My Brilliant Friend
PARTS 1 and 2.
World Premiere
Adapted for the stage by April De Angelis from the novels of Elena Ferrante.
RTK at the Rose Theatre Kingston until 2nd April.
Review by Melissa Syversen.
Life is hard. From the moment we are born, we set out on a journey that will be filled with extreme highs and lows. Sure, there will be wonderful moments of pure love and ecstatic joy, but there will also be times of grief, pain and loss. There will be challenges to overcome, victories to be had, but also times you’d like nothing more than to vanish off the earth. If you are lucky you might just have someone to share all this with. A support and confidant, that special someone who makes you laugh like no other but can also drive you up the wall like no other. Someone who will stay with you even when they are absent. This is what Elena Ferrante has captured so vividly in her acclaimed four-part series known as the Neapolitan Novels. Her story of two extraordinary women and their friendship in post-war Italy, told over six decades, has fascinated readers all over the world. Elena Ferrante has managed to encapsulate and put into words not just the intricacies of life but the complex layers of female friendship. I have unfortunately not read the novels (yet) but it doesn’t take a lot of research to feel the fervour of joy from readers and critics alike for these books.
Adopting such complex and beloved novels is a daunting project. April De Angelis however, has risen to the challenge and has expertly transposed the series’ four novels into four acts, creating a tight and compact play that is part memory play and coming-of-age-story, it is performed in two parts, of two and a half hours each, and can be seen either in a single day or over two evenings.
All photographs by Marc Brenner
An elderly Elena (also known as Lenú) comes home to a parcel containing two old dolls. Shortly after she receives a call from the son of her childhood friend Lila, telling her that his mother has disappeared. The play then follows Elena as she looks back on her life together with Lila and their intricate relationship, trying to understand what has happened to her. The audience are whisked through her life, carried rapidly through memories of their formative years together in a poor Neapolitan neighbourhood. The scenes change swiftly and sharply, deftly handled through Melly Still’s directing and Jon Nicholls’ clever use of era-contextual pop music and soundscapes that transports you to the bustling Italian streets. The strong cast of twelve play multiple characters, constantly and impressively changing between the various important people in Elena’s life. Due to the pace and structure it is sometimes difficult to follow who all the characters are and how they relate to each other. It does become easier as we go along but do have a look at the character list in the program. Also, the character of Alfonso is played by two different actors in the two parts so keep an eye out for his mustard yellow jumper.
Keeping with De Angelis’ writing, Melly Still’s directing is equally economic as it is elegant. Old chairs and tables become luxury cars and fire pits. Strips of plastic become the ocean, brown wrapping paper creates earthquakes. Still has an eye for the visual, her productions have a cinematic feel. Together with beautiful set and costume design by Soutra Gilmour and impressive lighting by Malcolm Rippeth she has created a world as malleable as Elena’s memories. Set inside a three-story frame of industrial steel and concrete the stage can as easily create cold, harsh factory conditions as warm summer nights by the Mediterranean Sea. The passing of time is mostly marked with costumes in the style of each of the decades. Elena alone remains in the same blue dress throughout, a reminder that she is the constant in this as both narrator and character. We are seeing this, and Lila, through her eyes.
As Elena, Niamh Cusack starts as a gentle, and somewhat awkward young girl. She is a sweet mix of insecurity and ambition. As she grows she proves to be a woman of both strength and vulnerability. Cusack manages to inhabit the constant contradicting emotions of a strong woman caught between tradition and modernity, motherhood and ambition.
The friendship between Elena and Lila is not an easy one. There is a relationship built on mutual fascination and love but also rivalry. There is a constant change of who is the brilliant leader and who is the follower. As they age their lives diverge. Elena steps into the world and becomes a successful writer, a dream Lila once had. Lila is denied further education by her father and remains in Naples. Catherine McCormack is pure passion as Lila. She brings both a fire and vulnerability to Lila, breathing life to fiercely intelligent woman trapped among lesser often violent men. Through sheer force of will she refuses to submit to her role and the expectations of women, sometimes even to reality itself. This adaptation’s greatest success is arguably the creation of two deeply complex and layered women that will challenge and fascinate great actresses for years to come.
I suspect I might have benefited from not having read the novels before seeing this stage adaptation. I am all too familiar with the frustration of having your favourite novels cut and condensed into pieces, but I think this adaptation (and world premiere!) by Rose Theatre Kingston gets it mostly right. I spent five hours with these characters, and I find myself still thinking back on Lila and Elena, ruminating not only on their lives, but how it reflects my own. I want to learn more about these two brilliant friends and fill in more of their stories that might have been missed in the adaptation. So off to the bookstore I go.
Melissa Syversen
March 2017
The Cyril Davies Tribute Night
The Eel Pie Club at The Cabbage Patch, Twickenham
9th March 2017
A review by Cliff Tapstand
They did you proud, Cyril!
Cyril Davies died on the 7th January 1964 at the tender age of 31, after collapsing during a performance at the original Eel Pie Island Club. Along with Alexis Korner, Cyril is widely regarded as the driving force behind the birth of Rhythm and Blues music, and a tremendous influence on emerging bands like The Rolling Stones.
Once a year the resurrected Eel Pie Club holds a Tribute Gig in his memory, and on this night, he would have been thrilled at the number of exceptionally talented musicians that turned up to perform his type of music, his songs, and even more thrilled that so many of them played his instrument of choice, the blues harmonica.
The gig was put together by two regular performers at The Eel Pie Club, both of whom are renowned exponents of the harmonica, (or ‘harp’ as it known in the business): Alan Glen former member of The Yardbirds and Nine below Zero, together with John O’ Leary of The Downliners Sect.
Photographs by Pat Stancliffe
Joining them on stage in an All Stars band were Tim Penn (Cadillac Kings), Nick Newell (Kinks), Glynn Evans (Martha and the Vandellas), Al Vincent (Daniel Smith Band), and Peter Miles (Radical Sheiks).
The band was joined from time to time by an array of guest artists each with their own tribute to Cyril Davies, his music, and Chicago Blues. First up was Bob Hokum, who gave excellent renditions of Bad to the Bone, and One More Reason, with some impressive very guitar playing.
Photographs by Pat Stancliffe
In 1963, Cyril Davies released a 45rpm record with Country Line Special, a fast and furious harmonica instrumental on the A side, and Chicago Calling on the B side. We were treated to two excellent versions of these, the first by Laurie Garman, and the second by Dave Raphael and Nick Hyde.
Photographs by Pat Stancliffe
Other special guests to contribute to this feast of blues classics were two regular visitors to the club, Robin Bibi who performed Guitar Slim’s Things I Used to Do, Lord, I Won’t Do No More, and the evening came to an end with a rousing session led by the ever popular Paul Cox. Paul is one of the best front men in the business, and he didn’t let us down with Got My Mojo Working, Stormy Monday Blues, and a song closely associated with Cyril Davies, Hoochie Coochie Man, written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. A Chicago Blues classic as was the whole evening!
Cliff Tapstand
March 2017
A little more about Cyril Davies:
Choral Evensong
by St. Paul’s Cathedral Choristers
St. Mary’s Church, Hampton, Sunday 12th March 2017.
Review by William Ormerod
Tea and cakes would be served afterwards – if we were lucky! We were thus warned, for the boy choristers of St. Paul’s Cthederal are “very keen on cake”.
As part of a termly peregrination by St. Paul’s round the eight deaneries of the Diocese of London, the packed church at St. Mary’s Hampton was treated to a choral evensong by the visiting choir, the boy trebles of the Cathedral, fifteen strong, with accompanying clergy. The choir was conducted by their Director of Music, Andrew Carwood, and accompanied on the famous J.C. Bishop organ, which was a gift to the church by King William IV. The organ was played by the St. Paul’s Organ Scholar, Joseph Beech.
Photograph courtesy of St. Paul’s Cathederal
The format of the service, following the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer, and with plainsong-style versicles and responses. The main difference was that, following Cathedral practice, the Psalm (No. 135, verses 1-7), Canticles (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for trebles in C minor by Sir George Dyson), and Prayers were sung by the choir alone, as of course was the anthem, Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land by Parry. A minor difference in the Cathedral-style singing was the slightly incongruous elongation of certain syllables (especially in the aforementioned Versicles and Responses).
The psalm (‘O praise the Lord…’) was sung with restrained gusto by the choir, mostly antiphonally, to a chant by Sir George Job Elvey, Organist for 47 years of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. He had a reputation as a kind and gentle choirmaster – he never boxed the boys’ ears, except when they sang out of tune at Evensong! There was some subtle accompanying word-painting from the organist, notably a stormy crescendo of lightning, wind and rain at the end. Choir and organ imbued Dyson’s melodious and energetic Magnificat with a jauntiness and innocence that seemed to me to represent Mary’s dignified acceptance in her song while inwardly jumping for joy; while the more relaxed, reflective Nunc brought out the quiet, joyful resignation of Simeon’s song. Dyson was the father of Freeman Dyson FRS, the quantum physicist, doubtless familiar [among other Dysons] to those at NPL, Bushy Park.
In his Address, the Dean, David Ison, after thanking St. Mary’s for the hospitality (and cake!) on behalf of the choristers, whom we were told, had been transformed by Mr. Carwood “from little urchins into angels”.
The Anthem, which preceded the sermon, was familiar as being the original form of Parry’s lyrical hymn tune Repton (an arrangement for the hymn Dear Lord and Father of mankind) – probably his second most famous tune (after Jerusalem). This was a ‘ballad’ from Act I, Scene 2 of Parry’s oratorio Judith (1888) as sung by Meshullemeth, wife of King Manasseh of Israel (Contralto), which morphs in verse 5 into a trio with two of their sons (Treble) waiting to be sacrificed to the idol Moloch. The St. Paul’s choir duly sang verses 1-4 in unison (v. 3 a variation of the tune), and v.5, a different tune, in three-part harmony. The words, apparently by Parry himself, reflect the vivid Israelitish story, as he termed it, already met in the first lesson. Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (the third knight of the realm among this evening’s illustrious composers!) incidentally took composition lessons from Sir George Elvey while at school at Eton, where he also earned the Oxford B.Mus. degree at the age of 18 or 19. He was a protégé of the own organist (back in 1832), S.S. Wesley, and himself supported Sir George Dyson. Though a non-religious ‘free-thinker’, he was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
We were blessed at the end by the Area Dean, who encouraged us, joyfully with the grace of God, to take up the cross and follow Him. Choir and clergy trooped out to a suitably Lenten closing Organ Voluntary – Saraband (in modo elegiaco) by Herbert Howells, with some deep and dark elegiac tones; and copious supplies of tea, scones and cakes survived the choristers and put the icing on the service.
William Ormerod
March 2017
First Birthday of West End Production of Motown The Musical
Shaftesbury Theatre, London
Review by Teresa Read
With just $800 borrowed from his family, Motown founder Berry Gordy, goes from featherweight boxer to heavyweight music mogul, discovering and launching the careers of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and many more.
Motown uncovers the true story of the legendary record label that changed music history and created the soundtrack of a generation.
Motown the Musical is not just a medley of Motown hits but is entwined with the social history of the USA and the part played by Berry Gordy and his aim to make black music part of American mainstream culture.
Starting with vibrant song and dance the scene moves to Gordy as a young boy inspired by Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion of the world. Born in 1929 in Detroit – Motor City – Gordy went on to found Motown Records. In 1960 Gordy’s friend, Smokey Robinson – and the Miracles – sold a million records with “Shop Around”, followed by the Marvelettes with Please Mr Postman reaching No 1 in the record charts.
An energetic and colourful performance of Dancing in the Street, co-written by Marvin Gaye and recorded by Martha and the Vandellas in 1964, was one of many songs in the show – a classic of pop culture.
For full review visit Twickenham Tribune website:
Motown the Musical is based on Berry Gordy’s autobiography: To Be Loved
Teresa Read
March 2017
The Winter’s Tale
by Ryan Wigglesworth
English National Opera at The London Coliseum until 14th March
Review by Mark Aspen
Shakespeare has been struck dumb! English National Opera’s composer-in-residence, Ryan Wigglesworth, has taken Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale and fashioned a very radical operatic version. This week’s world premiere, under the baton of its composer, and directed by first-time director Rory Kinnear, has been a somewhat risky, and clearly controversial, undertaking for ENO.
Dumb? Well, Shakespeare’s words have been taken from his mouth, the soaring gorgeous text replaced with a drab modern paraphrasing. But what do we get in its place? There is a full exposure of the raw emotions of the story, imaginative composing, dedicated performances by ENO’s incomparable chorus and orchestra, and an amazing spectacle. So would the dumb Shakespeare be dumbfounded?
We have lost the “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles”, Autolycus, surely one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic and ambiguous characters, and all the social commentary that goes with it. We have lost the snapper-off of passing courtiers’ heads, The Bear, begetter of surely one of drama’s best known stage directions, “exit, pursued by a bear”. Our Antigonus (played with great sympathy by baritone Neal Davies) is last seen as the ship is wrecked in a raging tempest that takes place high above the set.
Photography by Johan Persson
And what a set! Designed by Vicki Mortimer as a grey-pink granite castle keep, its circular walls are mounted on a revolve. This allows for an effortless transformation, both from the exclusivity of the statue-ornamented luxury palace interior to the harsh forbidding walls outside where the mob threatens; and from severe Sicilia to bucolic Bohemia. At the climax of Hermione’s trial, the expulsion of the new-born baby (here including an horrific attempt at consigning it to the flames) and Hermione’s ostensible death, the castle is struck by lightning and split in two. Reminiscent of the rending of the Temple in Jerusalem, it is an awe-inspiring coup de theatre.
All this broad spectacle often threatens to descend into melodrama, but is rescued by the sincerity of the acting. Bass-baritone Iain Paterson (last seen at ENO at Hans Sachs in The Mastersingers ) has a powerful stage presence as an autocratic Leontes, overwhelms with his depiction of the character’s unreasoning, unrelenting and unfounded jealousy.
The style of the setting is within a mid-twentieth Century east-European dictatorship. In Act One, Leontes ultra-bemedalled uniform contrasts starkly with Polixenes’ understated bespoke lounge suit, whereas in Act Two it is the regretful Leontes who is suited and booted while the erstwhile rational Polixenes (energetically portrayed by baritone Leigh Melrose) is now the totalitarian controller, dressed in desert-storm fatigues and dark glasses: a clever touch by award-wining costume designer, Moritz Junge.
Mezzo Susan Bickley’s portrayal of the wise faithful Paulina spoke volumes of the underlying humanity of the character, rising with authority to maintain moral honesty.
ENO’s own Sophie Bevan was outstanding as Hermione, skilfully balancing the character’s dignity and suffering. With her always bell-like soprano voice, her all too few arias were superb and her top B cry out to the gods as she, as a statue, is resurrected to life was purely ethereal.
Samantha Price was beautifully cast as Perdita (easily looking like the daughter of Bevan’s Hermione) sparkling with fresh light loveliness. Enthusiastic and animated, Anthony Gregory’s Florizel came across as starry-eyed and very much in love with her, but determined and defiant when the push came to the shove.
Wigglesworth’s score is full of individuality and invention, although occasionally a little cinematic, such as tolling bells to indicate the passage of time. Measured harmonic developments, smacking a little of Michael Tippett, with much use of harp with piano passages, build to their best when using the skills of the ENO chorus at its best. The menacing mob’s slowly building crescendo, enhanced by Imogen Knight’s movement choreography, in Release our Queen had, to my ears, more than a hint of Philip Glass.
Nevertheless, I do wish Shakespeare had been given some of his voice. “When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ the sea” would do. But maybe of Wigglesworth’s Winter’s Tale our poor dumb Shakespeare might have agreed with Polixenes that “This is an art which does not mend nature, change it rather, but the art itself is nature.”
Mark Aspen
March 2017
UK Premiere of Shakespeare Comes to Twickenham
History of Cardenio , Cutpurse and RSS
Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 18th to 25th March.
Preview by Mark Aspen
Who was this chap Shakespeare? And who were his mates? Was one of them Spanish? And what’s all this to do with one of Twickenham’s most ardent Shakespeare experts?
Modern scholarly research (that is serious work, not those of us who just dip our toes in these ever flowing waters) shows that Elizabethan and Jacobean playwriting was much more of a team sport than we had hitherto thought.
Shakespeare’s inkpot, it seems, was a bit more communal than we had believed. But then again we should have suspected. How otherwise could he have found time for all that acting, and moving bits of theatres from one side of the Thames to the other, and wooing Anne Hathaway, and having Lost Years in Italy or somewhere?
After all, we have known for some time (actually since 1634 when the First Quarto was published) that Two Noble Kinsmen was written by two kindred souls, William Shakespeare and John Fletcher.
However, our Will seems to have been drawn to mates called Tom: Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, and Thomas Kyd on various works, but especially with Thomas Middleton. For a long time Middleton has been credited with writing chunks of Timon of Athens, and probably revised Macbeth and Measure for Measure after Shakespeare’s death. But now some scholars are confidently declaring that Middleton wrote large bits of All’s Well that Ends Well too.
Now that Thomas Kyd, he wrote The Spanish Tragedy, didn’t he? Well, er, maybe he started writing the first bit of it, but then he probably needed some help. “Hand D” comes in here. A three page revision to an unpublished Elizabethan play by Anon, Sir Thomas Moore, a dramatised biography of Henry VIII’s hapless Lord Chancellor, was written by a Hand D. In 1916 a team of authoritative Shakespearian scholars, including palaeographer Sir Edward Thompson who had painstakingly compared Hand D with Shakespeare’s writing on extant legal documents that he had signed, came to the conclusion that Hand D belonged to none other than our Will. It seems than Hand D also wrote part of the manuscript for The Spanish Tragedy and in 2013 scholar Douglas Bruster confidently declared that Shakespeare wrote some scenes in this play too.
Arden of Faversham, a 1592 play by the ubiquitous Anon, has long attracted the curiosity of scholars looking for a possible author. The very busy Thomas Kyd had long been their prime suspect, but it now seems that our Will may have written that too! Interestingly, two of the characters in Arden of Faversham are incompetent hit-men called Shakebag and Black Will. The plot thickens!
These ever flowing waters of scholarly research into which we are dipping our toes are, however, tidal. They are not solely a Teddington Weir deluge of scholarship favouring Shakespeare in authorship claims: there is a strongly recurrent ebb tide. In 2012, Oxford professor, Laurie Maguire claimed that much of the spelling and vocabulary in All’s Well that Ends Well was that of Thomas Middleton, and since then much research has been undertaken on this sort of pattern-matching to try to answer the perennial question of who wrote Shakespeare.
All this probably shows that Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights were not lone figures scratching their quills in garrets and alehouses, but had more of an all-hands-to-deck approach when the pressures of influential patrons demanded drama by deadline.
So what about Shakespeare’s Spanish workmate? Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra died the very same day as Shakespeare, 23rd April 1616. So they were in every sense contemporaries. Cervantes is of course the “Shakespeare of Spain”, and his well-known Don Quixote is lauded as the very first novel. Published in two parts in 1605 and 1615 it represents the epitome of the Spanish Golden Age of literature. So, did Shakespeare in his Lost Years go to Spain and share a porron or two with Cervantes? Sorry to disappoint, but probably not. However, without a doubt Shakespeare would have known about Don Quixote. Now, as Will would say: here is the rub. A sub-plot of Don Quixote about Cardenio, a recluse spurned in love, formed the basis of a Shakespeare play, The History of Cardenio, written in collaboration with John Fletcher.
US Premiere of The History of Cardenio, Indianapolis, 2012. Photograph by Emily Schwank
“I’ve never heard of Shakespeare writing The History of Cardenio”, many will say, but there is no doubt he did. The King’s Men were paid for two performances of the play in the winter of 1612-13 and in 1653 publisher Humphrey Moseley made known that he was going to print and sell a previously unpublished play, The History of Cardenio, by Messrs Fletcher and Shakespeare.
In the 1740s, actor David Garrick, our doyen of Hampton, acted for (and with) Colley Cibber (whom he was soon to eclipse in the eyes of the London audiences). In 1727, Colley Cibber produced a play by the Shakespeare scholar Lewis Theobald, called Double Falsehood. This was in fact an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The History of Cardenio. In 2011, the Royal Shakespeare Company had a crack at Double Falsehood, at a time when academy interest was being re-ignited in universities worldwide from Nottingham to Texas. Textual and linguistic analyses showed Double Falsehood to indeed be a re-incarnation of at least some of William Shakespeare’s The History of Cardenio.
For over twenty years the person who has really had the bit between his teeth in researching the connection between Double Falsehood and The History of Cardenio has been Gary Taylor, Distinguished Research Professor of English at Florida State University. He has “retro-engineered” the Theobald adaptation using his technique of, wait for it … History of Text Technologies. This is an interdisciplinary approach which has successfully reconstructed the likely text for the jointly-authored The History of Cardenio as it would have been in 1612.
Prof Taylor is a bit like a forensic archaeologist, piecing together shards of an Etruscan urn to create, not a reproduction, but the real thing assembled with a little clay for the missing bits. In the same way, Taylor has brought together Theobald’s script and some other fragments to make Shakespeare’s The History of Cardenio live again.
In May 2012, the Indiana University and Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI), working with professional actors and using Prof Taylor’s restored text, staged the first production in over 400 years of The History of Cardenio.
Present at that American premiere at IUPUI, was Gerald Baker, long-time resident of Twickenham, who is well known locally as a director and actor. Gerald Baker was a commentator in the BBC news coverage of the event, and has offered advice to Professor Taylor on the development of the script.
Taylor is the senior General Editor of New Oxford Shakespeare where some of Baker’s work on The History of Cardenio is mentioned. In the way that changes in intellectual direction usually do, the New Oxford Shakespeare is a tome that has raised hackles in academia and in the theatre world.
Nevertheless Taylor is himself a theatre-savvy scholar and has entrusted the UK premiere of The History of Cardenio to Gerald Baker. Baker’s project has been long in the gestation, and has been met locally with cynicism and support in equal measure.
However, Baker now has a bun in the oven, and what a tasty bun it will be. A co-production by the Richmond Shakespeare Society and Cutpurse, the UK premiere of The History of Cardenio will take place at the Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham between 18th and 25th March.
It will be an historic occasion, but you will not have to stand with the Southwark groundlings, ankle-deep in rotting hazelnut shells and worse. Nevertheless, Gerald Baker reminds us that “this will be as close to a Shakespeare first night as you’re ever likely to get”.
Mark Aspen
March 2017
They’re Behind You!
Pantomime Season, 2016-17, an Overview
by Thomas Forsythe
Oh, yes they are! They’re behind us … at least for this season. But like the gestation of all healthy babies, in nine months time pantos will be back. It is hard to think of a more enduring audience-participation theatre genre than the perennially popular pantomime.
In and around Richmond and Twickenham where our own reviewers slink in the stalls of playhouses there has been the usual seasonal plethora of pantos, so perhaps it is a good time, as the season has just finished, to take a quick overview of a half dozen local offerings seen by our hardy and intrepid critics.
Half of the half dozen have been Cinderella. We are Cinderella-ed out! There are now more squashed pumpkins than after a Halloween orgy, the bottle banks are crammed with broken glass slippers, and we are rodent free, since all the rats and mice (together with a few pet lizards) have transmogrified into liveried servants of differing statuses.
First at the ball of our Cinderellas was more-or-less a dead heat between Teddington Theatre Club (at Hampton Hill Theatre) and Barnes Community Players (at Kitson Hall) vying for invitations to the ball during the first week in December. Whereas Star Panto Group just got in before midnight with a production last weekend (17th and 18th February) on behalf of the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Family Association (also at Hampton Hill Theatre).
TTC’s Ugly Sisters. Photograph by Jojo Leppink, Handwritten Photography
All of our eponymous Cinderellas were demure, pretty and oh so kind, just as they should be, but of course, as always, the scene stealers are the ugly sisters. One seasoned local theatre-goer, sated after two Cindrellas in one week, was heard to say, “I’ve just see two great ugly sisters”, before adding “Pity they were in different shows!”. Such is the nature of the panto game. Our reviewers concurred, however, giving the top uglies to Andrew Lawston, as Grizelda in the BCP offering, who motored the show like a V8 in a mini (car that is, not skirt), and Edz Barrett as Lanti in TTC’s show. Edz lost the edge though by over-camping it. There is a fine line when playing a panto dame, between being a female impersonator and that clear travesty that is the archetypical dame. We should know that our dame is a man in drag crudely and rudely parodying a woman. For it to work, he must miss the mark in a bosom-lifting non-feminine way. TTC did however hit the mark with the uglies’ costumes, colourful excesses of increasingly exotic exaggeration that made Carmen Miranda look positively dowdy.
Musically, though, there was much to enjoy in the Cinderella shows. At TTC there was Emma Hosier’s choreography, and the biggy ensemble number, Having a Good Time. BCP had a lovely trio, led by MD, Simon Douglas Lane, who gave us a proper overture, and a beautifully rendered Cycle of Life, sung with rich resonance by Fergus O’Kelly emerging briefly from the chorus.
Breeches parts are of course a staple of pantomime and whereas TTC disappointed with none, BCP gave us two in all their thigh-slapping glory, Elisha Jefferies, a gorgeously statuesque Prince Charming and Mel Lawston an equally attractive ambiguous Dandini. TTC excelled though on the wicked stepmother front with Samantha McGill’s assertive Madam Cod-Fillet.
Madam Cod-Fillet, the stepmother? What’s all this, you may well ask. TTC’s Cinderella is set in France under the Moulin Bleu, so conflating a kind of Cinderella with a kind of Cabaret. No problem, perhaps it is a tribute to Charles Perrault, who in the late 17th Century brought the story from Italy to France (and thence to England). As a by-the-by, it is perhaps worth noting that it is in these linguistic transformations that the idea of a glass slipper arose. The original is made of vair, i.e. squirrel fur. Even within the French language this could be confused with verre, i.e. glass.
Star Panto Group’s Cinderella was described as “our traditional Disney” production, certainly a contradiction in terms for a story whose roots are in a tradition that goes back at least 1200 years, as Shakespeare knew when he wrote King Lear. Disney is of course infamous for pillaging European culture and claiming it as Disney’s own. However, in fairness, all this shows is that the Cinderella story is very malleable.
The Star Panto Group is part of the Kathryn Turner Trust, a grant-giving charity that is based in Oxfordshire. It was instrumental in setting up the Shooting Star charity in Hampton, and currently gives over £5,000 per month to charities helping ex-servicemen and their families. It runs charity shops from a warehouse in Abingdon, but once a year it puts on the Star Panto. Kate Turner MBE, the charity’s redoubtable founder, now in her eighth decade, has admirably produced the Star panto for 49 years. She says that she “loves to hear the children laugh”. Maybe this is the essence of pantomime.
Edmundian Players went to another story of Italian origin for their panto at Whitton’s Cheray Hall, Pinocchio. Thankfully, they did not try to reproduce a Disney version. Quite the contrary, the story was presented full of original touches and succeeded in combining fairy tale, musical, adventure story and ballet, whist shoehorning them all into a pantomime format. With nearly three hours running time, it was quite a feat, but as our reviewer, Quentin Weiver said “its almost Wagnerian duration just whistled by, with my very young companion on the edge of her seat the whole time”.
So how did the Pinocchio dame stand up against the Cindrellas’ ugly sisters? Terry Bedell, as Risotto, the “wife” of toymaker Geppetto, savoured the dame role, playing the audience well, and giving great energy to the part. As a nice foil to the panto shenanigans in Pinocchio was Dave Young’s measured pathos as Geppetto, truly touching. The Edmundians’ breeches part was played with great aplomb by Amelia Kirk as Tony, the heroic principal boy, while Rachael Nicholas, as the love interest ingénue Marietta, captivated our reviewer with her charmingly coy portrayal. Both actresses are sixteen year-old.
A highlight of Edmundians Pinocchio was a wow-inducing black-light dance sequence with fluorescent fishes swallowed a huge whale, which “then transformed into the inside of the beast complete with Gepetto, Pinocchio and family incarcerated in the gastric grotto of the whale’s stomach, together with some pre-digested (but still quite lively) skeletons”. See what Quentin Weiver says here
Richmond Theatre’s Sleeping Beauty. Photograph by Craig Sugden
Richmond Theatre’s Sleeping Beauty awoke early in the season, with six-week run beginning right at the beginning of December. Although it did induce a few yawns from some reviewers, who considered it too formulaic with a raiding of last year’s costume baskets, “a sense of déjà-vu”; other were more up-beat, especially about the dame, Matt Rixon as Nursie, “seasoning the plot with just enough knowing asides and double entendres for the mum and dads, without ever losing the kids.”
Now here is another fine line to be drawn in pantomime. Sexual innuendo is one of the many panto conventions, for if commedia dell’arte is the mother of pantomime, Victorian music hall is its father. However, the line should be drawn much closer to the saucy seaside postcards of the mid twentieth century than to smutty stand-up of the twenty-first: more Donald McGill than Russell Brand. Loz Keal’s writing of pantos for the Teddington Theatre Club over the years has drawn criticism in this respect. This season’s Cinderella was more toned-down, but one lady member of TTC was heard to remark that there were so many references to the Prince’s balls, that in the end it just became boring.
At the risk of ourselves boring our readers with fine lines, there is the danger to panot producers of the political references. Although satire has traditionally be one of the many ingredients of the pantomime cake, the producer does face a real danger of alienating at least half of his audience, as some scoff the political cake with relish whilst others choke on it. And please, please, panto writers, could we not have escaped the tedium of the Brexit and Trump issues, even at the panto. We came here to have some fun, not be lectured!
These issues came into at least four of our half-dozen pantos. In the Richmond Theatre Sleeping Beauty, we had the brittle-edged Maureen Lipman as the wicked witch Carabosse transforming from overdressed Goth to parody Teresa May (albeit fairly accurately) with the half-baked quip “breadsticks means breadsticks”.
Cairn McConville, director of the Rose Theatre’s offering, even politicised The Wind in the Willows, stating that he begged to differ if you thought that a children’s story about a mole going on an adventure had no place in the world of 2016 and its tumultuous events. Mr Toad even became a thinly disguised Donald Trump! Nevertheless one reviewer loved Jamie Baughan’s Toad, “melding preposterous vanity, entitlement and foolishness with infuriatingly winning charm”. Well!
Rose Theatre’s Wind in the Willows. Photograph by Mark Douet
Certainly, many were charmed by the “heart-warming chemistry” between Gary Mitchinson’s wholesome and angelic Moley and Emma Pallant’s sweetly disposed Ratty whose innocent pragmatism enables him to “choose to hear there’s nothing wrong with this wonderful world.”
Whist not exactly a pantomime, The Wind in the Willows had enough of its conventions to be included in this overview, and deserves so for that quote from Moley, which is perhaps the essence of the panto.
Continuing the positive note, our reviewers appreciated Maureen Lipman’s running gag in Sleeping Beauty of the singer whose notes are more off-key than positive, alluding to her portray of Florence Foster Jenkins in Glorious! (which had a stage outing in Kew last autumn See what Mary Stoakes says here .)
In our reviews of local pantos, one thing shone through: the esprit de corps that pulls a panto together. In particular there have been a number of examples of last minute cast changes where it has been young people who have really stepped into the breach. In Star Panto’s Cinderella personal circumstances lost six performers with only a few rehearsals still to go. But for Kate Turner this was just a “hiccup” and she coached her doughty replacements into giving a Star performance. Even more remarkable in Edmundian’s Pinocchio was 13 year-old Mary McGrath, who stepped up from the chorus into the eponymous role for the opening performances at a few hours notice. Our reviewer was full of admiration: “This was a feat that would have had the most seasoned professional quaking at the thought”.
Perhaps ostensibly so, pantomimes are largely for, about, (and often by) children. Although nowadays performers are forbidden by the ogre of “elf and safety” from throwing sweets to them, it is really warming to see how our local companies encourage the youngest in their audiences. Teddington Theatre Club brings out all the panto cast into the foyer after the show for photos (plus much banter from the grown-ups). Edmundian Players take children, with their parents, back stage to meet their heroes and shudder at the proximity of the baddies. Star Panto Group even allowed children into Cinderella’s coach for eager parents’ photo-shoots. Perhaps the commercial theatre should be less sniffy and mingle more with its fans.
In its centuries’ old travelling show, pantomime has journeyed along, picking up influences and conventions from all and sundry. Its main route from commedia dell’arte to the Victorian and Edwardian music hall took it through the mid-eighteenth century harlequinade. This was an art that brought this entertainment to its now uniquely English form of the pantomime. And the harlequinade we own to David Garrick, that theatre polymath whom we can locally justifiably call our own, as he lived most of his life in Hampton. Garrick was born three hundred years ago last weekend on 17th February 1717. So it is fitting that we should celebrate a fresh season of harlequinade here in the area where he lived for over a quarter of a century.
David Garrick, if he still lived in Hampton, could be forgiven for thinking of pantomime that “It behind you!”, but the last laugh is with us and we can, in unison, give a hearty reply … all together now … “Oh no, it’s NOT!”
Thomas Forsythe
February 2017
Editor’s Note:
This review of reviews covered the following of this season’s productions:
First Family Entertainment Sleeping Beauty at Richmond Theatre, 2nd December to 8th January;
Teddington Theatre Club Cinderella at Hampton Hill Theatre, 3rd to 10th December;
Barnes Community Players Cinderella at Kitson Hall, Barnes, 6th to 10th December;
RTK The Wind in the Willows at Rose Theatre, Kingston 6th December to 3rd January;
Edmundian Players Pinocchio at Cheray Hall, 20th to 28th January;
Star Panto Group Cinderella at Hampton Hill Theatre, 17th and 18th February.
The Snow Dragons
by Lizzie Nunnery
RSS Senior Youth Group, Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, until 19th February
Review by Eleanor Marsh
The Snow Dragons has been commissioned for and is being presented as part of the National Theatre’s Connections programme, which is an excellent outreach to young people, giving them the opportunity to perform brand new work under the auspices of a major theatrical institution.
Director Katie Abbott and her Senior Youth Group at RSS have done an excellent job of bringing to life realistic characters in a somewhat mythical and whimsical “between world”, redolent of Norse mythology but with a storyline horribly relevant today. The audience were asked to constantly question whether we were watching real events, a children’s game, or fantasy and mythology. As the play progresses it becomes clear that the events are all too real and the elements of fantasy fade into the background in favour of the harsh reality of modern warfare.
Photographs by Christina You
The play’s plot is apparently based on a true story but, try as I might, I’ve not been able to find details of this, which is a shame – there were many young people in the audience and this could have offered them a golden opportunity to engage them with some real history.
To say the set was captivating would be an understatement . It evoked both the fantasy world of Narnia in its mountainous winter landscape and the more real idea of The Lord of the Flies with the makeshift camp and cabin. Costumes, too were excellent – I particularly liked the tree camouflage and the Queen’s other-worldly sparkle and furs, which helped to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
The use of music in the play is extremely clever and the choice of the haunting modern folk melodies, that would not be out of place on the closing credits of Wallander, was inspired. I do not know whether this music is part of the original piece or something added in for this production but either way it worked beautifully and although they were not always confident there were some lovely singing voices within the cast. Special mentions must go to George Worledge as Christi who played a mean guitar – often “on the move” , whilst participating in the physical theatre that this production used so effectively; and Henry Miller, whose soulful cello playing added even more atmosphere to the evening. Anna Watson held her own as the Queen, performing the only “stand alone” song of the evening in a haunting style that was a hybrid of Katie Melua and Bat for Lashes.
And so to the actors. This was a true ensemble piece with every cast member playing a key role and having impact. In fact the performance was at its strongest when all the cast were onstage together. The “leader of the pack”, Raggi was played with style and panache by Ella Jarvis. Ella has a natural authority that came across well on stage and she was totally believable. I have to confess to being a little surprised, though, when she announced that she was the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks; there was nothing rough around this very neat and tidy lady’s edges, so the grammatically incorrect phrases that were written for the character did not quite ring true.
Much of the interaction between characters was very nicely played out, particularly the relationships between the brothers Odd and Harri (Adam Green and Dominic Upton respectively) and although time and word count do not allow me to mention all of the actors individually, without exception they all added something distinctive about their character that made them that little bit more believable. And not just the main protagonists of the group of “children” – the talking trees added the element of Greek chorus to the proceedings and the non-speaking but truly terrifying soldiers who brought about the demise of the group were all very effective.
There were, however, times that it was difficult to understand what was happening in the storyline because of poor diction. Drawing as it does from a culture of storytelling the play relies a lot on the characters literally telling the narrative. Poor diction did, unfortunately, get in the way of the plotline on occasion, but this may well have been first night nerves and the sheer enthusiasm and energy on stage more than made up for any shortcomings.
In all this was a really enjoyable evening’s entertainment as well as being both moving and thought provoking. The programme note mentions that the play is “timeless” and there is a well-worn phrase “those that do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” . How apt it was, then that this group chose to collect for Syrian refugees this week. Congratulations to all involved for sharing with us both your talent and your humanity.
Eleanor Marsh
February 2017
Editor’s Note: This RSS Senior Youth Group production of The Snow Dragons tours to The Albany Theatre, Deptford on Saturday 13th May.
Peter Donegan and the Lonnie Donegan Band
at The Eel Pie Club, The Cabbage Patch, Twickenham,
9th February 2017
A review by Cliff Tapstand
Anthony James (Lonnie) Donegan MBE, forever remembered as “The King of Skiffle” died in November 2002, but his legacy lives on through his son, Peter, who like his father before him is a multi-talented musician and songwriter. Not only does he sing like Lonnie, but also plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and keyboards.
As a teenager he often played keyboards as a warm up act for his dad’s band, and officially joined them when he was 18 years old. They now perform regularly together, and on their visit to The Eel Pie, Peter was joined by four highly talented musicians, including three who had played with Lonnie; Paul Henry on lead guitar, Nick Payne on saxophone, flute and harmonica, and Chris Hunt on drums, who is a regular performer at the club. They were joined by Eddie Masters on bass guitar.
The performance kicked off with a fast and furious version of The Battle of New Orleans, which Lonnie released in 1959 and reached number 2 in the hit parade, in spite of being banned by the BBC for un-patriotic language (the British army lost the battle).
There followed a string of old favourites including: Rock Island Line, Cumberland Gap, Midnight Special, Have a Drink On Me, It Takes a Worried Man, Pick a Bale Of Cotton, and of course, My Old Man’s a Dustman.
Thankfully, as far as this reviewer is concerned, we were spared Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Over Night). I bracket this song along with Chuck Berry’s My Ding-a-Ling, under the heading, Why am I singing this rubbish towards the end of such an illustrious and ground- breaking career??
While the rest of the band had a short break, Peter entertained the large and appreciative audience with stories of his time with Lonnie, and his passion for live music. In Peter’s own words, “I’ve got the best job in the world”.
Peter and the band played a number of his own compositions, which were very well received by the knowledgeable regulars at the club, who recognise a good act when they see one.
They also played a tribute to Lonnie Johnson, the legendary American blues singer who, inadvertently, was responsible for the change in their former leader’s name. It happened in 1952 when ‘Tony’ Donegan was performing with Lonnie Johnson at the Royal Festival Hall. The compère got a little confused and got their first names mixed up. Tony liked the sound of that, and from that day became ‘Lonnie’ Donegan.
Peter is a real chip off the old block, and seems to enjoy every second of his time on stage whether playing, singing, or just talking. He has an infectious giggle, a great rapport with his audience, and if you get the chance, go and see him. Young or old you’ll be in for a great night’s entertainment.
Cliff Tapstand
February 2017
Silver Lining
by Sandi Toksvig
Co-Production by RTK and English Touring Theatre
at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 11th February
Review by Mark Aspen
Global warming affects us all, we are told. So when rising sea-levels suddenly hit with a vengeance you should be prepared. But if you are in your eighties, in a care home and very much on the wrong side of the Thames Barrier, what do you do? Of course, simple, you build a boat, a veritable ark made of curtain tie-backs and water cooler refills.
This unlikely (we hope) scenario is the basis on Sandi Toksvig’s hilarious new comedy, Silver Lining , which had its world premiere at The Rose Theatre this week. A small group of elderly ladies are marooned by floods in the Silver Retirement Home in Gravesend. At first they await rescue, but when it seems that they are abandoned by the world, these resilient and redoubtable pensioners find their own salvation, as their spirits become more and more …well … buoyant.
Photographs by Mark Douet
The scene is a day-room of the Home, of faded grandeur and with windows looking out on an increasingly grey world. The opening music is Sailing By, the tune that, after the weather forecast, closes each day on Radio Four (very much home to Sandi Toksvig). These physical metaphors were part of a clever lighting and sound design by Mark Doubleday and Mic Pool, which animated Michael Taylor’s set design and brought the tempest and the flood of “Storm Vera” right into the theatre. Projected torrents of rain and storm-clouds were rent by lightning and thunder that, like the voice of God, commented on the hapless ladies utterances.
Trendy techno-savvy, ex pub landlady, Gloria Bernhardt, tries to keep up with the times, witness her floral cat-suit and pink sneakers. She has spent breakfast time trying to contact Nathan, her nephew, but can’t get a signal (even to send a selfie). Played with wiry gleeful energy by Sheila Reid, this eighty-six year’s old auntie from ‘ackney would still, in her own words, “like one last shag”! As you see, Gloria doesn’t mince her words, but alas she, like her fellow inmates, “doesn’t even sleep with her teeth”.
We first see the fastidious fuddy-duddy Maureen Cookson entering backwards spraying air freshener. She is the youngest of the ladies but has joint problems and is afraid of the dark, although her stash of hurricane-lamps comes in useful when the electricity supply succumbs to the rising flood. Rachel Davies studied portrayal of Maureen as meticulous and mousey (although she later really comes into her own) was delightful. Maureen’s items for rescuing from the flood include her “Votes for Women” placard (in the village play she once had the part of Emmeline Parkhurst, who clearly a role model) and her goldfish, although the others point out that the creature is in no danger from water. Underneath, what Maureen really wants to escape from is the humdrum.
Maggie McCarthy as May.
The sisters, May Trickett and June Partridge live in a state of continual irritation with each other. Well educated and from a middle class background, their lives had taken quite different courses until they had been, reluctantly, reunited in the Silver Retirement Home.
May, played with positive gusto by Maggie McCarthy, is a sensible pragmatist, with a ready wit that is incisive and sardonic. (One felt that this character chimes autobiographically with the playwright.) An ex-BBC executive, frustratingly she now finds herself a wheelchair-bound diabetic. Her sister June is pious and somewhat priggish. She is the widow of a local solicitor and rather resents her erstwhile protected life, knitting cardigans for babies in Africa. She secretly craves adventure. Joanna Monro, in this role, gave a well-nuanced characterisation of a spirit trying to break the bounds but not daring to try.
Then in bounces Hope Daley, a young and ebullient trainee temping by the hour and not quite enjoying the experience of organising their evacuation. Keziah Joseph, in a debut professional performance as Hope, gave a sparky techno-colour performance that really zinged. Everyone thinks Hope comes from the Caribbean. She doesn’t; so her story is that she is from Cheltenham. She isn’t: she is from Croydon, but “I don’t tell anybody, ‘cos I don’t want the sympathy”. But Hope brings hope, and they set about gathering their things.
Hope has been told that there are five ladies to evacuate, not four. They can only think she means Edna, who has just died. When Hope searches the bedrooms, she finds another inmate, whose existence was unknown to the others. She is at first mute and they do not know her name. They check for a name tag in her clothes and can only find “St Michael”.
St Michael is a gem of a part and Amanda Walker savoured the role, extracting a kindness from the humour of the part. St Michael seems totally gaga, and when she eventually speaks it is to quote advertisement jingles. (Shades of the very much darker Equus here.)
She has a box on her knees and when they open it, they find, much to their amusement of horror or both, that it is full of dildos!
Amanda Walker as St Michael
If there is a moral in Silver Lining, it is that everyone has a worth and everyone has strengths. For when all seems lost and clearly no help will come, their escape gives them a common goal and a purpose in life, plus something they all secretly hanker after: adventure.
May remembers how to make a crystal-set wireless, and from a coat-hanger, a pencil and some copper wire scavenged from a, now redundant, fan, she build a radio that picks up the BBC. Zeb Soames (the real one) reads the news: everyone is believed to have been evacuated. This is the turning point: they are galvanised into action.
Meanwhile, Maureen has seen off a would-be looter, Jed, played with appropriately nasty furtiveness by Theo Toksvig-Stewart, in another debut professional performance. To everybody’s utter surprise, then delight, Maureen pulls out her hitherto forgotten skills in martial arts: a kick in the goolies, a swift rabbit punch, and a judo move and he is down the stairwell with a huge splash into the rapidly rising flood. (Rachel Davis acted this with worryingly accurate skill!)
St Michael announces that she is a welder, but amazingly she certainly does seem to know a lot about naval architecture and from the depths of her dementia she plucks the ability to work out buoyancy calculations to design their raft. June uses her diving expertise to strip off (captured on the mobile phone) and plunge down to the flooded kitchen stores to collect the large water cooler bottles. Soon they have built their own ark to escape the flood. Sandi Toksvig explains, “It’s a bit like The Great Escape, but without the motorcycles”.
All this activity does not however proceed fully smoothly. Tensions are raised when a chance find in Maureen’s handbag uncovers that she is a kleptomaniac. They accuse her of hypocrisy, but indeed we can see that this is her way of having a secret adventure and it was the way that she had hit out against her late husband’s ultra-respectability. What they fail to see however that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. However this revelation triggers reconciliation in a number of ways.
Then there follows a series of back-flashes of reflective introspection. These moving moments of further revelations into their respective pasts made a fine showcase for the great skills of the cast to hold and grip the audience. May reveals her bitter sorrow that she was excluded from the funeral of her Peggy, her same-sex lover, with whom she had happily lived for forty-six years. Gloria tells of the passionate love affair that she had had with Riccardo, a Trafalgar Square pavement artist, who on discovering she was pregnant, abandoned her, as he had a wife in Italy. Her grief at the subsequent loss of her baby was palpable. In contrast, Maureen states baldly, “I killed my husband”, but then goes on to explain that when he had a heart attack she did not summon help, as he had become burdensome to her.
The great pathos of this finely acted moments of regret did however show up a slight weakness in the structure of the play. The first half was largely a series of very funny one liners, very witty but lacking fluency, whereas the pathos came all in one chunk. It may have been better to have integrated the pathos more into the earlier part of the action, where it could have been a powerful foil to the very clever humour.
The cast formed a smooth ensemble, balancing each other with precision. However, one niggle, now regrettably quite common, is that when actors have become used to screen acting, they drop their projection when back on stage. It often made words difficult to hear at the back of the auditorium. Nevertheless, the acting was superb, with caesium-clock accuracy in the comic timing and brilliant characterisation.
Silver Lining is a very entertaining play, with broad laughter throughout, witty and accurately observed. Director, Rebecca Gatward, has created a great piece of theatre, insightful and cleverly crafted.
The climax is a moment of triumph, all five ladies together with Hope (literally and figuratively) aboard the makeshift raft, like the ending of Euripides’ Women of Troy, at the point of being launched, but not into slavery, but into freedom. The theatre rocked as the surge wave took the raft: a climax of triumph!
Mark Aspen
February 2017
Mark Aspen 