Laura Pitt-Pulford as Maria and Michael French as Captain von Trapp.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
* * * *
December 5, 2014
Curve, Leicester, until Saturday,
January 17, 2015
NO matter what anyone tries to do to it, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music proves consistently indestructible. Among a slate of extraordinary, groundbreaking musicals, this one still regularly tops people’s lists of favourites, and it’s not hard to see why.
Packed with memorable tunes and musical theatre classics, it’s also got a witty, pacey book by Broadway veterans Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and a track record spanning well over half a century. The iconic movie version will be fifty years old next year, so Paul Kerryson’s decision to stage it for his swansong as Curve artistic director is both timely and welcome.
It may not be the best of his enviable back catalogue among Christmas spectaculars at the venue, but what it lacks in sparkle and brilliance it more than makes up for with real heart.
The production values seem surprisingly downbeat for Curve, with broken branches on the trees, ill-fitting uniforms for Captain von Trapp and a ‘mountain’ apparently draped with greengrocer’s fake grass. Musical director Ben Atkinson opts for some tempi that drag worryingly (notably in the opening nuns’ chorus) and the direction is functional rather than inspired.
But there’s no getting away from the sheer enjoyment of the large, talented cast and the winning emotional depth they find in the heartwarming score and script. It takes a little while to warm to Laura Pitt-Pulford’s feisty, open-vowelled Maria but, like the children whose governess she becomes, we find ourselves quietly but relentlessly charmed as the story unfolds.
Michael French is an absolute delight as Captain von Trapp, revealing a wonderfully soft and appealing singing voice while never letting the twinkle disappear from his eye, and he has the audience in the palm of his hand as the tears stream down his face during the title number. It’s almost the star performance of the night.
But not quite. Collectively, that accolade has to go to the amazing cast of children, playing the Captain’s seven offspring. Led by a sweet Emma Harrold as the blossoming Liesl, the younger children are played by rotating teams, and if this performance was typical of the other line-ups, there are some real stars in the making among the youthful performers of Leicester.
It’s a bit rough and ready and far from perfect, but this Sound of Music has something genuine and touching at its core, and if that isn’t a promising recipe for Christmas cheer, I don’t know what is.
* * * *
December 5, 2014
Curve, Leicester, until Saturday,
January 17, 2015
NO matter what anyone tries to do to it, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music proves consistently indestructible. Among a slate of extraordinary, groundbreaking musicals, this one still regularly tops people’s lists of favourites, and it’s not hard to see why.
Packed with memorable tunes and musical theatre classics, it’s also got a witty, pacey book by Broadway veterans Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and a track record spanning well over half a century. The iconic movie version will be fifty years old next year, so Paul Kerryson’s decision to stage it for his swansong as Curve artistic director is both timely and welcome.
It may not be the best of his enviable back catalogue among Christmas spectaculars at the venue, but what it lacks in sparkle and brilliance it more than makes up for with real heart.
The production values seem surprisingly downbeat for Curve, with broken branches on the trees, ill-fitting uniforms for Captain von Trapp and a ‘mountain’ apparently draped with greengrocer’s fake grass. Musical director Ben Atkinson opts for some tempi that drag worryingly (notably in the opening nuns’ chorus) and the direction is functional rather than inspired.
But there’s no getting away from the sheer enjoyment of the large, talented cast and the winning emotional depth they find in the heartwarming score and script. It takes a little while to warm to Laura Pitt-Pulford’s feisty, open-vowelled Maria but, like the children whose governess she becomes, we find ourselves quietly but relentlessly charmed as the story unfolds.
Michael French is an absolute delight as Captain von Trapp, revealing a wonderfully soft and appealing singing voice while never letting the twinkle disappear from his eye, and he has the audience in the palm of his hand as the tears stream down his face during the title number. It’s almost the star performance of the night.
But not quite. Collectively, that accolade has to go to the amazing cast of children, playing the Captain’s seven offspring. Led by a sweet Emma Harrold as the blossoming Liesl, the younger children are played by rotating teams, and if this performance was typical of the other line-ups, there are some real stars in the making among the youthful performers of Leicester.
It’s a bit rough and ready and far from perfect, but this Sound of Music has something genuine and touching at its core, and if that isn’t a promising recipe for Christmas cheer, I don’t know what is.
SISTER ACT
* * *
September 7, 2014
Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire, until Sunday, September 21, 2014
IT’S a curious choice for a Kilworth House Theatre musical. In a seven-year parade that’s included Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music and South Pacific, this bass-heavy, soul and gospel-themed pop show, based on the flimsiest of Whoopi Goldberg movie vehicles from the 1980s, would seem to have limited appeal to Kilworth’s core audience.
Which just goes to show what I know. The run is completely sold out and the audience are on their feet at the end, and that’s all that matters for the continued success of this gem of a venue.
To be brutally honest, my enthusiasm didn’t run to the lengths of many of those around me. Part of it is down to the musical itself, which features an array of almost pastiche numbers by the brilliant Disney composer Alan Menken but which never really catches fire and certainly doesn’t have any standout hits. The script, too, is extremely patchy and stumbles limply along through its thin narrative of the gangster’s moll given sanctuary in a convent that’s heading for closure.
Equally, part of it is down to the production, which doesn’t quite match up to previous Kilworth standards. Its downbeat, drab design from Simon Daw makes for cumbersome and laborious scene changes, while the one-joke idea of penguin-suited nuns living it up grows wearisome by the end of the second act.
Among the positives are some superb voices, chief among them the soulful, warm tones of Heshima Thompson as lovelorn cop Sweaty Eddie, and there’s a nice comic turn from a mobster trio of would-be walruses of love. And, as always, Garth Hall runs his fabulously tight band with precision and real emotion, even if the badly awry sound mix drowns out too many of the vocals.
It’s an interesting experiment for director Mitch Sebastian and Kilworth’s owner-producer Celia Mackay, with distinctly mixed results as far as this critic’s concerned. But then, with House Full signs up for the rest of the run and a standing ovation at the end of the night, who cares what I think?
SOUTH PACIFIC
* * * *
June 12, 2014
Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire, until Sunday, July 13, 2014
THIS classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with its themes of racism, colonialism and war in the Pacific, is hardly the lightest of summer divertissements for the open-air theatre in the grounds of Kilworth House Hotel. But the creative team behind these annual in-house productions has come up trumps yet again.
Seven years on from the venue’s opening, it has established itself as much more than the passionate hobby of its owner, Celia Mackay. She has proved herself an able and committed commercial producer, filling thousands of seats every year with almost 100 blockbuster performances of much-loved shows.
At her side is director and choreographer Mitch Sebastian, whose consistency of quality and surefootedness have never failed to deliver. And with musical director Garth Hall completing the longstanding trio, the theatre has an ultra reliable foundation on which to build its productions.
For South Pacific, the cast includes a judicious mix of old hands and new faces, with Mark Inscoe returning a year on from Professor Higgins to play the French plantation owner Emile de Becque. His co-star Celia Graham, as Nellie Forbush, is a Kilworth novice but no stranger to great roles, from West Side Story to Les Miserables. As with the rest of the cast, they’re West End performers in a show that has West End production values.
The story of American sailors stationed in the South Pacific during World War Two, their lives and loves, is stuffed with classic tunes, including Some Enchanted Evening, There is Nothing Like a Dame and Bali Ha’i, and they’re delivered with panache and evident enjoyment by the large on-stage troupe, and by the eleven-strong live band that adds immeasurably to the success of the production.
Supporting roles are strong, too, with Chris Jacobsen in particularly fine voice as Lieutenant Cable and Wendy Mae Brown both moving and powerful as the local Polynesian chancer Bloody Mary.
Director Sebastian marshals his forces impeccably on an impressive set by Philip Witcomb which, although rather restrictive to the action, is ingenious and cleverly used.
It’s another hit for the Kilworth team and bodes well for the next show, Sister Act, which is set to come bursting into the Leicestershire countryside from August 21.
WATER BABIES
* * *
May 2, 2014
Curve, Leicester, until Saturday, May 17, 2014
A NEW British musical is something to be warmly welcomed, nurtured and enjoyed. The journey from score to stage is fraught with obstacles and anyone who manages to complete it deserves all the credit and applause that audiences can offer.
Water Babies is the creation of writers Ed Curtis and Guy Jones and composer Chris Egan, and has achieved exactly that, winning this production at Curve with an eye on a London transfer. It’s an adaptation of a film which in turn adapted the Victorian fairytale by Charles Kingsley, telling the story of chimney-sweep Tom, framed for a crime he didn’t commit, whose only escape is by jumping into an underwater world of magic and mystery.
Unfortunately – and it’s painful to say it – the biggest disappointment of the whole enterprise is that the material doesn’t warrant the attention, resources and energy that have clearly been lavished on it in a spectacular production, directed by Curtis himself.
It looks fabulous, with a steam punk design from Morgan Large and Amy Jackson and theatrical special effects – including a holographic Richard E Grant – by Jack Henry James and James Rock. The live band are sensational, tight and crystal-clear, and there’s been no expense spared in putting the show on stage.
The large ensemble cast do sterling work doubling parts and bringing to life Kingsley’s bizarre mixture of fantasy creatures and human beings, with West End star Louise Dearman holding the whole thing together as a kind of narrator-cum-fairy godmother, steering the action and offering much-needed exposition throughout. She also gets the biggest numbers, to which she does superb justice with her soaring, powerful vocals.
But the problems are more fundamental than whether or not the cast can do it – which they unquestionably can. The music is generic and derivative (there are echoes of Wicked, Disney and even Barry Manilow, among many others), and the lyrics dismally hackneyed and cliché-ridden, while the story itself is simply confusing and full of holes.
There’s plenty to amuse, not least in the panto-like triumvirate of Andy Gray, Samuel Holmes and Tom Davey as a trio of unlikely fish friends who bring some entertaining light relief. Their Die Another Day song is the musical highlight, and they win the warmest reception at the curtain call as a result. Elsewhere, Lauren Samuels sings beautifully but is ultimately incidental, while Tom Lister as the wicked Eel hams it up in a Rocky Horror-type role that is both odd and jarring to the overall tone of the piece.
It’s always worth encouraging a new British musical, and it would be so wonderful to be able to recommend this one heartily. I fear its journey to the West End may include further obstacles, rewrites and beefing up, but I’d really love to be proved completely wrong.
THE BELIEVERS
* * *
March 21, 2014
Curve Studio, Leicester, until Saturday, March 29, 2014
PLAYWRIGHT Bryony Lavery’s latest collaboration with physical theatre company Frantic Assembly is a grim study in parental guilt after the mysterious death of a child. A 75-minute, uninterrupted four-hander, it views the domestic tragedy from the perspective of two sets of parents, the nine-year-old girl’s mum and dad and their neighbours, with whom they seek overnight shelter when their house is flooded in a particularly spectacular storm.
It’s full of the usual Frantic Assembly tricks and gimmicks, including a rather extraordinary set from Jon Bausor which sees the actors playing upside down, sideways and all angles in between, thanks to some technical wizardry and very dim lighting.
Unfortunately, the tricksyness fails to add to the story: in fact, it positively gets in the way. Director Scott Graham’s fascination with the cleverness of it all ultimately obscures any emotional engagement with the characters in favour of marvelling at the actors’ stamina and resourcefulness. The tone doesn’t fit either, with a leaden underscore and ponderous exchanges suggesting some kind of gothic supernatural genre, but when the truth is finally revealed, there’s a real sense of anticlimax which is fatal to the drama.
The actors, Christopher Colquhoun, Penny Layden, Richard Mylan and Eileen Walsh, all work extremely hard, even though they’re not credited (there’s no programme available, presumably in an attempt to persuade audiences to buy the play script instead). Their physical feats and their ability to deliver lines while suspended from ceilings on elastic ropes are admirable, and they plumb what they can from their thin characterisations.
But the real problem here is theme. Is it about the dangers of religious fanaticism? In which case, it didn’t ring true. Is it about the horror of losing a child? If so, that was sidelined. And the fact that it’s so difficult to identify what it actually is about – especially when there’s no glimmer of light to be found in its ending – makes it a really demanding watch.
* * *
September 7, 2014
Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire, until Sunday, September 21, 2014
IT’S a curious choice for a Kilworth House Theatre musical. In a seven-year parade that’s included Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music and South Pacific, this bass-heavy, soul and gospel-themed pop show, based on the flimsiest of Whoopi Goldberg movie vehicles from the 1980s, would seem to have limited appeal to Kilworth’s core audience.
Which just goes to show what I know. The run is completely sold out and the audience are on their feet at the end, and that’s all that matters for the continued success of this gem of a venue.
To be brutally honest, my enthusiasm didn’t run to the lengths of many of those around me. Part of it is down to the musical itself, which features an array of almost pastiche numbers by the brilliant Disney composer Alan Menken but which never really catches fire and certainly doesn’t have any standout hits. The script, too, is extremely patchy and stumbles limply along through its thin narrative of the gangster’s moll given sanctuary in a convent that’s heading for closure.
Equally, part of it is down to the production, which doesn’t quite match up to previous Kilworth standards. Its downbeat, drab design from Simon Daw makes for cumbersome and laborious scene changes, while the one-joke idea of penguin-suited nuns living it up grows wearisome by the end of the second act.
Among the positives are some superb voices, chief among them the soulful, warm tones of Heshima Thompson as lovelorn cop Sweaty Eddie, and there’s a nice comic turn from a mobster trio of would-be walruses of love. And, as always, Garth Hall runs his fabulously tight band with precision and real emotion, even if the badly awry sound mix drowns out too many of the vocals.
It’s an interesting experiment for director Mitch Sebastian and Kilworth’s owner-producer Celia Mackay, with distinctly mixed results as far as this critic’s concerned. But then, with House Full signs up for the rest of the run and a standing ovation at the end of the night, who cares what I think?
SOUTH PACIFIC
* * * *
June 12, 2014
Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire, until Sunday, July 13, 2014
THIS classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with its themes of racism, colonialism and war in the Pacific, is hardly the lightest of summer divertissements for the open-air theatre in the grounds of Kilworth House Hotel. But the creative team behind these annual in-house productions has come up trumps yet again.
Seven years on from the venue’s opening, it has established itself as much more than the passionate hobby of its owner, Celia Mackay. She has proved herself an able and committed commercial producer, filling thousands of seats every year with almost 100 blockbuster performances of much-loved shows.
At her side is director and choreographer Mitch Sebastian, whose consistency of quality and surefootedness have never failed to deliver. And with musical director Garth Hall completing the longstanding trio, the theatre has an ultra reliable foundation on which to build its productions.
For South Pacific, the cast includes a judicious mix of old hands and new faces, with Mark Inscoe returning a year on from Professor Higgins to play the French plantation owner Emile de Becque. His co-star Celia Graham, as Nellie Forbush, is a Kilworth novice but no stranger to great roles, from West Side Story to Les Miserables. As with the rest of the cast, they’re West End performers in a show that has West End production values.
The story of American sailors stationed in the South Pacific during World War Two, their lives and loves, is stuffed with classic tunes, including Some Enchanted Evening, There is Nothing Like a Dame and Bali Ha’i, and they’re delivered with panache and evident enjoyment by the large on-stage troupe, and by the eleven-strong live band that adds immeasurably to the success of the production.
Supporting roles are strong, too, with Chris Jacobsen in particularly fine voice as Lieutenant Cable and Wendy Mae Brown both moving and powerful as the local Polynesian chancer Bloody Mary.
Director Sebastian marshals his forces impeccably on an impressive set by Philip Witcomb which, although rather restrictive to the action, is ingenious and cleverly used.
It’s another hit for the Kilworth team and bodes well for the next show, Sister Act, which is set to come bursting into the Leicestershire countryside from August 21.
WATER BABIES
* * *
May 2, 2014
Curve, Leicester, until Saturday, May 17, 2014
A NEW British musical is something to be warmly welcomed, nurtured and enjoyed. The journey from score to stage is fraught with obstacles and anyone who manages to complete it deserves all the credit and applause that audiences can offer.
Water Babies is the creation of writers Ed Curtis and Guy Jones and composer Chris Egan, and has achieved exactly that, winning this production at Curve with an eye on a London transfer. It’s an adaptation of a film which in turn adapted the Victorian fairytale by Charles Kingsley, telling the story of chimney-sweep Tom, framed for a crime he didn’t commit, whose only escape is by jumping into an underwater world of magic and mystery.
Unfortunately – and it’s painful to say it – the biggest disappointment of the whole enterprise is that the material doesn’t warrant the attention, resources and energy that have clearly been lavished on it in a spectacular production, directed by Curtis himself.
It looks fabulous, with a steam punk design from Morgan Large and Amy Jackson and theatrical special effects – including a holographic Richard E Grant – by Jack Henry James and James Rock. The live band are sensational, tight and crystal-clear, and there’s been no expense spared in putting the show on stage.
The large ensemble cast do sterling work doubling parts and bringing to life Kingsley’s bizarre mixture of fantasy creatures and human beings, with West End star Louise Dearman holding the whole thing together as a kind of narrator-cum-fairy godmother, steering the action and offering much-needed exposition throughout. She also gets the biggest numbers, to which she does superb justice with her soaring, powerful vocals.
But the problems are more fundamental than whether or not the cast can do it – which they unquestionably can. The music is generic and derivative (there are echoes of Wicked, Disney and even Barry Manilow, among many others), and the lyrics dismally hackneyed and cliché-ridden, while the story itself is simply confusing and full of holes.
There’s plenty to amuse, not least in the panto-like triumvirate of Andy Gray, Samuel Holmes and Tom Davey as a trio of unlikely fish friends who bring some entertaining light relief. Their Die Another Day song is the musical highlight, and they win the warmest reception at the curtain call as a result. Elsewhere, Lauren Samuels sings beautifully but is ultimately incidental, while Tom Lister as the wicked Eel hams it up in a Rocky Horror-type role that is both odd and jarring to the overall tone of the piece.
It’s always worth encouraging a new British musical, and it would be so wonderful to be able to recommend this one heartily. I fear its journey to the West End may include further obstacles, rewrites and beefing up, but I’d really love to be proved completely wrong.
THE BELIEVERS
* * *
March 21, 2014
Curve Studio, Leicester, until Saturday, March 29, 2014
PLAYWRIGHT Bryony Lavery’s latest collaboration with physical theatre company Frantic Assembly is a grim study in parental guilt after the mysterious death of a child. A 75-minute, uninterrupted four-hander, it views the domestic tragedy from the perspective of two sets of parents, the nine-year-old girl’s mum and dad and their neighbours, with whom they seek overnight shelter when their house is flooded in a particularly spectacular storm.
It’s full of the usual Frantic Assembly tricks and gimmicks, including a rather extraordinary set from Jon Bausor which sees the actors playing upside down, sideways and all angles in between, thanks to some technical wizardry and very dim lighting.
Unfortunately, the tricksyness fails to add to the story: in fact, it positively gets in the way. Director Scott Graham’s fascination with the cleverness of it all ultimately obscures any emotional engagement with the characters in favour of marvelling at the actors’ stamina and resourcefulness. The tone doesn’t fit either, with a leaden underscore and ponderous exchanges suggesting some kind of gothic supernatural genre, but when the truth is finally revealed, there’s a real sense of anticlimax which is fatal to the drama.
The actors, Christopher Colquhoun, Penny Layden, Richard Mylan and Eileen Walsh, all work extremely hard, even though they’re not credited (there’s no programme available, presumably in an attempt to persuade audiences to buy the play script instead). Their physical feats and their ability to deliver lines while suspended from ceilings on elastic ropes are admirable, and they plumb what they can from their thin characterisations.
But the real problem here is theme. Is it about the dangers of religious fanaticism? In which case, it didn’t ring true. Is it about the horror of losing a child? If so, that was sidelined. And the fact that it’s so difficult to identify what it actually is about – especially when there’s no glimmer of light to be found in its ending – makes it a really demanding watch.
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