ALADDIN
December 13, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, January 8, 2012
THERE’S an oft-quoted theory about panto that it serves an important purpose, bringing youngsters into the theatre for possibly the first time in their lives.
While this is undoubtedly true, it does put significant pressure on the panto concerned to deliver an experience that will leave them wanting to come back again at some point in the future.
This festive offering from producers Qdos provides a perfectly adequate, if workmanlike, example of the genre, but it’s hard to escape the thought that there may not be enough here to draw putative theatre-goers of the future back time and again.
Headlining as Wishee Washee, Bobby Davro gives us Bobby Davro, complete with comedy voices, a snatch of his cabaret turn doing vocal impressions, and some suitably lame double entendres. If you like Bobby Davro… well, you get the picture.
Elsewhere, dancer Brian Fortuna looks pretty and moves well as Aladdin, while Charlotte Bull as supporting genie Scherazade and David O’Mahony as Abanazar have a go at stealing the show. That honour actually falls to Jeffrey Holland, whose Widow Twankey is traditional, boisterous and game for a laugh.
But all the cheap gags and the feeling of some performances running on autopilot can be forgiven thanks to the underlying sense of fun. What’s much, much harder to overlook is the producers’ shameful reliance on pre-recorded backing tracks, rather than a live band.
In going for the money-saving option, they have stripped a huge element of the energy and excitement from the show. And, what’s more, they have robbed those all-important youngsters of a truly magical part of what panto is all about. Oh yes they have.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
December 2, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Sunday, January 8, 2012
IT may not much resemble the story from the original book, but I’d stake a large amount of money that Lewis Carroll would be cheering this version of his children’s classic as loudly as any of the Royal Theatre audience.
The reason is simple: Phil Porter’s smart, witty and extremely silly adaptation pays appropriate and affectionate tribute to the source material by capturing exactly the essence of its zaniness and illogicality, while simultaneously creating a piece of theatre that is fast, hugely entertaining and utterly hilarious.
He’s considerably aided in this objective by the two co-directors, Dani Parr and Laurie Sansom, in whose hands this wonderful slice of nonsense is endlessly inventive and tear-inducingly funny – and that applies as much for the grown-ups as for the children. So often Christmas shows claim to work on two levels, desperate to appeal to cynical adults alongside their offspring. With this production, the play hits both targets one in masterful stroke, and they lap it up.
There’s a multi-talented cast of nine, an extraordinary on-stage band that somehow makes three musicians sound like a full orchestra, and some stunning effects and designs from Sara Perks and her team that are constantly surprising and effective.
Mark McGee holds proceedings together magnificently as a smooth Mad Hatter with a suggestion of Johnny Depp, presenting a royal variety performance for Liza Sadovy’s joyously obnoxious Queen of Hearts. Alice herself becomes unwillingly inveigled into the performance and has to shed her “square” attitude by learning the important difference between silly and stupid before she’s allowed to return to the real world.
It’s a conceit that works brilliantly, and begins from the moment you enter the foyer, which has been transformed into the White Rabbit’s rabbithole and gets you in the mood from long before curtain-up.
In fairness, it needs a little time to warm up and bed in properly, but this a truly magical show that takes the recent Christmas successes of the Royal and ratchets them up several levels. It’s a pretty safe prediction to suggest that you’ll have to go an awfully long way to find a production that’s got more heart, more fun and more sheer silliness to put you in the festive spirit.
THE GO-BETWEEN
November 4, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 19, 2011
THIS claustrophobic, confusing coming-of-age story, set in the summer of 1900 and first told in novel form, has finally reached the stage as a musical nearly 60 years after it was written by LP Hartley.
Actually, ‘musical’ is something of a misnomer, and the programme interview with composer Richard Taylor acknowledges this quite openly. Even he can’t find a proper term to describe this not-quite-sung-through piece, which uses lyrics, dialogue and a haunting grand piano to tell the tale of 12-year-old Leo Colston and his innocent embroilment in the secret, doomed love affair between the country house lady and the tenant farmer.
For me, the term should really be ‘chamber opera’. There are no songs as such, little in the way of conventional melody, and the music is highly complex and dense. The combined effect is to render what could be an emotional, tender journey of adolescence into an opaque, difficult stodge of repetitively dreary lament.
Which is a shame, because the quality of the work being done on stage, and the sheer amount of time and effort that has been devoted to it, is of the highest order.
James Staddon is the lynchpin as an older Leo, looking back on that milestone summer with the hindsight of 50 years and an adult perspective. His performance is grounded and touching, and is matched at every turn by that of his younger self, the impressive 11-year-old William Miles. The boy and his friend Marcus (Adam Bradbury) are given ridiculously ambitious things to do by Taylor and his lyricist David Wood, but they pull them off with panache and considerable talent.
There’s a kind of Greek chorus of other characters who provide Leo’s conscience as well as playing the roles of the unfolding drama, and they are all strong-voiced and solid, with some beautiful playing from pianist Jonathan Gill against a grandiose decaying set (Michael Pavelka) helping to emphasise the skills on display.
But the question that niggles throughout Roger Haines’s production – elegant and starkly beautiful though it may be – is a rather fundamental one: why bother? This is no emotional masterpiece, not even that gripping a yarn, and the years of preparation that have been devoted to its development seem ultimately misplaced.
UPDATE: May 26, 2016 - The Go-Between opens in London’s West End with Michael Crawford starring in the role of the older Leo Colston. It opens on June 7, 2016, at the Apollo Theatre. For information and tickets, visit www.officialtheatre.com/apollo-theatre/the-go-between
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
October 4, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, October 22, 2011
IT’S so tricky when a new young team try something a bit different in the hope of pushing boundaries.
As a critic, the impulse is always to encourage, welcome and enthuse about bold new voices, strikingly fresh images and exciting raw talent.
But when you know the production on offer just doesn’t quite cut it, there’s an equal duty to the audiences to reveal exactly what’s in store from the brave, misfiring show that’s on offer.
RashDash is a performance-art collaboration (of two) dedicated to making work “about now, and about the things that matter to us”. Quite how that fits with working alongside director Matthew Dunster and the Royal & Derngate to create a proscenium-arch, surprisingly conventional production of The Two Gents is never quite explained.
It’s almost as if Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen – the two collaborators concerned – have set out to be as provocative, challenging and “now” as they can, and Shakespeare’s early comedy is simply a means to that end.
Thus we get a stylistically ultra-modern interpretation full of techno music, swearing guitar bands and swaggering lads and ladettes, complete with such would-be shock moments as Silvia being stripped to her underwear as a catwalk model and the clown Launce (transformed into an Essex girl) peeing into a paper cup. So far, so student production.
But in the second half, it feels as though the efforts to be radical have run out of steam and the creators have been forced back onto that old-fashioned notion of performing the text. The result is much more effective without the sound and fury of the theatrical pyrotechnics, which do nothing to aid the storytelling and appear designed to render Shakespeare “accessible” – that horrendously PC word whose subtext usually means that the director doesn’t have faith in the play.
Joe Doyle and Alexander Cobb as the eponymous Two Gents are actually rather good when they’re allowed to act, although the RashDash name above the title means that Greenland and Goalen claim the lion’s share of the credit, as well as the closing song. Still, what did Shakespeare know about modern women anyway?
With the showy glitz of its thin concept stripped away, there may be raw talent in evidence in this production. But the voices are hardly new, and the images far from fresh enough, to allow a full-blown enthuse from this critic, at least.
BASKET CASE
September 13, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 24, 2011, then touring
THERE may not seem much fertile comic territory in the final hours of a dying family pet. But Nick Fisher’s new comedy Basket Case sets out to prove that humour can be found in the most unlikely places.
Toby the dog cuts a pathetic figure, never moving from his basket in the large, well-appointed, beamed farmhouse kitchen of Guy and Miranda’s former family home. In truth, he’s about the least pathetic character on stage.
When Guy appears for the final moments of Toby’s life, dragging his brash, opinionated golfing buddy James with him, he finds his now ex-wife debating the merits of putting the dog down with Martin, the country vet who has nursed the creature all its life.
Guy’s utter selfishness, Miranda’s fierce independence, James’s permanently hungry indifference and Martin’s bewilderment combine to create some memorable clashes and terrific one-liners in Fisher’s sharp, fast-paced script – his first stage play after a highly successful television career.
Nigel Havers, for whom the piece was ostensibly written, displays all the confidence we have come to expect from this veteran performer, but he’s just one of a genuinely ensemble cast, each of whom contributes equally to the piece. Christine Kavanagh is given lots of tricky business to do, which she handles with assured professionalism, while Graham Seed (late of Ambridge) and David Cardy provide a double-act counterpoint as the vet and golf pal, with no shared frame of reference and therefore a rich seam of potential for misunderstanding.
The set-up takes a while to warm up, with the fireworks really taking off in the second act, but as a witty piece of entertainment to please a touring audience, it looks poised for a successful run on the road after its stay in Northampton.
END OF THE RAINBOW
August 30, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 3, 2011, then touring
IT'S been away on a little visit to that big London, and while it was there it won all the awards going – as I predicted.
But now it’s back from its little jaunt, and looking more grown-up and spectacular than ever.
Peter Quilter’s remarkable play with music about a drug-addled Judy Garland during her final concert stint at London’s Talk of the Town at the tail end of the 60s has returned to the venue that gave birth to it at the beginning of 2010.
And it’s great to have it home.
Tracie Bennett quite rightly won huge accolades for her extraordinary performance as the ultra-dependent, immensely insecure bundle of fragility that was Judy in her later years and it remains a towering achievement, both vocally and emotionally. She commands the stage, and the immediacy of the Royal auditorium adds a real electrical charge to the passion, the commitment and the raw vulnerability.
But this is much more than a one-woman show, and Hilton McRae is just as impressive – if a little overshadowed – as her unassuming, gay Scottish pianist who is the real rock in her turbulent world. His playing – both as actor and musician – is delicate, meticulous and deeply touching.
Musically, he fronts a fantastic six-piece on-stage band that sounds so much more than the sum of its parts, and there’s a stunning first-act coup de theatre when they make their initial appearance.
This is brilliantly achieved thanks to William Dudley’s sumptuous set design, which in turn is enhanced by excellent lighting and sound from Simon Corder and Gareth Owen respectively.
Coupled with very able support from Norman Bowman as Judy’s last husband Mickey and Robert Maskell in a handful of delightful cameos, Terry Johnson’s masterful direction creates a night guaranteed to bring the audience leaping to its feet in admiration and amazement.
The tough, uncompromising material notwithstanding, this is a landmark production for the Royal & Derngate and one to be cherished. Miss it at your peril.
EDEN END
June 7, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, June 25, 2011
PRIESTLEY is one of the few 20th Century playwrights not to have been troubled much by the vagaries of fashion. As a result, plays such as An Inspector Calls and When We Are Married have enjoyed fairly consistent revivals over the decades. Eden End has been less well served.
Northampton artistic director Laurie Sansom – something of a Priestley aficionado – aims to put this right with an elegant, meticulous production in the intimate and appropriate auditorium of the Royal Theatre.
Whether the material stands up to the careful scrutiny offered by Sansom and his cast and crew may be a moot point: it’s certainly not of the same stature as the big names, and there’s a definite sense of ‘So what?’ after the final curtain.
But along the way, there are some strong performances in the telling of the story, which revolves around the return to the Yorkshire family home in 1912 of prodigal daughter Stella, who’s been away for eight years touring the world in the somewhat shocking guise, for the time, of an actress.
Stella’s secret, unveiled midway through the first half, and the reactions of various family members and hangers-on, threaten to derail the fragile harmony and optimism at Eden End, with echoes of the impending First World War looming over this false post-Edwardian spring.
Staged on an inclined oval of performance area in the middle of a black space, and with an intriguing backdrop of suspended lightbulbs and occasionally silhouetted windows, the production (designed by Sara Perks) looks deceptively sumptuous and benefits too from some judicious lighting by Anna Watson.
Daniel Betts is a tour de force as the cheeky chappie actor Charlie Appleby, whose arrival at Eden End is the catalyst for much of the soul-searching that follows, while Nick Hendrix is all youthful vigour and wide-eyed innocence as Wilfred, the 24-year-old son of the family.
Daisy Douglas does suppressed anger and jealousy with beautiful control as the dowdy middle sister Lilian, while Charlotte Emmerson’s Stella is permanently agitated and breathless, suffering a little from one-note limitation as a result.
It’s not going to set the world alight as a rediscovered masterpiece, in the way that Stephen Daldry’s 1992 Inspector Calls did, but as a worthy example of a lesser backwater of Priestley’s oeuvre, it has plenty to recommend it.
YES, PRIME MINISTER
June 6, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 11, 2011
IT’S more than 30 years since Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby first revealed the hilarious machinations of Whitehall to an unsuspecting television audience. Both the original actors may have departed this life, but that hasn’t stopped the characters from returning to the Westminster fray in the guise of a new stage play by the authors Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.
This Prime Minister is thoroughly modern, helming a coalition government through financial crises, immigration minefields and global warming with all the bungling naivety we’ve come to expect from Hacker. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Sir Humphrey attempts to pull the mandarin strings to get his own way.
There’s everything in this production that marked out the television series as a gem – with the exception, of course, of Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne in the main roles. So we have sharp political satire, Sir Humphrey’s pompous blasts of obfuscating erudition and the permanently edgy figure of the principal private secretary, Bernard, hovering lamely in the background.
Simon Williams offers a commanding performance as Sir Humphrey, totally on top of his challenging dialogue and winning justified rounds of applause for his verbal dexterity. Opposite him, Richard McCabe is well judged and perfectly timed in his combination of conviction and bewilderment as the out-of-his-depth PM.
The script itself is something of a curate’s egg – blisteringly funny and pointed in places, gentle and tame in others – but there are several notable moments of high comedy and plenty of barbs thrown in at the expense of everyone from the BBC to the Daily Mail.
Simon Higlett’s beautiful set, evoking the PM’s study at Chequers, also deserves a mention, and Lynn’s direction keeps things moving at a rattling pace, even if the overwhelming detail of the plot at times becomes as confusing as one of Sir Humphrey’s rants.
It’s hardly a state-of-the-nation play, but as an updated revisiting of an old favourite, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
May 24, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 28, 2011
It’s been hailed as a landmark play for its skewering of the baby boomer generation. But if Love Love Love is meant to be some kind of state-of-the-nation piece, highlighting the irreconcilable differences between the Flower Power people and their Thatcherite offspring, then it’s not any nation that I recognise.
Mike Bartlett’s play, nearing the end of a UK tour, follows one idealistic couple from their first pot-influenced meeting in 1967, through parenthood to two teenagers in 1990, to a final act in the present day, in which their selfish, hedonistic lifestyles have come back to haunt them with a vengeance.
There are a number of problems with this, quite apart from the unreachable requirement on the actors to age more than 40 years convincingly. Chief among them is the lack of any kind of growth of the characters: Kenneth and Sandra are just as destructively hideous at the end as they were at the beginning. There are, quite literally, no redeeming features, and the fallout from their complete emotional stuntedness is both bleak and depressing.
Their words and their children’s are reduced to mere slogans, trotting out facile opposing world views, while the characterisations are as minimal as the present-day set, all sterile and cold.
But wait, this is a comedy! Hold on, though – where are the laughs? Actually, there is a really funny line (“We live in Reading. Something’s gone wrong.”) but otherwise it’s a bunch of utterly unlikable, unrecognisable people mostly screaming at each other and swearing a lot. In my book, this does not a comedy make. Nor does it really have anything new or enlightening to say.
All of which might be at least salvageable as some kind of social record, were it not for the fact that James Grieve’s production is just as relentlessly grim as the script, with the cast of five dismally left floundering with Bartlett’s deliberately obtuse and proscriptive stage instructions, including such helpful details for the actors as speeches “with no written dialogue”.
The only solution appears to be successive displays of hyperactive shrieking, to which they resort with full-voiced relish.
It’s a strident, stark assault on the senses and hardly to be recommended as a diverting piece of entertainment. If you like your theatre raw, loud and a little bit nasty, on the other hand…
CORRIE!
May 16, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, May 21, 2011
First up, a confession. I am not a fan of Coronation Street. Of course, like almost everybody of television viewing age in the UK, I have inevitably stumbled across some of its more eye-catching storylines and semi-legendary characters over the years. But I could not claim to be an ardent follower.
Some may argue that disqualifies me from offering a critical opinion of Corrie!, a specially-written theatre production marking 50 years of the Street that is currently on tour. Personally, I would say it gives me a more objective view.
And that view is that, as a play, Corrie! makes great television.
Allow me to explain. Corrie! doesn’t really know what it is. Partly an affectionate tribute to the show, partly a would-be comedy send-up and partly an attempt to condense half a century of TV storylines into a couple of cramped hours, it actually achieves none of these aims.
Writer Jonathan Harvey – himself a scriptwriter on the Street – cherry-picks classic moments, iconic characters and some of the more outré offerings from across the decades and shoves them all together in a confused, ill-conceived ragbag of a revue.
That’s not to say there aren’t some wonderful moments. Hilda Ogden’s tears over the dead Stan’s specs, Raquel’s French lesson from Ken Barlow, the original opening scene from the very first episode: they’re all evocative and entertaining.
And the six-strong cast (supplemented by a narrating Ken Morley) are simply extraordinary, recreating everyone from Ena Sharples to Tracey Barlow in a manic combination of quick changes, sublime wigs and a kaleidoscope of comedy voices. Stand-out turns are Leanne Best’s Gail and Jo Mousley’s Hilda, but there are too many terrific incarnations to pick out.
The stampede through the years means even the die-hard fans will be left with some disappointments. Where are Mavis and Derek, for instance, or the utterly unmissed Percy Sugden?
But it’s not just the selectivity of the show that leaves one mildly unsatisfied at the curtain. It’s not knowing whether you’ve been watching an out-and-out comedy, a playful pastiche or a historical curiosity. In the end, it’s all of these things – and none of them.
HAMLET! THE MUSICAL
May 13, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 21, 2011
It’s silly, it’s sung, it’s stuffed with off-the-wall ideas and gags. Not your average Hamlet then…
Royal & Derngate picked up this little gem of eccentricity at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year and are giving it the full-scale production it so thoroughly merits.
Claiming to have rediscovered Shakespeare’s miserable tragedy as the musical comedy it was always meant to be, writers Alex Silverman, Timothy Knapman and Edward Jaspers have assembled a six-strong cast and six-strong band to create a relentlessly-paced frenzy of laughs, puns and sheer stupidity, while somehow retaining all the essential elements of the story.
Thus we get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as a couple of puppet-sized American college brats, Laertes as the (randomly) Spanish-obsessed brother whose jealousy of Ophelia’s reputation reveals itself in a fiery tango number, and the strolling players as a jaded troupe of Bob Fosse wannabes in sequins and bowler hats.
The numbers are mainly pastiche digs at various styles of musical theatre, from Lloyd Webber to Sondheim, with a rousing audience singalong finale, To Be or Not to Be, thrown in for good measure.
An ingenious, cartoonish set design (Diego Pitarch) and some imaginative costumes (Mia Flodquist) all add to the echoes of Spamalot, which are ever-present and only reinforced by the slightly odd decision to replace the final sword fight with a fish-slapping encounter using giant herrings – pure Monty Python c. 1972.
But any shortcomings in the rather wordy script and convoluted score are compensated for by the performers, who are immensely versatile and blessed with strong voices (though too often drowned in the mix). Mark Inscoe gives a stand-out performance doubling Claudius and the Ghost, while Gabriel Vick (Laertes/Guildenstern) reveals assured comic timing and an energy that is reflected throughout the company.
It may still have the feel of the Fringe about it, but this is a highly enjoyable romp through the Bard that explores one of the English language’s greatest tragedies with all the silliness and irreverence it deserves.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN: THE MUTUALS
April 17, 2011
Derngate, Northampton
WHO would have thought that, more than 50 years since his last major film role and almost a century since his first, it would be necessary to review a clutch of Charlie Chaplin silent movie shorts.
But thanks to the genius of composer Carl Davis and the inspired marketing of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, that’s exactly the opportunity which this one-off concert offers.
Davis has long been a proponent of reviving many of the early silent films by scoring new music to accompany them – and we’re not talking jangly ragtime pianos here. What Davis has done is to create original soundtracks to some of the most inventive, innovative and creative movies from the early part of the 20th century.
In this programme, part of the RPO’s residency at the Royal and Derngate, Davis himself conducted his new scores for three films made for the production house Mutual – hence the title. The three offer a fascinating snapshot into the mind of Chaplin around 1916 to 1917, when he was still only in his twenties but already at the peak of his comic powers.
The Pawnshop is pretty straightforward slapstick centred on Chaplin’s Little Tramp character getting into scrapes as a pawnbroker’s assistant. The Immigrant, however, is much more dramatic, focusing on the character’s arrival in America on a steamship full of European ex-patriates, and draws heavily on emotion as well as comedy.
In the final movie, The Cure, Chaplin plays another of his stock characters, the inebriate aristo, who takes time out for a ‘rest cure’ at a spa and wreaks the usual havoc with his cane and funny walk.
Davis’s music, beautifully executed by a compact version of the orchestra, is lush, tuneful and the perfect accompaniment to the restored images, which are projected high up on a screen above the stage.
So elegant a fit is the pairing, in fact, that one easily slips into forgetting the presence of the live musicians and simply relaxing into the pure enjoyment of two master craftsmen – Chaplin and his latter-day accompanist Davis. I can offer no greater compliment than that.
IN PRAISE OF LOVE
April 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, April 23, 2011
YOU can hardly go to the theatre this year without running into a revival of a Rattigan play. He was born 100 years ago this year, you see, and that offers a neat – if unnecessary – excuse for a reappraisal of his oeuvre.
Sometimes dismissed as a straight-laced playwright out of the 1950s with nothing to say to a modern audience, Rattigan’s work in fact encompasses as many different styles and emotions as it did decades, and In Praise of Love, one of his late works dating from the mid-70s, is a fascinating example.
While I don’t believe it merits a high ranking in the list of great 20th Century plays, it nevertheless occupies interesting territory in its exploration of a marriage almost wrecked by the inability of the participants to express their real feelings for each other.
Thus Lydia, the Estonian wartime refugee rescued for a life of wifely domesticity in Islington, conceals her terminal illness from her brutish Marxist literary critic husband Sebastian. He, on his part, thinks it’s better to conceal the fact that he actually knows about it, chiefly because it allows him to maintain the impression he has created of being an unreconstructed bastard. Anything else – sympathy, for instance, or an indication of some deeper emotion – would be somehow too shocking for her and therefore destroy her illusions about him.
Whether or not you buy the tortured logic that protects this very English repression, there’s no doubting it makes for powerful drama, particularly in the second half, when the secrets begin to emerge.
Richard Beecham’s production makes strenuous efforts to overcome the wordiness and cerebral qualities of the writing, and only partially succeeds. It’s played very fast, which sometimes compromises its comprehensibility, and it has a slightly fusty aura about it, as if the prism of nearly 40 years since it was written has added nothing to an interpretation of the text.
On the plus side, there’s a fantastic book-lined set from Naomi Dawson that perfectly frames the action, and some excellent performances, particularly from Sean Power as the reliable best friend of both husband and wife, who has to play dumb to each as the other reveals their surprises to him. Gethin Anthony, too, as the couple’s 20-year-old son emerging from the shadow of his father’s reputation, is touching and volatile, while Jay Villiers is suitably bombastic and vile as the unlikeable protagonist Sebastian.
The play never really catches fire, however, and the searching performances and elegant design leave one strangely unmoved by the end, as if the professed love of the title has never quite been located. But then, perhaps it was never there in the first place.
DIARY OF A NOBODY
March 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, March 19, 2011
IT’S a rare ability to render an audience helpless with laughter and crying with emotion at the same moment. Hugh Osborne’s new adaptation of the Victorian comic classic Diary of a Nobody has this ability in spades.
What’s more extraordinary still is that each of the four actors playing out the narrative is individually capable of the same feat. The combined effect under the direction of Gary Sefton is nothing short of sensational.
Ostensibly held together by the relentlessly suburban, proudly ordinary and implacably self-important character of Mr Pooter, this is actually a truly ensemble piece of theatre. Fortunately, the ensemble is first-rate.
As the eponymous Nobody, Robert Daws gives Pooter an utterly believable, three-dimensional humanity that renders his innate pomposity thoroughly likable. For all the misfortunes and mishaps that befall him, however self-inflicted they may be, there is always the compelling urge to reach out and give him a hug. It’s a touching, poignant and hilarious performance by a consummate master of the slightly bewildered Everyman.
With him on stage are three other actors, each of whom plays a multitude of parts with virtuosic creativity. Peter Forbes covers everything from a groin-scratching handyman to the endlessly indulgent Mrs Pooter with the lightest of touches and faultless comic timing.
Steven Blakeley plays Pooter’s son Lupin with all the vigour and energy of youth, and must be losing pounds in his frenetic portrayals of a host of other brilliantly drawn characters. And William Oxborrow takes the word versatile to new heights with his multi-instrumental musical talents and a hugely impressive range of acted roles.
The whole thing is stunningly put together by director Sefton and races breathlessly through two hours of set changes, manic confusion and some not inconsiderable vocal talents. With the delightfully appropriate Royal Theatre as its backdrop, this Diary is beautifully staged (Rhys Jarman), impeccably lit (Richard Godin) and meticulously choreographed (Alexandra Worrall). Without reservation, it deserves the standing ovation it receives.
THE YEARS BETWEEN
February 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, February 26, 2011
The author Daphne du Maurier only wrote two stage plays. The Years Between, which starts from a semi-autobiographical standpoint of a marriage torn apart by the Second World War, is one of them.
Du Maurier’s novels are atmospheric, elegiac, intelligent – and this play shares many of the same qualities. It’s also thought-provoking, temperate, exquisitely constrained by the morals and standards of the time (the later years of the war), and packing one or two powerful punches in its revelations.
The elegance and formality of the country house backdrop is beautifully evoked, not just in Helen Goddard’s immaculate library set but also in the tight, clipped performances and simmering tensions below a sheen of respectability.
To reveal anything much of the plot would be unfair, but the central premise sees the surprise return home of a soldier believed killed in action, and the consequent unravelling of the lives of those around him, who are possibly more altered by the war itself than this hero who has been through years of hell.
Gerald Kyd is suitably ravaged and bitter as the returning soldier, while Barbara Kirby as the Nanny, David Verrey as sage old friend Sir Ernest and Alisdair Simpson as the kindly neighbour Richard put in important supporting performances. There’s also a fine turn from 13-year-old Luke Nunn as the bewildered but stoic son Robin.
But it’s Marianne Oldham who carries the lion’s share of the drama as Diana, the grieving wife whose new world is turned upside down. She’s variously strong and adrift, in love and heartbroken, dutiful and rebellious, and she seems to relish each emotion as much as any other.
Director Kate Saxon works her cast hard to allow glimpses of the underlying turbulence to show through the stiff upper lips. There are moments of real impact that help keep the drama unfolding after a carefully modulated opening scene.
And if du Maurier’s writing seems a little stifled at times, and the production accordingly a tad starchy, there’s plenty of good work on display to counteract the occasional lapse of tension.
PETER PAN ON ICE
February 2, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, February 6, 2011
COOL, smooth and with a glossy sheen of sparkle – no, not the ice that’s been specially frozen on the Derngate stage, but the stunning performers appearing on it.
The Russian Ice Stars, whose Cinderella on Ice was so exciting and magical in this same space a couple of years ago, have pulled off the same trick again with an exuberant, elegant display of technical wizardry and enchanting storytelling.
It’s the familiar Peter Pan tale, framed with the author JM Barrie supposedly writing it as it happens – and intervening in the action at strategic points – so there is plenty of scope for variety and imagination.
Artistic director Giuseppe Arena makes full use of both the scale of the story and the immense talents of his skaters, who tirelessly throng the stage with flowing, graceful ice dance and extraordinary feats of skill.
Besides the evident expertise of the skating itself, this troupe are also fluent in circus arts, acrobatics and trapeze, so while Captain Hook’s pirates may be performing high-wire stunts in the ship’s rigging, the Indian braves are spinning burning hoops and juggling with fire – all the while at breakneck speeds on an increasingly uneven surface of ice.
It’s breathtaking stuff and exhilarating to watch, so much so that the audience frequently forgets to applaud the amazing talent on display.
There are a host of superb performances, combining the undoubted skating skills with some fine emotional acting. It’s all underscored by a remarkable musical narrative from Italian composer Silvio Amato, whose melodies and soundscapes create a wonderful backdrop to the action, complementing and enhancing the moments of magic and leaving one longing for a live orchestra instead of the pre-recorded backing tracks.
I freely admit to being no expert in the field of ice dance, but it’s plain to see this is a show of dynamic excitement and genuine passion from a company of world-class performers.
December 13, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, January 8, 2012
THERE’S an oft-quoted theory about panto that it serves an important purpose, bringing youngsters into the theatre for possibly the first time in their lives.
While this is undoubtedly true, it does put significant pressure on the panto concerned to deliver an experience that will leave them wanting to come back again at some point in the future.
This festive offering from producers Qdos provides a perfectly adequate, if workmanlike, example of the genre, but it’s hard to escape the thought that there may not be enough here to draw putative theatre-goers of the future back time and again.
Headlining as Wishee Washee, Bobby Davro gives us Bobby Davro, complete with comedy voices, a snatch of his cabaret turn doing vocal impressions, and some suitably lame double entendres. If you like Bobby Davro… well, you get the picture.
Elsewhere, dancer Brian Fortuna looks pretty and moves well as Aladdin, while Charlotte Bull as supporting genie Scherazade and David O’Mahony as Abanazar have a go at stealing the show. That honour actually falls to Jeffrey Holland, whose Widow Twankey is traditional, boisterous and game for a laugh.
But all the cheap gags and the feeling of some performances running on autopilot can be forgiven thanks to the underlying sense of fun. What’s much, much harder to overlook is the producers’ shameful reliance on pre-recorded backing tracks, rather than a live band.
In going for the money-saving option, they have stripped a huge element of the energy and excitement from the show. And, what’s more, they have robbed those all-important youngsters of a truly magical part of what panto is all about. Oh yes they have.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
December 2, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Sunday, January 8, 2012
IT may not much resemble the story from the original book, but I’d stake a large amount of money that Lewis Carroll would be cheering this version of his children’s classic as loudly as any of the Royal Theatre audience.
The reason is simple: Phil Porter’s smart, witty and extremely silly adaptation pays appropriate and affectionate tribute to the source material by capturing exactly the essence of its zaniness and illogicality, while simultaneously creating a piece of theatre that is fast, hugely entertaining and utterly hilarious.
He’s considerably aided in this objective by the two co-directors, Dani Parr and Laurie Sansom, in whose hands this wonderful slice of nonsense is endlessly inventive and tear-inducingly funny – and that applies as much for the grown-ups as for the children. So often Christmas shows claim to work on two levels, desperate to appeal to cynical adults alongside their offspring. With this production, the play hits both targets one in masterful stroke, and they lap it up.
There’s a multi-talented cast of nine, an extraordinary on-stage band that somehow makes three musicians sound like a full orchestra, and some stunning effects and designs from Sara Perks and her team that are constantly surprising and effective.
Mark McGee holds proceedings together magnificently as a smooth Mad Hatter with a suggestion of Johnny Depp, presenting a royal variety performance for Liza Sadovy’s joyously obnoxious Queen of Hearts. Alice herself becomes unwillingly inveigled into the performance and has to shed her “square” attitude by learning the important difference between silly and stupid before she’s allowed to return to the real world.
It’s a conceit that works brilliantly, and begins from the moment you enter the foyer, which has been transformed into the White Rabbit’s rabbithole and gets you in the mood from long before curtain-up.
In fairness, it needs a little time to warm up and bed in properly, but this a truly magical show that takes the recent Christmas successes of the Royal and ratchets them up several levels. It’s a pretty safe prediction to suggest that you’ll have to go an awfully long way to find a production that’s got more heart, more fun and more sheer silliness to put you in the festive spirit.
THE GO-BETWEEN
November 4, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 19, 2011
THIS claustrophobic, confusing coming-of-age story, set in the summer of 1900 and first told in novel form, has finally reached the stage as a musical nearly 60 years after it was written by LP Hartley.
Actually, ‘musical’ is something of a misnomer, and the programme interview with composer Richard Taylor acknowledges this quite openly. Even he can’t find a proper term to describe this not-quite-sung-through piece, which uses lyrics, dialogue and a haunting grand piano to tell the tale of 12-year-old Leo Colston and his innocent embroilment in the secret, doomed love affair between the country house lady and the tenant farmer.
For me, the term should really be ‘chamber opera’. There are no songs as such, little in the way of conventional melody, and the music is highly complex and dense. The combined effect is to render what could be an emotional, tender journey of adolescence into an opaque, difficult stodge of repetitively dreary lament.
Which is a shame, because the quality of the work being done on stage, and the sheer amount of time and effort that has been devoted to it, is of the highest order.
James Staddon is the lynchpin as an older Leo, looking back on that milestone summer with the hindsight of 50 years and an adult perspective. His performance is grounded and touching, and is matched at every turn by that of his younger self, the impressive 11-year-old William Miles. The boy and his friend Marcus (Adam Bradbury) are given ridiculously ambitious things to do by Taylor and his lyricist David Wood, but they pull them off with panache and considerable talent.
There’s a kind of Greek chorus of other characters who provide Leo’s conscience as well as playing the roles of the unfolding drama, and they are all strong-voiced and solid, with some beautiful playing from pianist Jonathan Gill against a grandiose decaying set (Michael Pavelka) helping to emphasise the skills on display.
But the question that niggles throughout Roger Haines’s production – elegant and starkly beautiful though it may be – is a rather fundamental one: why bother? This is no emotional masterpiece, not even that gripping a yarn, and the years of preparation that have been devoted to its development seem ultimately misplaced.
UPDATE: May 26, 2016 - The Go-Between opens in London’s West End with Michael Crawford starring in the role of the older Leo Colston. It opens on June 7, 2016, at the Apollo Theatre. For information and tickets, visit www.officialtheatre.com/apollo-theatre/the-go-between
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
October 4, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, October 22, 2011
IT’S so tricky when a new young team try something a bit different in the hope of pushing boundaries.
As a critic, the impulse is always to encourage, welcome and enthuse about bold new voices, strikingly fresh images and exciting raw talent.
But when you know the production on offer just doesn’t quite cut it, there’s an equal duty to the audiences to reveal exactly what’s in store from the brave, misfiring show that’s on offer.
RashDash is a performance-art collaboration (of two) dedicated to making work “about now, and about the things that matter to us”. Quite how that fits with working alongside director Matthew Dunster and the Royal & Derngate to create a proscenium-arch, surprisingly conventional production of The Two Gents is never quite explained.
It’s almost as if Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen – the two collaborators concerned – have set out to be as provocative, challenging and “now” as they can, and Shakespeare’s early comedy is simply a means to that end.
Thus we get a stylistically ultra-modern interpretation full of techno music, swearing guitar bands and swaggering lads and ladettes, complete with such would-be shock moments as Silvia being stripped to her underwear as a catwalk model and the clown Launce (transformed into an Essex girl) peeing into a paper cup. So far, so student production.
But in the second half, it feels as though the efforts to be radical have run out of steam and the creators have been forced back onto that old-fashioned notion of performing the text. The result is much more effective without the sound and fury of the theatrical pyrotechnics, which do nothing to aid the storytelling and appear designed to render Shakespeare “accessible” – that horrendously PC word whose subtext usually means that the director doesn’t have faith in the play.
Joe Doyle and Alexander Cobb as the eponymous Two Gents are actually rather good when they’re allowed to act, although the RashDash name above the title means that Greenland and Goalen claim the lion’s share of the credit, as well as the closing song. Still, what did Shakespeare know about modern women anyway?
With the showy glitz of its thin concept stripped away, there may be raw talent in evidence in this production. But the voices are hardly new, and the images far from fresh enough, to allow a full-blown enthuse from this critic, at least.
BASKET CASE
September 13, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 24, 2011, then touring
THERE may not seem much fertile comic territory in the final hours of a dying family pet. But Nick Fisher’s new comedy Basket Case sets out to prove that humour can be found in the most unlikely places.
Toby the dog cuts a pathetic figure, never moving from his basket in the large, well-appointed, beamed farmhouse kitchen of Guy and Miranda’s former family home. In truth, he’s about the least pathetic character on stage.
When Guy appears for the final moments of Toby’s life, dragging his brash, opinionated golfing buddy James with him, he finds his now ex-wife debating the merits of putting the dog down with Martin, the country vet who has nursed the creature all its life.
Guy’s utter selfishness, Miranda’s fierce independence, James’s permanently hungry indifference and Martin’s bewilderment combine to create some memorable clashes and terrific one-liners in Fisher’s sharp, fast-paced script – his first stage play after a highly successful television career.
Nigel Havers, for whom the piece was ostensibly written, displays all the confidence we have come to expect from this veteran performer, but he’s just one of a genuinely ensemble cast, each of whom contributes equally to the piece. Christine Kavanagh is given lots of tricky business to do, which she handles with assured professionalism, while Graham Seed (late of Ambridge) and David Cardy provide a double-act counterpoint as the vet and golf pal, with no shared frame of reference and therefore a rich seam of potential for misunderstanding.
The set-up takes a while to warm up, with the fireworks really taking off in the second act, but as a witty piece of entertainment to please a touring audience, it looks poised for a successful run on the road after its stay in Northampton.
END OF THE RAINBOW
August 30, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 3, 2011, then touring
IT'S been away on a little visit to that big London, and while it was there it won all the awards going – as I predicted.
But now it’s back from its little jaunt, and looking more grown-up and spectacular than ever.
Peter Quilter’s remarkable play with music about a drug-addled Judy Garland during her final concert stint at London’s Talk of the Town at the tail end of the 60s has returned to the venue that gave birth to it at the beginning of 2010.
And it’s great to have it home.
Tracie Bennett quite rightly won huge accolades for her extraordinary performance as the ultra-dependent, immensely insecure bundle of fragility that was Judy in her later years and it remains a towering achievement, both vocally and emotionally. She commands the stage, and the immediacy of the Royal auditorium adds a real electrical charge to the passion, the commitment and the raw vulnerability.
But this is much more than a one-woman show, and Hilton McRae is just as impressive – if a little overshadowed – as her unassuming, gay Scottish pianist who is the real rock in her turbulent world. His playing – both as actor and musician – is delicate, meticulous and deeply touching.
Musically, he fronts a fantastic six-piece on-stage band that sounds so much more than the sum of its parts, and there’s a stunning first-act coup de theatre when they make their initial appearance.
This is brilliantly achieved thanks to William Dudley’s sumptuous set design, which in turn is enhanced by excellent lighting and sound from Simon Corder and Gareth Owen respectively.
Coupled with very able support from Norman Bowman as Judy’s last husband Mickey and Robert Maskell in a handful of delightful cameos, Terry Johnson’s masterful direction creates a night guaranteed to bring the audience leaping to its feet in admiration and amazement.
The tough, uncompromising material notwithstanding, this is a landmark production for the Royal & Derngate and one to be cherished. Miss it at your peril.
EDEN END
June 7, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, June 25, 2011
PRIESTLEY is one of the few 20th Century playwrights not to have been troubled much by the vagaries of fashion. As a result, plays such as An Inspector Calls and When We Are Married have enjoyed fairly consistent revivals over the decades. Eden End has been less well served.
Northampton artistic director Laurie Sansom – something of a Priestley aficionado – aims to put this right with an elegant, meticulous production in the intimate and appropriate auditorium of the Royal Theatre.
Whether the material stands up to the careful scrutiny offered by Sansom and his cast and crew may be a moot point: it’s certainly not of the same stature as the big names, and there’s a definite sense of ‘So what?’ after the final curtain.
But along the way, there are some strong performances in the telling of the story, which revolves around the return to the Yorkshire family home in 1912 of prodigal daughter Stella, who’s been away for eight years touring the world in the somewhat shocking guise, for the time, of an actress.
Stella’s secret, unveiled midway through the first half, and the reactions of various family members and hangers-on, threaten to derail the fragile harmony and optimism at Eden End, with echoes of the impending First World War looming over this false post-Edwardian spring.
Staged on an inclined oval of performance area in the middle of a black space, and with an intriguing backdrop of suspended lightbulbs and occasionally silhouetted windows, the production (designed by Sara Perks) looks deceptively sumptuous and benefits too from some judicious lighting by Anna Watson.
Daniel Betts is a tour de force as the cheeky chappie actor Charlie Appleby, whose arrival at Eden End is the catalyst for much of the soul-searching that follows, while Nick Hendrix is all youthful vigour and wide-eyed innocence as Wilfred, the 24-year-old son of the family.
Daisy Douglas does suppressed anger and jealousy with beautiful control as the dowdy middle sister Lilian, while Charlotte Emmerson’s Stella is permanently agitated and breathless, suffering a little from one-note limitation as a result.
It’s not going to set the world alight as a rediscovered masterpiece, in the way that Stephen Daldry’s 1992 Inspector Calls did, but as a worthy example of a lesser backwater of Priestley’s oeuvre, it has plenty to recommend it.
YES, PRIME MINISTER
June 6, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 11, 2011
IT’S more than 30 years since Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby first revealed the hilarious machinations of Whitehall to an unsuspecting television audience. Both the original actors may have departed this life, but that hasn’t stopped the characters from returning to the Westminster fray in the guise of a new stage play by the authors Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.
This Prime Minister is thoroughly modern, helming a coalition government through financial crises, immigration minefields and global warming with all the bungling naivety we’ve come to expect from Hacker. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Sir Humphrey attempts to pull the mandarin strings to get his own way.
There’s everything in this production that marked out the television series as a gem – with the exception, of course, of Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne in the main roles. So we have sharp political satire, Sir Humphrey’s pompous blasts of obfuscating erudition and the permanently edgy figure of the principal private secretary, Bernard, hovering lamely in the background.
Simon Williams offers a commanding performance as Sir Humphrey, totally on top of his challenging dialogue and winning justified rounds of applause for his verbal dexterity. Opposite him, Richard McCabe is well judged and perfectly timed in his combination of conviction and bewilderment as the out-of-his-depth PM.
The script itself is something of a curate’s egg – blisteringly funny and pointed in places, gentle and tame in others – but there are several notable moments of high comedy and plenty of barbs thrown in at the expense of everyone from the BBC to the Daily Mail.
Simon Higlett’s beautiful set, evoking the PM’s study at Chequers, also deserves a mention, and Lynn’s direction keeps things moving at a rattling pace, even if the overwhelming detail of the plot at times becomes as confusing as one of Sir Humphrey’s rants.
It’s hardly a state-of-the-nation play, but as an updated revisiting of an old favourite, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
May 24, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 28, 2011
It’s been hailed as a landmark play for its skewering of the baby boomer generation. But if Love Love Love is meant to be some kind of state-of-the-nation piece, highlighting the irreconcilable differences between the Flower Power people and their Thatcherite offspring, then it’s not any nation that I recognise.
Mike Bartlett’s play, nearing the end of a UK tour, follows one idealistic couple from their first pot-influenced meeting in 1967, through parenthood to two teenagers in 1990, to a final act in the present day, in which their selfish, hedonistic lifestyles have come back to haunt them with a vengeance.
There are a number of problems with this, quite apart from the unreachable requirement on the actors to age more than 40 years convincingly. Chief among them is the lack of any kind of growth of the characters: Kenneth and Sandra are just as destructively hideous at the end as they were at the beginning. There are, quite literally, no redeeming features, and the fallout from their complete emotional stuntedness is both bleak and depressing.
Their words and their children’s are reduced to mere slogans, trotting out facile opposing world views, while the characterisations are as minimal as the present-day set, all sterile and cold.
But wait, this is a comedy! Hold on, though – where are the laughs? Actually, there is a really funny line (“We live in Reading. Something’s gone wrong.”) but otherwise it’s a bunch of utterly unlikable, unrecognisable people mostly screaming at each other and swearing a lot. In my book, this does not a comedy make. Nor does it really have anything new or enlightening to say.
All of which might be at least salvageable as some kind of social record, were it not for the fact that James Grieve’s production is just as relentlessly grim as the script, with the cast of five dismally left floundering with Bartlett’s deliberately obtuse and proscriptive stage instructions, including such helpful details for the actors as speeches “with no written dialogue”.
The only solution appears to be successive displays of hyperactive shrieking, to which they resort with full-voiced relish.
It’s a strident, stark assault on the senses and hardly to be recommended as a diverting piece of entertainment. If you like your theatre raw, loud and a little bit nasty, on the other hand…
CORRIE!
May 16, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, May 21, 2011
First up, a confession. I am not a fan of Coronation Street. Of course, like almost everybody of television viewing age in the UK, I have inevitably stumbled across some of its more eye-catching storylines and semi-legendary characters over the years. But I could not claim to be an ardent follower.
Some may argue that disqualifies me from offering a critical opinion of Corrie!, a specially-written theatre production marking 50 years of the Street that is currently on tour. Personally, I would say it gives me a more objective view.
And that view is that, as a play, Corrie! makes great television.
Allow me to explain. Corrie! doesn’t really know what it is. Partly an affectionate tribute to the show, partly a would-be comedy send-up and partly an attempt to condense half a century of TV storylines into a couple of cramped hours, it actually achieves none of these aims.
Writer Jonathan Harvey – himself a scriptwriter on the Street – cherry-picks classic moments, iconic characters and some of the more outré offerings from across the decades and shoves them all together in a confused, ill-conceived ragbag of a revue.
That’s not to say there aren’t some wonderful moments. Hilda Ogden’s tears over the dead Stan’s specs, Raquel’s French lesson from Ken Barlow, the original opening scene from the very first episode: they’re all evocative and entertaining.
And the six-strong cast (supplemented by a narrating Ken Morley) are simply extraordinary, recreating everyone from Ena Sharples to Tracey Barlow in a manic combination of quick changes, sublime wigs and a kaleidoscope of comedy voices. Stand-out turns are Leanne Best’s Gail and Jo Mousley’s Hilda, but there are too many terrific incarnations to pick out.
The stampede through the years means even the die-hard fans will be left with some disappointments. Where are Mavis and Derek, for instance, or the utterly unmissed Percy Sugden?
But it’s not just the selectivity of the show that leaves one mildly unsatisfied at the curtain. It’s not knowing whether you’ve been watching an out-and-out comedy, a playful pastiche or a historical curiosity. In the end, it’s all of these things – and none of them.
HAMLET! THE MUSICAL
May 13, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 21, 2011
It’s silly, it’s sung, it’s stuffed with off-the-wall ideas and gags. Not your average Hamlet then…
Royal & Derngate picked up this little gem of eccentricity at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year and are giving it the full-scale production it so thoroughly merits.
Claiming to have rediscovered Shakespeare’s miserable tragedy as the musical comedy it was always meant to be, writers Alex Silverman, Timothy Knapman and Edward Jaspers have assembled a six-strong cast and six-strong band to create a relentlessly-paced frenzy of laughs, puns and sheer stupidity, while somehow retaining all the essential elements of the story.
Thus we get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as a couple of puppet-sized American college brats, Laertes as the (randomly) Spanish-obsessed brother whose jealousy of Ophelia’s reputation reveals itself in a fiery tango number, and the strolling players as a jaded troupe of Bob Fosse wannabes in sequins and bowler hats.
The numbers are mainly pastiche digs at various styles of musical theatre, from Lloyd Webber to Sondheim, with a rousing audience singalong finale, To Be or Not to Be, thrown in for good measure.
An ingenious, cartoonish set design (Diego Pitarch) and some imaginative costumes (Mia Flodquist) all add to the echoes of Spamalot, which are ever-present and only reinforced by the slightly odd decision to replace the final sword fight with a fish-slapping encounter using giant herrings – pure Monty Python c. 1972.
But any shortcomings in the rather wordy script and convoluted score are compensated for by the performers, who are immensely versatile and blessed with strong voices (though too often drowned in the mix). Mark Inscoe gives a stand-out performance doubling Claudius and the Ghost, while Gabriel Vick (Laertes/Guildenstern) reveals assured comic timing and an energy that is reflected throughout the company.
It may still have the feel of the Fringe about it, but this is a highly enjoyable romp through the Bard that explores one of the English language’s greatest tragedies with all the silliness and irreverence it deserves.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN: THE MUTUALS
April 17, 2011
Derngate, Northampton
WHO would have thought that, more than 50 years since his last major film role and almost a century since his first, it would be necessary to review a clutch of Charlie Chaplin silent movie shorts.
But thanks to the genius of composer Carl Davis and the inspired marketing of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, that’s exactly the opportunity which this one-off concert offers.
Davis has long been a proponent of reviving many of the early silent films by scoring new music to accompany them – and we’re not talking jangly ragtime pianos here. What Davis has done is to create original soundtracks to some of the most inventive, innovative and creative movies from the early part of the 20th century.
In this programme, part of the RPO’s residency at the Royal and Derngate, Davis himself conducted his new scores for three films made for the production house Mutual – hence the title. The three offer a fascinating snapshot into the mind of Chaplin around 1916 to 1917, when he was still only in his twenties but already at the peak of his comic powers.
The Pawnshop is pretty straightforward slapstick centred on Chaplin’s Little Tramp character getting into scrapes as a pawnbroker’s assistant. The Immigrant, however, is much more dramatic, focusing on the character’s arrival in America on a steamship full of European ex-patriates, and draws heavily on emotion as well as comedy.
In the final movie, The Cure, Chaplin plays another of his stock characters, the inebriate aristo, who takes time out for a ‘rest cure’ at a spa and wreaks the usual havoc with his cane and funny walk.
Davis’s music, beautifully executed by a compact version of the orchestra, is lush, tuneful and the perfect accompaniment to the restored images, which are projected high up on a screen above the stage.
So elegant a fit is the pairing, in fact, that one easily slips into forgetting the presence of the live musicians and simply relaxing into the pure enjoyment of two master craftsmen – Chaplin and his latter-day accompanist Davis. I can offer no greater compliment than that.
IN PRAISE OF LOVE
April 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, April 23, 2011
YOU can hardly go to the theatre this year without running into a revival of a Rattigan play. He was born 100 years ago this year, you see, and that offers a neat – if unnecessary – excuse for a reappraisal of his oeuvre.
Sometimes dismissed as a straight-laced playwright out of the 1950s with nothing to say to a modern audience, Rattigan’s work in fact encompasses as many different styles and emotions as it did decades, and In Praise of Love, one of his late works dating from the mid-70s, is a fascinating example.
While I don’t believe it merits a high ranking in the list of great 20th Century plays, it nevertheless occupies interesting territory in its exploration of a marriage almost wrecked by the inability of the participants to express their real feelings for each other.
Thus Lydia, the Estonian wartime refugee rescued for a life of wifely domesticity in Islington, conceals her terminal illness from her brutish Marxist literary critic husband Sebastian. He, on his part, thinks it’s better to conceal the fact that he actually knows about it, chiefly because it allows him to maintain the impression he has created of being an unreconstructed bastard. Anything else – sympathy, for instance, or an indication of some deeper emotion – would be somehow too shocking for her and therefore destroy her illusions about him.
Whether or not you buy the tortured logic that protects this very English repression, there’s no doubting it makes for powerful drama, particularly in the second half, when the secrets begin to emerge.
Richard Beecham’s production makes strenuous efforts to overcome the wordiness and cerebral qualities of the writing, and only partially succeeds. It’s played very fast, which sometimes compromises its comprehensibility, and it has a slightly fusty aura about it, as if the prism of nearly 40 years since it was written has added nothing to an interpretation of the text.
On the plus side, there’s a fantastic book-lined set from Naomi Dawson that perfectly frames the action, and some excellent performances, particularly from Sean Power as the reliable best friend of both husband and wife, who has to play dumb to each as the other reveals their surprises to him. Gethin Anthony, too, as the couple’s 20-year-old son emerging from the shadow of his father’s reputation, is touching and volatile, while Jay Villiers is suitably bombastic and vile as the unlikeable protagonist Sebastian.
The play never really catches fire, however, and the searching performances and elegant design leave one strangely unmoved by the end, as if the professed love of the title has never quite been located. But then, perhaps it was never there in the first place.
DIARY OF A NOBODY
March 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, March 19, 2011
IT’S a rare ability to render an audience helpless with laughter and crying with emotion at the same moment. Hugh Osborne’s new adaptation of the Victorian comic classic Diary of a Nobody has this ability in spades.
What’s more extraordinary still is that each of the four actors playing out the narrative is individually capable of the same feat. The combined effect under the direction of Gary Sefton is nothing short of sensational.
Ostensibly held together by the relentlessly suburban, proudly ordinary and implacably self-important character of Mr Pooter, this is actually a truly ensemble piece of theatre. Fortunately, the ensemble is first-rate.
As the eponymous Nobody, Robert Daws gives Pooter an utterly believable, three-dimensional humanity that renders his innate pomposity thoroughly likable. For all the misfortunes and mishaps that befall him, however self-inflicted they may be, there is always the compelling urge to reach out and give him a hug. It’s a touching, poignant and hilarious performance by a consummate master of the slightly bewildered Everyman.
With him on stage are three other actors, each of whom plays a multitude of parts with virtuosic creativity. Peter Forbes covers everything from a groin-scratching handyman to the endlessly indulgent Mrs Pooter with the lightest of touches and faultless comic timing.
Steven Blakeley plays Pooter’s son Lupin with all the vigour and energy of youth, and must be losing pounds in his frenetic portrayals of a host of other brilliantly drawn characters. And William Oxborrow takes the word versatile to new heights with his multi-instrumental musical talents and a hugely impressive range of acted roles.
The whole thing is stunningly put together by director Sefton and races breathlessly through two hours of set changes, manic confusion and some not inconsiderable vocal talents. With the delightfully appropriate Royal Theatre as its backdrop, this Diary is beautifully staged (Rhys Jarman), impeccably lit (Richard Godin) and meticulously choreographed (Alexandra Worrall). Without reservation, it deserves the standing ovation it receives.
THE YEARS BETWEEN
February 8, 2011
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, February 26, 2011
The author Daphne du Maurier only wrote two stage plays. The Years Between, which starts from a semi-autobiographical standpoint of a marriage torn apart by the Second World War, is one of them.
Du Maurier’s novels are atmospheric, elegiac, intelligent – and this play shares many of the same qualities. It’s also thought-provoking, temperate, exquisitely constrained by the morals and standards of the time (the later years of the war), and packing one or two powerful punches in its revelations.
The elegance and formality of the country house backdrop is beautifully evoked, not just in Helen Goddard’s immaculate library set but also in the tight, clipped performances and simmering tensions below a sheen of respectability.
To reveal anything much of the plot would be unfair, but the central premise sees the surprise return home of a soldier believed killed in action, and the consequent unravelling of the lives of those around him, who are possibly more altered by the war itself than this hero who has been through years of hell.
Gerald Kyd is suitably ravaged and bitter as the returning soldier, while Barbara Kirby as the Nanny, David Verrey as sage old friend Sir Ernest and Alisdair Simpson as the kindly neighbour Richard put in important supporting performances. There’s also a fine turn from 13-year-old Luke Nunn as the bewildered but stoic son Robin.
But it’s Marianne Oldham who carries the lion’s share of the drama as Diana, the grieving wife whose new world is turned upside down. She’s variously strong and adrift, in love and heartbroken, dutiful and rebellious, and she seems to relish each emotion as much as any other.
Director Kate Saxon works her cast hard to allow glimpses of the underlying turbulence to show through the stiff upper lips. There are moments of real impact that help keep the drama unfolding after a carefully modulated opening scene.
And if du Maurier’s writing seems a little stifled at times, and the production accordingly a tad starchy, there’s plenty of good work on display to counteract the occasional lapse of tension.
PETER PAN ON ICE
February 2, 2011
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, February 6, 2011
COOL, smooth and with a glossy sheen of sparkle – no, not the ice that’s been specially frozen on the Derngate stage, but the stunning performers appearing on it.
The Russian Ice Stars, whose Cinderella on Ice was so exciting and magical in this same space a couple of years ago, have pulled off the same trick again with an exuberant, elegant display of technical wizardry and enchanting storytelling.
It’s the familiar Peter Pan tale, framed with the author JM Barrie supposedly writing it as it happens – and intervening in the action at strategic points – so there is plenty of scope for variety and imagination.
Artistic director Giuseppe Arena makes full use of both the scale of the story and the immense talents of his skaters, who tirelessly throng the stage with flowing, graceful ice dance and extraordinary feats of skill.
Besides the evident expertise of the skating itself, this troupe are also fluent in circus arts, acrobatics and trapeze, so while Captain Hook’s pirates may be performing high-wire stunts in the ship’s rigging, the Indian braves are spinning burning hoops and juggling with fire – all the while at breakneck speeds on an increasingly uneven surface of ice.
It’s breathtaking stuff and exhilarating to watch, so much so that the audience frequently forgets to applaud the amazing talent on display.
There are a host of superb performances, combining the undoubted skating skills with some fine emotional acting. It’s all underscored by a remarkable musical narrative from Italian composer Silvio Amato, whose melodies and soundscapes create a wonderful backdrop to the action, complementing and enhancing the moments of magic and leaving one longing for a live orchestra instead of the pre-recorded backing tracks.
I freely admit to being no expert in the field of ice dance, but it’s plain to see this is a show of dynamic excitement and genuine passion from a company of world-class performers.
For Northampton reviews from 2016, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2015, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2014, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2013, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2012, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2010, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2009, please click here
For Northampton reviews from 2008, please click here
