Other-Worldliness of Delight
Iolanthe
by W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan
Sasha Regan’s All Male Iolanthe
Regan De Wynter Williams at Richmond Theatre until 19th May, then on tour until 28th July.
A review by Eleanor Marsh
Let us get the preconception elephants out of the room first. They are:
1 – Iolanthe is a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, therefore it must be dated and boring.
2 – This is an all-male version so must cheapen the material and be played totally for laughs.
Neither is accurate and if this review can make just one person who doesn’t already know G&S, or knows them so well they think that any new interpretation is sacrilege, go to see this wonderful company then my work here is done!
The purpose of any review is to “tell it like it is” with honesty and ideally without cruelty. This is not always as easy as it might seem. The problem with Sasha Regan’s All Male Iolanthe is that it is both innovative and technically excellent and leaves little – if anything to complain about.
W.S Gilbert’s storylines are always complicated and a little silly. Iolanthe is no exception and requires more of the audience in their suspension of disbelief than most. Here, the initial premise of the discovery of a Narnian wardrobe and dressing up clothes is an excellent device to immediately transport the audience to a land of make-believe. There are later references to Neverland, too, just in case there is any danger of our forgetting that we are in a bizarre fairyland that also features the House of Lords. The antiquated appearance of the minimal set is complemented by an effective “dusty” lighting design and inspired costumes; fairies are obviously fairies because they have wings (made of bunting and other assorted haberdashery) and the Peers are obviously peers because they wear dressing gowns and hats that denote some type of “authority”. It is bizarre and wacky, and it works beautifully.
There is no reference on the programme to the pianist, so I assume that Musical Director Richard Baker is tinkling the ivories himself. He is totally exposed, with the grand pianos sited almost in the front row of the audience and is obviously enjoying playing the score. Well done to the Richmond Theatre audience for giving him a proper round of applause to himself. It is refreshing to see just the grand piano in evidence and, although there were a few musical “effects”, this pared back interpretation helped enormously to continue the “playing dressing up game” theme.
The music itself is a delight and credit must go to Mr Baker and Vocal Consultant Alan Richardson for all they’ve achieved on this show. It is not often a vocal consultant is mentioned in a review but what a job Mr Richardson has done to get all of those very obviously men to sing female roles at pitch without the necessity of a rather nasty Mediaeval surgical operation!
Now to the cast themselves. I must confess to a certain trepidation before the curtain went up and could not imagine how this whole event was to be pulled off without at least one drag queen performance slipping into the mix. I need not have worried. The female roles are all played as straight as a G&S script can be and I can only imagine the amount of study that has gone into the deportment and body language to make these chaps appear (and sound) so womanly. Joe Henry’s Phyllis would not look out of place as the ingénue in an Agatha Christie play. He also has excellent comic timing and made a role that could purely be a plot vehicle genuinely funny and engaging. Likewise, Christopher Finn as Iolanthe was delightful, and I think I had something in my eye when he sang “My Lord, a Suppliant at Your Feet”. It was beautiful.
The male roles are equally well played and sung with just the right amount of tongue in cheek to remain respectful. I was exhausted just watching the physical jerks of Duncan Sandilands’ Private Willis (think Tom Daley crossed with Windsor Davies’ Sgt. Major Williams), who can also sing a mean bass. And top marks to Alastair Hill’s Lord Chancellor whose famous “Nightmare Song” was a joy – every word clearly articulated without losing any of the pace of a patter song.
The principals are supported by an extremely strong supporting company. The choral singing is glorious, and they can all dance, too! Speaking of dancing, Mark Smith, the amazing choreographer for this show is deaf. He has built in sign language for the fairies, which is performed gracefully and adds enormously to the other-worldliness of the opening of the show. It is an inspired artistic device that also sends out a subliminal message of inclusivity to the audience.
In short this really is a must-see production. I urge you to throw your pre-conceptions and prejudices aside and make the most of the opportunity whilst you can – there are only three performances at Richmond Theatre left!
Eleanor Marsh
May 2018
Photography by Buckingham Photography
Retiring Collection
Sherlock Holmes, the Final Curtain
by Simon Reade after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Kenny Wax at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 19th May, then tour continues until 28th July
A world premiere production
A review by Mark Aspen
Sherlock Holmes has hung up his deerstalker and extinguished his meerschaum calabash. In Simon Reade’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, now playing at The Rose on its second leg of a national premiere tour, we find him eking out his time at a cottage on the coast in Sussex, dabbling in beekeeping and fly fishing; retired, bored and paranoid.
So, what has happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s consultant detective? The world first learnt about Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet in 1887 and, within a few years were on the edge of their seats, reading Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Strand Magazine. After 56 short stories and four novels published he had progressed onto the screen in the 1900 film, Sherlock Holmes Baffled. At least two hundred films have followed, with Holmes portrayed by over seventy actors, most famously by Basil Rathbone, who starred in fourteen Sherlock Holmes films during the Second World War. Within the last few years, we have had, the BBC’s television drama Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. However, with Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, there is a feeling that the concept is running out of steam.
It is 1921, and the BBC has started a new service, wireless broadcasting. Dr Watson, now a psychoanalyst, has been invited to present a talk on the fledgling service, and he tells about an incident that occurred a few years before, when a dead body of a young woman is discovered on Holmes’ private beach. Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, takes its inspiration from The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane, in which the mysterious means of death of a body found on a Sussex beach is solved by Holmes as being the result of a sting by Cyanea capillata, the lion’s mane jellyfish. However, in this story, the venom is not from jellyfish, as first thought, but from bee stings. It seems that Holmes’ current paranoia is justified: someone is trying to frame him, and he suspects that it is by way of revenge for the death of Prof Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, some three decades previously.
This could have been a promising start for a sequel, but Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain is full of inconsistencies and confusions, where there could have been intriguing twists, and has a thin plot, and where there could have been verdant opportunities the seeds of promise fail to germinate. There are not one but two irrelevant codas to draw out. Moreover the plot is contained within the portfolio of Watson’s wireless broadcast. The broadcast serves to show how Watson is embracing the new technology of the twentieth century, as opposed to Holmes who is distrustful of it, although it serves him well in the denouement of the plot.
Timothy Kightly’s Dr Watson is warm and avuncular and Kightly takes up the opportunities to develop the character. In the radio studio, he has some telling conversations, about the pace of change in technology that could easily echo eighty years on in our own time, “it all moves so fast”, with Rose, Anna O’Grady’s icily supercilious BBC producer. She explains why she and the announcer are in black tie, “the listeners sense it”.
The story proper, within the story narrated by Watson, starts on the Sussex shoreline with Detective Inspector Newman, played brusquely and efficiently by Lewis Collier, examining the body on the beach, together with Sherlock Holmes, of whom Newman is acutely suspicious. He scoffs when Holmes pulls out the famous magnifying glass and boasts that he can identify all 184 types of pipe tobacco … there are 250 replies Newman … and the 42 different patterns of bicycle tyres. “We know it is a Dunlop”, retorts Newman. Holmes clearly has not kept up his Continuing Professional Development. However, Holmes gets his own back by pointing out the dead “man” is in fact a young woman, Tilly Simons, whom he had recently interviewed for a domestic post.
Unfortunately the enervated plot is not helped by a lacklustre set. To be sure, designer Jonathan Fensom’s set dressing of 221B Baker Street is well studied for the period, as are the costumes, but that’s all we get. Other locations are played out on the apron, front of curtain. The BBC studio is mocked up with a few props, a period microphone and a bust of Aristotle (that we later see parked at the back of 221B), whereas for the Sussex shingle, we have to be content with a breakup gobo projected on the front tab. Neither is the production well served by the stage crew: clunky scene changes and misdirected smoke machines lead to a less than slick presentation.
Holmes has been enticed back to 221B Baker Street by Mrs Watson, who has also come to the Sussex beach. She is living in adjacent rooms, although now estranged from her husband Dr Watson and using her maiden name Mary Morstan. (Sherlock Holmes aficionados might wonder why she is still around some years after her death.) Ostensibly Mary’s reason is that she is troubled by the apparition of her son James Watson, who was killed in the Great War. Arthur Conan Doyle had a notorious obsession with the supernatural and became a spiritualist, so probably would have approved of this plot development. Indeed we do see James Watson as a Pepper’s ghost, and the programme does credit a “magic consultant”, John Bulleid, but this may well be for the levitation of a table during a séance, which did indeed draw a gasp from some of the audience.
Holmes’ return to his old haunt, so to speak, at 221B is auspicious as it is on the thirtieth anniversary of the traumatic Reichenbach Falls incident, and Holmes paranoia is sufficiently aroused for him to arrive heavily disguised as a poor Irish patient of Dr Watson in his practice as a psychoanalyst. He also takes the precaution of inviting his brother, the indolent and insouciant Mycroft Holmes, to the séance. Roy Sampson gives an entertaining portrayal of Mycroft, who seems to get the best lines, but lines suitable to a self-confessed cynic. (He does after all reside at his club, named after Diogenes, the very first cynic.) He describes himself as “generally omniscient”, and even in retirement still carries out some sub-rosa assignments for the government. He has some witty one-liners, as sharp as his well-cut suit and fetching spats.
And talking of spats, it is with Mary Watson that the dramatic tension lies. Mary is an aloof and haughty feminist, active in the women’s suffrage movement, and the antithesis to the misogynistic Sherlock Holmes, who openly states, “Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart.” Liza Goddard plays a gritty but unconvincing Mary, a role which deserved more depth.
Robert Powell, who plays the eponymous Sherlock Holmes, is possibility an even better known and respected actor, but fails to ignite the role with the charisma and psychological insight that the part demands. He rather ambles through the role, proficiently yes, but without inspiration. Nevertheless, he has some fun with the Irish disguise and with a very competent Galway accent, and there is some nice banter with the Watsons’ housekeeper, Miss Hudson, daughter of Holmes’ former chatelaine, another role by Anna O’Grady, in a chirpy cameo.
Director David Grindley won a Tony Award for his Journey’s End, and has previously worked with Robert Powell and Liza Goddard in an acclaimed production of Alan Bennett’s double bill Single Spies, so it is disappointing that this production does not deliver its anticipated punch.
The problem possibly lies in the over-stretched script, which lacks the acumen of Conan Doyle in packaging convolutions without confusion. It also feels under-researched, lacking veracity. Would Americanisms like Mycroft’s “discombobulate” or Mary’s “raising children” have been in the Conan Doyle vocabulary? And then there are outright errors, such as muddling Twelfth Night, the eve of Epiphany, with Epiphany itself. This may be being picky, but it is illustrative of the general messiness of the script, which comes overwrapped in its wireless broadcast conceit. The previously mentioned two irrelevant codas come after the denouement of the play, when in typical detective fiction mode, the resolution of the mystery and explanation of the clues is served up neatly gift-wrapped by Holmes. Then follows a scene in a barber’s shop, “a sanctum where women cannot enter”, where Holmes and Watson philosophise about Epiphany moments. Then finally another contrasting scene with Mary in a lunatic asylum philosophising about motherhood.
These codas have no integrity with the rest of the play, unless we regard the whole as a piece of metadrama, which self-references with little tells, where Mycroft refers to Sherlock as being “like a demented actor” and Sherlock in his Irish psychiatric patient disguise quotes Jaques’ speech from As You Like It, life like an actor “struts on the stage”. If the play is intended as a metaphor for itself, sitting in its very title Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain, then most of us will have missed it. Otherwise it would be timely if Sherlock Holmes extinguished his calabash and hung up his deerstalker.
Mark Aspen
May 2018
Photography by Nobby Clark
Love Is Madness, Violence Is Sanity
The Ruling Class
by Peter Barnes
Teddington Theatre Club at Hampton Hill Playhouse until 18th May
A review by Georgia Renwick
“Lord”, it’s a word and a title with undoubtedly strong associations. Of power, of reverence, of subservience, of devotion. But placed on the head of a paranoid schizophrenic, heir to an Earldom? It’s enough to strike terror, inspire delirious laughter, and shake up the lives of everyone who must bow to him…
Peter Barnes 1968 play The Ruling Class, famously featuring the arresting performance of Peter O’Toole, was a subversive cultural landmark of the late 1960s stage and later, screen. It’s “sledgehammer satire” (Newsweek, 1972) took aim at British peerage, politics, public-schooling and our faith in the ‘powers that be’. Fifty years on surely, it must be antiquated, because we’ve sorted all that inequality stuff out since then, haven’t we?
Barry Evans (a self-confessed Barnes fan) boldly brings the first revival of The Ruling Class to the stage since Brexit joined the political fray. Fifty years on it turns out, it’s still timely and distinctly uncomfortable to be watching Barnes’ production disrobe our Lordly peers.
Stepping into the shoes of Peter O’Toole, Dane Hardie plays Jack, the heir to the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney. When his father, daringly played by Charles Halford, dies in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident, Jack is called upon to take up his title and place in the House of Lords. There’s just one problem. He believes he is a Lord alright, but it is the Lord all creation, Jesus Christ that he is certain he has a claim to be. His loud proclamations of “God is Love”, delusions of grandeur and insistence upon sleeping upright on a homemade crucifix are running the risk of ruining the family’s reputation, and so in a desperate attempt to continue the Gurney name, his meddling family vow to marry him off to dutifully produce an heir, and then have him put away in a mental asylum. Jeremy Gill brings an unpleasant squirming quality to Jack’s greedy uncle, Sir Charles – you just know he would be able to wriggle his way out of anything – whilst Charlie Golding’s artfully executed lisp and overt campness make Jack’s politician cousin a humorously endearing slimeball.
Unfortunately for them, their plots are foiled by the Earl’s German Psychiatrist (the straight-faced Stephen Boyd) who ‘cures’ Jack, treating him with ‘Old Testament’ electricity until he is able to learn to adapt and fit into ‘reality’. He remains a Lord, but of a different ilk; “Do you still believe you are Christ, my Lord?”. His sanity is proved by the Etonian rugby chants that replace his former Godly hymns, and his newfound realisation that in social circles it’s customary to “slaughter everything that moves”. Thusly, he is prepared to face his truly Lordly duty to his country. In Barnes’ bitingly satirical world, Jack is taught that love is madness, and violence is sanity.
Hardie, as Jack, cuts a figure of boundless energy in the first act, cavorting around the stage full-tilt with manic glee in a fetching white “God is Love” tank top. Listen closely, it can be hard to keep up! As he heaves himself up onto his cross and hurls himself down onto the floor with admirable, most likely a bit painful, dedication. In act two he retches, he writhes, and is prone to fits of anger as he struggles to fit into his sharp new suit, and his new attitude.
Barnes’ writing is rich with influences from a whole host of writers, from Sheridan to Shakespeare, it is customary therefore that the Lord is undercut and upstaged by his serving classes. In The Ruling Class this takes the form of Daniel Wain, who completely steals the show as Tucker the Bolshie Butler, “peeing on the Wedgewood dinner plates”. His simpering smile stretches from ear to ear as he picks up after the hapless Earls, then cracks into his own manically mischievous grin just when he thinks no-one is looking. His singing, dancing moments of rebellious glee are infectiously brilliant. As he dances over an ill-fated character he cries, eyes wide… “One less! One Less!”.
Wes Henderson Roe’s set design cleverly divides the stage space up with a skilfully rendered projection. Among other set pieces, the roving bed was a clear favourite, comically wheeled in and out at the opportune moments for, ah, missing the action.
Snatches of song and voiceover provide context and insight fitting with the time-period of the piece, thoughtfully designed by John Pyle. On occasion sound effects were perhaps a little too relied upon where they might have been rendered live, it would have been a treat to hear live singing from Rosy Addison-Dunne for example. One song we did have the chance to hear sung live was a lesser known verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful, which made quite a shocking appearance!
Reviewers at Mark Aspen don’t get tired of saying it, so we hope you don’t get tired of reading it, but TTC have once again made a very bold choice of material here. There was more than enough tittering in the audience on opening night to tell you that this off-the-wall 1960s humour is not to everyone’s tastes; Barnes’ relentless mad-cap humour is not for the faint-hearted, or the easily offended! But if you can stomach the titillation, the pay-off is richly rewarding. Although you ought to hope so, it won’t actually make you rich. If you learn anything from Barnes’ production, it’s better to be out when the executors come knocking!
Georgia Renwick
May 2018
Photography by Sarah J Carter
A Toy Guitar
20th Century Boy
by John Maher
Greatbrit Productions at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 6th May, then on tour until 30th June
A review by Matthew Grierson
There’s about an hour’s delay to 20th Century Boy going up this evening, which is put down to technical difficulties with the projector, so this means it opens with the late Marc Bolan in more ways than one. The conceit is that the T.Rex frontman’s life is flashing before his eyes after his fatal car crash on Barnes Common … and the show is certainly pretty flashy.
In the role of Marc Bolan, né Feld, George Maguire is a cheeky, endearing figure, perhaps more blokey than the androgynous glam rocker, but a charismatic enough performer to carry the show. His Bolan is enthusiastic as much as egotistical, amiable as much as ambitious. If his story is sometimes self-serving it’s because it’s from his point of view, and it’s the story he’s telling to himself to enable his success. So this is not only a greatest hits musical, it’s also a greatest hits version of the life, like the snapshots taken by Bolan Senior of his son posing with a toy guitar at the beginning of the show. A boy’s-own dream of growing up to become a gender-bending rock ’n’ roll pixie.
Another early scene exemplifies this tendency: in his mother’s kitchen, a pre-bouffant Bolan regales his mother Phyllis (Amy Rhiannon Worth, giving excellent value) with his adventures on tour, reeling off his band’s exploits at an increasingly improbable speed. This is not simply getting around the need to show the band themselves onstage – the small but perfectly formed ensemble already have enough costume changes as it is – it also dramatises Bolan’s irrepressible desire to tell stories about himself, building these up into the myth he then inhabits. As such, 20th Century Boy is not so much a biopic on the stage as it is sketches between the songs on a 70s TV show like Tiswas, where the repeated references to speeding cars and other in-jokes would have been delivered with a campy look to camera.
This set-up means the narrative is both as identifiable and as slight as Bolan’s boas – one of which appropriately starts shedding feathers when he is at his most dissolute – making for as loose, and indeed louche, a tragedy as you might imagine. Feld becomes Bolan and swiftly realises all his adolescent ambitions in Act I, marrying June Child (Sarah Moss, providing a stable, human counterpoint to Bolan’s fantasies), before embarking on a world tour with the band. In Act II, first the world then his producer, bandmates and wife weary of him, while other performers, notably David Bowie, command more of the public attention. He is rescued from his booze ’n’ drugs hell by the love of Gloria Jones (Ellena Vincent, with a wig that matches Maguire’s and a voice that outdoes his), who announces she is pregnant with his child. All is suddenly sunshine and smiles again until the fateful drive in the Mini.
Moving at a necessarily fatal speed, the storytelling tends to depend on overly expository dialogue, which grated with me at first – “Oh look, it’s Helen Shapiro!” “Hi there, I’m Tony Visconti.” But once I got used it, its corniness felt of a piece with Bolan’s own mischievous enthusiasm. More effective is when these transitions are enacted by the staging: a scene beginning in the lounge of Bolan’s prospective manager ends in the recording studio, while Bolan’s first date with June jumps straight from Tube to bedroom, with the sheets then whipped away to reveal them glad in their wedding gear. The story has been deftly abbreviated in much the same way as the band’s own name was.
The set is constantly in motion around the performers, always part of the dance. The bare walls are where, I presume, the missing video would have been projected, but given the colour and vibrancy of the cast I can’t see how much this imagery would have added. Even the scene changes are executed pretty swiftly, because the emphasis is, after all, on getting to the next song. Like the sets, each number is made effectively into part of the action, dramatising emotional beats or a particular gig or studio session from Bolan’s career. This culminates in the first act with the set-piece recording of “Ride a White Swan”, where the song is gradually assembled by producer Visconti (endearingly portrayed by Derek Hagen). As the riff emerges, there is a frisson of excitement in the audience: T. Rex have arrived! In the second act, the performance of the show’s title song is then intercut with interviews where Bolan is pressed on whether he is a sell-out, Maguire switching effortlessly between music and dialogue, and subsequently, in a broken mirror image of the “Swan” session, the drunken singer fires Visconti and his band.
Despite this tragic arc, the production remains very up-tempo, very fun, because that is what Bolan’s music was. Not for him the languid chameleonics of Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke; just keep the hits rolling. So even though it’s clear that Bolan has wronged his mother and June by taking up with Gloria, the love of each woman is given equal weight in a number they sing from opposite corners of the stage, representing opposite sides of the world. I wonder whether the production lets the actual Bolan off the hook by making his stage portrayal so sympathetic. Then again, this doesn’t feel like the place for real-life concerns.
One gripe I do have, and again it’s probably more of a gripe with the form of the greatest hits musical than this show particularly, is that silence could be used to more telling effect than it is here. When Bolan lies wrecked after the departure of June, his wife launches us into song again, and after his death there is likewise no respite but instead an improbably rousing funeral song. With the sound of T. Rex being so glam and growly, we might be more affected by the poignant moments if they were allowed to be poignant. That said, as Bolan and Gloria leave on their final journey together the opening chords of the title song play in, to excellent effect, as portents of doom.
The darkness never remains dark for all that long in 20th Century Boy, though, and even as Bolan leaves the stage he is a dandy in the underworld, walking away through a door into spotlight and dry ice. But a voiceover reassures us that it doesn’t end this way: the energetic cast and redoubtable musicians launch into a medley of the hits, summoning the audience on to their feet to join in the dancing (yes, even yours truly).
It’s a pity that the late start means some are already heading for the exits – don’t speed home, now.
Matthew Grierson
May 2018
Photography by Judy Totton
The Pursuit of Fair Play
The Winslow Boy
by Terence Rattigan
Chichester Festival Theatre Productions at Richmond Theatre until 12th May, then tour continues until 19th May
A review by Eleanor Marsh
The Winslow Boy is that most English of English plays. Or is it? On the surface it is the story of Ronnie Winslow, the fourteen-year-old naval cadet accused of stealing a postal order and subsequently becoming the centre of a media circus as his trial becomes more and more high profile. And what could be more English than the pursuit of fair play. “Let Right Be Done” is the rallying cry to arms.
Rattigan was fascinated by famous criminal trials and The Winslow Boy is based on the true-life story of George Archer-Shee, who was accused of the same crime, also represented by arguably the most prominent barrister of the day and made the headlines. In lesser hands this would be a pedestrian retelling of a familiar story. Rattigan’s script, however breathes life into the plot with the introduction of three-dimensional characters. They are aided by some excellent one-liners and the use of sub-plots within the Winslow family dynamic to illustrate both the social conventions of the time and the impact of the trial on a wider circle than just Ronnie and his father, who is the main protagonist in terms of pursuing the case. It is not an accident that over fifty years since it was first produced The Winslow Boy is still attracting large, diverse audiences of theatre-goers. The dialogue and characterisation is strong and the comic one-liners a gift for any actor. This is good entertainment that makes one think.
Rachel Kavanaugh’s production gallops apace at a furious speed. In the main this is a good thing. This is not a short play and in these times of shortened attention span it is wise to keep it moving. However, the initial dialogue between Arthur Winslow (Aden Gillett) and the maid Violet (Soo Drouet) went at machine gun delivery and although it was not exactly unintelligible it was difficult for even this seasoned theatre-goer to register all that was being said. It was the middle of the first act before we got to a comfortable slow canter, which was pitch perfect.
The by-product of the moving the dialogue so quickly in the exposition phase of any play is that the scene is not clearly set in the minds of the audience – we are too busy playing catch up with what we have been told. And in the case of this particular play it makes a big difference. The entire premise of this play is not duty or family honour. It is quite simply about a father’s love for his son. Gillett gives a sensitive performance, Misha Butler as Ronnie is excellent throughout the play, and they do have a certain chemistry on stage. BUT – the true affection they have for each other (and that Winslow has for all his children) only comes across at the play’s later stages; the all-important scene that sets up the whole plot is lacking. Because of the speed with which we get there it is all too easy to accept the face value of an Edwardian father wanting to protect the family name and reputation at any cost. At the point I felt I should have tears in my eyes I found myself pondering how they’d get themselves out of this rather major legal pickle.
The entire play takes place over two years in the same middle class South London drawing room. Top marks to Michael Taylor for detailed, accurate and pleasant on the eye set and costumes. The subtle changes in season and Winslow family fortunes are neatly dealt with by Taylor and lighting designer Tim Lutkin. However, from the stalls seats the projection of what I assumed was the High Court was difficult to see and seemed a little superfluous. I must also confess to being confused by the obviously interior doors. In Act 1 we were led to believe they opened onto the hall and dining room respectively. In Act 2 they inexplicably opened out to an exterior street view. This really did not work and I’m sure I must have missed some key dialogue whilst I was pondering the layout of the house.
Ms Kavanaugh has a knack for making period pieces accessible without dumbing them down and here she succeeds magnificently. Her use of music and the choreographed set changes are inspired, and she is not scared of injecting a little 21st century body language and pronunciation into the play to keep it relevant. She also has an excellent cast on board to deliver those wonderful lines. Tessa Peake-Jones is a warm Grace Winslow who does not fall into the trap of the “flighty” mother hen. She has her feet very much on the ground and gets some of the best laughs of the evening, such is her comic timing and delivery. The all-important character of Sir Robert Morton is a nightmare of a role to cast –he must be austere, sympathetic, supercilious and charming all in one. He also needs to be charismatic with understated sex appeal. Timothy Watson is perfectly cast and gives a fascinating performance of a man at the top of his game but with an empty life.
The Winslow Boy is a classic of the 20th Century by one of our most enduring writers and this is an overall excellent production. What happens to Ronnie Winslow? Is he innocent or guilty? I urge you to buy a ticket whilst you still can and find out.
Eleanor Marsh
May 2018
Photography by Alistair Muir
A Hunger for the Theatre?
Animal Appetites
Barry Hill shares a Theatre Thought
My newspaper this morning featured a piece about a farmer who, fed up with complaints from townie neighbours who had moved into an adjacent house, posted the following notice on his gate:
Notice: This property is a farm. Farms have animals. Animals make funny sounds, smell bad and have sex outdoors. Unless you can tolerate the above, don’t buy a property next to a farm.
And I do sympathise with the said farmer having endured, most times I go to the theatre nowadays, the equivalent theatre-going ‘townies’ who don’t seem to appreciate that in buying a ticket to see a show, they might find that they have bought a seat next to someone who actually wants to see, hear and enjoy the play in a reasonably civilised manner.
Would they suffer severe dehydration or starve to death if denied drink and sustenance for a couple of hours? It is a common sight to see theatre goers leaving the bar at the last possible moment and squeezing into their seats (almost always in the middle of a row) clutching a bottle of water (not too bad) or a glass of wine (much worse). We have even seen punters with smelly takeaway treats (inexcusable) and have heard of couples actually coupling (almost impossible, I’d have thought).
So maybe we should display the following sign outside Hampton Hill Theatre:
Notice: This is a theatre where people come to see and hear plays. If you wish to eat, drink or make out with your partner, don’t buy a theatre ticket. Go to a bar, a restaurant or consult an agony aunt or sex therapist who will be able to advise on a better, and more comfortable, position.
Barry Hill
May 2018
This article was first published in the May 2018 edition of Theatre, the magazine of Teddington Theatre Club, and is reprinted with permission
Anarchy Nailed
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
by Dario Fo
Latymer Theatre Company at OSO Arts Centre until 9th May
A review by Eleanor Lewis
The last ‘demo’ I was on (as we say when we’re of a certain age but hoping we might still have half a finger on some sort of pulse), there were a couple of incompetent-looking anarchists. This was four or five years ago and I think they were hoping for trouble but it was all they could do not to stand out like Chanel models in their fetching head-to-toe black outfits amongst a huge crowd of exhausted public sector workers. Latymer Theatre Co, on the other hand, have anarchy nailed and could bring down a government in their lunchtime with only a short pause for a song.
So it was on Wednesday night at the Old Sorting Office, Barnes where Latymer Theatre Company is currently reviving Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. There is always the possibility with a young company that they will be full of something usually referred to as “boundless energy” which is great in many ways but means the audience comes out shattered and bewildered at the sheer speed with which the whole thing is performed. Not so with LTC’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. They were indeed full of “boundless energy”, but so well directed were they and so skilled in their performance that Fo’s political farce was a joy to watch, very funny and not at all exhausting.
The play is based on a true event. In 1969, anarchist Guiseppe Pinelli died in police custody following a bomb attack in Milan in which sixteen people died. There was no evidence to suggest that he was in any way responsible for the bomb. Pinelli had been held by the police for three days prior to his death “falling” out of a fourth floor window. When he died there were several police officers in the room and he was found to have had bruises around his neck. The police account of what had happened was full of holes, suggesting an incompetent attempt at cover-up. Italy at the time was unstable and the police were thought to be broadly sympathetic to the fascist right who themselves were thought to be responsible for most of the bombings and attacks carried out then.
Fo turns Pinelli’s death into the most powerful of communicative devices, a political farce of commedia dell’arte slapstick and apparent anarchy of its own but with a piercing message: is the central character, the Maniac, mad or is it the system? If it’s the system, we’re all doomed. Performing this kind of theatre requires skill, discipline and flawless comic timing. LTC ticked all three boxes.
The Maniac is the audience’s friend in this work, she engages their attention as she manipulates the other characters, pushing them to the point of revealing themselves and their guilty secrets whilst at the same time seeming to be the chaos in the room. Hana Jarrah – a charismatic presence on stage – played this role with an authority and a playfulness which made it look much easier than it undoubtedly was. She had plenty of competition though. Elliot Hall, as Inspector Pissani – a confused man torn between his desire to perform stand-up comedy and the need to protect his boss and himself from some unpleasant consequences, whilst being blessed with very limited thinking skills – carried off this difficult role quietly, with great skill and wit. Pissani could have been Gene Hunt’s (Life on Mars) younger, overshadowed brother.
Other characters with arguably more straightforward roles nonetheless produced high quality performances. Sonny Pilgrem played the simple Constable without overdoing it so that he was a valid character rather than a dismissable one – even possibly a victim of the system himself. William Jarvis as Bertozzo was revved up to full stress for almost all his appearances as was Roel Fox, both actors pulling all the comedy available out of the ‘alpha-but-bewildered-male’ characters they played. Maisie Preston was perfectly appropriate as the journalist Miss Feletti, arriving to ask pertinent questions and bring the play to both of its possible conclusions.
Tiny issues are scarcely worth mentioning. James Orr’s lighting was effective and appropriate but the changes a little clunky. The one scene change wasn’t great either but the OSO stage is difficult it must be said. And there was a dodgy door – this being the second unreliable set door I’ve seen at OSO.
This was a hugely enjoyable night’s entertainment performed by very funny, skilled young actors. The rendition of I Get By With a Little Help From my Friends was inspired and hilarious, as was the short, demoralised moan mid-act one about the drudgery of being in a touring company of actors. The whole thing was fast-paced, well-disciplined, well directed and showed off a comprehensive understanding of every element of the material being presented – including the highly entertaining and suitably anarchic programme.
And you can’t get away either from the fact that Accidental Death of an Anarchist is a most pertinent production for the times we live in, as Fo himself said:
“There is no greater equaliser than the stupidity of men – especially when those men have power.”
Highly recommended.
Eleanor Lewis
May 2018
Misadventure or Adventure Averted?
Love from a Stranger
by Frank Vosper, adapted from Philomel Cottage by Agatha Christie
Fiery Angel in association with Royal and Derngate, Northampton, at Richmond Theatre until 5th May than on tour until 21st July
A Review by Mark Aspen
Adventures are dangerous. If you wish for an adventure be careful: it may become more of an adventure that you had wished for. In Agatha Christie’s Love from a Stranger, the sense of danger mounts with an irrepressible inevitability that makes it almost painful to watch. Then comes the typical Agatha Christie twist and misadventure is averted (or is it mis-averted) as Bluebeard meets Scheherazade. To say more would be a spoiler, for tonight was the Richmond opening of Fiery Angel’s national tour, and it has quite a way to go.
The gestation of the stage play Love from a Stranger was almost as convoluted as an Agatha Christie plot. Originally written in 1924 as a short story Philomel Cottage, it emerged ten years later in The Listerdale Mystery. Agatha Christie then rewrote it as a stage play, but it wasn’t until a further rewrite by actor Frank Vosper that it took off as a theatre hit, firstly in the West End in 1936, then on Broadway a year later. Bizarrely, the play’s pre-war life took a Christie-esque final twist, when Frank Vosper was lost at sea from a trans-Atlantic luxury liner, the SS Paris, apparently slipping into the ocean from the balcony of the room of Muriel Oxford, 1936’s Miss Great Britain, where she was having a party. His body was found near Plymouth a few days later.
Agatha Christie, the “Mozart of murder” was obsessed with the idea of the pathological successful liar, and the one of the two main protagonists of Love from a Stranger, Bruce Lovell, is such a subject, a con-man and much, much, worse. (Note how Agatha Christie drops the clues around: Lovell, “love”-all, is Bruce, the one who waits patiently watching the spider’s web being constructed.)
Friends and flatmates Cecily Harrington and Mavis Wilson are moving house. Things are changing and they are renting out Cecily’s Bayswater flat. Tied to a tedious office job, Cecily’s has been unable enjoy the adventurous life that she craves. Now, Cecily has won a half share of a half share of a £50,000 sweepstake prize. Is it too late? she thinks. That afternoon her fiancé, Michael is arriving from the Sudan, where his colonial duties have now finished, ready for their wedding. Cecily is in a tis-was: she has already suggested postponing the wedding, and confides to Mavis that her relationship with Michael is a “tepid romance”. So when a stranger walks into her flat as prospective tenant, a fast talking charmer with an American accent and tales of worldwide and everywhere adventures, she falls, but … but, he is Bruce Lovell.
Royal and Derngate’s set, designed by Mike Britton, creates the right mood. Sepia with gauze flats, it conveys a sense of claustrophobia, in spite of (or maybe because of) the open vista of the skyscape beyond the wide windows, with its promise of adventure. As the opening of Richard Hammarton’s edgy soundscape, the sudden and abrupt start to the play is startling.
Director Lucy Bailey moves Vosper’s mid 1930s setting to 1958, although it is not obvious why (or why such a precise reference date). However, the precise costumes of the period enhanced the characterisations and the mentions of Wimbledon as “cheap to rent” drew laughter from the audience.
The first half of the play is a slow burn. One quite hoped for a shorter fuse, knowing that the Agatha Christie fireworks were to come. However, this did give a good opportunity to meet and develop the characters other than the two principals, and the three characters we see from Cecily’s life in Bayswater are neatly and accurately drawn. Louise Garrard, Cecily’s Aunt Lulu, is played slightly larger than life and with obvious enjoyment by Nicola Sanderson. The wonderfully jolly-hockeysticks Aunt Lulu reminds us (whilst breaking a “priceless” candlestick) that she is one of The Garrards, who always have great taste. She believes that Harrods is the sine qua non for everything from estate agency to afternoon tea … until trumped by an offer to go to Fortnum and Mason’s. Pecking orders are clearly defined for Aunt Lulu. When Michael Lawrence, the fiancé arrives, we see from his bearing that he is an all-round good egg, upright, smart, with neatly parted and Brylcreem-ed moustache and hair. But Justin Avoth’s Michael is far from being a spoof. We see a man (a man of his time) needing to be in control of his emotions. His frustration and disappointment at being jilted (Aunt Lulu’s word) by his fiancée is palpable and, when confronting the “other man” the officer and a gentleman stiff upper lip wins, in spite of clenched fists. Alice Haig’s portrait of Mavis is well defined, the trustworthy and loyal friend, with intelligent insight and finely tuned intuition that all is not as it might seem. Why, I kept thinking, didn’t Michael go with Mavis when he lost Cecily; two generous characters, they so suit each other? Three spot-on characterisations.
Throughout the first half, the French scenes of the play are marked not only by changes in lighting but by a sideways sliding of part or all of the scenery accompanied by an eerie sound effect. Oliver Fenwick’s lighting plot is mood-enhancing and the whole effect is clearly intended to increase tension, which it well serves. Ingenious as it is, it does seem a little unnecessary and pulls out the slow burn even more. It smacks of aiming for the grand effect of opera, which is perhaps a vestige of Bailey’s operatic directing career.
The tempo is upped in the second half. We are now in a remote cottage in the country in West Sussex. Cecily and Lovell’s romance has been the archetypal whirlwind. A quick trip to Kew Gardens and they are they are engaged within hours; a flip around here and there and married in days.
The Agatha Christie genre demands isolation, but the Sussex cottage doesn’t quite fit this bill. It is a seven shillings and sixpence train journey from London, and unannounced visits thence constantly frustrate Lovell’s plans, translucent to us audience but seemingly opaque to (most) of the characters. Around their apparent marital bliss, Agatha Christie scatters lots of clues for us to see Lovell in his true light: Peeping Tom photography, bottles of hydrogen peroxide secretly hidden, parcels of soft porn, an obsession with sensational murder trials, sniffing of underwear, compulsive notebook keeping, a strangely significant silk stole. Then there is the secret “darkroom”, converted from the cellar, into which dark secrets accumulate.
Three characters we now see in Sussex are also accurately drawn. The local GP, Dr Gribble, and the gardener, Hodgson are both observant, a tutored and an untutored viewpoint each. Their characters are brought into perspective by Crispin Redman and Gareth Williams. Molly Logan plays Ethel, the learner housemaid, cheeky, energetic and playful. Ethel has a natural curiosity, especially about the secret dark room, which piques Lovell. “Curiosity killed the cat”, he reminds her. Logan demonstrates how to play a cameo role and get the most from it without pulling the focus, and with delightful subtlety. Again, three spot-on characterisations.
Sam Frenchum tackles the difficult role of Bruce Lovell with assurance, with all the right hints and flicks towards the hidden character, Lovell’s superficial charm and his manipulative manner. The svelte and willowy Helen Bradbury gives a nuanced portrayal of Cecily Harrington, her breath-taking belief in love-at-first-sight, her discovery of the emotional adventure and then the sudden revelation as the rose tinted spectacles are rudely broken. However, together they don’t seem to get the chemistry quite right. I was not convinced that this level-headed gal would be swept off her feet by a stranger with the corny line, “You have happened to me”. Equally, the sinister sub-consciousness of Lovell didn’t really come over.
Love from a Stranger is one of Agatha Christie’s earlier works and as a stage play much of the plot doesn’t really hold together (although we famously suspend disbelief on entering a theatre), but the Agatha Christie magic really comes out in this play in the ending twist. “Go on and then you will see how precious it will be”, says Lovell of the 9pm reminder in his notebook and Cecily’s alarm bells begin to ring. Suffice it to say, that the twist is unexpected.
Earlier Cecily, hearing a nightingale, says that “The nightingale only sings for lovers”. Ovid tells why: as TS Eliot puts it “The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king so rudely forced”. Barbarian or Bluebeard, this is an adventure too far for Cecily. Is Love from a Stranger a misadventure or an adventure averted?
Mark Aspen
May 2018
Photography by Sheila Burnett
A Whirling Maelstrom of Oestrogen
Ravenscroft
by Don Nigro
Q2 at The Alexandra Hall, Kew until 28th April
A review by Quentin Weiver
Heavy gothic opening music, heavy gothic velvet, heavy ladies’ frocks, the snow is falling heavily through the heavy mists surrounding the isolated house. Already a dead body as the curtain rises: could we be in for some gutsy Gothic heavy horror?!
Edgar Allan Poe meets Henry James in Q2’s production of Ravenscroft, directed with insight by Cat Lamin. The set and costume designs by Bob Gingell, Junis Olmscheid and Harriet Muir are indeed atmospheric, as is Felicity Morgan’s soundscape. But we open with a tableau. Inspector Ruffing, who has come to investigate the death of the groom, Patrick Roarke, is surrounded by the ladies of the house, sitting on chairs in a square. Are they in or out of the action? Look a little closer, there are anachronisms, some disquieting, like the painting on the wall, the (mid twentieth Century) M.C. Escher’s impossible staircase.
We have a whodunit … and a whatdunit, a whydunit and a howdunit. In fact there are two unsolved deaths, the groom and the late master of the house, both of whom died of a broken neck, having fallen down the same staircase. But were they pushed? Ravenscroft has two intertwined twists; in fact, it has more twists than the DNA double helix. Gradually, like a grotesque oozing through the mists around the house, there emerges the true Ravenscroft … a spoof Gothic horror.
Here is the strength of the writing; that the concept of the spoof only slowly slips out. However, this isn’t Agatha Christie, the chronology doesn’t hold together, and its weakness is that it is poorly researched and it isn’t only the Escheresque picture that is anachronistic. It is set somewhere in England in 1905, but Edwardians did not say “smart” for intelligent, “hired” for employed or “throw up” for be sick. Author, Don Nigro is prolific, but with over 400 plays to his name, research is not uppermost. He hails from Ohio, so a setting in the USA may have worked better. That gripe out of the way, suffice it to say that Q2 squeezed the script hard for its tension, intrigue, and humour: a delicious mix that made for an entertaining evening.
The detective story is inverted in Ravenscroft: it is the detective who is vulnerable, not the suspects. The suspects are the five women of the house, all to be carefully reckoned with. And for the hapless Inspector Ruffing (who incidentally features in seven of Nigro’s plays) they are sirens.
The governess, Marcy Kleiner, is in fact Austrian, a very self-assured lady, who meets Ruffing’s questioning with further questions and a sharp wit. Genevieve Trickett played this this role with great aplomb, revealing however the fragility of her true nature.
Mrs Ravenscroft is the queen-pin of the house, who is expert in using her feminine wiles to her advantage. Alison Arnold painted a clear picture of the character, endowing Mrs R with a sinuous seductiveness. Gillian Ravenscroft is an enigmatic seventeen-year old, with physical or mental impairments, or has she? For “She plays with people: it’s a game.”. It is Gillian who “sees” the phantom on the stair, but then again she “is not a liar. She just has a vivid imagination.” Jacinta Collins give this part just the right enigmatic touch and really animates the character.
So these are the three above-stairs suspects, and each have their motives for pushing Patrick down the stairs or equally for preventing such an “accident”. But, what about the below-stairs, who are equally suspect. Dolly is the nervous and subservient tweeny maid, who nevertheless has a lot of native cunning and, one suspects is playing the “clever-daft”. Lily Tomlinson, has great fun with this part and gets under the skin of the character. Sarah Hill acts with veracity the part of the cook Mrs French, who is as solid as one of her bacon suet puddings.
As the investigations unfold, or rather enfold in a complex origami, all may have motives, all may be protecting others, or all may be incriminating others. All try amorous enticements on the Inspector, who tries to remain impervious. Mrs R is the most accomplished. Then lots of skeletons fall out of lots of cupboards. All five women may have had erotic encounters, none unwelcome, with the handsome and virile, and alas now decreased, Patrick. Further probing reveals that the same may apply to the also defunct Mr Ravenscroft, who it sees had an equally catholic taste in women … plus with his groom Patrick, with whom he used to dress in his wife’s nighties and waltz around the house! And so the plot thickens.
Then amongst this thickening plot, a seam of pathos emerges. Dolly is pregnant with Patrick’s child and is desperate to protect both herself and her unborn child. Moreover, Marcy has had an illegitimate child with Herr Klipstein, her former employer in Austria, and needs to support her absent, but much loved child.
Ruffing is caught up in this whirling maelstrom of oestrogen, and they all make up to him in various ways, subtle or otherwise. Then he makes the mistake that policemen should definitely not make; he drinks on duty. The women invite him to dinner, and is it the wine or the food or something else that affects his judgement? There is a hint that the drink may be poisoned, but what knocks him out is not the strength of his drink, but the strength of Dolly’s arm wielding a precious glass vase. They did warn him that they would “eat him for dinner”, but the prone figure on the floor hasn’t heard.
Has the Ravenscroft household claimed a third victim? Well … no. Ruffing recovers his composure and his dignity and investigations continue. But the women have him in their power, and know where to find the raw nerve to touch. In Ruffing’s case, it is his motherless daughter, even more beloved by him since he became a widower …
Inspector Ruffing is the centre of the action throughout the play and the role is very demanding. Craig Cameron-Fisher is certainly big enough for the role, which he executes with great stage presence, following all the nuances of this intricate plot. For all the foolishness and incredibility of the plot, Cameron-Fisher takes the emotional journey that Ruffing undergoes, and makes it as believable as the plot’s convolutions allow.
Whodunit, whydunit, howdunit? Who knows? As Inspector Ruffing says, “Life is infinitely more ambiguous”.
Quentin Weiver
April 2018
Photography by Rishi Rai Photography and Ben PG
Theatre at Its Best
Stones in His Pockets
by Marie Jones
Teddington Theatre Club, Hampton Hill Theatre until 5th May
A Review by Wendy Summers
When Stones in His Pockets first came out in the West End people went to see it who had “no idea that theatre could be like that” (my sister was one of them). It is, to say the least, an unusual and ambitious choice for an amateur company. Asking a cast of just two actors playing several roles each to play serious drama and low comedy in equal measure and take the audience with them on their journey is a big risk. The gamble at Teddington Theatre Club has paid off in spades. In actors Brendan Leddy and Ian Kinane, TTC gives us versatility, sensitivity and natural comic timing. The fact that they also both ooze charisma and seem to have a natural chemistry (that may of course have been developed over many weeks of rehearsal) is an added bonus.
If TTC has been brave in choosing the play, then director Wesley Henderson Roe and his assistant Heather Stockwell have been braver by opting for no set, only a hint of costume and barely a prop in sight. This play stands or falls on the quality of its writing and performance, with assistance from a creative soundscape (Charles Halford) and atmospheric lighting plot (Mike Elgey).
The premise of the play is simple: Charlie and Jake, both with their own interesting backstories are extras on the Irish location set of a Hollywood blockbuster. Between them they create the characters of fellow extras, directors, producers, leading actors and various “colourful locals”. This means Kinane and Leddy covering accents from London, Glasgow, the US and at least four (that I counted) different regions of Ireland. This they do with aplomb, although there are inevitably some voices or accents that are more authentic than others. This, though, seems only just when we think back to Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins or Tom Cruise in Far and Away – the Hollywood take on European accents is erratic to say the least.
This play needs to move quickly and this it certainly does, and the ease and speed with which the actors change character is very impressive indeed. Each character is clearly defined and instantly recognisable. It will be a long time before memories of Caroline Giovanni and Mickey “the only surviving extra from The Quiet Man” will leave me.
The first night audience in the studio at Hampton Hill Theatre seemed a little taken aback to be sitting in what amounted to an empty room and it took a while for them to catch on to the premise of the play, but once they did their appreciation was unequivocal. There was a lot of laughter and some gasps of genuine shock when the reason behind the play’s title was revealed. For this is not just a rip-roaring, knock about comedy. The play explores far broader and more serious themes, including the demise of rural communities, youth disenfranchisement, the effect of large corporates on small businesses and the “Disneyfication” of history. It is intensely moving as well as hysterically funny.
The studio space at Hampton Hill Theatre has been transformed in many ways over the years, but is rarely seen as the “black box” studio that it is here. It was both interesting and refreshing to see what actors and director can do with just their talent and an excellent script. And although it made us in the audience work that little bit harder than usual, Stones in His Pockets is theatre at its best.
Wendy Summers
April 2018
Photography by Joanna Leppink, Handwritten Photography
Mark Aspen 