First as tragedy, then as farce
King Charles III
by Mike Bartlett
The Questors at Judi Dench Theatre, Ealing until 4th May
A review by Matthew Grierson
Neither tragedy nor comedy, Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III blends both genres to offer us a history – or rather, an ahistory, given that it depicts a possible future spun from the state of the nation some five years ago. While the exact details do not thus correspond with ‘true events’, as they say, it’s remarkable that Bartlett is as successful at hitting its beats – a female PM, Harry consorting with a commoner and, most notably, a constitutional crisis – as he is in matching Shakespeare’s.
Questors’ eminently watchable, pacey production honours these intentions in the observance rather than the breach. It plays out dynamically on a plain thrust stage, in front of Victoria Smith’s minimalist set: one door to No. 10 and another to various rooms of Buckingham Palace, flanked by two blank portals. Above these is the screen on to which a suggestion of scene can be projected, whether the funeral with which the show opens, the House of Commons, or the interior of the palace itself. The latter is lit effectively to suggest the window through which Charles looks out on the kingdom he inherits – and divides.
By fitting its matter to the form of a Shakespearean history, the show makes its fake news more legible. Although the story is pulled by the twin poles of comedy and tragedy, it would stretch one’s suspension of disbelief to attach itself to either, for instance by remounting Agincourt or Dunsinane, even offstage, and even in the current political climate. So even while King Charles III is dramatic it never loses its grounding in reality. Similarly, the dialogue treads a careful path between Jacobethan drama and modern vernacular, in places achieving the resonance and lyricism of the Bard’s verse.
The playing of the public figures, too, conveys this sense of reality at one remove. Rather than opt for impersonations, director George Savona wisely draws out performances of character rather than caricature, meaning that laughs are earned legitimately rather than being bantamweight satire. Mind you, it would not be unfair to say that the play is well cast in terms of likeness. Ian Recordon as the titular, divisive monarch resembles the real-life HRH sufficiently that he could have gone for out-and-out mimicry, the Spitting Image version the new king recalls in a reflective moment. Instead, he gives an anchoring performance as a man beset by concern when he takes on the long-coveted crown, all the while keeping the real royal in view with discreet, unobtrusive expressions and hand gestures.
Responsibility and regalia make for a heavy burden; by my reckoning, even Recordon’s longest break from the stage must be spent getting togged up for the end of Act III ahead of the interval (well done costume designer Sarah Andrews). It’s thus to be expected that the actor might be a little shaky on some of his innumerable lines, but if anything this endears his portrayal of Charles to us all the more. By the time of his showdown with his sons in the palace in Act V, yours truly felt truly affected, and that’s coming from someone far from being a staunch royalist.
In contrast to his father, James Burgess as the balding William – a hairless heir? No, all right – is bold and resolute, but still fleet of foot enough at one point that he presumes to take the mic in place of his perplexed pater, something Savona’s direction accomplishes so perfectly you barely notice. Behind, or rather beside, this manoeuvre is Claudia Carroll as a friendly but firm, and firmly feminist, Kate.
Rather than leaving the role of Lady Macbeth solely in her hands, though, Bartlett Lear-like splits that legacy three ways, and also getting a look-in as ambitious women are Lisa Day as Charles’ helpmeet Camilla and Samantha Moran as the ghost of … Well, that would be telling. Perhaps more pertinently, an audience acquainted with current affairs over the past three or four decades will see each of these women have more justification for seeking power than some have allowed the Scottish play’s fiend-like queen.
If Bartlett eschews absolute villainy for nuance here, there are more Machiavellian possibilities with politicking opposition leader Mr Stevens. As the top Tory Simon Taylor cuts an odd figure, considerably less Latinate and more avuncular than any parallel you may care (or not care) to identify. There’s certainly enough latitude in Bartlett’s script to make him into a neo-Iago, and as a result I can’t decide whether Taylor’s portrayal is a missed opportunity or a conscious decision to avoid extremes.
We’re on firmer ground with the PM, Mrs Evans. Portrayed by the aptly named Pamela Major, she may be as put-upon as the current incumbent of No. 10 but is in contrast a model of leadership. She’s just as determined to defend democracy – in this case, against the king’s idiosyncratic vision of the popular will – but she still manages to do so maintaining a humanity and good humour all but missing from Mrs May. And OMG you should see her face when she realises the king has invited Stevens to the weekly meeting: it’s a picture.
Mediating between politicos and princes is press advisor James Reiss, who is of all characters the most conscious of the public picture the palace residents paint. Francis Lloyd is thus pitch-perfect in his mediated performance, winningly cool and cruel when he feels the need but also able to express his care for his charges and concern for the continuity of the monarchy.
Indeed, the play shares with Shakespeare a preoccupation with people consciously performing roles, particularly in the exercise of authority. There’s thus a tender irony in the fact that this, unMarkled Prince Harry has the persona of Hal thrust upon him by his aide, Spencer (Jason Welch, giving it the full ‘Yah, bro’), when, back from military service he proves a reluctant rake. Oscar Gill’s charming version of the ginger joker supports a touching romantic subplot with an art student he meets in a nightclub, but drama and duty mean that this relationship must eventually echo Hal’s with Falstaff. Unlike Sir John, thankfully, the only respect in which Roselle Hirst’s Jessica is rounded is her characterisation, a winningly republican comment both within and without the Windsor camp.
On the face of it, the political arguments that play out over the show’s two-and-a-half hours are precipitated by a storm in a teacup: of all things, Charles is exercised by the need to maintain press freedom, when as both he and the PM point out the media has never been a friend to him. The bait of legislation restricting runways is also dangled before the new king, and with later mention of his visit to the flooded Somerset Levels, plus Charles’ known environmental concerns, I did see the ghost of another play haunt this one, preoccupied not with the state of the nation but the state of the world. When the Met Commissioner (Deborah Flatley) remarks that ‘reserves are cut, no more to come’, I couldn’t help but think of the policing of this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests, and the environmental issue the play avoids is only going to get more pressing in reality.
Nonetheless, it is the press that is Bartlett’s theme, and however contrived the conceit, public image is explored intelligently through the play. But let’s not forget that our impression of who the royal family are is heavily coloured already by the Fourth Estate, especially since the days of Diana. In which case, it’s not so much the freedom of the press that is at issue, rather its decision to continue reinforcing the narrative it has itself established: of Charles as a proto-Hamlet, the earnestness of his eldest, and his younger son as a playboy with a conscience.
Telling its story in the overlap on the Venn diagram between the red tops and the Complete Works, King Charles III may signify that Britain is ‘a weakling shadow’ of its Golden Age, as Charles fears he will be as monarch. Or, it may show us that we can survive a new constitutional crisis without resort to civil war. Who knows, it may even turn out to be truer to history than Shakespeare’s versions of the past.
Matthew Grierson
April 2019
Photography by Rishi Rai
Δύναμη από Σύγχυση
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
adapted by Rona Munro from the novel by Louis de Bernieres,
Neil Laidlaw, RTK Productions, Church & State Productions and Birmingham Repertory Theatre at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 12th May, then on tour until 29th June.
A review by Mark Aspen
War is a confusing thing, a messy thing. Many things happen, and for many motives and conflicts may not be confined to the battlefield.
Confusion and a mess of action open the Rose’s enthralling adaptation of de Bernieres’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. There is a contemplative flash-forward between two soldiers and then a whirlwind of movement, a confusion of characters, some who seem nether to look nor sound like the inhabitants of Cephalonia, where the play is set. The strong accents are those more from around the various parts of British Isles than those from the islands of the Ionian Sea. Actors double and treble, some play animals, while settings change across each other. There is the hustle and bustle of rural and maritime life, thrown into confusion during the attack by Mussolini’s forces in 1940, following Gen Metaxas’ declaration of no surrender on 28th October, Επέτειος του Όχι (the Day of “No”). All this commotion, however, sits within the seasonal enfolding of Cephalonian life and the ordinary complexities of its human relationship. Hence, director Melly Still creates a mood piece, which lasts most of the first half of the play, to set the scene.
This mood is nevertheless set within the permanence of the island itself and the long continuing history of its peoples. That permanence is embodied in the two oldest characters, Dr Iannis, the local physician and herbalist, and Drosoula, an elderly widow. Iannis’ view of their world is rooted in history, in the Greek journey “from the mundane to the eternal”. After all, sitting in Homer’s wine-dark seas, between Cephalonia and the mainland is Ithica, the goal of Odysseus in his wanderings. So here is a place to be patient. Drosoula is the island’s matriarchal symbol and a staunch nationalist and acts as a foil to the communist sentiments expressed by others, as presage of the civil war yet to be endured.
Joseph Long totally lives the part of the proud, erudite Dr Yannis, so full of wisdom and of love for his daughter Pelagia. His avuncular authority bristles like his splendid moustache. The poetry and the insight of this character are so accurately expressed by Long, that one can almost read his thoughts. Eve Polycarpou is the epitome of the Greek widow of yore, and as the only mother-tongue Greek speaker in the cast, she is steeped in the character of Drosoula. Moreover, Polycarpou has a beautifully resonant voice, a strong mezzo sung with her whole body: θαυμάσια !
The mood and the permanence is powerfully and imaginatively captured by renowned Greek designer Mayou Trikerioti. The overarching element is a massive pellucid foil rhombus the full height of the acting space, the island’s rockface, which forms the background for mesmerising light and video effects, by Malcolm Rippeth and Dom Baker. The predations of nature: sea, sun, earthquake; and of military: barbed wire, bullets, tanks, are here all writ symbolically in light.
Another element that makes Captain Corelli’s Mandolin so watchable is the use of special effects, for example a shoal of silvery fish that quiver through the air, and yet another is the physical theatre that makes the piece so alive. An athletic chorus moves with balletic grace, or creates an idea or an artefact from their bodies. Soldiers’ backpacks become springboards to the next action.
Also part of the action is Jon Nicholls’ sound design, but as the very title suggests, this is a play about music. Harry Blake has composed a number of pieces for this production, some folksy, some powerful, some haunting, but Verdi and Puccini are very much in evidence. The Italian army seems to march not so much on its stomach as on its music. The operatic capabilities of our chorus are quite impressive too. In play full of ironies, the Italian squad even use operatic ironies. They march in with The Prince’s famous aria from Turandot and make much of the final sustained, “… vincerò! vincerò!”, but is it love that conquers or war?
But when Dr Iannis spiritedly stands up to the next wave of conquerors, the German invaders, the defectors sing Lauretta’s “O mio babbino caro”, for Iannis is now the “dear father”.
This is all clever stuff, but what of the plot? Well, there are plenty of sub-plots, but it is getting on for the interval before the main plot begins to develop and a narrative untangles itself from the business of life and war. This revolves around the ill-fated loves of Pelargia.
In the tight-knit community Pelargia’s first sweetheart is a local boy, the illiterate fisherman Mandras, Drosoula’s son. Pelargia does not requite the earnestness of his falling in love, so he goes to war, much to his mother’s dismay, to prove himself. However, war brutalises him, and eventually wrecks him physically. When he returns, ridden with every parasite known to entomology, her affections have completely cooled, “hollowed out … now love has dried up”. The chilliness is compounded by his not having answered any of her myriad letters (he cannot write!). The emotional journey of Mandras is a long one, but Ashley Gayle, in this role, does not deliver this length, nor the depth of the character.
Within the entwined confusions of the tousled first half, another sub-plot emerges, the friendship of two Italian soldiers, Carlo, increasingly disaffected with war, and his comrade Francesco, engaging played by Fred Fergus, a gentle easy-going man, who even befriends a mouse. They are sent, unknowingly to them as agents provocateurs, disguised as Greek soldiers (unconvincingly pantomimic in their ceremonial Evzone uniforms completed with pom-pom clogs!) and Francesco is killed. As Carlo cradles him in his arms, he realises that they were more than just brothers in arms. Carlo is thus set up to be the ardent symbol of the futility of war in the second half.
Then the second half comes and the main narrative emerges, when the eponymous Captain Corelli comes into Pelagia’s life. It is the Romeo and Juliet plot, as hearts reach to each other across the warring divide. Greek and Italy in the Second World War, though, far supersede any complexity of the Montagues and Capulets, and ramp up the complexities of falling in love for the hapless Pelagia.
Captain Corelli is a reluctant soldier, and would rather be playing his mandolin, making music not war. His billet is the requisitioned house of Dr Iannis where he at first treated with indifference by all. But he has winning ways, helped by his devotion to his music, manifest even in his men who keep fit by singing. Alex Mugnaioni is a twinkling eyed energetic Corelli, albeit with a more than a hint of an English officer and gentleman about him. Mugnaioni has learnt to play the mandolin by Sergi Vacca, and his wistful Vivaldi-esque pieces demonstrate a remarkable capability for the instrument. (Mugnaioni did however blot his copybook when, four weeks before opening night, he left the original highly valuable 1890 mandolin on Sidcup train, a Wildean mishap that proved to be quite a publicity boost.)
Pelagia is a highly intelligent and knowledgably young lady, who has learnt the physician’s art, not only from her father, but also by using an inquiring mind, to gather knowledge of local herbs and of animals, even, when food is scarce, dissecting a chicken before it goes in the cooking pot. She is no only beautiful, but has the added bonus for Corelli of speaking Italian, which she does very forthrightly. Making a fresh debut in a major role, Madison Clare is captivating as Pelagia, absorbing her feisty character and travelling with all the triumphs and tribulations which fate has paved her road to love.
Indeed true Capuletarian contrariness leads her to fall in love with Corelli, not that one could not see that coming an Adriatic’s width away. Dr Iannis at the end of an eloquent soliloquy on love sums it up, “love is a madness; that is its nature”.
In all its ironies, there is much to jerk the tears and lump the throat in this remarkably poetic piece of theatre. Perhaps the epitome of this is the episode that references the massacre of Acqui Division (on 26th September 1940, when 5,200 Italian soldiers who had refused to surrender to the German forces were put to death). Corelli and his platoon are lined up to be executed as renegades. They bravely face the firing squad, singing the humming chorus from Madama Butterfly as they are all shot.
When Corelli is brought to Dr Ianiss’s surgery, he is discovered to have survived badly wounded. The strings of his mandolin are used to suture his wounds. He owes his life to Carlo, the same agonised spirit whom we saw as the symbol of war’s futility in the first half. Carlo had shielded Corelli with his own body in an act of sacrifice. His penultimate words are “keep the love alive … in perpetuity”. Ryan Donaldson’s depiction of the romantically redemptive and independently willed Carlo is powerfully inspired. However, why, amongst Still’s mishmash of accents does Donaldson keep his rich Ulster accent in this role? (Equally baffling is the casting of Kate Spencer as Günter, the Nazi officer at the massacre. A fine actress, she is acting her socks (jackboots?) off, a svelte and statuesque young lady, to portray a character based on General Lanz, a balding middle-aged Wehrmacht war-criminal.)
Many of the minor roles in this production really shine, Kerenza James as the sparky mischievous child, Lemoni, for example. But really outstanding are two actors who play the animals which form part of the Cephalonian household. In the hands (hooves?) of physical comedy actress, Luisa Guerreiro, the Goat really lives a one woman caprine Greek chorus, constantly silently commenting on the action and injecting much needed humorous relief. Here is a goat with a catholically omnivorous appetite. I was quite disappointed when a hungry Italian soldier carried her off, “bella capra”, to eat! Equally fascinating is Elizabeth Mary Williams as Psipsina, a pine marten that is rescued from the barbed wire to become a family pet. Williams is lithe, vivacious and athletic as the inquisitive tiny rodent. Both Guerreiro and Williams must have spent hours studying these animals to get the nature of their movement and temperament to a tee.
A flashback between Carlo and Corelli parenthesises the flash-forward at the beginning, but the epic scale of this production does not allow an end. It moves on from WWII, to the Greek Civil War, to the Ionian earthquake of the 1950’s, to the later tourist invasion. This adaptation cannot release itself from the ambitious intricacies of the novel and, instead of extracting the quintessence of the story, continues, like a major symphony, to a number of grand finales. But, in the end, how many endings do we need?
Enfin, a baby found in the rubble of the earthquake becomes a symbol of hope, but in a play of multiple ironies this symbol dashes the hopes of the lovers. The infant, informally adopted by Perlagia, is seen as her own daughter by the returning Corelli, and what could have been is not.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin inverts the old adage: now, all’s unfair in love and war.
Mark Aspen
April 2019
Photography by Marc Brenner
In the Midst of Life
BU21
by Stuart Slade
OHADS at Hampton Hill Theatre until 27th April
Review by Eleanor Lewis
Terrorism-related drama is all over the place. A couple of years ago Hampton Hill Theatre staged a production of The Mercy Seat, Neil LaBute’s tale of opportunism in the midst of 9/11. On television The Looming Tower dealing with the run up to the same 9/11, is about to hit BBC 2, and even Radio 4’s daily fifteen-minute drama on Woman’s Hour is currently a story of terrorism. It would be dismissive though to describe BU21 as simply timely, it is an extraordinary piece of writing, adroitly performed by OHADS at Hampton Hill Theatre this week.
BU21 is the flight number of a plane which, at some point in a present day summer, crashes onto London having been hit by a surface to air missile, fired by a terrorist. Unsurprisingly it causes carnage and worryingly carnage is something we in 2019 have begun to get used to. This play however, covers the seismic effect the carnage has on those who live on after it. Writer Stuart Slade assembles six characters in a survivors’ group who meet regularly to try and come to terms with what has happened to them.
“In the midst of life we are in death, from whom can we seek help?” is a quote familiar to many of us but for the three male and three female characters at the survivors’ meeting it’s their reason for being there. Six characters speak occasionally to each other but mostly in monologue whilst at the edge of what any human being can be expected to process. Each individual story is both unpredictable and totally plausible.
It’s a credit to this production that no acting performance was stronger than any other, all six actors inhabited their characters with clarity, integrity and considerable skill. Amy Hope and Stephanie Von Weira as two young women forced to react to equally shocking events, moved on from them in different directions but took their audience with them all the way in what passed for decision-making when so much of their essence as human beings was compromised. Emily Moss as the terribly burnt crash victim was brave and tragic in equal measure and provided pause for thought on the idea of ‘not letting them beat you’. How much of a sacrifice does that actually involve, and is it worth it?
Charlie Golding as the chirpy London builder caught by the media while rushing to help and thereby launched into his fifteen minutes of fame, was a character with a story which initially sparked a judgemental view and then snatched that away. Hadrian Howard played the one darker-skinned character in the group, this single feature bringing him yet more issues than usual including the simple task of travelling on the tube with a rucksack in the wake of a terrorist attack. His character’s storyline seemed contrived at first but was actually no less believable than the fact of a plane falling suddenly from the sky onto the people below, and the level of his performance left little room for any scepticism.
Gwithian Evans, was recognisably insufferable and very clever as banker Greg, shouting through the fourth wall to challenge the audience as to why they had come to gawp at these people. Greg took what he could from the attack and ultimately developed his own detached mantra for surviving anything (and feeling nothing). He retained a surprising amount of heavily disguised humanity nonetheless, his being another story that could not be predicted. In other hands this character might have been allowed to dominate at the expense of the others but the restraint applied by both director and actor to this role was completely appropriate.
OHADS have excelled themselves in this production, director Dane Hardie has produced a haunting, powerful piece of theatre which strikes precisely the right tone. There was no sentimentality, no smoothing over or avoiding the unpalatable, there were no pauses for effect because none was needed. Michael Bishop’s gentle lighting and Fintan Davies’ unobtrusive but complimentary sound were absolutely right. Similarly the set by Jenna Powell and Lizzie Lattimore, a black stage with the half-tidied debris of a major catastrophe swept into corners, was a visual image of the detritus of our lives and a poignant reminder of all it will amount to in the end.
Despite the dark subject matter this isn’t a piece without humour, because generally human beings aren’t without humour, particularly in adversity and there are several laugh out loud moments (I particularly liked the Stephen Hawking moments). An impressive amount of thought, care and sensitivity went into this production. And whilst it’s probably necessary to say that this won’t suit those who have issues with language (there is a great deal of swearing), and the subject matter is graphic, this is a very well-produced, well-acted, engaging and intelligent piece of drama and this reviewer can only highly recommend it, and OHADS.
Eleanor Lewis
April 2019
Photography courtesy of OHADS
Into a Glass Darkly
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde, adapted by Séan Aydon
Tilted Wig Productions at Richmond Theatre until 27th April, then on tour until 18th May
Review by Mark Aspen
If conscience could be put into abeyance, where would that leave morality? Tilted Wig’s stylish and innovative production firmly tilts Wilde’s Faustian parable of the nature of morality towards us all, in a setting that hints constantly at reflections.
Director Séan Aydon’s bold adaptation condenses Oscar Wilde’s only novel down to a two hour melodrama that overplays and underplays the story’s themes in equal measure. As a piece of theatre, it is a triumph, but it is a triumph with “buts” …
The eponymous Dorian Gray’s soul-selling licenses him to exploit his youthful good looks and vigour in pursuit of a life of pure hedonism, whist its consequences are transferred onto a painted portrait which bears the disfigurement of his decline into dissolution. So Gray gives the excitement of evil full throttle and the picture takes the kickback.
A clear triumph is Sarah Beaton’s design. The set is a mansion of not so much faded grandeur as dank dilapidation, decay instead of decoration: Gray’s world is grey. The effect is old-master symbolism; think Jan Gossaert. The period of the costumes is fugitive, not 1890 Wilde, not 2019 London, but disconcertingly in-between. Jon McLeod’s music and soundscape is eerie, startling, yet ephemeral. Matt Haskins lighting is atmospheric chiaroscuro. The whole design induces uneasiness, although pointing to perennial themes in the plot. “But” a purist might feel short-changed of a period piece, and subtlety is sometimes lost with sudden music punctuations or lighting pointing out weapons ahead of the plot. Audience mumblings suggested that playing nineteen scenes in multiple locations on a single set baffled some.
The plot revolves around the three principal men, Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward an established society portrait artist, and the Mephistophelean Lord Henry Wotton. It is implied that all three are bisexual, although the homoerotic undertones in Wilde’s original are downplayed; and to advantage, as the 1890 legal and social constraints lack relevance in the indeterminate setting. Nevertheless, there is an emotional power-play between the three, who all take wide emotional journeys as the plot relentlessly enfolds.
When we first meet Dorian Gray, he is self-effacing, diffident, personable. He can hardly believe that an eminent artist admires his beauty and has captured it on canvas, to the delight of both of them. Gavin Fowler plays Dorian as an easy-moving innocent abroad, apparently oblivious to the attentions of two older men. He is to take the longest emotional journey, as he is seduced into abandoning concepts of morality as artificial, and taking an accelerating downward path to depravity. Fowler’s depiction of Dorian’s decline to indifferent coldness, then to arrogant heartlessness, and on to a cruel callousness that borders on psychopathy is chillingly believable.
Dorian has become a muse to the artistic temperament of Basil who now cannot bear to part with his Mona Lisa creation. Basil’s attraction to Dorian is quite clear but his relationship is platonic and becomes increasingly protective. Basil’s is the voice of conscience for Dorian, but one of rapidly waning effect.
The catalyst for Dorian’s decline is Lord Henry Wotton, a hedonistic arch-cynic. He is intrigued when he sees the sublime portrait created by his former Oxford chum, Basil, and insists on meeting Dorian, whom he then proceeds to indoctrinate with his personal philosophy. Morally is an illusion, self-pleasure is paramount and all that matters is youth and its beauty. Henry’s seductive sardonic style captivates Dorian. Henry gets all the best Wildean aphorisms; oh yes, including the cynic being one “who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing”, rather contrarily from Henry’s mouth.
Jonathan Wrather certainly looks the part of the louche Henry, oiled-back hair, complete with devilish widow’s peak as slick as his silver tongue. He plays Henry as a suave Lothario, totally self-centred. There is a sense of untamed menace showing beneath the urbane veneer. The body-space intrusions and sweeping gait speak it all. Henry’s subjugation of Dorian’s morality is almost engineered. He is the Screwtape who feeds the rope for Dorian’s ethical gallows.
Dorian squirms a bit on this ethical rope, and we long for redemption when early on he seems to fall in love with Sybil Vane, a rising young actress of some clear talent. Henry does not approve of Sybil, or of her socially inferior status, whereas Sybil’s sister Catherine does not approve of Dorian, and makes her views strongly felt. “If he harms her I will hunt him down like a dog”, she spits. Nevertheless, Dorian and Sybil become engaged to be married. However, on the day that Henry and Basil come to the theatre to see her perform Shakespeare, she fluffs her part as Juliet, for acting no longer matters now she is in love for real. Her change of image for Dorian knocks her off of the pedestal he had made in his mind for her, and he cruelly jilts her. “Now, you don’t even stir my curiosity”. Sybil is so distraught that she commits suicide. (The character’s name is thought to be an amalgam of characters from romantic-tragic novels by Disraeli, but note the classical allusion to the prophetess who stood at the gates of Hades.) Kate Robinson’s bubbly innocent Sybil is spot on and her rendering of the dejected and rejected fiancée is heart breaking.
The philosophy of Henry admits no such mishaps, and he convinces Dorian that the suicide was no more difficult for her than acting Ophelia or Desdemona, her “greatest romantic tragedy”. They go off together to the opera, followed by a night on the tiles with another woman.
There is an exquisite tiny cameo by Samuel Townsend as Dorian’s manservant, trying to wake him from his hangover the next day; just in the actor’s body language and look of pure disdain. Townsend also gave us a great piece of comic relief in his Romeo, a textbook exemplar of Victorian declamatory acting.
Dorian, horrified to see a twisted look of cruelty on the hitherto pristine portrait of himself, which is now in his possession, hides it beneath a sheet (of anachronistic bubble-wrap). But now we can only recoil at his state of mind, as he visits the mortuary where Sybil’s body lies, not to see her, but to ask “What does it feel like to cut up a dead body?” of a pathology student he meets. This is Ellen Campbell, a lovely young woman, who he then seduces. Adele James (doubling also as a feisty Catherine Vane) depicts Ellen’s conflicted emotions with pinpoint accuracy.
Henry has a dismissive attitude to his own brittle marriage, one largely of convenience, to Victoria. Such now is Dorian’s depravity that he seeks out his mentor’s wife. However, does he seduce her, or does she seduce him? He meets his match, for Lady Wotton is a lady to be reckoned with. Not only is this goose for Henry’s gander, but Lady W obviously relishes the frisson of danger in flirting with a now near-psychopath. Phoebe Pryce is peerless as the elegant, statuesque Lady Victoria Wotton, cool and deliciously in control.
The depths are plumbed when Henry organises a drug-fuelled sex orgy to fire Dorian’s perversions further. The staging is stylised as a dance to heavy-metal music and bathed in red light. Under Jo Meredith’s choreography the effect is mesmerising, as the convulsive dance of depravity explodes into exhaustion. The morning after the night before, Dorian’s rules are dehumanising; all should leave without knowing even each other’s names.
Eighteen years of Dorian’s excess take their toll on Henry’s now jaded appetite for sensual pleasure. Meanwhile Basil has observed the vileness of the situation he has created in encapsulating the consequences of Dorian’s amoral life into the once beautiful picture. It is with barely disguised disgust, deep regret at his actions, and mounting fear at the outcome that Basil visits Dorian to ask for the portrait back. He wishes to exhibit it in Paris and there stay for many months to work on a redemptive piece of art. But when he sees the horror of Dorian’s life that has been subsumed into the portrait, now an image of a hideous monster, he is overcome with fear and can only plead for divine intervention through his prayers. Basil’s voice of conscience now speaks loudly to Dorian, but he only wants it silenced. So he kills the voice of conscience. Dorian’s stabbing of Basil to death is vicious in its mechanical brutality (another all-too realistic creation of acclaimed fight director Bethan Clark). “But” pity about the over-manged neatness of the enactment on a precisely placed piece of bubble wrap. (Doesn’t Kensington gore clean off as easily as it used to?)
Daniel Goode gives a superbly nuanced performance as Basil Hallward. The slight campness in the open scenes is replaced by a true representation of the character’s sense of responsibility as he becomes more grounded in the realisation of the uncontrolled wantonness he has released. The awkwardness of trying to say the right thing is gradually replaced by guilt at the unbridled atrocities his once greatest masterpiece has uncaged. Goode subtly portrays all these registers of mood.
The big “but” comes towards the end of the play when the adaptation seems to have said all it needs to, and yet still goes on, perhaps intending to get in all of the details of Wilde’s novel into the closing scenes, rather than accepting the essence of the tale. It then begins to feel too long. It is a pity. A small “but” is a problem that is becoming perennial, that is the way television acting seemingly spoils an actor’s need to keep the delivery big enough to actually be heard at the back of the stalls. When so much of the joy of Wilde’s writing is the cleverness of the wit, it is a huge shame not to hear it.
Nevertheless, this is a piece of theatre that is a sophisticated statement of complex psychological, philosophical and spiritual question of the nature of morality. Why and how do we have a conscience? This play never shows us the final picture of Dorian Gray, but we see the transparent canvas as he lifts it to look at himself. And then we see ourselves reflected. The floor of the stage, the base parts, are also reflective. Maybe without constraints, any of us could be a Dorian Gray. Moreover, it is not bound by spatial or temporal anchors. So the where and when are irrelevant too.
How would we behave if we could put our conscience into abeyance, park it on a portrait, later to pick up our unsullied selves? No, no, The Picture of Dorian Gray tells us, our conscience is what we are, and when our conscience dies, so do we.
Mark Aspen
April 2019
Photography by Craig Sugden
The Jig’s Up
Kemp’s Jig
by Chris Harris
Blue Fire Theatre Company at Tara Arts Theatre, Earlsfield until 23rd April, then on tour until 17th August
Review by Andrew Lawston
In 1599, Elizabethan comic actor and clown Will Kemp danced from London to Norwich, following his departure from the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, William Shakespeare’s company. When I’d first read about this epic jig, it was in a context where it appeared as little more than an eccentric footnote, and it struck me as more of a quixotic mission than a show business masterstroke. Now, Steve Taylor’s revived performance of Chris Harris’s one-man show Kemp’s Jig for Blue Fire Theatre Company and producer Lottie Walker, expands on the 125 mile Morris Dancing adventure. The perfect show to mark both St. George’s Day, and the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death; and of course birth. (Kemp’s Jig is part of the Tara Theatre Celebrates Shakespeare week, which includes The Dramatic Exploits of Edmund Kean.)
On a plain set that consists almost entirely of a map of Kemp’s route, a screen, and a trunk emblazoned with its owner’s name (“Kemp with a ‘p’, not Kemp with an ‘e’,” as Kemp keeps reminding the audience), Kemp relates the tale of his feat, with frequent digressions into his theatrical career, and grumbling about his former colleague “Shakesrags”.
On several occasions, wonderful puppets and other props are brought out of the trunk to help him perform scenes from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Merchant of Venice and, finally, after a full show of Kemp shouting, “I should have played the Nurse!” from Romeo and Juliet. Sometimes Kemp even showcases the dancing which made his feat so extraordinary, but these sections are few, and generally brief.
Taylor maintains character as Kemp at all times, even when interacting with the audience at Tara Arts Theatre by handing them his props for safekeeping. A one-man show of ninety minutes (not including an interval) is a huge undertaking, and the script is clearly divided into sections to help the performer, with, I suspect, at least a couple of aides memoires in Kemp’s trunk. Even when Taylor’s focus is occasionally visibly shaken, however, he remains in total command of the material.
As the tale of a comic actor, Kemp’s Jig is inevitably very funny. But it’s not all laughs, as Kemp talks frankly about being glad to be out of plague-ridden, filthy London, and gives a stomach-turning description of dragging Shakespeare to a public execution. He claims Shakespeare couldn’t eat for a week after witnessing the gruesome spectacle, and then begins a flashback of an extended argument with the Bard which comes as welcome comic relief. These interludes (between Taylor as Kemp and Taylor as Kemp as compulsively beard-stroking “Shakesrags”) are consistently entertaining, though as the show goes on it becomes very difficult to think of William Shakespeare as anyone other than whining old Albert Steptoe. Which is almost certainly deliberate.
“Let those that play your clowns say no more than is set down for them,” is Hamlet’s famous line that many scholars have believed to be a dig from Shakespeare aimed directly at Kemp’s ad-libbing and embellishments, and Kemp repeats it often, alternating between gleeful pride and professional disdain. Kemp has a great deal to say, and its delivery is unfailingly entertaining. The show sets up an intriguing conflict between character comedy and more performative slapstick, audience interaction, and visual comedy material. While it’s clear which side of the argument Kemp favours, it’s hard to dismiss Shakespeare’s more thoughtful approach.
Featuring a wonderful performance of Morris Dance from Dacre Morris, the members of whom sit patiently at the side of the stage throughout, Kemp’s Jig is a thoroughly irreverent and entertaining look at England’s theatrical and social history.
Andrew Lawston
April 2019
Photography by JoJo at Handwritten Photography and Timeline
Caveat Emptor
Glengarry Glen Ross
by David Mamet
ATG, Act Productions, Glass Half Full Productions and Rupert Gavin, Richmond Theatre, until 20th April, then on tour until 4th May
A review by Matthew Grierson
The secret of a successful magic trick, I understand, is distracting the audience from the sleight of hand involved. But if sales is a kind of magic, then the customer can just as easily be distracted by being told the mechanism by which the deal itself is made. After all, if the salesman is telling you how he is doing it, he can’t be untrustworthy – can he?
The deals to which we are party in Sam Yates’s slick revival of Glengarry Glen Ross have exactly this quality about them. When we first encounter Nigel Harman’s mesmeric Ricky Roma, he is deconstructing the art of the sale over a drink in a Chinese restaurant, telling us how it depends on living in the here and now – as his own performance demands it does – and that one needn’t nurse remorse about what one wants or how one gets it. It doesn’t matter that what he’s talking may be BS: he absolutely sells it.
More to the point, he absolutely sells us the idea of Ricky as a seller. James Staddon as the hapless James Lingk hangs on his words as much as we do, and it gradually becomes clear Ricky is talking his fellow diner into a deal. As we’re reminded, ‘Always be closing.’ And as the first act closes, the lights dim and Harman seems positively Mephistophelean.
Each of the scenes in the first half has something of this dynamic. The preceding exchange, between sales colleagues Dave (Denis Conway) and George (Wil Johnson) in the same restaurant, seems likewise to be a discussion of the way their workplace works, but the former is becoming increasingly apoplectic and taking the latter into incredulity along with him … Only it turns out that Dave is inveigling George into being a stooge in more than just comic terms. Again, Conway and Johnson sell this relationship beautifully, Dave’s diatribe, replete with throwaway bigotry, conjuring nervous laughter from the Richmond audience.
But the sell to which we are first exposed is the hardest of all: Mark Benton’s Shelly is trying to convince office manager John Williamson – Scott Sparrow, maintaining an icy and functional calm – that he is worthy of the premium leads that will restore his place on the chalkboard league table. Shelly’s struggle to negotiate his way back to success works in inverse correlation with Benton’s capacity to affect us; to put it another way, the actor’s stock is as high as his character’s is low.
Chiara Stephenson’s impressive but otherwise empty restaurant set, in which all these scenes take place, concentrates the essential loneliness of the salesman’s art, the valiant or vain struggle of the patter against consumer resistance in the era of Reaganomics. It also allows the characters to sharpen themselves against one another for the second act, which returns us to their real-estate office the next morning, after it has been broken in to. It’s an impressive change of set for the interval, although given that it’s no more messy than a number of offices I’ve worked in, I wondered whether the stagehands would do better to take less rather than more care about how they put it together.
As the pairs of the first half come into play against one another, we witness new aspects to each of them. Buoyed up by a successful morning’s sales, Shelly is now confident enough to tear Dave and John to pieces. His re-enactment of the deal he has closed again makes play of the fact that he has let the customers in on the secret of the sales. Why, even Benton’s glasses twinkle in the lights with the recollection of it. Such is his conviction that even Ricky marvels at it, believing he still has tricks to learn from the older man. But when Dave returns, Harman and Conway are circling each other like wild animals to give their machismo room to preen.
The salesmen are now competing not only with one another but with the law, though, in the form of Officer Baylen (Zephryn Taitte), whose height allows him to exert a presence beyond his limited dialogue. That presence is in turn used to emphasise the power of both Harman’s performance, when Ricky squares up to the cop, and the brilliant diffidence of Benton’s, when he equivocates between submitting to interview and maintaining a ruse set-up with his colleague.
The play’s careful balance of tragedy and comedy is apparent here. Mistimed interventions from John and Baylen move the plot along, forcing Ricky to try to keep the reluctant Lingk on the chain – Harman is never more sincere than when he is selling – while Shelly edges round the room as though in a farce. Careful stagecraft does not labour the conflict Mamet has cleverly dramatised between the ruthless free market and the rule of law.
If the blocking can attain the balletic, the delivery of dialogue can at times be machinic; but the full emotive force of it is paid out by the unfortunate customer as Lingk departs, distraught not by the fact that he has betrayed his wife but that he has let down Ricky himself, whose full skill and power are again thrown into relief.
As the drama draws to its own closure, Ricky laments that the profession is a dying breed. Sadly, rumours of the death of the salesman are greatly exaggerated: 35 years after the play was originally put on we have a mountebank in the White House and daily talk on this side of the Pond about the need to get a deal done. Mamet’s script acquires particular new resonance in that it turns on the theft of customers’ personal details, a concern only more pertinent in the age of GDPR. Once more, the production is effective on this point for having not overemphasised it.
Of course, Glengarry Glen Ross’s true sleight of hand is that it sets up a plot that plays out, but not as we expect it to – let’s just say that a poor salesman makes for a poor thief. Mamet may have sold us a dummy, but on the strength of this evening I’m not cooling off any time soon.
Matthew Grierson
April 2019
Photography by Marc Brenner
Keeping Up Appearances
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
Q2 Players, The National Archives Theatre until 13th April
a review by Matthew Grierson
The Importance of Being Earnest is, at face value, a play about appearances. It relishes them and the fictions woven around them – the Bunburyism that is Algie’s creed – rather than the realities they conceal. To paraphrase another wit: sincerity is all that matters, and once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
In this respect, Q2’s production of Wilde’s classic comedy works when it keeps up appearances, and suffers when it fails to maintain them. The confected lives of Jack and Algernon convince as long as one doesn’t linger too long over their absurdities; but this staging has a stop–start rhythm that in places fails to maintain its facades. In Jack’s interview with Lady Bracknell, for instance, Tim Williams makes for a game dame, but his responses to his prospective son-in-law sound like punchlines to jokes that haven’t properly been set up, as David Tedora struggles to convey the essential nervous garrulity that the scene demands.
While her ladyship insists on Victorian formality, the set conveys the milieu in an unusually minimal way, making effective use of projections on a screen behind to offer some depth. But then instead of exploiting the space this lightly furnished setting affords, the action largely takes place in one plane, as though projected on a screen itself. It is only as the play moves towards its end and the couplings of Jack with Gwendolen and Algernon with Cecily are confirmed that we get some sense of a third dimension, with one beau pulling his respective belle towards him and the other repeating the action in front.
With so few moveables, the scene changes ought to be a piece of proverbial cake (plenty of which is served up in the action), but they are long, fussy bits of business; at the same time, they allow the awkwardly affectionate affair between Miss Prism and Rev. Chasuble to play out delightfully on the screen. Are the stagehands extemporising to afford us this entertainment, in much the same way as the characters do? If so, fair play to stage manager Charlotte Priestly and the two butlers who help her out.
I’m making this sound like a curate’s egg, though, and I don’t think that does the show justice (Chasuble is a canon after all) because there is an eagerness to please that evidences the earnestness of the cast. To coin a Wildean apothegm, to play The Importance as a string of funny lines may be a misfortune, but not to play it as a string of funny lines would be careless. And one could hardly in this instance say the lines were immaterial, as they conjured the requisite laughter throughout Thursday’s audience.
Hugh Cox lights things up from the start, with his perky and expressive Algernon. I’d say he owes something of a debt to Bertie Wooster, only that would be a little anachronistic, and Algie is also quicker on the uptake than Wodehouse’s hero. Slightly less quick on the uptake is Tedora’s Jack, who hasn’t yet mastered the comic timing that should make the piece sing; never mind pulling one over on Gwendolen and her mother, he needs a more commanding presence if he’s to convince us that he’s as earnest as he makes out.
As Algie’s Aunt Augusta, Tim Williams takes this production down the line of the pantomimic; it’s a brave move, especially in the shadow – or the light of – the acclaim won recently by the much more diminutive David Suchet as her ladyship in the West End, but Williams gives a solid performance, in several senses, anchoring the particular tone of this staging, and he neither milks nor underplays the handbag.
In the role of his/her daughter Gwendolen, Rachel Burnham offers a full, and fully crafty, portrayal, from which it is hard to take one’s eyes. Even in a small gesture such as pretending to follow her mother offstage, when she has been forbidden to converse with Jack, the single step Burnham takes before remaining precisely where she stands is a model of playful poise.
Equally watchable is Ellie Greenwood as Cecily, confined to the countryside by her guardian but living an imaginary life through her diary. Once she has ensnared Algie, who is posing as Ernest, there is an endearing twinkle to the way she reads this diary back to him, to reveal that – in her version of events at least – they have already been engaged for months.
With the characters of both fiancées nicely established, the stage is set for their meeting and misunderstanding. Their first encounter, which starts the second half, does not disappoint: the manners of the maidens run the gamut of faux-friendliness, passive aggression and finally fellow feeling – I punched the air when they pronounced themselves sisters as the boys had predicted – the scene perfectly played, paced and blocked.
There is a likewise enjoyable dynamic between Laurie Coombs as Miss Prism and Craig Cameron-Fisher as Chasuble, whose romance plays out in the background – I derive the metaphor from the literal here – of the two young (well, youngish) couples. Chasuble could merely have been a stooge for Jack and Algie’s impromptu demands, but Cameron-Fisher has him perk up with pecuniary interest when a funeral or christening is in the offing; and he is nicely balanced by Coombs, who allows Prism as much girlish fantasy as her charge, in remembering the sentimental three-volume novel she composed as a younger woman. We all place our faith in such fictions.
If these pairings work, the denouement is nevertheless a bit of a strain. While individual lines get their laughs, Sarah Hill’s direction at this crucial juncture lacks sufficient zip or zing to suspend our disbelief. Lady B’s ad lib about looking up the name of Moncrieff Sr in the National Archive is on its own terms fine, but it throws Jack off and gives us all pause to ponder the unlikelinesses that have stacked up to get us into this situation. While it may be difficult for Jack and Algie to maintain their earnest fictions for the women in their lives, Earnest needs at least to sustain that story for the audience.
Matthew Grierson
April 2019
Photography by Simone Germaine Best
Concentrated Imagination of Observation
Annual Photography Exhibition 2019
Richmond and Twickenham Photographic Society at Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington until 22nd April
Review by Diana Bucknall
The Landmark Arts Centre is situated in the towering remains of part of a French Gothic church, the ‘cathedral of the Thames Valley’, formerly St Alban the Martyr, once ruined, but patiently and laboriously restored. It is now a thriving arts venue. Until the 22nd April the Richmond and Twickenham Photographic Society is staging its annual photography exhibition.
Of the 150 members, 63 have chosen a theme and been allotted a panel on which to hang their work. Some are displaying panels of images which recently gained them distinctions with the Royal Photographic Society.
Poppies at the Tower by James Kirkland
It is interesting to step into these differing scenarios and see the world through different eyes. To focus on the elegant curve of an Art Deco staircase and, then by another member, the beautiful upward spiralling staircase in the Queen’s House in Greenwich, or another of white sandstone steps fading into a hazy Mediterranean mist. There are photographs of grand architectural buildings on the Isle of Dogs, street art in Shoreditch and a small white walled church on the shores of a distant loch.
Chiswick Park, by John Penberthy
We are taken on safari and gaze into the eyes of a lion and come too near to a rhino even with a long lens from a Land Rover for my liking. There are flights of swans and a scattering of landing flamingo, a huddled kestrel, an egret in a tree and several stages of an iridescent kingfisher catching and eating a fish which must surely be bigger than itself.
The unnerving stare of owls catches the attention, the downward sweep of its wings rendering one owl into a feathery ball. Equally unnerving are hooded Spanish Paschal penitents seeking absolution.
Glasshouse Semi Circles by John Penberthy
For balm to the senses there are early morning mists rising over dewy meadows, the brume lifting from seashore creeks and, gazing out to sea, towering craggy protuberances dotting the view to the distant horizon.
There are portraits of many kinds, some posed and some natural. One set of photographs of native African women showed them relaxed and smiling, certain in their trust of the photographer. Others showed Indian men working at their various trades. There were theatrical portraits, many of dancers and behind the scene sets.
Shadow Dancers by Jay Charnock
Digital photography has afforded many differing techniques, photoshopping allows manipulation of the image, special papers produce varying results, the framing and presentation of the prints has an effect too. Images of leaves taken with an infrared lens in the plant house in Kew are particularly beautiful. Huge patience is needed for the macro shots of insects showing great detail and there is one of a lovely hairy bumble bee taken on its pollen-laden flight.
Many of the members of the photographic society are of more mature years but a promising youngster Amy aged fourteen has a panel of her own showing scenes on her allotment, most notably one with a large sunflower in the foreground.
Also showing at the centre are excellent imaginative photographs from pupils at St Catherine’s School for Girls in Twickenham and the Royal Photographic Society’s Visual Art Group’s 2019 Print Exhibition.
Although there are over 500 photographs shown, the exhibition is well laid out with plenty of space to see all the exhibits. Many prints will be available for sale. There are refreshments in the Landmark café for the weary and a feast for the eyes.
Diana Bucknall
April 2019
Photography by James Kirkland, John Penberthy, and Jay Charnock
Let All The Children Boogie!
Footloose
by Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie
HEOS Musical Theatre at The Judi Dench Playhouse, Questors, Ealing until 13th April
Review by Andrew Lawston
The stage of the Judi Dench Playhouse at Questors is largely bare, with some scaffolding at the back, with a burger bar and a petrol pump (or should that be gasoline pump?) decorating the wings. The playing area is clear for a lot of dancing.
This might seem odd on the face of it, given that we’re here for a musical based on the 1984 film Footloose which, famously, is about a town where dancing is banned.
But as the band strikes up, and the scaffolding poles reveal themselves to be suitably festooned with strings of LEDs, it’s clear that we’re in for a night of rock and roll excess, 80s style. HEOS Musical Theatre gamely adopt American accents and cowboy hats for Laurie Asher’s new production of Footloose, with just a few opening night technical jitters from the sound system.
Bacon is off the menu, but Chris Yoxall leads the cast with a strong and likeable performance as Ren McCormack, the Chicago kid dropped into the backwater of Bomont. Coupled with Gina Ackroyd as Ariel Moore, the minister’s daughter, who brings the house down halfway through the first act with a belting rendition of Holding Out For A Hero, the two of them scream at trains and belt out numbers with great gusto throughout, holding the show together.
Reverend Shaw Moore, the grief-stricken minister responsible for coming up with the law prohibiting public dancing within Bomont’s town limits butts heads with most of the young cast and quite a few of the older characters as he defends his stance. Chris Gibson is called on to play a challenging role, as the actor has to find new ways of delivering ideas that the character essentially repeats endlessly throughout the show. His wife, Vi, played with energy by Sue Yoxall, gradually takes on greater authority as Shaw’s moral stance rings ever more hollow. I felt this couple were the most interesting characters within the play, in terms of the journey they went on throughout the show. They also provided an effective contrast with Sarah La-Plain’s down-but-not-out Ethel McCormack, Ren’s mother, who seems to feel just as trapped as her son in Bomont’s oppressive and conformist atmosphere.
While the musical numbers were always going to be the main attraction, Andrew Murphy stole much of the show with a perfectly-timed comic performance as Willard Hewitt, complete with cowboy hat and in dangerous need of dance lessons. His hesitant attempts to court Holly McIntosh’s vivacious and loquacious Rusty provided many of the production’s best laughs.
Antonio Spano also shone as the belligerent Chuck Cranston – a truly despicable character, with not a great deal to do except to intimidate and manhandle people, Antonio managed to make the role believable, and oozed aggression and imminent violence whenever on stage.
This production boasts an enormous cast, some of which get more to do than others. Gemma Hunt and Deborah Alawode add weight to the girls’ songs as Ariel and Rusty’s friends Urleen and Wendy Jo, most notably for Holding Out for a Hero and Somebody’s Eyes. Tyrone Haywood, David Claffey, Melissa Chitura-Bidwell, Vanessa Plessas, Richard Abel, David Nolder, Anne Murphy, Alex Turner and Richard Nolder round out the teenage and adults casts respectively, with Pam Armstrong appearing on roller skate for the first time, according to the programme notes! With a host of additional dancers swelling the ranks for big numbers such as I’m Free/Heaven Help Me, Still Rockin’, and of course the various iterations of the eponymous hit Footloose, Michelle Spencer’s choreography makes full use of the theatre’s wide playing area and the multi-level opportunities provided by the scaffolding set. By the end of the show there are dancers in the aisles, and all over the stage, a real spectacle that must have required a huge amount of coordination in rehearsal.
Two musical directors, Richard Fairhead and Terry Gardner, do justice to the music in Footloose, with a band of seven musicians (including Fairhead on keyboards) supplying the evening’s soundtrack. There seemed to be occasional glitches with the sound system and levels that I was sure would be ironed out throughout the run, but the band played a blinding variety of tunes, with heavy emphasis on 80s synths and big guitars.
Laurie Asher and Stuart La-Plain’s empty set is dressed with swift efficiency and spartan scenery elements for each new scene, with benches being dragged in for the church, or a basketball hoop being fixed to the scaffolding for a school gym. With Rob Luggar’s crisp lighting defining rooms and locations, and varying the feel of the stage enormously, the effect is of a much more varied and lavish set. And Fiona MacKay’s costumes add to the visual spectacle, a riot of colours and glitter for the teens, and frumpy muted colours for the repressed adults.
Footloose is presented here very much as a boy meets girl musical, and HEOS have pulled it off in spectacular fashion. All in all it’s a great night of fun at Questors.
Andrew Lawston
April 2019
Photography by Margaret Partridge
Zinging with Zaniness
The Cat in the Hat
by Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel), adapted by Katie Mitchell
Curve and RTK Productions at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 21st April
A review by Mark Aspen
Zip, zap, zing ! Here’s a show with go: slow, no; a show with go! Pulsating rhythms propel The Cat in the Hat, a show bursting with energy and gushing with fun. Don’t sit still: there’s audience interaction, which the Rose audience of excited children of all ages did not hold back on. But, whether you are seven or seventy, don’t try this at home!
Nevertheless, it all starts a little more downbeat(ish). Boy and his older sister Sally have been left at home. It’s raining; they can’t go out to play; they are borrrrred. Mischief rears its head. Out come the giant water pistols. There was a health warning in the foyer, but they’re dressed in yellow sou’westers, we are not. Of course on press night a lot of water is aimed towards the ranks of critics with their open notebooks (but it won’t water down our reviews).
Sally is, half-heartedly, in charge. So, she says, let’s read a book … or perhaps play with my new chemi-set. (Sally is a budding scientist.) Boy is more interested in larking with Mum’s newly iced birthday cake, or perhaps with the goldfish bowl. Sally’s attempts to prevent mini-disasters cues in lots of opportunity for athletic physical theatre, later to develop more and more into full-blown circus skills … but more of that later.
Melissa Lowe’s Sally veritably fizzles with her wide-eyed sense of fun and of wonderment, which the audience finds infectious. Sam Angell makes a perfect foil as Boy, as his head-scratching feel of bewilderment has the children in stitches. It is a fresh, young retake of Laurel and Hardy, with oh yes, plenty of slapstick.
Sally resorts to the towering bookshelf and pulls out Dr. Seuss, whose books taught so many American children to read (and British ones to misspell). Seuss’ rhymes and onomatopoeia made him a much-loved children’s author, to say nothing of the sheer anarchic zaniness of the “plots” … a zaniness totally undisguised in this The Cat in the Hat.
Is it Sally’s chemi-set or the Seussist imagination that suddenly brings a new manifestation to the goldfish bowl? For suddenly in a bubble storm the mantelpiece, where the bowl lives, parts as Fish spins in in a large zorb-ball. Clad in beautifully imagined gold scales, Fish is the moderating voice of reason. And it is the voice of the genteel governess, strict, refined, the clipped tones contrasting with Boy and Sally’s provincial timbre. But when Charley Magalit, in this role, sings, her operatic background is obvious. Her coloratura soprano hides a Queen of the Night wanting to get out. All this whilst zorbing as she dances in a confetti swirl. But all the cast are multi-taskers par excellence.
The versatile music and accompanying songs by composer Tasha Taylor Johnson (who also composed for last year’s just as subversive yet fun-filled George’s Marvellous Medicine at The Rose) are just right for the ambiance of The Cat in the Hat. The soundscape is complemented by sound designer David Gregory’s neatly integrated, and many, sound effects.
The sense of magic hangs in the air, but I did mention mischief rearing its head, but now mischief personified knocks on the door. It is the eponymous Cat, suave, urbane, seductive, with a Sir Jasper-ish sniff of danger about him. He wears The Hat, a floppy barber’s pole of a stovepipe topper. Sally and Boy let him in.
Cat summarises his philosophy in song, “It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how”. Then he demonstrates it in various ways. Nana Amoo-Gottfried is a magnificent Cat: he has the character spot on, down to a whisker, sings and dances with a feline agility, and is a great equilibrist with tricks that must need nine lives to rehearse. Cat’s antics culminate in his standing on a rolling knee-high ball whilst balancing a dozen items on his extremities, paws, feet, The Hat, and tail (do cats have prehensile tails?). However, Cat’s modesty is not constrained, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me now!” he sings. But, as they say, pride comes before a fall. The first half, to use a current term, crashes out.
Zany and zanier, the second half zips zestfully in. The balanced items now hang from the cornice, the rafters, swing from the chandelier. These include the goldfish’s bowl’s contents now in the teapot up on the roof, whence Fish’s voice of reason tries to become the voice of conscience.
When Cat promises “the only thing larger than life” it is a big black box, ostensibly and “provably” empty. Various incantations (in-cat-ations?) later, and a loud chorus of purrs and meows from the whole theatre, open this Pandora’s Box. Out spring the impish figures of Thing 1 and Thing 2, and the mayhem is ramped up. The hyperactive Things bounce around like demented kittens after a caffeine overdose. The terrible twins, with their alarming bright blue coiffure, burst through paintings and literally run up the wall.
The Cat in the Hat was conceived in association with the National Centre for Circus Arts, and it shows. All the cast has consummate circus skills, but these skills reach their apogee with international gymnastics gold medallist, Celia Francis as Thing 1 and graduate circus artist Robert Penny as Thing 2. They seem as nimble and lively and are almost as destructive as the squirrels that devastate my garden. Their dismantling of a bed and their flying indoor kits complete the havoc. Certainly Francis and Penny’s tumbling skills, all done a break-neck speed are second to none. In the audience near me, even though her brother was helpless with laughter, a little girl was aghast; as was the very proper Fish, marooned on the roof. Then from her vantage point, Fish sees the approach of Mum!
All is solved with a giant vacuum cleaner and sorting out machine driven by Cat, which would have made Heath Robinson green with envy. This is one of many whacky design triumphs by the team led by designer Isla Shaw. The house is a Seuss look-alike cartoon pastel, but cram-packed with special effects that dismantles and reassembles itself with seeming automatic ease. Lighting designer Zoe Spurr has a team of nine to create her magic and its associated animated gauze effects and chases. The whole design is a technical tour de force.
One can only imagine the huge fun that the whole company under director Suba Das, an Associate Director at Curve, must have from the undoubted hard work in pulling this cat out of the hat, whilst of course avoiding any cat-astrophes in pushing physical theatre so far.
As critics, we must of course see the deep existential meaning behind the play. But with The Cat in the Hat this play is play, and you will pleased to know there is none … oh, but hold on, there is … don’t leave your children alone in the house, whatever you do!
Mark Aspen
April 2019
