Peter Pan Jr
After J.M. Barrie
Dramacube Productions, at Hampton Hill Theatre, 6th to 8th April
Review by Georgia Renwick
Though they may act like it sometimes, deep down, no child (or adult!) really wants to grow up, so what musical production more fitting to stage with the younger ones than Peter Pan? The children can fly as fairies, sparkle as mermaids, run wild as lost boys and as fearsome pirates, fight with cutlasses and fantasise about slitting throats, while us adults indulge in a little harmless escapism! To Never-land!
Dramacube Productions have staged musical theatre shows with their 7-16 year old students at Hampton Hill Playhouse since July 2015, and won two Swan Awards in the interim. The two troops of student from Twickenham and Hampton Hill (soon to be three with a Kingston class starting this year) have been working hard on tonight’s production of Peter Pan all term, so the excitement of their families and friends waiting excitedly in the auditorium is palpable. Some have even brought flowers, and some pass on ‘good luck’ messages to their children, waiting impatiently in the wings. Tonight, Hampton Hill Playhouse truly has the buzz about it of a West End first night! Each troop gets two nights each this week to put all their hard work into practice, some of the larger roles are shared between two students, so they each have their own night to shine.
The hard work has paid off and director Stephen Leslie, his Dramacube team and of course the stars, the children, have collectively have produced a highly entertaining and polished production.
Photograph by Bomi Cooper
The script and book are a pairing of the play by J.M. Barrie and the Disney Musical, with additional lyrics and dialogue added to give it a few high-spirited modern twists. A not-so-wet Wendy observes sagely that Peter is actually rather “conceited”, and we have some fun with Tinkerbell, who can communicate only with us, the audience, and is often misunderstood by her fellows onstage, with whom she can only communicate using bells. Meanwhile a morose “rogue and peasant Hook” continually slips Hamlet’s soliloquies into his speeches, “feeling poetic, Cap’n?” Smee asks innocently, whenever this happens. Of course, it falls to two children to play the boring grown-ups but it is hard to take Mr Darling seriously when Wendy is a head taller than him! It just adds to the fun.
The memorable songs ‘You Can Fly’ and ‘Never Smile at a Crocodile’ bring a smile of nostalgic recognition to my face, but it is in the newer material that the singing is more challenging, with solos and two part harmonies handled particularly well by the older children. Tiger Lilly’s solo, “What Makes a Girl Brave” was a particularly strong addition. Having played her myself as an enthusiastic eleven-year-old in a school production which involved a lot of wailing and crying, I felt a particular affinity when she got to show her feistier side: “Not just boys are fighters. Not just boys are strong. Got to keep inside your heart this ancient native song”. There are also challenges laid where some of the cast have swapped genders (In the Twickenham troop tonight Hook and Pan are both played convincingly by girls, as well as some of the lost boys) but the girls attack the lower registers with aplomb, undeterred. The principal characters where mic’d up so they were not lost, but the production is strongest when they sing as a unit and really fill the space powerfully.
Music is provided by a backing track of a full orchestral production which is a wise solution and adds a professional feel, you certainly wouldn’t be able to fit so many musicians on the HHT stage!
The set design, the work of Alan Bower, has been put together in a highly adaptable style. The ship’s hull has a window cut in it, which creatively doubles as both the bedroom window and a hidey hole for the lost boys. For the ship’s next trick, when lit from behind the seemingly solid hull is revealed to be only semi-opaque. This allows for the shadows of other characters to appear through it, perfect for the sneaking lost boys and a very professional affect. The upper level of the ship’s deck has the parent’s hearts in their throats as they disappear with a faintly alarming splash from the plank, and into the jaws of the small, smiling crocodile.
The sweet but deadly little crocodile was just one of the many beautifully realised costumes by Devon Opp and Lily Fendall. The lost boys’ animal hoodies, complete with fluffy ears, were especially endearing!
One of the sweetest moments of the evening came when some of the principal children entered the auditorium from the rear doors, surprising family in the audience and giving us a chance as an audience to take a look around at the proud smiles of families and friends. Yet the children stay focused, there are no ‘Hi mum!’ moments, no mini-melt downs over lines. For children so young, Dramacube have done a fantastic job of achieving a level of polished professionalism, whist also keeping that child-like sparky naturalness in their performances. This, I think, is the secret to this heart-warming production that will have you Yo-Ho-Ho-ing all the way home!
But most importantly of all, the children seem to really be enjoying themselves which as any parent or teacher knows, is the crucial difference. You are reminded, seeing their eyes alight, their grinning faces, why they are here and we are watching them in the first place. Whether or not they make it as future West End stars, right here, right now each one of them is enjoying the moment and bright, confident, theatre lovers are being made.
Georgia Renwick
April 2017
The Government Inspector
By Nikolai Gogol
YAT, Hampton Hill Theatre, 29th March to 1st April
Review by Georgia Renwick
YAT have never yet failed to impress me with the ambition of their production choices and their tenacity in realising them; their latest is no exception. In the wake of their Winter 2016 production of Titanic, which opened the day following the US election, comes The Government Inspector, Nikolai Gogol’s satirical cautionary tale from 19th century Russia exposing the double standards and corruption of the governing powers, their use and misuse of the poor and the dangers of believing gossips, sycophants and fantasists. It is a warning we all ought to heed, perhaps at this present time more than most.
In a brash and bawdy translation by David Harrower, first premiered at the Old Vic in 2011, Nikolai Gogol’s play tells the story of an isolated Russian province, where the poor shopkeepers and townsfolk suffer under the control of a corrupt and delusioned Mayor and his public service cronies, who’ll attempt to bribe their way out of anything. Sufficiently cut off from ruling Saint Petersburg, the Mayor, played with boundless energy and impeccable comic timing by Benedict Lejac has become a ‘little tsar’, held accountable only by visits from elusive government inspectors he hasn’t seen for many years. When the mayor learns he is to receive such a visit, blind panic sets in and he summons his sycophantic public servants to identify the incognito inspector. Fuelled by misinformation from corrupt local landlords Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky (Anna Carlson and Karin Carlson) whose lack of wisdom is made up for in fabulous facial hair, the Mayor pursues a man at the local inn. He discovers Khlestakov, who though originally from Petersburg and able to impersonate their ways with aplomb, is no inspector but a mere public servant who has holed himself up in the most out-of-the-way place he can find to avoid trouble at home. And so unfolds a farcical undoing of the mayor and his authorities, as he plays every trick in the book to impress his falsely mistaken guest, from bribing him with cash ‘loans’, to marrying off his reluctant only daughter Maria, whose sulking and braying are delivered with zeal by Nathalie Châteauneuf. Her mother Anna, played with panache by Caroline Bradshaw, is all too delighted to see her go.
It is easy to get caught up in the ceaseless high jinks but Gogol never lets it veer too far from the searing satire at its heart. In biting Brechtian fashion (though many decades ahead of its time) the Mayor delivers a direct hit to the audience, “you’re laughing at yourselves!” he bellows, and in the cartoonish figures he draws on the stage it would be hard to miss his point. Indeed, Harrower’s translation paints perhaps too crude a picture of Gogol’s tale. The cardboard-cut-out characters somewhat undermine the acting talents of YAT’s company, whilst the text is peppered too heavily with profanity and scatological humour, to the extent that the jokes ceased to disgust and moved to being simply tedious.
Nevertheless, the YAT cast ran with it … from start to finish! Director Josh Clarke begins the story out into the HHT bar, appropriate for a play dealing in excesses, with ensemble members jostling with the audience as they buy their pre-show refreshments. They can also be found in the isles in the opening scene, their scrabbling fingernails resembling rats’ claws and creating a sinister surround-sound effect. The pace and energy of each and every ensemble member is truly an impressive feat. As Lejac and Evans literally chase each other around the stage (one wonders how many miles they cover each night!) it is easy to feel exhausted just watching their electrified performances, and yet they are not once caught breathless, the force of the delivery never drops. In places the pace could have been brought down a peg or two, since once the energy peaked, very early on, there was nowhere for it to go. That said, the laughter rarely let up and the audience certainly seemed to enjoy the ride.
The selection of jaunty provincial Russian music is evocative and enjoyable and further serves to pick up the relentless pace.
Credit must be paid to the excellent set, which combines the Mayor’s plush house with the run-down inn in seamless fashion. The window cut outs that run along the back of the stage feature colour changing lights that are effective in giving a surreal feel to the otherwise quite naturalistic setting. The stylised silhouetted tableau that can be glimpsed through them are reminiscent of children’s book illustrations, reinforcing the fabled nature of Gogol’s timely tale.
Georgia Renwick
April 2017
Images by Jonathan Constant Photography
Belgian Village on the Thames
East Twickenham Centennial Group at Warren Gardens, East Twickenham
Memorial Unveiling Ceremony
in association with Keith Wait and The Stage Company
1st April
Reflection by Thomas Forsythe
“Des souvenirs naviguent en moi tel un navire sur la rivière”. These words, beautifully carved by a Belgian stonemason, grace a bluestone obelisk that now stands proudly by the River Thames. But what are these memories that, like a boat, drift along the river?
On 4th August 1914, the German army invaded Belgium, which had refused the army passage to attack France. These events, which triggered the involvement of Britain in this tragic war, led to thousands of refugees fleeing Belgium. Many of these settled for several years in Twickenham. Amongst them was Charles Pelabon, an industrialist, with a large number of his workforce and their families. This valiant and dynamic band set up a munitions factory by the Thames. (This building was later to become the Richmond Ice Rink.) Soon the area around Richmond Bridge became known as “La village Belgique sur la Tamise”.
Under the doughty and dynamic leadership of local researcher Dr Helen Baker, and following a fund-raising campaign of many years, the East Twickenham Centennial Group has created a fitting memorial to these people from “plucky little Belgium”. On 1st April, a moving ceremony took place in the gardens, downstream of Richmond Bridge, that Pelabon had left as a thank-you to the people of Twickenham, and now all that remains of Pelabon’s physical legacy, following the shameful loss of Richmond Ice Rink twenty-five years ago. At this ceremony, the Belgian Ambassador to the UK unveiled this fittingly simple and graceful monument to the resilience of the Belgian refugees and their friendship with the people of Twickenham.
There is much coverage of the event from the historical and societal point of view, but within the remit of these arts review pages, this piece reflects on the contributions in poetry and prose, and in music made to the ceremony.
The magnificent and colourful presence of the Royal Military School of Music brought a formal dignity to the ceremony. The band of thirty musicians from Kneller Hall, under the direction of Major Evin Frost, looked resplendent in the intermittent spring sunshine. At noon the band’s fanfare started the event with a definitive flourish.
The RMSM Band
Silence, then the opening poem, Sonnet on the Belgian Expatriation by Thomas Hardy. It describes Belgium as “the Land of Chimes” and describes the poet’s dream of the refugees bringing their own church bells to England so that they “might solace souls of this and kindred climes” before awakening to the reality of the bells being shattered shards. Our reader, from DramaCube, was 11 years old Milly Stephens. Her confident, well projected voice and clear diction showed the full beauty of the assonance of Hardy’s phrasing, “stir and stress”, “starlit silentness”, and imbued the poem with its meaning and sense of bitterly nostalgic irony.
The inscription on the memorial was then read out by four young children from England and Belgium. The inscription had been composed by the then 9 years old Issy Holton, whose wording was chosen from ideas submitted by pupils of Orleans Primary School. It was to this school that the majority of the Belgian children went a century and more ago.
All these children also spoke with great assurance and clarity. Issy Holton herself, now 12 years old, read the English version, “Memories flow through me like a boat flows down the river”, a gentle flowing rhythm in itself. A Flemish translation was read in duet by Louis de Pauw (8½) and Amber Sourbron (11), a remarkable trilingual pair, perfectly in unison, “De stroom van herinneringen glijdt door me heen zoals een boot over het water”. The word “herinneringen” (memories) rang like the chimes of Hardy’s sonnet. The French translation, “Des souvenirs naviguent en moi tel un navire sur la rivière” was read by 9 year old Elodie Butler, again with great beauty, lucidity and authority.
A welcome, extended eloquently and succinctly by Dr Baker, explained the sentiment of the memorial and the project’s history, conception and realisation.
Then yet another treat, this time a choir of 7 to 11 year olds from Orleans Primary School, singing a traditional Belgian nursery song, Green Swans, White Swans, but to everyone’s surprise in Flemish! The accuracy and fluency of these children’s pronunciation was remarked on by the Flemish speakers present. Singing a capella, the musicality of these children’s voices also attracted the warmest of praise.
On to the nub of the event, His Worship The Mayor of Richmond upon Thames, Cllr. David Linnette, made a short speech inviting the Belgian Ambassador, His Excellency Guy Trouveroy, to unveil the memorial. His Excellency spoke very warmly of the links between Twickenham and Belgium, both a century ago and now. He then swept the scarlet silk from the monument, revealing the elegantly and subtly shaped clean lines of the greyish blue stone. The RMSM band then played The Last Post, poignant, stirring and inspiring in equal measure.
Addressing the packed crowd, M. Guy Pelabon, a descendant of Charles Pelabon, told of the history of the family and its founding of the munitions works at Twickenham, his nostalgia blending into pride, and pride blending in gratitude and affection for the people of Twickenham who had welcomed both his brave and famous forebear, and himself, to this part of the Thames.
To complete the ceremony, two students of Der Deutsche Schule at Petersham gave their Reflections on Peace and Reconciliation. Both in their late teens, they spoke eloquently and powerfully of their pride in being able to live in a part of Europe which, in spite of recent political repositionings, cooperated closely with each other in a spirit of friendliness and respect. Nikolaus Siller, speaking in impeccable English, mentioned that the an area around Ham, Richmond Park and North Kingston features a German school, a Kindergarten, and some German shops, and the local German and German-speaking people are warmly welcome and part of the community, as were M. Pelabon’s Belgian people in their time. Lukas Rossmanith originated from an area on the Rhine that had been part of Germany or France at different times in the twentieth century. Speaking in French, he concluded that the history of Europe had matured until there would no long be a need here in Europe to build munitions factories to kill our fellow Europeans. (“Il n’aura plus une usine de munition ici pour tuer d’autre européens.”)
The Kneller Hall band struck up La Brabançonne, the Belgian national anthem, followed by the British national anthem.
The guests meandered to a marquee for a reception, the band played Vanished Army by Kenneth Alford , and all had the feel of a society event. However, this was a society event that brought together societies speaking English, French, Flemish and German, in a spirit of great openness and friendship.
Thomas Forsythe
April 2017
Prescription for Murder
by Norman Robbins
Staines Players, Stanwell Village Hall
29th March to 1st April
Review by Eleanor Lewis
My mum was the whodunit expert in our house, her library haul was easily identifiable by the titles: Death Comes Calling, The Body in the Library, Murder for Two etc. I haven’t really inherited her skill. I usually haven’t got a clue except in Agatha Christies where the killer is always the person who couldn’t possibly have done it, and the easier ‘guilt by casting’ in a lot of TV crime i.e. if you spot a celebrity-status actor in what appears to be a fairly minor role then they usually turn out to be the killer (if they’re not, their agent has lost interest). So I approached Staines’ Players production of Prescription for Murder quite happily assuming I would enjoy it without having the faintest idea who had done what to whom.
The play’s action takes place in the living room of Doctor and Mrs Forth (Amanda Stuart and Des Cann). Mrs Forth is continually ill with a series of unidentifiable afflictions and Dr Forth seems to have a slightly shady, possibly suspicious past. A series of other characters arrive and depart the living room planting clues and generally misleading the audience: the reliable and supportive friend Dorothy Livingstone (Wendy Cann); the couple married slightly too long, The Haighs (Val Clayton and Roger Simmons); the lovely, single and hot-for-the-doc Julia Moore (Janine Thomas –Rietti) and the strange Eric Dawson (Dallas Stuart) claiming a connection to Dr Forth’s former fiancée. All of these roles were skilfully played. Amanda Stuart as the doctor’s wife was convincing as a woman gradually weakening from a series of small, vague illnesses but keeping her chin up, and Wendy Cann as her friend Dorothy, again, wholly believable and real.
Perhaps most endearing in this production were the Haighs, Mary and her hen-pecked but not quite defeated husband Allan. These performances were both highly entertaining and subtle. Roger Simmons as Allan, drew the audience right into his corner where they were rooting for every one of his small victories over his overbearing wife. Val Clayton as Mary, who shut poor Allan up at every available opportunity still managed to bring out Mary’s softer, kinder self. These roles are often just played for laughs, but Allan and Mary in this production were also authentic, recognisable people, a tribute to Lynne Percival’s mature direction and Clayton and Simmons’ acting skills.
Lighting was straightforward, the set was well designed so that the action was not limited to one part of the stage, and I do appreciate a good prop: sherry in a sherry glass is only a detail but there’s a lot in the detail. (If you’re doing Fiddler on the Roof, best not to have the wedding guests toasting each other with 1970s side-handled pub pint glasses). The melodramatic scene change music added a nice eerie element to proceedings too.
Credit must go to all the actors involved in this play as there were screeds and screeds of lines to be learnt and a couple of dropped lines (efficiently dealt with and scarcely noticeable) were understandable given the amount of setting-up and plot-related information and misinformation that had to be conveyed to the audience in paragraphs of dialogue. Author Norman Robbins was clearly a multi-talented writer and actor, he wrote characters well and evidently understood people, but whodunit plotting is a specific talent not necessarily given to otherwise successful writers and I’m not convinced he quite pulled it off … as I did in fact work out who the killer was. Staines Players, however, did an excellent job with what they had. This was a well-directed and efficiently executed production which I enjoyed very much. It’s also worth noting that the Friday audience were totally engaged throughout and gasping in all the right places: Staines is clearly a friendly and supportive society. The programme (very decent programme for a freebie) stated that their autumn production will be Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings and I think they will thrive on some rather stronger material.
Eleanor Lewis
March 2017
The Juniper Tree
by Philip Glass and Robert Moran, libretto Arthur Yorinks
UK Premiere
Helen Astrid at The Hammond Theatre 30th and 31st March
Mini-review by Thomas Forsythe
“My mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my little sister gathered my bones”. These words of The Son are almost a synopsis of The Juniper Tree, which brings together Philip Glass and the Brothers Grimm in a powerfully potent mix. The UK Premiere of this two-act opera opened tonight for the briefest of runs: two performances only.
This is a mesmerisingly memorable production, a must for opera fan, fairy tale aficionado, and drama enthusiast alike.
The music is a collaboration between Philip Glass and Robert Moran. Although they initially composed separately, their creations interweave into a beautifully figured integrated whole; the insistent contrapuntal development of Glass with the soaring lyricism of Moran.
The ticket price is worth it for any one of the principals, but special mention must be made of baritone James Corrigan as The Husband, whose rich resonance and touching characterisation make a solid foundation for the vocal success of the piece, and Angus Whitworth as The Son. This boy treble is one to watch out for: his singing voice has a bell-like quality and his acting cleanly depicts the inevitability of The Son’s murder and of the transformative nature of his re-incarnation, firstly as a bird and eventually as a boy once more.
Outstanding though, is Canadian soprano, Mariya Krywanluk as The Step Mother. She has an amazingly athletic singing voice, but her acting and facial and body language epitomise the archetypical wicked stepmother. If looks could kill … But kill The Step Mother does, decapitates The Son, dismembering him and boiling his flesh. If that isn’t enough, she makes it into a stew and serves it up to the boy’s father. Grimm fairy tales don’t get much grimmer than this!
Then in contrast The Son’s bones are transmuted into a beautiful bird which soars amid the uplifting lyrical music. Here the design is superb, with clever use of black-light sequences from Lighting Designer Daniel Dar-Nell against Laura Jane Stanfield’s evocative set. But the realistic flight of the bird is due to extraordinary movement choreography, uncredited.
Director, Donna Stirrup and Conductor, Andy Langley have compiled the most beautiful of offerings for a spring opera and one that demands to be seen again and again.
Thomas Forsythe
March 2017
Talking Heads
by Alan Bennett
Second Talking Heads programme
OHADS at The Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre
22nd to 25th March
Review by Thomas Forsythe
Travelling on a bus is seldom a quiet business. Indeed, often its passengers can be informative, entertaining or downright salacious. Time was when you needed two talkative passengers to overhear the sort of conversations that are, well … er, impossible to ignore. Nowadays, thanks to the ubiquitous mobile phone, you only need one. Why do people talk at a level that almost makes the phone redundant? And why do they feel it confers an anonymity under which the most intimate details of the speaker’s life are revealed to all and sundry?
For the audience, it is this feeling of trying not to be eavesdropping that sets the mood of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, except the ambience is more cosy than the top of a bus. Certainly, the Coward Studio at Hampton Hill Theatre has a degree of intimacy, such that OHADS performance of these delicious monologues made one feel more like a sympathetic listener than a nosy eavesdropper.
Susan does not feel fulfilled as a rural vicar’s wife in a Yorkshire village: gradually she finds increasing solace in the sherry bottle, and gravitates increasingly frequently to more dynamic surrounds of Leeds and the exciting arms of Ramesh, an Indian proprietor of a 7-to-11 grocers’ shop, to find passion among the pulses, or as the tile of the first monologue puts it, the Bed among the Lentils. Susan remembers one of her husband’s sermons, when the homily turned to the God-given role of sex in marriage: “Sex is an important gift, but not the be-all and end-all”. “You can say that again!” Susan declares, whilst her mind drifts towards Ramesh, “26 years old, with wonderful legs”.
In tackling such sensitive subject matter, Bennett is very much skating on thin ice, with the risk of offending at least three groups of people, Anglicans, Hindus and Flower Arrangers! But he manages (just) to pirouette along the looming cracks, without falling into icy waters.
“If you think squash is competitive, try flower arranging!” says Susan when confronted with “The Fan Club”, the ladies from the flower rota who are always keen to please the vicar. For Susan, her attempt at church flowers ends in a case of mild concussion. My audience companion is a professional flower arranger (who also works for the C of E), so she was able to assure me that here were many home truths!
The truth, however, never gets out about Ramesh, and he eventually returns to India and his arranged child bride. Nevertheless, the truth does seep from the sherry bottle, via Alcoholics Anonymous and back to the vicarage. But not to condemnation: no, her reluctant testimony now fuels many of her husband’s most compassionate sermons.
Helen Geldert’s performance as Susan, with Helen Smith’s direction, absorbed the complexities of the character. It was incisive, precise and deliciously irreverent. All good (but not so clean) fun!
If the first of our “talking heads” was in a social standing that conventionally should have been buttoned-up, we moved on to one which required more than a modicum of unbuttoning.
We see Lesley cosied up in her pyjamas with a mug of hot something, a “Groovy Chick” mug, no less. But Lesley knows how to step from one character to another, for she is a film extr- … whoops a “supporting artiste”, who by her own CV is “vivacious and professional”. We don’t just listen to her story; she draws us in, for she “collects people”. She is bubbly and extrovert, but rather an innocent abroad and oh so slightly gullible. You see, she has been cast in a film, which in the words of the title could be Her Big Chance. It is in the not-so-exotic location of Lee on Solent, but filmed on a (borrowed?) yacht. But what she doesn’t see (or does she?) that it is a soft porn movie. (Soft porn is the type with a storyline.)
Lesley gets on well with the techies, with the First AD Nigel, and even with the director Gunter, who is big in Northern European films. She is keen to please and of course she is “very professional”, so she not only goes along with their suggestions, but makes “improvements” of her own. After all, she wants to be better than Travis, the actress whom she is standing in for. Topless? Yes, here’s a way we can do it a little better, for she is “professional”. Knickers off? Why not, she is “vivacious”. What about the last scene on the yacht, with the gangster with the gun? Any ideas? Yes, “sexual intercourse”. As she says, “Acting is all about giving”.
Lithe and gamine, Tracy Frankson played Lesley’s eager effervescence with gusto. We saw a very likeable character, whom somehow we wanted to protect. Under the direction of Ken Mason, Tracy Frankson pushed it almost but not quite to the edge of overacting. It was a joy to watch. All good (and definitely not clean) fun!
The third monologue, had a quite different mood and introduced a character very different from the other two. She is Peggy, the eponymous Woman of No Importance. Bennett borrowed the tile unashamedly for Wilde and there are some parallels, in particular the idea of one’s perceived importance in society. (This monologue actually predates Talking Heads and comes from the Objects of Affection anthology which was its precursor.)
Peggy is a methodical, meticulous and middle aged. As a spinster, her life revolves around her work, which is on the administrative side in a factory. She believes that the factory in turn revolves around the bureaucratic centre of Mr Skidmore, her boss, and that she is the indispensable linchpin that the office in its turn revolves around. She is always neat and trim and “puts on a lick of paint” to make herself “respectable”.
The highlight of Peggy’s day is lunch in the work’s canteen, where she can “meet the girls”. One gets the impression that they may not be quite as keen to meet her. Peggy’s benevolence probably becomes a bit overbearing after a while.
Bennett draws the character of Peggy very finely, with great humanity and humour as she describes the minutiae of her everyday life, peppering each description with sharp non-sequiturs, the source of much of the humour in Peggy’s heart-to-hearts.
However, tragedy lurks as illness gradually creeps into the routine order of her life.
These are the days when doctors were demi-gods, the patient did not inquire about symptoms and diagnoses were not divulged. So Peggy blissfully believes that her ailment is not life-threatening, but is interesting to the medical profession because its rarity renders it baffling to clinical students.
Hospitalisation necessitates a recreation of her indispensability in the office into the new environment of the ward. She becomes sister’s aide-de-camp and the newspaper distributor, by intercepting them from the trolley to give a personal service to her new bunch of “the girls”. Similarly, her veneration of Mr Skidmore becomes transferred to her consultant Mr Penry-Jones.
However, with excruciating inevitability we witness Peggy’s decline as becomes weaker and confined to her hospital bed, her body enfeebled while her mind still scintillates, wrapped in her dressing gown in her favourite “careless pink”, Daily Mail unread.
Lottie Walker excelled in the role of Peggy, with spot-on characterisation. With her director, Sally Halsey, she has clearly made a detailed study of each nuance. The part requires accurate comic timing, and Lottie Walker delivered these straight to the target, especially those little throw-away remarks, the non-sequiturs: “… his acne’s heaps better” or “… she’s black, but I take people as they come”. The portrayal of Peggy’s decline was so measured that her transformation occurred almost imperceptibly, until finally the pathos was pushed to its painful poignant edge. All good (and very clean) fun, fading, dissolving into ironic tragedy … but only for us, now very sympathetic listeners, whilst Peggy is blissfully trustful of the infallibility of the sainted Penry-Jones.
OHADS’ three actresses’ and three directors’ incisive observations of the ordinary, with all their peccadilloes and pain, enabled us to eavesdrop shamelessly on those informative, entertaining or downright salacious fleeting remarks. What was the motto of The News of the World? “All human life is there”.
Thomas Forsythe
March 2017
Photography by Bernard Wigginton
Spring Revue
Hounslow Light Opera Company
St Stephen’s Church, Hounslow, 24th March
(Touring to St Mary’s Church, Hampton, 25th March)
Review by Eleanor Lewis
Had I been a primary school teacher I might have leapt to my feet, (as they are wont to do with depressing regularity), exclaiming “Lovely! I could hear every word!”. Patronising perhaps, but not meant in that way, because when you’re singing the closely packed lyrics of WS Gilbert and the cutting rhymes of Fred Ebb, they deserve to be heard and HLOC did full justice to music and lyrics in their spring concert, appropriately titled Spring Song Singers.
This was a neatly designed concert beginning with a gentle fifteen-minute comedy about the difficulties of corralling a large group of people and getting them to do what you want whilst they lose their specs, fail to find parking spaces and get an attack of the hiccups. In this case the group being a choir arriving in the church hall for a rehearsal. Carefully directed by Laurie Coombs and performed with attention to detail, every member of the ensemble had a character and played it convincingly to good effect.
The opening comedy piece led naturally into the performance of a selection of songs with a crime related theme. Musical Director Lee Dewsnap – evidently a man to keep hold of – had successfully provided arrangements for HLOC’s Mikado in the autumn using only a Yamaha EL-900 organ. Having seen said Mikado, this reviewer can state without hesitation that it certainly didn’t sound like he had only an electric keyboard. For the spring offering, Mr Dewsnap was equipped with a piano in the first section of the performance and the keyboard in the second. He made full use of every musical skill available to him in this group, the result being well-paced singing, nicely matched voices and, my personal favourite, clear diction. A rousing and entertaining close to the first part of the evening.
Simon Bishop’s lighting at St Stephen’s on Friday gave provided the clarity and softness appropriate to the church setting.
Trial by Jury was performed in Act Two. Costumed in modern dress, Gilbert and Sullivan’s second operetta in which a woman attempts to sue her fiancé for breach of promise was performed largely in two lines at the front of the church. Directed this time by Elizabeth Malone, once again, the ensemble was strong, each member having a character and playing it well: expressive faces, meaningful glances and sensibly used small props such as notebooks and phone. Wherever you looked there was something going on. However, the church in which we sat on Friday night, which worked well for the comedy and singing in the first half was a little less effective in the second half. It would have been good to raise – somehow – the back row of jurors as they were hardly visible to the audience sitting, as they were, on a flat floor rather than the slight incline there would have been in a theatre. This did not detract much from the overall performance but it was a shame not to see who was providing it. The entire concert moved on Saturday to a different venue where this may not have been an issue.
Tony Cotterill, playing the feckless defendant, gave a reliably strong performance and Johanna Chambers with a lovely clear-as-a-bell voice played his not entirely helpless jilted fiancée with great skill. The Judge, Paul Huggins and the Usher, Kurt Walton though both doing their best, may have done better in each other’s roles, Kurt Walton’s voice being a little stronger.
Like many community groups, HLOC needs more men. Men have always been reluctant to join amateur drama or operatic societies, which is odd as there is, after all, a wide and varied selection of women in these groups, but hey I am not privy to the workings of the male mind (and let’s all be grateful for that). It does make casting difficult though. I sat recently through dinner while a female friend went to fairly elaborate lengths trying to bribe her non-performing husband to take a small part in an upcoming musical because it was probable there wouldn’t be enough men to cast. To date she’s still working on him.
HLOC on the basis of this latest concert, looks like a society that is playing to its strengths, moving forward and gaining confidence. An audience member behind me, at the end of the evening said “well, that was well worth travelling fifteen miles out of my way for!” Recommendation in itself I think.
Eleanor Lewis
24th March 2017
Photography by John Malone
Talking Heads
by Alan Bennett
First triple bill programme
OHADS at The Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre
21st to 25th March
Review by Melissa Syversen
I may have been a mere twinkle in my father’s eye back in 1982 when A Woman of No Importance made its first appearance on the BBC, starring the legendary Patricia Routledge. Luckily for me, British comedy, and especially those starring dear Patricia, are very popular on the cold shores of Scandinavia where I grew up. And as my family’s resident anglophile, I quickly caught up at a young age and continued to follow the series original run through the 90s and still watch every rerun I could since.
A Woman of No Importance paved the way for Alan Bennett’s subsequent two series Talking Heads for the BBC and today they are often aired and performed together. The series has been adapted to the stage many times, with many different combinations of monologues over the years. The OHADS production at the Hampton Hill Theatre features six of Bennett’s texts divided into two sets of three, to be performed alternately. I attended the set featuring A Cream Cracker under the Settee, Soldering On and A Chip in the Sugar, which can be seen Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday matinee. The other set consisting of Bed among the Lentils, Her Big Chance and A Woman of No Importance can be seen Wednesday, Friday and the Saturday evening and will be reviewed separately
It has been almost thirty years since many of these texts were written, but they are as funny and moving as ever, a testament to Alan Bennett’s gift as a writer. He has that uncanny, and dare I say important, ability to express the silent depth and wry humour of the humdrum life of normal people. All three of the characters presented on Tuesday were sweet and familiar. These are all people we know and meet daily, be it in the shop or at local events. And this is what I think OHADS production captured so well. The cast of three actors together with their directors successfully found and expressed the humanity of Bennett’s writing.
Fran Billington played Doris, an elderly woman who has taken a fall as she tries to dust after her sloppy home-help has left. It is particularly moving as she recalls memories of her departed husband and son. You could see it on her face as the memories of a long life came to her as she waited for help on the floor, the clock ticking away both physically and metaphorically.
In the second piece, Soldering On, we meet Muriel, also a widow, having just lost her husband Ralph. We follow her through her strong can-do attitude as she deals not only with her friends and community as they try to grab what they can of her husband’s possessions (all in the name of charity of course), but also with a son who may or may not be a competent business man. Clare Cooper captured Muriel’s can do spirit and grace retaining her dignity to through increasingly difficult circumstances.
The upstairs Coward studio at Hampton Hill theatre lends itself well to this play. It is a smaller space and together with the simple and effective furnishing of each piece it creates a close and homey atmosphere, giving an added touch of intimacy. Each of the three directors, Harry Medawar, Asha Harjan Gill and Rebecca Tarry, respectively, have kept things simple allowing their actors and the text to shine. Malcolm Maclenan oversees light and sound. The sound is particularly well utilised in the first piece, using a lovely soundscape like a slamming gate and neighbours passing as Doris waits for help, the clock ticking away.
The final monologue A Chip in the Sugar, a piece Bennett himself played in the series, stole the show. Steve Taylor plays Graham, an older man living with his elderly mother who faces a minor crisis when an old acquaintance takes a romantic interest in his mother. Taylor had a thorough and confident handle on the text, moving with impressive dexterity between the characters of the story. With impressive voice work and clear storytelling, he found so many lovely moments of humour and heart and shared them with the audience. A very strong finish to a lovely evening at the Hampton Hill Theatre.
Melissa Syversen
March 2017
Photographs by Bernard Wigginton
Talking Heads
Second triple bill programme
Review by Thomas Forsythe coming soon
The History of Cardenio
by William Shakespeare, John Fletcher and Prof. Gary Taylor
Richmond Shakespeare Society and Cutpurse
at The Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 18th to 25th March
Review by Georgia Renwick
You would be forgiven for doing a double take upon reading the poster for the latest production from the Richmond Shakespeare Society (RSS): a premiere? Of a Shakespeare play? And who’s this Cardenio character? Your eye might then be drawn to the other two authors below the play’s title, John Fletcher, a fellow 17th century playwright, and Gary Taylor, the highly regarded American Shakespeare scholar, editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare. Though nearly 400 years separate them, this unlikely triad of authors (and others besides) have “collaborated” in a historic UK premiere of this new and “most authentic” version of Shakespeare’s lost play.
The one consensus that has been reached in the world of Shakespeare scholarship, is that no consensus can ever be reached, but yet it is virtually indisputable in modern scholarship that the man we know as William Shakespeare, was not one man at all. Shakespeare had collaborators and is credited alongside Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright for The King’s Men, with The History of Cardenio in a 1653 register of soon to be published plays. However, for reasons it is now impossible to discern, it never appeared in print and was “lost”, not an uncommon fate for a play of this period. Certainly, more work was lost than now survives. In 1727 the play was picked up again by writer Lewis Theobald. Now widely credited as being the first ever Shakespeare scholar, he attempted to re-work Shakespeare and Fletcher’s play, naming it Double Falsehood, and it is here Gary Taylor comes in. For over 20 years Taylor has been unpicking this surviving version of Cardenio, uncovering the cracks in the text that Theobald messily plastered over with his 18th century morality, and bringing his own material to the mix. Using the latest in text technologies and the breadth of his knowledge and scholarship, Taylor has drafted his own “creative reconstruction”. To use Mark Aspen’s analogy from his introductory piece earlier this month, Taylor has “piec[ed] together shards of an Etruscan urn to create, not a reproduction, but the real thing assembled with a little clay for the missing bits… to make Shakespeare’s The History of Cardenio live again”. The US premiere was staged in May of 2012 at Indiana University and Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI), and attended by Twickenham based and established RSS director, Gerald Baker. He offered his feedback – and Taylor asked for ours this afternoon – and became an intrinsic part of the project to further develop the script and stage it here in London.
The truth is that a truly “authentic” Shakespearian History of Cardenio can never be achieved, but does that matter? Or to take a more postmodern approach, who cares about this Shakespeare character and what he did or did not write? Is the play itself actually any good?
Have the combined efforts of the authors created or uncovered a new Hamlet? Not quite, but nevertheless like any of the most gripping 17th century dramas there is a wealth of romance, a dose of death, more than one case of mistaken identity and a bucket load of bawdy laughs to boot. The plot is based on a strand of Miguel de Cervantes” classic Spanish novel Don Quixote, of which Thomas Shelton’s English translation was first available in 1612, making it a popular and contemporary tale at the time the play would have been performed.
Emma Lambie as Lucinda and Matthew Tyrrell as Cardenio. Photograph by Simone Sutton
It follows the story of two pairs of lovers. The earnest and poetic Cardenio (Matthew Tyrrell) who would “rather read than ride” into battle, is engaged to Lucinda (Emma Lambie), whilst his friend Fernando the Duke’s younger son (Hugh Cox), has fallen for the charms of strong-minded farmer’s daughter Violenta (Shana de Carsignac) who can “crow loader than any cock”. However, when Fernando learns of and meets his friend’s betrothed he desires her too, and sets in motion a trail of betrayals and falsehoods that sends the court into disarray. Caught up in this lovers” tangle is the old schoolmaster, Quesada (Christopher Yates) who, tired of his books, takes his sprightly young squire (Iona Twiston-Davies) on an ill-fated quest to kill giants and save princesses, high in the mountains. Allegiances are tested and power struggles ensue between parent and child, master and servant, the old and the young, the mad and the sane, between races, and between the sexes. “How can I be obedient and wise, too?” Lucinda begs of her stern and ubiquitous father, Don Bernard (John Kirchner), another exasperated daughter of one of Shakespeare’s missing mothers, whilst the young men are free to be led by “passions reign[ing] in their blood”. “Every man’s thing is urgent”, Marcela, Lucinda’s maid (Bibi Lucille) wittily observes; as any reader of Shakespearean works will understand, it is often the servants who make the most astute observations. Other Shakespearean tropes are scattered throughout, with thematic references in particular to Shakespeare’s later plays The Tempest and King Lear, discerning audience members may pick out countless other allusions.
Shana de Carsignac as Violenta. Photograph by Simone Sutton
Tyrrell makes for a spirited and romantic Cardenio, and the reciprocation of love from Lambie as Lucinda is charming and sweet, but it is de Carsignac”s performance as Violenta that stands out as the emotional heart of the play. She descends with tragic grace from fierce and feisty to a heartstring-tugging vulnerability, given greater emotional intensity played across from the charismatic and engaging Cox as the unfaithful Fernando.
The more senior members of the cast make the most of some deliciously funny dialogue, particularly in a stand-out scene surrounding nationality, namely our “acorn” English nation, discussed over a game of bowls. Yates finds a ponderous, Polonious-esque quality in the old schoolmaster Quesada, which is well balanced with Twiston-Davies snappy Sancho. Out of all the cast her quips exhibit the best comic timing. The overall pace is in places a little slow and indulgent, but who are we not to indulge? When it is an unfamiliar Shakespearian text we are watching here, it is certainly welcome in places to land those crucial plot points.
The period costumes are a real stand-out element. Although consistently good, RSS have really excelled themselves on this occasion. The rich reds and greens and dramatic blacks pop especially well against the set (designed by Barry Evans) which is dominated by an abstract mountain backdrop painted in pale shades of blue, yellow and green. This backdrop remains consistent throughout.
Photograph by Simone Sutton
The minimalised scenery and stage furniture makes for slick scene changes, although with nowhere to go the actors are left a little limited in terms of movement and at times it can feel quite static. It would be interesting to see this production progress into a larger and more fully developed set.
There are a few welcome instances of music to accompany verse (and watch out for the unexpected dance number!) one of which, “Wood, rocks and mountains” was composed by Robert Johnson for the original staging in 1612/13, but the others of which are original compositions. This is another aspect of the production ripe for further exploration and development.
As Taylor himself freely admits, we will never know exactly how much of Cardenio we owe to our Bard but regardless this is an enjoyable piece of theatre, at once comforting in its strange familiarity and yet exciting in its freshness and originality. Besides posing an interesting debate, the authorship doesn’t define our enjoyment, and Taylor and Baker are deserving of congratulations for their contributions respectively. Perhaps in another 400 years we’ll still be enjoying 17th century dramas and asking “Shakespeare, who?”.
Georgia Renwick
March 2017
Neighbourhood Watch
by Alan Ayckbourn
Barnes Community Players
at The Old Sorting Office, 7th to 11th March
Review by Thomas Forsythe
Power corrupts! Well it would wouldn’t it, if you were thrust into power after your life-long pal had been decapitated? But don’t forget that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Alan Ayckbourn’s Neighbourhood Watch takes a wry mischievous look at suburban paranoia as it spreads across the community of oh-too-recognisable characters on the Bluebell Hill Development. Ayckbourn develops the turns of the plot steadily from possible to unrealistic to hysterical, cascading in a reducto ad absurdum argument that requires a more than usual suspension of disbelief.
Thirty-something unmarried siblings Sarah and Martin Massie have just moved into a “respectable” neighbourhood on the fringe of a “rough” estate. They throw a tea-party as a house warming for their new neighbours, and the first to arrive are Rod Trusser, super-suspicious security specialist (retired), Dorothy Doggett, the local busy-body, and morose multi-cuckolded mechanic, Gary Janner. All is very cosy until Martin discovers a young intruder in his garden, who kicks him in the shin before running off, dropping a small case as he goes. Martin is willing to shrug it off, but Rod is obsessed with the idea that the case contains a modified sniper rifle, or bobby-trap bomb. (It actually contains a child’s clarinet.) They decide to form a neighbourhood watch, but at the first meeting Martin’s beloved-since-childhood garden gnome is thrown through the French windows, knocking off its head. Now it is war! – a war declared to stem the rising tide of ruffians – and the watch become volunteer vigilantes. With a Martin as its leader, Bluebell Hill evolves rapidly over four months into a repressive gated community, with sophisticated security systems and draconian medieval stocks and pillory as punishment for transgressors.
It is this sense of the absurd that presents an ambitious challenge to a cast, who need pace and good comic timing to pull off. Barnes Community Players production set about meeting this challenge with gleeful gusto and, to a large extent, achieved that ambition.
Alexa Bushell was impressive as the prim and proper Sarah (Hilda in Ayckbourn’s script), all buttoned up, both literary and figuratively, in her twin set, bustling with benevolence. Her facial expressions, particularly the withering glares, were worth the ticket price. One felt that Alexa Bushell’s secure acting was the anchor for the cast. If so, Steve Bannell, as Martin, was the king-pin, certainly the plot revolved around his character, as he “progressed” from meek younger brother to Daily Mail super-hero, whilst still showing bemused bewilderment at the wicked ways of the world.
As Dorothy, the garrulous gossip, Marie Bushell clearly relished the part and portrayed its nuances and Dorothy’s hypocrisies: propriety versus prurience, and passivity versus pretentiousness. (She was in the press meant she ran the local small-ads.)
Rod is a reworking of Uncle Harvey in Ayckbourn’s earlier Season’s Greetings, a man unhinged by his own exaggerated suspicions. Rodger Hayward-Smith, as a seasoned character actor in this role, tended to overdo the hesitancy of his character’s wariness and scepticism, (and one did wish that he would not constantly deliver his lines to the floor). Nevertheless, he put across well Rod’s outlandish “bring-back-the-birch” approach, his ruthlessness (here was a man not adverse to employing petty criminals with baseball bats) and his mounting obsessive paranoia. Rod is not one to pass on the hyperbole, his crescendo of vitriol on the contiguous “sink” estate, accusing its inhabitants of “incest” in their “Sodom and Gomorrah”.
Not that Martin in his later manifestations was short on the hyperbole, which culminated in an impassioned monologue, in a tight hard spotlight, the man of steel. Bannell’s skilful delivery was reminiscent of a late Barack Obama in both stance and rhetoric.
Steve Bannell as Martin Massie. Photograph by Mel Lawston
But great men have their weaknesses: along comes the vampish Amy Janner, sizzling into the scene. As Bluebell Hill’s femme fatale, Kat Walker excelled. None of Bluebell’s red-blooded men were impervious to her extra-marital allure, even Martin, pillar of his new community. This sultry siren soon seduced Martin, his awkwardness dissolving to her charms. Now corrupted, his only reply to this sister’s rebuke that “she is the child of the Devil” is “if I’m going to Hell, I’m going to enjoy it on the way down!”.
Amy’s hapless husband is Gary, eating himself away with impotent fuming. Andrew Williams played Gary as a quiet melancholic, whose bitterness was internalised. He turns to fetish fantasies and re-engineers his skills as a mechanic to constructing the stocks and pillories for the vigilantes. Not that Sarah is adverse to his constructing a chastity belt for Amy, although she does divert him to tar-and-feathering, or rather pixie-green paint and feathering, pixie green being Sarah’s favourite colour, derided by Amy.
For humour, and especially black humour, to work, it should be leavened with pathos. Emilia Lederleitnerova brought this sentiment to the play beautifully as the timid and reticent Magda, a Polish émigrée and teacher of reeded instruments. She is fearfully in thrall of her brutish husband Luther Bradley, played with energy by Patrick van de Bergh. Luther is unrepentantly amoral: he is having an affair with Amy, and when it is discovered that the youthful intruder was one of Magda’s pupils, he tries to extort “compensation” from Martin.
So we have sex, violence and corruption: just the thing for a comedy you might hesitate to say. But, then again, this is Ayckbourn, and Ayckbourn at his most contrary. So, in a play packed with hyperbole, exaggeration and overstatement, we need an OTT denouement. And it comes as all breaks down in mayhem. The criminals, set on retribution, set fire to the next door house (mistaking it for Martin’s) and as the looters arrive, police helicopters hover overhead. The police marksmen mistakenly believe that Martin has a grenade. It is in fact Sarah’s garden statuette of Jesus and, as he holds it up to show them, they shoot.
At Martin’s memorial service there is an unveiling of a giant … … garden gnome.
The monumental gnome (uncredited in the programme) was the redeeming feature of a lacklustre set comprising only furniture in the black draped Old Sorting Office acting area, although in a strange way this added to the claustrophobic feel of a neighbourhood under siege. It was left to Andy Hale’s lighting to rescue the design.
Director Terry Oakes, making his debut with BCP, was blessed with some strong actors, but more pace and timing could have helped others, as could more dynamic stage placements. Notwithstanding this, the Neighbourhood Watch company have presented a good production of a difficult play, but most importantly, one which made for an hilarious and highly entertaining evening.
As the finger-wagging aphorism puts it, the way to Hell (even Martin’s enjoyable way) is paved with good intentions. Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck has the same theme, but not the compassion of Neighbourhood Watch, and certainly none of the wicked humour of Ayckbourn when he is in full flight. Certainly Martin Massie’s well-meaning intercessions start off well but go in the wrong direction, with calamitous consequences. What turns the good intentions off course? The heady sniff of power of course. Add a sniff of perfume and a hint of fame and there is absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Oh, I wonder what happened to the headless gnome?
Thomas Forsythe
March 2017
Mark Aspen 