Lulu
by Alban Berg
English National Opera at The London Coliseum until 19th November
Review by Mark Aspen
Wedekind’s two Lulu plays form a systematic dissection of sexual fascination, a cynical saga of a femme fatale whose alluring sensuality creates a train of destruction, destitution and death. Berg’s unfinished opera brings beauty to the chaotic and humanity to the tragic.
ENO’s production, whose highly anticipated opening at the Coliseum on 9th November transferred from Amsterdam via the Metropolitan Opera in New York, played to the company’s strengths with ENO’s orchestra at its best and a quirky set full of complexity and broad spectacle.
As with violence, sexual ecstasy is best hinted at on stage rather than being explicit and William Kentridge’s production drew both its eroticism and its horror largely from the unseen. Not that there was too little to see, there was almost too much. A frenetically dynamic set of images thrown onto a multi-surfaced set dissolved and reformed in reflection of Lulu’s continually changing liaisons.
Kentridge is best known as an eccentric pince-nez sporting artist. Born in South Africa, his work ranges from epic murals along the Tiber in Rome, via illustrations, to miniaturised works such as those currently on display at the Whitechapel Gallery. The Whitechapel exhibition includes Right into her Arms, an installation that references Lulu. This can be regarded as a model for the vast Coliseum sets, realised with Sabine Theunissen’s set designs and Urs Schönbaum’s lighting. Massive cartoons in black ink are brushed in, to be fragmented and erased, over giant pages from the Oxford English Dictionary and from Wedekind’s original German text. The artist’s own drawings of famous men, as well as of Lulu herself constantly flicker into view, hyperactive and unnerving animations which wink and blink at the goings-on on stage.
Meanwhile Lulu’s alter ego in the distractively lithe shape of dancer, Joanna Dudley, plays out a fantasy of Lulu’s thoughts throughout the whole 3¾ hours of the opera, seated at a piano in act one, on it in act two, and in the piano in act three. The eroticism becomes more and more heightened as the plot progresses.
With the Biedermeier furniture on a black, white and sepia set, the whole effect was of German expressionism, and would sit appropriately in 1930’s Dresden with Dix, or Kirchner, or Klee in Die Brücke movement.
One might have thought that this go-go-go of visual imagery and symbolism would distract from the opera itself, but it veered just to the right side of being a brilliant foil for the drama, music and singing.
ENO’s orchestra, imaginatively conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, brought forth the melancholic lyricism and the emotional heights from the notoriously difficult twelve-note composition. Wigglesworth has gone for Friedrich Cerha’s accepted standard completion of the unfinished third act and the musical form of the whole is a palindrome.
Wedekind’s plays and Berg’s libretto (here robustly translated by Richard Stokes) are also in the form of a palindrome, Lulu’s rise to wealth and descent to abject poverty, and the reappearance of each of the men who had fallen prey to the perils of her erotic extremes, who become her predators in a different guise. Not that most of these tragi-comic characters do not deserve their fates, for they are all misogynistic manipulators, venal parasites or puerile infatuates. All Lulu’s relationships (even those with her servants) are sexually motivated, including the self-sacrificing Countess Geschwitz, perhaps the most sympathetically drawn character, who becomes her Lesbian lover, and ultimately is killed with her at the bloody hands of Jack the Ripper.
Nevertheless, Wedekind’s plays and Berg’s opera, both so protracted in their gestation, are highly moral tales. Banned for different reasons at different times, they show that no action is without consequence. The men who become enthralled and enslaved by Lulu’s sexual charms are at best humiliated, at worst are murdered. Lulu, the amoral seducer, coercer and murderer, meets her own end as a reviled prostitute, weakened by cholera, herself to be mutilated and killed in the most hideous way in the back-alleys of London.
Sarah Connolly, a luxuriant mezzo, as the love-sick Countess Geschwitz, portrayed all the pitiful plight of the hapless hopeful, whose misplaced, but selfless, love is unrequited. David Soar’s arrogant Athlete and Animal Tamer were superb. Willard White played the ambiguous Schigolch, whom Lulu describes, unconvincingly, as her father, but later acts as her pimp, his velvety bass belying the duplicity of the character. Tenor, Nicky Spence, as the bemused Alwa, son of Dr Schön, a wealthy newspaper proprietor and long-time lover of Lulu, was outstanding. However, James Morris as Dr Schön himself was rather lacklustre, with a tired vocal quality. When Morris returned in the palindromic role of Jack the Ripper he failed to convince, with no sense of the sinister and a cockney accent that sounded more mid-Western.
The eponymous Lulu is an enormous role for any singer. Soprano, Brenda Rae, was unflagging in her vocally accurate and clarity. However, although she portrayed Lulu’s erotic allure convincingly, she came across a little bit too “nice” for the amoral snake described by the animal tamer in the prologue, who develops into a coercive concubine, perfectly capable of murder. She didn’t quite have the bold presence to make a compelling femme fatale.
Here is piece that reeks with symbolism and pulses with febrile immediacy. It is at once an epic spectacle and an intimate vivisection of a society that has allowed itself to become self serving and sordid. It is an integrated artwork, dramatically gripping, musically moving and artistically imaginative.
Mark Aspen
November 2016
Eliza Rose
talk by Lucy Worsley
at Duke Street, Richmond, 5th November
Review by Mark Aspen
What did a Tudor cotton-bud look like? What did Henry VIII’s courtiers give their lady-loves? Which is the most haunted palace in the land?
The young (and not-so-young) people who left their bonfire making on Guy Fawkes Day to come along to see Lucy Worsley had these and many more such questions answered. Dr Lucy Worsley is perhaps best known as a television presenter, but she is primarily an historian. However, her way of presenting history is not dry and dusty, but full-of-life history, quirks and all. Her knowledge is infectiously enthusiastic and her sparkle and energy never faltered in a talk that was as relaxed as it was frank.
Lucy Worsley dresses a new Queen Katherine
Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, a charity that manages six of the Queen’s non-residential palaces. Richmond upon Thames boasts not one, but two existing royal places within its boundaries, Kew Palace and the magnificent Hampton Court Palace (strictly speaking there is a third one, Richmond Palace, but there is not much left of that), so one third of her charges were affectionately known by the local element in an audience in which some had come from as far as the south coast.
For this talk, Lucy Worsley was wearing the third of her hats; as a writer. She has a dozen or so published history books to her name, but her new book is aimed at the young reader and is set mainly in and around Hampton Court. So there is a real sense of belonging to place in her book. With girlish glee she explained the excitement that an historian feels when opening documents of the past, especially in the surroundings that they refer to. With conspiratorial relish, Worsley told the audience that the thing she most likes to see on a document is the words “burn this”.
The new book is called Eliza Rose and is a semi-fictionalised account of the early life of Eliza Rose, a cousin of Katherine Howard, King Henry VIII’s hapless fifth wife. Eliza was one of the ladies in waiting to the short-reigned queen.
Through the eyes of on of Eliza Rose, Lucy Worsley gave a candid and insightful feel of the realities of life for a Tudor aristocratic young lady. Breaking the “burn this” secrecy, we saw the reality of the concept of arranged marriages for young teenage girls in the Tudor court. Worsley has said, “Girls are some of the people I care about most” and this was clear in the juxtaposition of the lives of girls in Richmond in the 21st century and in the Tudor aristocracy.
Not that the boys were left out, as this was a practical session and there were great opportunity for young people to dress up and act as servants and ladies in our own Tudor court. There was more reality when we had a peek at Tudor underwear, and even franker reality when we met with a Tudor “pysse-pott”.
The hardest reality, though, was finding out that Katherine Howard was only eighteen when she was beheaded, and execution that she endured with dignity after spending the previous night rehearsing how best to place her head.
The morning finished with a picture quiz, with prizes of chocolates for the winners, thrown by Lucy Worsley with an accuracy that would have made a Christmas panto actor jealous.
Oh, yes, the Tudor cotton-bud is a solid silver ear-wax scoop. Henry VIII’s courtiers gave their lady-loves precious things that they could wear close to them, like the ivory hair-comb we were shown (or the ear-wax scoop!). The most haunted palace in the land is (by far) the Tower of London. This was where Katherine was executed. It was the eve of St Valentine that Henry’s “rose without a thorn” was beheaded.
In her lively talk, Lucy Worsley shared many historical and literary sparklers to light up the fifth November as we peered into the life at the Tudor court through the eyes of Eliza Rose.
Mark Aspen
November 2016
Eliza Rose is available in paperback (ISBN: 9781408869437) and is published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eliza-rose-9781408869437/#sthash.CUsAxiLK.dpuf
Editor’s Note: This talk was one of an annual trilogy of talks in Arts Richmond’s Books for our Time series, which form the highlights of the annual Richmond upon Thames Literature Festival
A to Z of Musicals
by TOPS
TOPS Musical Theatre Company at the Whitton Community Centre, 4th and 5th November
Review by Mary Stoakes
This entertaining and well directed cabaret style ‘concert’ provided fireworks of a different kind for the packed audience over the weekend of 5th November in a sparkly setting in the Whitton Community Centre. TOPS members were all given a chance to shine as the company worked its way alphabetic ally through musicals (some better known than others) to the rather problematical XYZ.
Mandy Church got the show off to a cracking start with a song from her recent Swan award performance in Anything Goes, followed by some well-choreographed chorus work in an excerpt from Beauty and the Beast, with the hugely talented Jack S. leading Sue and the ensemble. Jack again demonstrated his versatility in the ‘George III’ song from Hamilton – a performance which made us all want to see this new show – and yet again with Jack G, Chris and Charlie in the Jersey Boys mix.
Other hits followed thick and fast – particularly the exciting Lochaim from Fiddler with a rousing men’s chorus. With excerpts from Evita, Into the Woods and Les Miserables by Cate, Bee and Ben the atmosphere became more poignant but light relief came in the form of Tara (Disney Princess), Fiona (Adelaide from Guys and Dolls) and Ellie (Kiss Me Kate) with some excellent comedic acting and singing.
Lively work from the company and some audience participation brought Act One to a memorable close with Mamma Mia.
After the interval, the ensemble came into its own with excellent singing and movement in pieces from Nine to Five, Rent, and The Rocky Horror Show (great work from Gemma as the lead). A more reflective mood was established by Cate and Dan in great voice in a number from Once and then old favourites such as the Sound of Music and The Producers got an airing. We were introduced to perhaps lesser known shows such as Urinetown and Victor/Victoria (another show stopper by Bee). The letter Q presented something of a problem but this was admirably solved by Charlie and his puppet with a very well delivered number from Avenue Q.
We are the Champions – the Company (and the audience) sang lustily for the penultimate chorus. TOPS are indeed champions at putting on this type of popular fundraising event, allowing all their talented members whether principals or from the chorus to ‘have a go’ and entertain us hugely. The singers received great support from John Davis on Keyboards and the rest of the super band. Choreography was by Babette Langford who worked wonders in using the ensemble in a smallish space together the direction of Mandy Church and Ian Stark. A good night out!
Mary Stoakes
November 2016
The Killing of Sister George
by Frank Marcus
Park Players at The Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre until 5th November
Review by Mark Aspen
Sapphic sadist, vulnerable alcoholic or jealous geriatric? These are the character traits of George that are revealed and dissected in Frank Marcus’ 1965 play The Killing of Sister George.
Park Players’ current production, which opened last night to an enthusiastic audience in the intimate space of the Coward Studio, was a tightly cast, crisply acted production that had both broad humour and touching pathos.
Who is George? Is she June Buckridge, a feted actress, albeit coming towards the end of her career; or is she the district nurse, Sister George, a beloved character, doing kind deeds for all as she pop-pops on her moped across Applehurst, singing rousing hymns? Applehurst is a highly popular and long established radio programme about country folk in an archetypal English village. As the BBC executive puts it, “It is real to millions … it stands for all that is great in British life”. Herein lies the rub! June Buckridge and Sister George have merged into the same person, not only in the public eye, but even in Buckridge’s own mind and that of her close circle. She is feted in more senses than one, as her weekends are spent in opening country fairs and village shows. Other times she is firmly ensconced in her London flat, overlooking (or being overlooked by?) Broadcasting House.
Buckridge shares her flat, and her life, with Alessandra, an Italian girl, who, in spite of Buckridge’s maltreatment of her remains loyal … but subservient. She is known as Alice, but Buckridge, in their intimate moments, calls her Childie. Their Lesbian relationship is overshadowed by Buckridge’s sadistic treatment of her. Childie is deliberately humiliated by being forced to prostate herself, to eat a cigar butt, and to drink used bathwater. Her usual attire in the flat is in her underwear, or in a baby-doll nightie. Childie loves Victorian dolls and this infantile image is both encouraged and derided by Buckridge.
In contrast to her mild-mannered fictional character, Sister George, Buckridge is a much more abrasively robust personality. She has narrowly avoided being sacked for punching a BBC producer, a sort of female Jeremy Clarkson. Later, we learn that, while drunk, she has also physically assaulted two nuns in a taxi-cab!! Two of the factors that exacerbate Buckridge’s behaviour are her inherent insecurity and her addiction to neat gin. When it becomes increasingly clear that the character of Sister George is to be axed from the radio series, her insecurity intensifies her conduct and the more she hits the gin-bottle, the more she hits Childie.
The erratic and eccentric June Buckridge was played with gusto by Astrid Maslen, depicting the contrast between her coarse bluster and edgy nervousness. “Overwrought, my arse!”, she replies when being confronted with this very contrast. The masculinity of posture movement belying a matronly figure was a physical dichotomy of the character well realised by Maslen. She also does drunk well, an art not easy to achieve by many actors.
Anna Alfieri’s spirited Childie beautifully balanced petulance with acquiescence, immaturity with sophistication, and abjection with objection. Her gestures and body-language spoke of Childie’s abused condition and infantile nature, toes turned in, feet a-swirl, biting lip. The whole character was well-drawn. The pitifully dejected, “I might have had babies” was followed a few moments later by a stinging riposte to Buckridge, “I am not married to you!”.
Friend, neighbour and general factotum around the block of flats is Madame Xenia, who is also a clairvoyant, or psychometrist as she prefers to be called. When the possibility of Sister Gorge being killed off from the script of Applehurst starts to become a distinct possibility, Buckridge summons Mdm. Xenia to consult the tarot. Played deliciously OTT by Maggie Tolme, Mdm. Xenia brought a much-needed sense of lightness to the action and, in spite of her profession, a sense of reality. Tolmie clearly enjoyed this role immensely, and transmitted that enjoyment to the audience. All east-European mystique and jangly jewellery, she was a delight.
When the BBC executive, Mrs Mercy Croft, arrives Buckridge knows that Mdm Xenia’s tarot could be right, and when she makes repeated visits, the writing is on the wall. Croft is assured and overbearing, but unctuously ingratiating. She wears a false air of concern that unsettles the pair. A measured performance by Sarah Brindley was spot-on for the role, precise and penetrating, starched as a matron’s apron, sharp as an assassin’s knife.
In due course, we hear the radio transmission, the death of Sister George, not during an errand of charity, as Buckridge would have wanted, but by riding her moped under the wheels of a lorry. We hear the bucolic voices greeting the sainted Sister, the screech and bang, the farm labourer saying “Why ’ere, that be Sister George”, a tear-jerker broken by the yokel’s bluff reply, “It were!”.
Mercy Croft’s final coup de grace comes when Buckridge returns for running a (final?) bath, to find her passionately kissing Childie, before taking her away to be her own “personal assistant”. To add insult to injury, Croft had already offered Buckridge the role of a cow in a forthcoming children’s broadcast. The play ends with the defeated Buckridge collapsing in a chair and balefully letting out one word, “Moo!”: a moment of superb bathos.
Clearly there is more than a passing resemblance to The Archers, and in view of the present shenanigans in Ambridge, the play has red-hot topicality. (In 1964, when the the play was set, the resonance would have been with the death of Grace Archer). Equally topical is The Killing of Sister George ‘s scathing view on popular culture: broadcast executives dumbing down, whilst their audience are reluctant to come to terms with society’s changing values.
The referencing of The Archers is quite blatant in the aggravating ear-worm jingle for Applehurst, recorded with some glee for this production by the modestly named woodwind quartet, Musica Medioca.
Malcom Watton’s set is simple allusion to the pair that lives there, Buckridge’s horse brasses and Chidie’s dolls being the ornamentation. One couldn’t help thinking though that a successful actress might have had a more ostentatious apartment, but perhaps (but perhaps) she spent it all on gin. Talking of gin, there were some anachronisms: would Bombay Sapphire or Portmeirion been around in 1964? However, Pamela Bosanquet’s costumes were scrupulously accurate to the period. Mdm Xenia’s beehive and Indian cotton were a delight, and how about Buckriges’ final outfit: tweed ladies suit, thick Lisle stocking and “sensible” shoes.
Under the wonderful one-liners that make this such a funny play, it grapple s some very dark themes, but the Park Players cast have successfully melded laughter and pathos. Ambiguity in relationships is a connecting theme in the play. Buckridge’s dominatrix demeanour and bizarre fetishist fantasies suggest that she is in control, but this belies the complexity of the relationship between George and Childie (and the subtlety in the writing of The Killing of Sister George). Moreover, the constantly changing dynamics of power, victim turning aggressor only to become further prey, also makes this a difficult play to pull off, but director Bob Diley has smoothly accomplished this feat.
Mark Aspen
November 2016
All My Sons
by Arthur Miller
RTK at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 19th November
Review by Mark Aspen
Perhaps amongst the strongest and most deep-rooted emotions are love and guilt. When they are pitched against each other, which will win? This is the question posed in All My Sons, the first successful Broadway play of Arthur Miller, probably the most accomplished of American playwrights.
At tonight’s Kingston opening of Miller’s masterpiece directed by Michael Rudman, the Rose Theatre company wove the play’s multi-stranded plots into a picture of a family torn by conflicting emotions.
Senator Harry Truman, who was to become US President as the Second World War drew to a close, chaired a committee during the 1940’s that investigated malpractice in US defence spending. The Truman Committee found the US economy was riddled “with war profiteering on a rampant scale”. This forms an opening premise to Miller’s play.
It is set in the mid-West one fine August day in 1946 in the garden of the home of Joe Keller, a successful businessman, an apparently honest and genial man in his sixties. But to paraphrase Truman’s well-known remark, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”, Keller knows that it is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the blame. For the truth that gradually surfaces during the play is that he knowingly supplied defective cylinder heads to engines fitted in P 40 Warhawk military planes. When 21 planes crash with the loss of their crews, Keller lets his business partner, Steve Deever, take the rap.
As the play opens, Deever still languishes in gaol, shunned by all, including his own family.
Keller’s wife Kate cannot accept the death of her eldest son, Larry in another, seemingly unrelated, loss of a military plane. But on this day, Annie, the erstwhile fiancée of Larry is coming at the invitation of the younger son, Chris. Chris plans to propose marriage to her. However, Annie is Steve Deever’s daughter. Thus we have the fuel to the explosive atmosphere that permeates the play.
David Horovitch and Penny Downie as Joe and Kate Keller give towering performances of the two parents, both wrestling with internal conflict as they suppress unthinkable emotions: Kate that her beloved son might not be alive; Joe the guilt that he had not only betrayed his friend and partner, but was responsible for the deaths of so many brave men.
The action takes place on the verandah of the Keller home, in Michael Taylor’s set a grand weather-boarded house in the colonial style. Resplendently reaching up to the full height of the theatre, it was symbolic of the home that drew everyone together … and kept them in their own emotional rooms. The detail was painstaking, from roof fascia to wood-shed, to the thick verdant lawn. Under David Howe’s lighting one could feel the sultry heat of the continental summer. The symbolism extended to the young sycamore tree that had succumbed to the stormy wind of the previous night, not uprooted but snapped at its base. This was the tree that had been planted in memory of Larry, and thus fuelled the hopes of the superstitious Kate that his death had not happened and sought her to ask neighbour Frank Lubey (crisply played by William Meredith) to cast Larry’s horoscope to bolster her hope against hopes.
The scene is set for the symbolism of the house as Joe pretends to the local children that there is a gaol in basement of the house. One such child is Bert, a neighbour’s boy, who was played with openness and great confidence by ten-years old Sam Stewart, who fervently believes that here is a gaol there. As the play unfolds, we realise that this is simply the spiritual gaol for Joe’s guilt, where it is kept firmly locked away, unfed by his conscience.
Alex Waldmann’s energetic portrait of the younger son, Chris Keller, was a study in fidelity broken by events, as he finds that his nagging doubts were true. He is beautifully paired with Francesca Zoutewelle as Annie Deever, a fresh and sparkling picture of hope for the future. Annie has overcome her grief for Larry (in spite of Kate’s protestations to the contrary) and is able give expression to her deeply held feelings for Chris, his brother.
An evening out at a restaurant is planned, where Chris and Annie intend to announce their engagement. But then comes the news that Annie’s brother, George, is flying in from Cleveland to take Annie back home, for George has at last brought himself to visit their father in gaol, and now knows the truth.
The friction starts with the agitated entrance of Susie Bayliss, the wife of the doctor who lives next door. Alison Pargeter, in this role, was wonderfully accurate to the sentiments and style of the period. The grit falls into the engine oil, however, when George Deever arrives. Wild and agitated, Edward Harrison’s portrait of George, with haunted eyes and palpably repressed anger, said it all. But even George has his emotions torn, and Harrison showed us a man perplexed by the force of his own feelings.
At the climax of the play, when Chris turns on his own father, and Annie reveals what is effectively a suicide note from Larry, telling how he is about to crash his own plane to exonerate himself of his father’s actions, we have almost a Greek tragedy, sensitively acted by all the cast. Kate’s final acceptance of Larry’s death is depicted by Downie with searing poignancy.
For Joe, equally devastating is the culminated effect of the rejection by his son Chris, the realisation that his son Larry took Joe’s guilt on himself, and Joe’s final acceptance of his culpability in the death of the twenty-one air crews, who were “all my sons”. He returns to the house and shoots himself. Horovitch’s expositon of this moment was a piece of terrifically powerful theatre.
There was just one niggling drawback. From the side of the apron stage, it was sometimes difficult to accurately hear all of the actors. Maybe on opening night they had not settled to the idiosyncrasies of the Rose Theatre acoustics, or could it be that many actors today have become so used to television acting that they forget the big requirements of the stage?
Nevertheless, the pain of the huge emotional journeys that are taken by all the characters in the course of the play was acted with such aching precision that this is a play not to be missed.
Faith, hope and love … the greatest of the three is love. But, for the Keller family, guilt wins even over love.
Mark Aspen
October 2016
The Mikado
by WS Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan
Hounslow Light Opera Company
at Hampton Hill Theatre until 29th October 2016
Review by Georgia Renwick
Johanna Chambers as Yum Yum and Kurt Walton as Nanki Poo
Hounslow Light Opera Company has justly earned itself a loyal following in the South West London theatre community, for consistently energetic and enjoyable performances. HLOC’s 2003 production of The Mikado marked the company’s 100th anniversary and thirteen years later, the infectious smiles and delirious applause in the house tonight left in little doubt that this is a very welcome return of the G&S classic.
As one of the most widely performed musical theatre pieces in history, it takes an inspired team to create a production that stands out against the melee. Helen Smith, reprising her role as director from 2003 (this is the fifth Mikado she has been involved with in total), has gathered a cast with both vocal and comic talents, and added some delightful touches all of her own to create a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable production.
The key to the popularity and endurance of The Mikado is found in its delightful sending up of British Victorian society and its institutions. By setting The Mikado in his own fantasy version of Japan, which resembles the country in virtually no aspect but for the aesthetic, Gilbert could disguise his social and political satire as Japanese, satisfying the censors and delighting his audiences.
The first satirical fiction of the piece serves as a key plot point; Japan has never to this day had a law against flirting, but it is for this crime that Ko-Ko is condemned to death. Ko-Ko, played with an ‘artful-dodger-esque’ cheekiness and glee by Tony Cotterill, has however recently been promoted to the role of Lord High Executioner. It is an operatic tradition that Ko-Ko’s “little list” of whom he would rather were on the block in his stead grows each time. This hilarious rendition sees Facebook, rappers, and a host of political figures (hint: two rhyme with ‘Barrage’ and ‘Thump’) who’ll “none of ‘em be missed” end up on the list.
Unfortunately for Ko-Ko, the Mikado (superbly realised by Clare Henderson Roe as a bloodthirsty bureaucrat in boots and a swishing kimono, a perfect casting choice) won’t be satisfied until there is an execution ‘within a month’. Seeing as he cannot cut his own head off (at least, he reasons, it would be “an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt”) he must find a substitute to avoid his own demise. Enter Nanki-Poo (Kurt Walton), a wandering minstrel with a secret identity, who resolves to kill himself after finding the women he loves, Yum-Yum (Johanna Chambers), is to be married to Ko-Ko, her guardian, that very day. Walton makes for an endearing and earnest young tenor to Chambers’ beautiful soprano. Chambers’ vocal abilities command the stage, which coupled with her natural movement and comic timing make for a captivating and playful performance of this central romance. Could Nanki-Poo be the substitute Ko-Ko is looking for? Unbeknown to Ko-Ko, Nanki-Poo is the runaway son of the Mikado, betrothed to Katisha (Elizabeth Chambers) and she’s on her way to find him …
As the trickery and deception mount, hilarity ensues, and the supporting cast bring each moment of it out with aplomb. Paul Huggins’ rendition of Pooh-Bah, whose stack of business cards denotes him an authority on pretty much every aspect of government, is a cartoonish caricature of sneering imperialism. Although he lifts himself above all others with his long list of titles, he must grudgingly rely on those beneath him to save his neck from the block. Patrick Hooper’s comic timing as Pish-Tush (the only member of the cast to be reviving his role from the HLOC’s 2003 production) also triggered ripples of laughter, supported by the energetic male chorus.
The Titipu Academy for Young Ladies was delightfully realised on stage by ten lovely ladies, some of whom the programme notes, were delighted to be welcomed back as “Alumni”. Pitti-Sing’s (Lindsey Anne Cumming) and Peep-Bo’s (Philippa Mukherjee) eyes burst with girlish enthusiasm in the enchanting “Three Little Maids from School”, and indeed the whole chorus moves beautifully together on stage, the costume design (managed by Veronica Martin) coming into its own in these scenes with brightly coloured kimonos swishing this way and that. The fan dance in Act 2 is truly mesmerising. Elizabeth Chambers’ rendition of contralto Katisha is another standout performance. Here, perhaps the costume and make-up could have been more exaggerated to really bring out the comedy of Katisha’s advanced years, her performance actually drew a great deal sympathy from myself personally.
Lingering beneath the many laughs, The Mikado offers some piercing insights into our state’s bureaucracy. In its title character, the “virtuous women”, despite her unflinching, business-like treatment of the torture and death of her subjects, we can see a clear hypocrisy. We might ask ourselves to what extent our politics has changed in 130 years.
Meanwhile, down in the orchestra pit, history is being made by musical director (and sole instrumentalist) Lee Dewsnap. Faced with the choice of one or two instrumentalists… or a whole orchestra performed by one player, Helen and the company took a risk and set Lee to the task of arranging the original score for the Yamaha EL-900 Electric Organ, and then playing it live. Hundreds of hours and dozens of instruments later, it is a risk that I personally believe paid off. As far as we (and Lee) know, his accomplishment of arranging and performing a G&S score in this progressive way is a feat never seen live before, and one that made this production of the world-famous Mikado not only memorable and enjoyable, but truly unique.
The Producers
BROS Theatre Company
Hampton Hill Theatre
17-22nd October 2016
Review by Mary Stoakes
‘Sheer, utter, unadulterated joy!’ was the verdict of the Daily Express when this show was produced professionally in 2004. The same could be said about the 2016 BROS production at the Hampton Hill Theatre, which would not be out of place on the West End stage.
Mel Brookes is quoted as saying when his initial film was criticised for being vulgar – My film rises below vulgarity! This BROS production was full of gleeful disrespect and political incorrectness, which delighted this reviewer and the majority of the packed house.
What did grandfather put in his pocket when he went to the theatre? Was it a pocket watch, perhaps, but one with an inaudible tick; maybe a tiny notebook, in case something occurred to him in the interval; a handkerchief to stifle a sniffle, silk as it is so much quieter? Read more…
The Importance of Being Ernest
by Oscar Wilde
SMDG
Hampton Hill Theatre until 15th October
Review by Thomas Forsythe.
“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing”. So says Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax, the worldly and wily heroine of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest. In the grave matter of mounting a production of a play, one might ask which is the most important to achieve.
SMDG’s current production at Hampton Hill certainly has plenty of style, but also puts across the ambiguities of Victorian society where how one does something is more important than why one does it.
Conspiracy
by Loring Mandel
OHADS
Hampton Hill Theatre until 8th October
Review by Thomas Forsythe
In his famous Blut und Eisen speech, Otto von Bismark said “The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” In Conspiracy we see speeches quashed and majority decisions overturned in a manner whose ruthlessness stepped up the portent of Bismark’s adage. The great question of 20th January 1942 considered at the Wannsee Conference resulted in the “final solution” that was to come to be known as the holocaust.
Mark Aspen 