CINDERELLA
December 11, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, January 6, 2013
THERE’S something of a sense of déjà vu about this Cinderella. And if Northampton audiences are back for more after last year’s Bobby Davro-led Aladdin, then more is exactly what they’ll get.
Davro does almost precisely the same turn as Buttons as the one he did last year as Wishee-Washee. He even admits as much when he dons his outsize kangaroo costume for a daft, singalong routine to the strains of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, complete with same wisecracks, same pratfall and same cheap visual gag.
All of which is fine if it’s Bobby Davro’s routine you’ve paid your money to see. Elsewhere, it’s a straight-down-the-line, economy version of a traditional panto, with the producers’ money spent on the sets, costumes and star rather than invested in a quality script or – perish the thought – a live band.
There’s a passable good fairy turn from Denise Welsh, who looks distinctly uncomfortable away from the Loose Women table, and a few gratuitous male torsos to keep the mums happy, while media student Josh Coburn steals the acting honours with his perky, likeable Dandini.
With the exception of a few needless smutty innuendoes, there’s nothing much here to upset the undiscerning panto-goer, but it’s not going to set the world (or even Northampton) alight with the brilliance of its festive spirit.
And yet again, that reliance on pre-recorded backing tracks for the music is a major black mark against the producers, Qdos. Do yourself a favour and book instead for the vastly superior production of A Christmas Carol in the neighbouring Royal auditorium.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 30, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Sunday, January 6, 2013
THE problem with A Christmas Carol is that it’s just too familiar and well-worn. Somehow the Dickens characters these days have become as lifeless as stewed sprouts and as exciting as last year’s presents. So how do you make them interesting again?
The answer, appropriately enough in this 200th anniversary year of the author’s birth, is triumphantly on display in the Royal Theatre’s perfect Victorian auditorium. Yet again, the Royal’s creative team has raised the bar for Christmas shows. This one is, quite simply, sensational.
If you thought you knew every last nuance of the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his journey to revelation and renewal, then now’s the time to think again. With a combination of stunning design, breathtaking effects, seamless direction and – above all – real heart, this production of Neil Duffield’s intelligent adaptation brings Dickens fantastically to life.
From the opening sequence of carol-singers weaving through London fog against a murmuring, slightly menacing soundscape (Tom Kelly), director Gary Sefton strikes exactly the right balance of dark and light. This highwire act, treading between workhouse grimness and Christmas jollity, is judiciously reproduced in every aspect of the production, but nowhere more so than Michael Taylor’s extraordinary set. Vast, mobile towers comprised of leather-bound volumes, trunks and pieces of heavy furniture create a ramshackle arena that’s variously cramped and threatening (for Scrooge’s office) or open and warm (for Fezziwig’s party), with all shades of versatility in between.
The cast of seven, augmented by some thoroughly drilled youngsters from the local community, make full use of this wonderful environment to explore a story that seems, in spite of every classic retelling from Alistair Sim to the Muppets, to be as fresh-minted as the Christmas Eve snow which falls – yes, literally – in the theatre.
Sam Graham’s Scrooge appears to channel Victor Meldrew, while giving him a three-dimensional depth that is often lost in less thoughtful performances. But he’s far from alone. All the actors, playing multiple roles, deliver superbly, creating a world that is peopled by Dickens’s vivid creations, sometimes grotesque, sometimes gut-wrenching. Watch out in particular for Greg Haiste’s hilarious Mrs Fezziwig and Andy Williams as, among others, Jacob Marley and the Spirit of Christmas Present.
Superlatives are frequently overused in reviews, and five-star recommendations scattered about all too readily. In this instance, they are unreservedly deserved, together with the spontaneous standing ovation this show will unquestionably garner night after night. It is everything theatre is supposed to be: thought-provoking, inspiring, heart-warming and, ultimately, life-affirming. Miss it at your peril.
STEPTOE AND SON
November 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 17, 2012, then tour continues
A LONELY father and son scraping a living as rag-and-bone men and rubbing each other up the wrong way made for an extraordinary 12-year run of sitcom episodes in the 1960s and 70s. But that’s about as far as the similarity extends between Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s original BBC series and this new stage production from physical theatre specialists Kneehigh.
Joint artistic director Emma Rice has taken four of the television scripts and adapted them for a tour, fifty years on from the first screenings. But in spite of the cast’s energy and commitment, and the stuffing of lots of entertaining business into the gaps between lines, there’s a nagging question at the back of one’s mind throughout: why?
Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett made their characters of Albert and Harold so iconic that it’s a wise decision to move away from them entirely. Thus Mike Shepherd’s wiry, agile Albert and Dean Nolan’s vast but nimble Harold share little more than the lines with their TV counterparts in what amounts to a series of duologues interspersed with Kneehigh’s trademark knockabout comedy.
The fact that most of the laughs come from the inserted new business reflects significantly on the scripts, which seem slow, dated and (dare I say it?) a little pedestrian. Rice throws in an additional figure, an unnamed woman, who frames the episodes with some period outfits and LPs as well as the occasional walk-on role, but essentially it’s a two-hander, ably and confidently delivered by Shepherd and Nolan.
There’s some poignant pondering on the nature of loneliness – each of the pair suffers in their own way – and on the inextricable, trapping ties between father and son, but in the end it’s an oddly unsatisfying mash-up that serves neither to reinvigorate the original nor to mint a fresh new version for the 21st Century.
GOD OF CARNAGE
October 23, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 10, 2012
THE first thing to say about this production of French writer Yasmina Reza’s 2006 piece is that it looks great and plays fast and furious in the hands of a four-strong cast under the direction of Kate Saxon.
The second thing is that it makes for a pretty grim evening in its dissection of flawed human relationships.
Ostensibly a comedy, it puts two sets of parents together to discuss an attack with a stick by one of their offspring on the other. As the so-called grown-ups, their intent is to take a mature view of things and reach a satisfactory outcome. But over the course of 90 gruelling minutes, they reveal they can be just as childish and immature as their boys, and the meeting descends into farce, conflict and recrimination.
The problem with all of this is that the descent itself is heavy-handed, manipulative and utterly unpleasant. If I tell you that the biggest laugh comes from the copious – and I really mean copious – vomiting of one of the characters, you’ll get some idea of the level at which the playwright (translated by Christopher Hampton) pitches her comedy. An hour and a half in the company of these thoroughly nasty and unlikeable people leaves one simply wanting to take a shower.
Putting the seedy and distasteful subject matter to one side, there’s plenty of theatrical merit in the production itself. Some feisty performances leap across the footlights from an alarmingly raked set designed with clinical precision and style by Libby Watson.
Of the two couples, Melanie Gutteridge and Simon Wilson just about have the edge over James Doherty and Sian Reeves, although there is more for them to get their teeth into, and Wilson in particular makes terrific mileage out of his pompous, snooty lawyer character.
But the laughs are of the You’ve Been Framed, schadenfreude variety, and the discomfort we are meant to feel at the exposure of the self-centred veneer of middle-class respectability is too bluntly hammered home in a one-dimensional script that does a disservice to the talents on display.
RADIO TIMES
September 18, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 22, 2012
A JUKEBOX musical using the wartime songs of British composer Noel Gay, the man who wrote Me and My Girl? Sounds like it might be eeking out the material in a fashion strongly reminiscent of rationing.
And indeed, the story constructed around Gay numbers such as Run Rabbit Run and There’s Something About a Soldier is as convincing as dried egg and as thinly spread as half a coupon of butter.
It doesn’t help that the Watermill Theatre in Newbury has exercised its now well-worn approach of staging it with a large cast of actor-musicians, who deliver some visually stunning routines with rather less than top-quality musicianship. The problem here, of course, is that Caroline Leslie’s production requires first-class singers, top-notch dancers, professional actors and gifted musicians all rolled into one. That’s a tall order by any standards.
And yet there’s something winning and heartwarming about the show that has you strolling out of the theatre, humming one of those crusty old tunes with a smile on your face.
Maybe it’s the Blitz spirit encapsulated in the creaky tale of a BBC radio variety show trying to broadcast live in the middle of an air raid. Maybe it’s the homely charm of Tom Rogers’s evocative set and impressive array of costumes.
More likely it’s the twinkle in the eye of the show’s star, Gary Wilmot, whose irrepressible likeability and stunning talents simply ooze across the footlights. It’s just a shame he isn’t showcased much more in what is very much an ensemble piece.
There’s some terrific close-harmony vocal work from the four-girl backing troupe, a reliable rhythm section under musical director Paul Herbert and some excellent character work from John Conroy as a stuffy BBC producer.
But it’s Wilmot who carries the piece, lifting it from sentimental self-indulgence to a night of nostalgia, laced unashamedly with corny gags and Gay’s jaunty songs.
It’s harmless, entertaining and half an hour too long, but if you like your musicals old-fashioned and reliable, you could do a lot worse.
BULLY BOY
August 28, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 15, 2012
WHAT do you get if you put a fresh-out-of-drama-school youngster on stage opposite an award-winning actor with a CV as long as your arm? If Sandi Toksvig’s play Bully Boy is anything to go by, you can bank on a blistering firecracker of a performance that will haunt the memory for months to come.
The youngster in question is Joshua Miles, with only two professional credits to his name so far but an impressive career laid out ahead of him for the taking. He’s assured, talented and full of vigorous energy, constantly threatening to assault the senses in any way he can and frequently dominating the Royal stage with quiet emotion as much as volatile eruptions.
Alongside him in this powerful two-hander is Anthony Andrews, whose BAFTA-winning turn in Brideshead Revisited all those years ago promised a similar kind of future. Not that it was ever in doubt, but here he delivers on that promise in spades.
Of course, much of the credit for the punch-packing production belongs to its author, Sandi Toksvig, who reveals a huge dramatic skill to match her already evident talents in comedy.
Bully Boy tells the story of a young squaddie, Eddie, whose involvement in a tragic frontline incident in Afghanistan is investigated by the wheelchair-bound Falklands veteran Oscar, now a military police officer. As the backstory and current relationship between them unfolds, a series of revelations and surprises threatens each of them in different ways, peeling back successive layers of humanity.
Toksvig – a professed pacifist – resolutely refuses to peddle any particular line, giving her characters a broad and complex spectrum of views without ever pushing a political doctrine. This is much to her credit and the play’s advantage, spinning as it does a web of intrigue and uncertainty that seems to head first in one direction before veering off in another.
This vibrant script, brought vividly to life by the extraordinary players, is co-directed by Patrick Sandford and David Gilmore – the latter being the artistic director of London’s new St James Theatre, where the production heads next for a well-deserved West End outing.
With imposing design from Simon Higlett and superlative projections by Scott Radnor adding immeasurably to the effectiveness of the show, Bully Boy comes highly recommended as a difficult but ultimately hugely rewarding night at the theatre.
HEDDA GABLER
July 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, July 28, 2012
IBSEN’S bleak drama completes the Royal & Derngate’s mini-season of plays brought together by artistic director Laurie Sansom under the banner of the Festival of Chaos.
After Euripides’ The Bacchae and Lorca’s Blood Wedding, Hedda Gabler might almost seem like light relief – all elegance and repressed Scandinavian subtext, played out on Ruth Sutcliffe’s beautiful drawing-room set. Indeed, the opening exchanges between Janice McKenzie’s Brummie maid and the imperious Aunt Julie (Sue Wallace) suggest there may be some comedy to be mined from the melodrama.
All expectations in that direction are swiftly reined in, however, once the meat of the matter begins. Newly-married would-be academic Tesler brings his frosty bride Hedda home from honeymoon to face a life of boredom and propriety that will, she recognises, drive her insane. Her response is to destroy the entire edifice, one way or another.
In the hands of the spirited and classy Emma Hamilton, Hedda becomes not so much a tragic heroine as an amoral, vindictive black hole, devoid of feeling and utterly heartless in the face of what you might call normal human emotion.
Around her, the lives of her new husband – played with eager enthusiasm by Jack Hawkins – her former schoolfriend Thea (a brittle Matti Houghton), and Hedda’s lost love, the mysterious and self-destructive Ejlert (the brooding Lex Shrapnel), are blown apart by her wilful manipulations and headlong rush for oblivion.
Jay Villiers, meanwhile, provides a strong, slimy counterpoint to Hedda in the form of Judge Brack, whose attempt to play her at her own scheming game does nothing to avert the impending disaster.
It’s grim, impenetrable stuff, chillingly executed with a subtle directorial hand, and a fine conclusion to a festival that reinforces, once again, the dynamic dramatic powerhouse that the Royal & Derngate has become, and just how lucky Northampton is.
SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME
June 25, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 30, 2012, then tour continues
A COUPLE of years back, Birds of a Feather writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran were offered the ultimate playground: the back catalogue of Universal Music. The result was Dreamboats and Petticoats, perhaps the first stage musical to have been based on a compilation album.
Now they have performed the trick again, this time using (mainly) the songs of early 60s tunesmiths Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Since their track record includes A Teenager in Love, Sweets for my Sweet and Viva Las Vegas, you’d think it was a fairly safe bet for a jukebox musical.
And, in the hands of the comedy writing partnership, that’s pretty much true. Set in Lowestoft – very rock ’n’ roll – and telling the slight but sweet story of 17-year-old Marie’s holiday romance with a locally-stationed American airman, Save the Last Dance for Me is an unashamed romp through some well-loved standards.
There’s a terrific live band, led by Marc McBride, and some impressive singing voices among the energetic young company. And if the acting and accents don’t quite match up to the vocals, there’s enough charm and enthusiasm on stage to carry things through to a toe-tapping conclusion.
Megan Jones plays the youngster with wide-eyed innocence and considerable appeal, with Hannah Frederick – fresh out of drama school – also making her mark as Marie’s older sister Jennifer. Among the visiting Yanks, AJ Dean is strong and assured as the fun-loving ringleader Milton.
Nobody is likely to claim that this is high art, but as a pleasant trip down memory lane – evidenced by the ubiquity of grey hair in the audience – it’s a solid, well-constructed piece of light entertainment. And let’s face it: who wants to be intellectually challenged in Northampton on a Monday night anyway?
FESTIVAL OF CHAOS:
BLOOD WEDDING / THE BACCHAE
May 31 & June 8, 2012
Royal & Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 30, 2012
YOU can’t fault the scale of ambition of the Royal & Derngate under artistic director Laurie Sansom.
As part of an umbrella mini-season entitled Festival of Chaos, he is staging side-by-side productions of Euripides’ The Bacchae and Lorca’s Blood Wedding, with Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler completing the trilogy next month.
There’s much to be said for the overall notion and the imaginative weaving of the three otherwise unrelated plays into one sellable package. Comment on Hedda will have to wait, but in the meantime there’s plenty of meaty fare for critics and audiences alike from the initial pairing.
By far the more interesting of the two is The Bacchae, due in no small part to the choice of venue; a disused part of a printing press hall behind the almost defunct Chronicle and Echo building. The industrial setting – which I happen to know well from my early days in journalism – serves Sansom’s concept of a modern dictator state crumbling from within under the weight of its own autocracy.
The theme, and its attempts to resonate with current trends in the Middle East, unfortunately doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, since in the original Greek tragedy the Theban revolution is entirely down to the vengeance of the slighted god Dionysus, rather than a popular uprising against tyranny.
However, the staging is bold and impressive, with raked audience seating down one side of a supposedly underground car park while the action plays out amid the shadows and collapsing darkness of the concrete backdrop. As for the chorus of women who sing in a wide variety of styles, Dougal Irvine’s musical pastiches didn’t do it for me, but it’s a justifiable and brave effort to update an ancient classic.
Blood Wedding, by contrast, plays out moderately conventionally in the Royal auditorium – give or take the odd choreographed fantasy sequence – with some atmospheric designs by Oliver Townsend and evocative lighting from Philip Gladwell.
The cross-casting of the two productions definitely favours The Bacchae. Lorca’s lyricism and poetry, in Tommy Murphy’s rather ponderous adaptation, is somewhat lost in the mouths of the 12 actors. There is also a wide variation in quality, although Liam Bergin emerges with credit from both shows – as the forsaken bridegroom in Blood Wedding and the power-crazed ruler in The Bacchae.
It’s a laudable attempt at bringing these established texts to a new audience, and the aim is to be welcomed. One can only wonder what Sansom has up his sleeve for the bleak Norwegian masterpiece.
BETTE AND JOAN
May 8, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 12, 2012, then touring
TWO grandes dames of cinema’s golden age, fading in fame and glamour and with a history of rivalry and feuding, are thrown together on a movie that could be the last shot at reviving both of their careers. They are Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the film is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and the potential for conflict and drama is enormous.
So how playwright Anton Burge has managed to create something so static and undramatic is something of a mystery. This is not really a play at all, but a collection of anecdotes, snippets of gossip and tasty titbits wrapped up in a series of monologues and duologues and performed by the two ladies as if the audience is their confidante.
Fortunately, the lack of any narrative structure does not prove an insurmountable obstacle to the evening’s success, and this is largely down to the performances themselves, which are an object lesson in virtuoso acting.
Anita Dobson – onetime landlady of EastEnders’ Queen Vic pub – is statuesque, vitriolic and supremely devious as Joan, a wicked smile never far from her lips as she undermines, cajoles and even bullies her colleague.
Bette – a ‘real’ actress, as opposed to simply a movie star – is more fragile in the hands of Greta Scacchi, despite outward appearances of strength and determination. Both display genuine vulnerabilities and moments of poignancy, as well as plenty of catfighting bitchiness.
The pyrotechnics are directed by Bill Alexander and played out on a simple set of two adjacent dressing rooms on the studio lot, designed by Ruari Murchison and intelligently lit by David Howe.
And if the sum of the parts never quite ignites in the way that Baby Jane kick-started the careers of its two stars, it’s no reflection on either actress. It’s their two performances that make Bette and Joan a production worth catching.
LADIES IN LAVENDER
April 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, April 28, 2012
AN obscure short story from 1916, made into a quiet little British film by Charles Dance in 2004, was never likely to make for an evening of intense drama and high emotion.
It’s a small tale, about two spinster sisters who find a half-drowned young foreigner washed up on the beach near their clifftop home in Cornwall, then proceed to squabble over him like lovesick girls.
Nothing much happens, there’s no big climax and precious little in the way of character development. Yet it’s all done rather prettily, as it was in the film with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
In this new stage version, adapted by Shaun McKenna, their roles are taken respectively by Hayley Mills and Belinda Lang, and the gentle wistfulness of their playing lends the production much of its English charm. There’s good support, too, from Robert Duncan as the doctor who treats Robert Rees’s mysterious newcomer and Abigail Thaw as the visiting Russian artist who throws the spinsters’ hopes into confusion. Carol Macready offers additional light relief as the housekeeper Dorcas, who is given most of the best lines in McKenna’s rather routine, pedestrian script.
Liz Ascroft’s set, divided into four playing areas on varying levels, is beautifully dressed and should be clever and versatile. Instead, however, it ends up being cramped and cluttered, leaving director Robin Lefevre to force his poor actors into awkward spaces and positions. The result is some appalling sightlines and blocking that would look hideously unprofessional even on an amateur stage, and it’s something that really should be sorted out before this “Made in Northampton” branded product goes on tour.
That aside, together with the overall lack of excitement from the meandering pleasantness of the whole thing, it’s a perfectly acceptable and accessible little piece of lightweight, untaxing entertainment.
MOGADISHU
March 3, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, March 3, 2012, then tour continues
THIS is a play that desperately wants to inspire in its audience the reaction, ‘Dear God, is this the state of British education today?’
Unfortunately, for this viewer at least, it was more a case of ‘Dear God, is this the state of British new writing today?’
Vivienne Franzmann, its author, was an inner London secondary school teacher for 12 years, so will doubtless claim a high level of realism and verisimilitude in this story of alleged racism in the playground, which has mystifyingly won several awards.
Middle-class white teacher Amanda intervenes in a tussle between a black teenager and a Turkish swot, only to find herself pushed to the ground by the black boy. Her liberal instincts are to let the whole incident go, but her angsty teenage daughter (also a pupil) convinces her to report it. All hell then breaks loose as the boy turns it on its head and accuses her of racially assaulting him.
What follows is a polemical rant about the stifling bureaucracy of the system, the unfairness of racism legislation and – I think – the futility of trying to teach kids without any glimmer of hope. Oh, and there’s self-harm, parental abuse and suicide in there as well, for good measure.
But the messages are too numerous, too mangled and too blunt to lift the piece above the level of an un-nuanced diatribe, with two-dimensional characters spouting simplistic platitudes. To Kill a Mockingbird it isn’t.
It also falls foul of the tendency of much new writing to believe that powerful drama equates to people shouting obscenities at each other all the time. It doesn’t. Here, Franzmann is poorly served by director Matthew Dunster, who plays everything at such a frantic, in-yer-face pace that there is precious little room for subtlety or poignancy.
The real saving grace is a quietly impressive central performance from Jackie Clune as Amanda, who manages to mine some emotion and a modicum of credible motivation as her world falls apart. Everyone else behaves in utterly unbelievable, unjustifiable ways, purely to further the action of the predictable and unengaging plot.
In the interests of fairness I should record that there were a handful of people on their feet at the end. Whatever merits they discovered in this relentlessly bleak, humourless production must have completely passed me by.
THE KING AND I
February 8, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, February 11, then touring
THIS sumptuous revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1951 Broadway musical is as colourful, impressive and lavish as when it first appeared at Leicester’s Curve at Christmas 2010.
Its repackaging for a national tour has removed none of its spectacle or charm, and the production’s many strengths will doubtless appeal hugely to its target audience of musical theatre fans.
Director Paul Kerryson shows his usual talent for weaving big images together with subtle, nuanced moments, so that the large-scale second-act ballet is just as visionary as the secret stolen liaison between the doomed young lovers is emotional and moving.
His enormous cast serve him well, as does the rich orchestra under the baton of Julian Kelly, all aided by some ravishing set and costume designs by Sara Perks and sparkling choreography from David Needham.
Ramon Tikaram – fresh from his turn as angry Muslim dad Qadim in EastEnders – makes an enormously likeable king, complex and challenging and full of depth and mystery. He sings and moves well, but his biggest advantage is his power to grip the audience as an actor, finding subtlety and authority in this sometimes tricky role.
Opposite him, Josefina Gabrielle is charming and bright-eyed as Anna, the schoolmistress employed to teach some of the king’s hordes of children. She has a delightful singing voice and is not short of acting talent herself, and there’s more than a hint of Julie Andrews about the no-nonsense manner and clipped English vowels, rendering her Anna both sweet and strong.
Supporting characters are generally sound, if occasionally looking a little too European for the story’s overtly Oriental demands, while the numerous local children cast as the royal offspring are well-drilled and thoroughly professional.
With the ever-present treat of Rodgers’s gorgeous score to entertain, it’s easy to overlook the long running time (nearly three hours) and sit back to let the senses revel in this fine, good-looking production of a 20th century classic.
December 11, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Sunday, January 6, 2013
THERE’S something of a sense of déjà vu about this Cinderella. And if Northampton audiences are back for more after last year’s Bobby Davro-led Aladdin, then more is exactly what they’ll get.
Davro does almost precisely the same turn as Buttons as the one he did last year as Wishee-Washee. He even admits as much when he dons his outsize kangaroo costume for a daft, singalong routine to the strains of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, complete with same wisecracks, same pratfall and same cheap visual gag.
All of which is fine if it’s Bobby Davro’s routine you’ve paid your money to see. Elsewhere, it’s a straight-down-the-line, economy version of a traditional panto, with the producers’ money spent on the sets, costumes and star rather than invested in a quality script or – perish the thought – a live band.
There’s a passable good fairy turn from Denise Welsh, who looks distinctly uncomfortable away from the Loose Women table, and a few gratuitous male torsos to keep the mums happy, while media student Josh Coburn steals the acting honours with his perky, likeable Dandini.
With the exception of a few needless smutty innuendoes, there’s nothing much here to upset the undiscerning panto-goer, but it’s not going to set the world (or even Northampton) alight with the brilliance of its festive spirit.
And yet again, that reliance on pre-recorded backing tracks for the music is a major black mark against the producers, Qdos. Do yourself a favour and book instead for the vastly superior production of A Christmas Carol in the neighbouring Royal auditorium.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 30, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Sunday, January 6, 2013
THE problem with A Christmas Carol is that it’s just too familiar and well-worn. Somehow the Dickens characters these days have become as lifeless as stewed sprouts and as exciting as last year’s presents. So how do you make them interesting again?
The answer, appropriately enough in this 200th anniversary year of the author’s birth, is triumphantly on display in the Royal Theatre’s perfect Victorian auditorium. Yet again, the Royal’s creative team has raised the bar for Christmas shows. This one is, quite simply, sensational.
If you thought you knew every last nuance of the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his journey to revelation and renewal, then now’s the time to think again. With a combination of stunning design, breathtaking effects, seamless direction and – above all – real heart, this production of Neil Duffield’s intelligent adaptation brings Dickens fantastically to life.
From the opening sequence of carol-singers weaving through London fog against a murmuring, slightly menacing soundscape (Tom Kelly), director Gary Sefton strikes exactly the right balance of dark and light. This highwire act, treading between workhouse grimness and Christmas jollity, is judiciously reproduced in every aspect of the production, but nowhere more so than Michael Taylor’s extraordinary set. Vast, mobile towers comprised of leather-bound volumes, trunks and pieces of heavy furniture create a ramshackle arena that’s variously cramped and threatening (for Scrooge’s office) or open and warm (for Fezziwig’s party), with all shades of versatility in between.
The cast of seven, augmented by some thoroughly drilled youngsters from the local community, make full use of this wonderful environment to explore a story that seems, in spite of every classic retelling from Alistair Sim to the Muppets, to be as fresh-minted as the Christmas Eve snow which falls – yes, literally – in the theatre.
Sam Graham’s Scrooge appears to channel Victor Meldrew, while giving him a three-dimensional depth that is often lost in less thoughtful performances. But he’s far from alone. All the actors, playing multiple roles, deliver superbly, creating a world that is peopled by Dickens’s vivid creations, sometimes grotesque, sometimes gut-wrenching. Watch out in particular for Greg Haiste’s hilarious Mrs Fezziwig and Andy Williams as, among others, Jacob Marley and the Spirit of Christmas Present.
Superlatives are frequently overused in reviews, and five-star recommendations scattered about all too readily. In this instance, they are unreservedly deserved, together with the spontaneous standing ovation this show will unquestionably garner night after night. It is everything theatre is supposed to be: thought-provoking, inspiring, heart-warming and, ultimately, life-affirming. Miss it at your peril.
STEPTOE AND SON
November 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 17, 2012, then tour continues
A LONELY father and son scraping a living as rag-and-bone men and rubbing each other up the wrong way made for an extraordinary 12-year run of sitcom episodes in the 1960s and 70s. But that’s about as far as the similarity extends between Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s original BBC series and this new stage production from physical theatre specialists Kneehigh.
Joint artistic director Emma Rice has taken four of the television scripts and adapted them for a tour, fifty years on from the first screenings. But in spite of the cast’s energy and commitment, and the stuffing of lots of entertaining business into the gaps between lines, there’s a nagging question at the back of one’s mind throughout: why?
Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett made their characters of Albert and Harold so iconic that it’s a wise decision to move away from them entirely. Thus Mike Shepherd’s wiry, agile Albert and Dean Nolan’s vast but nimble Harold share little more than the lines with their TV counterparts in what amounts to a series of duologues interspersed with Kneehigh’s trademark knockabout comedy.
The fact that most of the laughs come from the inserted new business reflects significantly on the scripts, which seem slow, dated and (dare I say it?) a little pedestrian. Rice throws in an additional figure, an unnamed woman, who frames the episodes with some period outfits and LPs as well as the occasional walk-on role, but essentially it’s a two-hander, ably and confidently delivered by Shepherd and Nolan.
There’s some poignant pondering on the nature of loneliness – each of the pair suffers in their own way – and on the inextricable, trapping ties between father and son, but in the end it’s an oddly unsatisfying mash-up that serves neither to reinvigorate the original nor to mint a fresh new version for the 21st Century.
GOD OF CARNAGE
October 23, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, November 10, 2012
THE first thing to say about this production of French writer Yasmina Reza’s 2006 piece is that it looks great and plays fast and furious in the hands of a four-strong cast under the direction of Kate Saxon.
The second thing is that it makes for a pretty grim evening in its dissection of flawed human relationships.
Ostensibly a comedy, it puts two sets of parents together to discuss an attack with a stick by one of their offspring on the other. As the so-called grown-ups, their intent is to take a mature view of things and reach a satisfactory outcome. But over the course of 90 gruelling minutes, they reveal they can be just as childish and immature as their boys, and the meeting descends into farce, conflict and recrimination.
The problem with all of this is that the descent itself is heavy-handed, manipulative and utterly unpleasant. If I tell you that the biggest laugh comes from the copious – and I really mean copious – vomiting of one of the characters, you’ll get some idea of the level at which the playwright (translated by Christopher Hampton) pitches her comedy. An hour and a half in the company of these thoroughly nasty and unlikeable people leaves one simply wanting to take a shower.
Putting the seedy and distasteful subject matter to one side, there’s plenty of theatrical merit in the production itself. Some feisty performances leap across the footlights from an alarmingly raked set designed with clinical precision and style by Libby Watson.
Of the two couples, Melanie Gutteridge and Simon Wilson just about have the edge over James Doherty and Sian Reeves, although there is more for them to get their teeth into, and Wilson in particular makes terrific mileage out of his pompous, snooty lawyer character.
But the laughs are of the You’ve Been Framed, schadenfreude variety, and the discomfort we are meant to feel at the exposure of the self-centred veneer of middle-class respectability is too bluntly hammered home in a one-dimensional script that does a disservice to the talents on display.
RADIO TIMES
September 18, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 22, 2012
A JUKEBOX musical using the wartime songs of British composer Noel Gay, the man who wrote Me and My Girl? Sounds like it might be eeking out the material in a fashion strongly reminiscent of rationing.
And indeed, the story constructed around Gay numbers such as Run Rabbit Run and There’s Something About a Soldier is as convincing as dried egg and as thinly spread as half a coupon of butter.
It doesn’t help that the Watermill Theatre in Newbury has exercised its now well-worn approach of staging it with a large cast of actor-musicians, who deliver some visually stunning routines with rather less than top-quality musicianship. The problem here, of course, is that Caroline Leslie’s production requires first-class singers, top-notch dancers, professional actors and gifted musicians all rolled into one. That’s a tall order by any standards.
And yet there’s something winning and heartwarming about the show that has you strolling out of the theatre, humming one of those crusty old tunes with a smile on your face.
Maybe it’s the Blitz spirit encapsulated in the creaky tale of a BBC radio variety show trying to broadcast live in the middle of an air raid. Maybe it’s the homely charm of Tom Rogers’s evocative set and impressive array of costumes.
More likely it’s the twinkle in the eye of the show’s star, Gary Wilmot, whose irrepressible likeability and stunning talents simply ooze across the footlights. It’s just a shame he isn’t showcased much more in what is very much an ensemble piece.
There’s some terrific close-harmony vocal work from the four-girl backing troupe, a reliable rhythm section under musical director Paul Herbert and some excellent character work from John Conroy as a stuffy BBC producer.
But it’s Wilmot who carries the piece, lifting it from sentimental self-indulgence to a night of nostalgia, laced unashamedly with corny gags and Gay’s jaunty songs.
It’s harmless, entertaining and half an hour too long, but if you like your musicals old-fashioned and reliable, you could do a lot worse.
BULLY BOY
August 28, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, September 15, 2012
WHAT do you get if you put a fresh-out-of-drama-school youngster on stage opposite an award-winning actor with a CV as long as your arm? If Sandi Toksvig’s play Bully Boy is anything to go by, you can bank on a blistering firecracker of a performance that will haunt the memory for months to come.
The youngster in question is Joshua Miles, with only two professional credits to his name so far but an impressive career laid out ahead of him for the taking. He’s assured, talented and full of vigorous energy, constantly threatening to assault the senses in any way he can and frequently dominating the Royal stage with quiet emotion as much as volatile eruptions.
Alongside him in this powerful two-hander is Anthony Andrews, whose BAFTA-winning turn in Brideshead Revisited all those years ago promised a similar kind of future. Not that it was ever in doubt, but here he delivers on that promise in spades.
Of course, much of the credit for the punch-packing production belongs to its author, Sandi Toksvig, who reveals a huge dramatic skill to match her already evident talents in comedy.
Bully Boy tells the story of a young squaddie, Eddie, whose involvement in a tragic frontline incident in Afghanistan is investigated by the wheelchair-bound Falklands veteran Oscar, now a military police officer. As the backstory and current relationship between them unfolds, a series of revelations and surprises threatens each of them in different ways, peeling back successive layers of humanity.
Toksvig – a professed pacifist – resolutely refuses to peddle any particular line, giving her characters a broad and complex spectrum of views without ever pushing a political doctrine. This is much to her credit and the play’s advantage, spinning as it does a web of intrigue and uncertainty that seems to head first in one direction before veering off in another.
This vibrant script, brought vividly to life by the extraordinary players, is co-directed by Patrick Sandford and David Gilmore – the latter being the artistic director of London’s new St James Theatre, where the production heads next for a well-deserved West End outing.
With imposing design from Simon Higlett and superlative projections by Scott Radnor adding immeasurably to the effectiveness of the show, Bully Boy comes highly recommended as a difficult but ultimately hugely rewarding night at the theatre.
HEDDA GABLER
July 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, July 28, 2012
IBSEN’S bleak drama completes the Royal & Derngate’s mini-season of plays brought together by artistic director Laurie Sansom under the banner of the Festival of Chaos.
After Euripides’ The Bacchae and Lorca’s Blood Wedding, Hedda Gabler might almost seem like light relief – all elegance and repressed Scandinavian subtext, played out on Ruth Sutcliffe’s beautiful drawing-room set. Indeed, the opening exchanges between Janice McKenzie’s Brummie maid and the imperious Aunt Julie (Sue Wallace) suggest there may be some comedy to be mined from the melodrama.
All expectations in that direction are swiftly reined in, however, once the meat of the matter begins. Newly-married would-be academic Tesler brings his frosty bride Hedda home from honeymoon to face a life of boredom and propriety that will, she recognises, drive her insane. Her response is to destroy the entire edifice, one way or another.
In the hands of the spirited and classy Emma Hamilton, Hedda becomes not so much a tragic heroine as an amoral, vindictive black hole, devoid of feeling and utterly heartless in the face of what you might call normal human emotion.
Around her, the lives of her new husband – played with eager enthusiasm by Jack Hawkins – her former schoolfriend Thea (a brittle Matti Houghton), and Hedda’s lost love, the mysterious and self-destructive Ejlert (the brooding Lex Shrapnel), are blown apart by her wilful manipulations and headlong rush for oblivion.
Jay Villiers, meanwhile, provides a strong, slimy counterpoint to Hedda in the form of Judge Brack, whose attempt to play her at her own scheming game does nothing to avert the impending disaster.
It’s grim, impenetrable stuff, chillingly executed with a subtle directorial hand, and a fine conclusion to a festival that reinforces, once again, the dynamic dramatic powerhouse that the Royal & Derngate has become, and just how lucky Northampton is.
SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME
June 25, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 30, 2012, then tour continues
A COUPLE of years back, Birds of a Feather writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran were offered the ultimate playground: the back catalogue of Universal Music. The result was Dreamboats and Petticoats, perhaps the first stage musical to have been based on a compilation album.
Now they have performed the trick again, this time using (mainly) the songs of early 60s tunesmiths Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Since their track record includes A Teenager in Love, Sweets for my Sweet and Viva Las Vegas, you’d think it was a fairly safe bet for a jukebox musical.
And, in the hands of the comedy writing partnership, that’s pretty much true. Set in Lowestoft – very rock ’n’ roll – and telling the slight but sweet story of 17-year-old Marie’s holiday romance with a locally-stationed American airman, Save the Last Dance for Me is an unashamed romp through some well-loved standards.
There’s a terrific live band, led by Marc McBride, and some impressive singing voices among the energetic young company. And if the acting and accents don’t quite match up to the vocals, there’s enough charm and enthusiasm on stage to carry things through to a toe-tapping conclusion.
Megan Jones plays the youngster with wide-eyed innocence and considerable appeal, with Hannah Frederick – fresh out of drama school – also making her mark as Marie’s older sister Jennifer. Among the visiting Yanks, AJ Dean is strong and assured as the fun-loving ringleader Milton.
Nobody is likely to claim that this is high art, but as a pleasant trip down memory lane – evidenced by the ubiquity of grey hair in the audience – it’s a solid, well-constructed piece of light entertainment. And let’s face it: who wants to be intellectually challenged in Northampton on a Monday night anyway?
FESTIVAL OF CHAOS:
BLOOD WEDDING / THE BACCHAE
May 31 & June 8, 2012
Royal & Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, June 30, 2012
YOU can’t fault the scale of ambition of the Royal & Derngate under artistic director Laurie Sansom.
As part of an umbrella mini-season entitled Festival of Chaos, he is staging side-by-side productions of Euripides’ The Bacchae and Lorca’s Blood Wedding, with Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler completing the trilogy next month.
There’s much to be said for the overall notion and the imaginative weaving of the three otherwise unrelated plays into one sellable package. Comment on Hedda will have to wait, but in the meantime there’s plenty of meaty fare for critics and audiences alike from the initial pairing.
By far the more interesting of the two is The Bacchae, due in no small part to the choice of venue; a disused part of a printing press hall behind the almost defunct Chronicle and Echo building. The industrial setting – which I happen to know well from my early days in journalism – serves Sansom’s concept of a modern dictator state crumbling from within under the weight of its own autocracy.
The theme, and its attempts to resonate with current trends in the Middle East, unfortunately doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, since in the original Greek tragedy the Theban revolution is entirely down to the vengeance of the slighted god Dionysus, rather than a popular uprising against tyranny.
However, the staging is bold and impressive, with raked audience seating down one side of a supposedly underground car park while the action plays out amid the shadows and collapsing darkness of the concrete backdrop. As for the chorus of women who sing in a wide variety of styles, Dougal Irvine’s musical pastiches didn’t do it for me, but it’s a justifiable and brave effort to update an ancient classic.
Blood Wedding, by contrast, plays out moderately conventionally in the Royal auditorium – give or take the odd choreographed fantasy sequence – with some atmospheric designs by Oliver Townsend and evocative lighting from Philip Gladwell.
The cross-casting of the two productions definitely favours The Bacchae. Lorca’s lyricism and poetry, in Tommy Murphy’s rather ponderous adaptation, is somewhat lost in the mouths of the 12 actors. There is also a wide variation in quality, although Liam Bergin emerges with credit from both shows – as the forsaken bridegroom in Blood Wedding and the power-crazed ruler in The Bacchae.
It’s a laudable attempt at bringing these established texts to a new audience, and the aim is to be welcomed. One can only wonder what Sansom has up his sleeve for the bleak Norwegian masterpiece.
BETTE AND JOAN
May 8, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, May 12, 2012, then touring
TWO grandes dames of cinema’s golden age, fading in fame and glamour and with a history of rivalry and feuding, are thrown together on a movie that could be the last shot at reviving both of their careers. They are Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the film is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and the potential for conflict and drama is enormous.
So how playwright Anton Burge has managed to create something so static and undramatic is something of a mystery. This is not really a play at all, but a collection of anecdotes, snippets of gossip and tasty titbits wrapped up in a series of monologues and duologues and performed by the two ladies as if the audience is their confidante.
Fortunately, the lack of any narrative structure does not prove an insurmountable obstacle to the evening’s success, and this is largely down to the performances themselves, which are an object lesson in virtuoso acting.
Anita Dobson – onetime landlady of EastEnders’ Queen Vic pub – is statuesque, vitriolic and supremely devious as Joan, a wicked smile never far from her lips as she undermines, cajoles and even bullies her colleague.
Bette – a ‘real’ actress, as opposed to simply a movie star – is more fragile in the hands of Greta Scacchi, despite outward appearances of strength and determination. Both display genuine vulnerabilities and moments of poignancy, as well as plenty of catfighting bitchiness.
The pyrotechnics are directed by Bill Alexander and played out on a simple set of two adjacent dressing rooms on the studio lot, designed by Ruari Murchison and intelligently lit by David Howe.
And if the sum of the parts never quite ignites in the way that Baby Jane kick-started the careers of its two stars, it’s no reflection on either actress. It’s their two performances that make Bette and Joan a production worth catching.
LADIES IN LAVENDER
April 13, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, April 28, 2012
AN obscure short story from 1916, made into a quiet little British film by Charles Dance in 2004, was never likely to make for an evening of intense drama and high emotion.
It’s a small tale, about two spinster sisters who find a half-drowned young foreigner washed up on the beach near their clifftop home in Cornwall, then proceed to squabble over him like lovesick girls.
Nothing much happens, there’s no big climax and precious little in the way of character development. Yet it’s all done rather prettily, as it was in the film with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
In this new stage version, adapted by Shaun McKenna, their roles are taken respectively by Hayley Mills and Belinda Lang, and the gentle wistfulness of their playing lends the production much of its English charm. There’s good support, too, from Robert Duncan as the doctor who treats Robert Rees’s mysterious newcomer and Abigail Thaw as the visiting Russian artist who throws the spinsters’ hopes into confusion. Carol Macready offers additional light relief as the housekeeper Dorcas, who is given most of the best lines in McKenna’s rather routine, pedestrian script.
Liz Ascroft’s set, divided into four playing areas on varying levels, is beautifully dressed and should be clever and versatile. Instead, however, it ends up being cramped and cluttered, leaving director Robin Lefevre to force his poor actors into awkward spaces and positions. The result is some appalling sightlines and blocking that would look hideously unprofessional even on an amateur stage, and it’s something that really should be sorted out before this “Made in Northampton” branded product goes on tour.
That aside, together with the overall lack of excitement from the meandering pleasantness of the whole thing, it’s a perfectly acceptable and accessible little piece of lightweight, untaxing entertainment.
MOGADISHU
March 3, 2012
Royal Theatre, Northampton, until Saturday, March 3, 2012, then tour continues
THIS is a play that desperately wants to inspire in its audience the reaction, ‘Dear God, is this the state of British education today?’
Unfortunately, for this viewer at least, it was more a case of ‘Dear God, is this the state of British new writing today?’
Vivienne Franzmann, its author, was an inner London secondary school teacher for 12 years, so will doubtless claim a high level of realism and verisimilitude in this story of alleged racism in the playground, which has mystifyingly won several awards.
Middle-class white teacher Amanda intervenes in a tussle between a black teenager and a Turkish swot, only to find herself pushed to the ground by the black boy. Her liberal instincts are to let the whole incident go, but her angsty teenage daughter (also a pupil) convinces her to report it. All hell then breaks loose as the boy turns it on its head and accuses her of racially assaulting him.
What follows is a polemical rant about the stifling bureaucracy of the system, the unfairness of racism legislation and – I think – the futility of trying to teach kids without any glimmer of hope. Oh, and there’s self-harm, parental abuse and suicide in there as well, for good measure.
But the messages are too numerous, too mangled and too blunt to lift the piece above the level of an un-nuanced diatribe, with two-dimensional characters spouting simplistic platitudes. To Kill a Mockingbird it isn’t.
It also falls foul of the tendency of much new writing to believe that powerful drama equates to people shouting obscenities at each other all the time. It doesn’t. Here, Franzmann is poorly served by director Matthew Dunster, who plays everything at such a frantic, in-yer-face pace that there is precious little room for subtlety or poignancy.
The real saving grace is a quietly impressive central performance from Jackie Clune as Amanda, who manages to mine some emotion and a modicum of credible motivation as her world falls apart. Everyone else behaves in utterly unbelievable, unjustifiable ways, purely to further the action of the predictable and unengaging plot.
In the interests of fairness I should record that there were a handful of people on their feet at the end. Whatever merits they discovered in this relentlessly bleak, humourless production must have completely passed me by.
THE KING AND I
February 8, 2012
Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday, February 11, then touring
THIS sumptuous revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1951 Broadway musical is as colourful, impressive and lavish as when it first appeared at Leicester’s Curve at Christmas 2010.
Its repackaging for a national tour has removed none of its spectacle or charm, and the production’s many strengths will doubtless appeal hugely to its target audience of musical theatre fans.
Director Paul Kerryson shows his usual talent for weaving big images together with subtle, nuanced moments, so that the large-scale second-act ballet is just as visionary as the secret stolen liaison between the doomed young lovers is emotional and moving.
His enormous cast serve him well, as does the rich orchestra under the baton of Julian Kelly, all aided by some ravishing set and costume designs by Sara Perks and sparkling choreography from David Needham.
Ramon Tikaram – fresh from his turn as angry Muslim dad Qadim in EastEnders – makes an enormously likeable king, complex and challenging and full of depth and mystery. He sings and moves well, but his biggest advantage is his power to grip the audience as an actor, finding subtlety and authority in this sometimes tricky role.
Opposite him, Josefina Gabrielle is charming and bright-eyed as Anna, the schoolmistress employed to teach some of the king’s hordes of children. She has a delightful singing voice and is not short of acting talent herself, and there’s more than a hint of Julie Andrews about the no-nonsense manner and clipped English vowels, rendering her Anna both sweet and strong.
Supporting characters are generally sound, if occasionally looking a little too European for the story’s overtly Oriental demands, while the numerous local children cast as the royal offspring are well-drilled and thoroughly professional.
With the ever-present treat of Rodgers’s gorgeous score to entertain, it’s easy to overlook the long running time (nearly three hours) and sit back to let the senses revel in this fine, good-looking production of a 20th century classic.
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