this unique look at the First World War and its "silly, patriotic Music Halls"; a sparse crowd too – Ida blamed battle fatigue, and certainly war-themed entertainments are hard to avoid just now; this was my second this week.

But those who stayed home missed a real treat. Poppies in vases where the footlights would be, and a bill that included, besides the legendary Miss Barr, Jessica Walker as Vesta Tilley ["Britain's Best Recruiting Sargeant"], Paddy Glinn singing some stirring ballads, and respected expert on all things Music Hall Michael Kilgarrif, setting everything in context, and digressing deliciously at the drop of a hat. All to complement the BL's exhibition Enduring War: Grief, Grit and Humour.

Jessica Walker

The real-life Ida Barr was a music hall artiste whose long career covered the Great War and beyond. She died in 1967, the very year that Christopher Green was born. His act, enormously popular on the fringe, takes the name, some of the jokes, and recreates an elderly London luv whose retirement is enlivened by mashing up Music Hall memories with Rihanna and Busta Rhymes. Impossible to convey in print how well this works, but it is a total delight, from the wrinkled lisle to the Pearly Queen frock which references Lidl and the mobility scooter on which she sometimes makes an entrance. The patter, the songs, the singalong – culminating in a strangely moving Jerusalem.

The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin

And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks

Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;

‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’

I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,

Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home, sweet Home’,

And there’d be no more jokes in Music-halls

To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. Siegfried Sassoon