Category Archives: Theatre

Review – Dick Whittington, Birmingham Hippodrome, December 30th

Posted on by

Well this was the panto with the starriest cast of all this year. Joan Collins, Julian Clary, Nigel Havers fresh out of the jungle, Keith Harris and Orville – yes indeed! Still treading the boards and the duck still can’t fly.

And then the stirring unquiet on the internet that Joan Collins wasn’t appearing in many of the performances because she was suffering from flu. Well there’s a lot of it about. And I’m sure she would have had a flu jab. Still, even if she was just doing her best to appear it would have been a good thing.

Alas no. When we arrived for the matinee last Thursday there were no notices up saying “the management regrets” or inserts in the programme that read “Miss Collins role will now be played by…” So we thought we were on to a winner. But as the lights came down, the first person on the stage was the Company Manager, regretting that a significant person in their company was unable to perform. A huge wave of misery passed through the auditorium. Stoically we applauded the fact that a local lad would be playing her part. (Yes, lad, not lady).

But you can never book a show on the strength that a certain member of the cast will definitely appear. It’s one of the rules of theatregoing. The whole cast could be off with rabies and they could bring in residents from the nearby old peoples home to read the script, it’s allowed. Even when the theatre has trumpeted the appearance of Miss Collins since the early part of last year. The show must go on, not the star.

So you can sense my disappointment.

But.

This is a majorly terrific panto, with some of the funniest and liveliest panto performances you are ever likely to witness. Let’s start at the top. Julian Clary is the Spirit of the Bells – a male fairy. No sniggers, please, or rather, loads of sniggers. Whenever he appears he lights up the stage and there is an incredible comfort to his interaction with the audience. You can just trust him to say the right thing at the right time. And his singing…. I wonder what Lee Marvin would have made of it. And his interaction with Orville… lying in bed with the duck, and just saying “tempted…” really funny stuff. I won’t tell you any more of his lines because the show’s still on for another month.

Nigel Havers is King Rat, and a dashed fine attempt he makes at it too. Lots of current references, particularly to his time in the jungle – if you didn’t see him in “I’m a Celebrity…” you’ll miss a lot of the jokes. Now if he had been appearing with Joan Collins I can imagine the sparkiness between the two of them would be great. However we saw Wayne Fitzsimmons – usually one of the dancers – appearing as Queen Rat. It was a performance full of venom but without much subtlety or comic timing; still, he remembered all his lines and kept the show going.

And yes, Keith Harris and Orville, and Cuddles, is back. You have to say about him – what a trouper. Like Julian Clary, his interaction with the audience is brilliant, his routines are funny and you should have seen and heard the way the kids were laughing. Full blown, uncontrollable, bottom of the heart laughter. An excellent performance.

Liam Tamne and Kathryn Rooney as Dick Whittington and Alice Fitzwarren also performed their socks off. Very likeable personalities, sang and danced extremely well, but also with good comedy skills, usually at the mercy of Mr Clary. I wasn’t quite so sure about Jeffrey Holland as the Dame, I think the part was somewhat underwritten and his costumes weren’t really over-the-top enough. Probably too much to compete with the Spirit of the Bells, but it did come over a little underwhelming as a result.

Adding in an athletically appealing pantomime cat and a Sultan of Morocco who provides (in the words of John Barrowman in a Birmingham panto a few years ago “something for everyone”), and you have a really super show. I wouldn’t worry too much if Joan Collins is off sick the day you go – you’ll have a great time.

Review – The Rivals, Theatre Royal Haymarket, December 29th

Posted on by

We always like a trip to London during the Christmas break, and a major part of this is getting half price tickets for something at the TKTS booth. There were two shows I fancied seeing – and this was one of them. I’ve never seen a proper production of The Rivals though of course I had read it as a student. My memory of it was that it was good, but not as good as The School for Scandal or The Critic. And having seen a decent production of it now, I think I was right.

The big draw for this production is the To The Manor Born coupling of Penelope Keith as Mrs Malaprop and Peter Bowles as Sir Anthony Absolute. And an excellent couple they do make. Penelope Keith in particular keeps her scenes moving at an excellent pace,making the most of her malapropisms whilst still being a real character at heart. Occasionally we felt that Peter Bowles was phoning it in, but he was still entertaining to watch.

One person I was well-impressed with was Rhys Jennings, who was understudying the role of Bob Acres the night we saw it. A very solid performance, getting lots of laughs!

I wasn’t that impressed with the set though. It cleverly reminds you of the Royal Crescent in Bath, which is of course where the play is set; but it also reminded me of a bullring, and I’m not sure that’s appropriate – the play’s hardly torturing its characters to death. The lack of natural scenery made the constant picking up and putting down of furniture between scenes rather tedious. I would have preferred a few regency stripes. But that’s just me.

One thing about using the half price booth – lots of other people do too, so the best seats we could get were row S of the stalls. Felt quite a long way back, and the Haymarket doesn’t offer massive leg room (none whatsoever in those seats); so the fact that the two and a half hours flies by without checking your watch must mean they’re doing something right.

Review – Jack and the Beanstalk, Derngate, Northampton, 23rd December

Posted on by

This is a toughie. I can’t decide whether to tell you all the bad things about it and then praise it, like Craig Revel Horwood on a happy day; or tell you all the good things about it and then move into grumpy mode later.

It’s going to be the latter. Mainly because I look back at last night’s panto with affection. Firstly, there are some excellently dynamic and active performances. Hilary O’Neil as Fairy Cobblers is the spark that illuminates the entire show. Every time she appears with a wave of her wand she does a different impersonation, and they’re really really good, and really really funny. Cheryl Cole, Catherine Tate characters, Jungle celebrities, unnervingly accurate. She worked hard all night and it was appreciated; and she clearly changed her script a bit and made Gavin Woods (as Fleshcreep) corpse, which was delightful.

Also marvellous was Adam Stafford as Dame Trot. A perfect panto dame, OTT costumes, lightly lewd conversation, super facial expressions, kept it moving fast, ridiculous but endearing.

I’d also give a big HIYA SIMON (as I’m now a member of Simon’s gang) to Nick Weir as Simple Simon Trot, who delivered his role with bags of energy, and really came into his own at the end with the traditional scene of getting four kids up on stage to play musical instruments – the kids were terrific and his interaction with them funny and inventive.

In fact, that’s the key word – energy. Bags of it from those performers, also the singers and dancers, and from the orchestra…but sadly, I have to say, I didn’t see much in the way of energy from Ray Quinn as Jack. He’s clearly a likeable guy, and is amusingly diminutive as the brave lad going to fight the giant; and the opening conversation of him doing the “alright, calm down” Scouse routine was nicely done – and I liked very much “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a Liverpudlian” which I hadn’t heard before…We know he’s a good dancer from his Dancing on Ice days, and he’s played the lead role in Grease, so he ought to be pretty dynamic on the stage, but to me he was just static. There’s an early song-and-dance number (Ain’t that a Kick in the Head) in the show when he is coming to terms with his newly found love for Princess Apricot Crumble (nice) with the backing dancers all smartly decked up and it should be Vegas-y or Rat-Packy with Ray in the centre of the chorus line all doing the high kicks – but his just weren’t high. They were limp, like he was delicately playing football with a three-year-old. Maybe he wasn’t well. Maybe he couldn’t be arsed. But it looked wrong. The marriage of Jack and the Princess was the centrepiece of the curtain call but it almost made the applause stop. Was that because of the lack of energy? I don’t know. But I felt rather embarrassed by that.

Other things that didn’t work – a brief “Oh no it isn’t” conversation between the Dame and Fleshcreep was no more than a private interchange that didn’t involve the audience, so it had finished before it had begun; that bloody Churchill dog that gets into every pantomime now should be shot; the underused and therefore pointless appearance of Moosterious (if you live outside Northampton this will mean nothing to you); Jack’s “fight” against the giant was the lamest thing I’ve seen on a stage since… well since Ripley and Ricky went out to sea.

I wouldn’t want to put you off going. It’s a good panto. I enjoyed it. I’ve reflected on it and smiled a lot. And it was very funny when the Pantomime Cow dropped her payslip – no idea if that was deliberate or not but it worked! There were lots of good lines, nice song-and-dancing, endearing characters, cute kids, terrific impersonations, but for me the overwhelming feeling at the end was of being rather underwhelmed. A bit like a whirlpool – really busy and lively at the outer edges but its centre is somewhere you’d really rather not be.

Review – The Invisible Man, Menier Chocolate Factory, December 5th

Posted on by

I’d seen and read a few reviews of this show in advance of seeing it, and they either loathed it or liked it begrudgingly, so I was a bit wary of the experience we were about to endure.

Let’s set the scene. Row A of the Menier. They couldn’t have positioned those seats lower to the floor. Really difficult to get in and out of the seats. You had to stretch your legs out to get any purchase. I was expecting a geisha to serve tea any minute. Also a bit on the side. Not too bad for our seats but the guys to our left must really have seen nothing more than a cardboard proscenium arch.

Anyway we are in a 1904 Music Hall and welcomed by the lively and opinionated MC; and because we remember Leonard Sachs so well, we knew how to react and join in with all the big words. The cast do an opening number (just as they do after the interval) and it’s all very jolly and “knowing winky”. Then we get into the main story, courtesy of an introduction from the Everyman character of Thomas Marvel (Gary Wilmot) and the show gets played out. I’m not sure the main story was really integrated with this Music Hall framework. It worked well enough, but almost by accident, I felt.

Most of the first half felt frenetic, without any firm structure. The last scene in particular felt very long; there was a lot of physical business that they clearly wanted to get in, and it just felt a bit too…too. It was much improved after the interval when the freneticism somehow felt more engaging; and by the end I was well happy with the show.

Gary Wilmot is such a top performer, it was slightly odd to see him in a show where he had no song-and-dance to do. But he creates a super warm link with the audience in this intimate space and is a joy to watch. Underused too in that respect is Maria Friedman with only a little song-and-dance; bossing her way through the show as the dominating pub landlady and also being a joy. Underused in a different way is John Gordon Sinclair as Mr Invisible as he normally has marvellously expressive facial gestures which in this show you don’t get to see!Add to this great supportive performances from Christopher Godwin (Ayckbournian stalwart) and Teddy Kempner (I saw him as Snoopy about 100 years ago) which keep the show going at a great pace and I thought Natalie Casey as the moaning maid Millie was actually quite brilliant.

Plus you also have a nice selection of magic tricks and effects. From our side Row A vantage point we could see how a few of them worked (for example pouring the wine into the glass in the air, and the floating handkerchief). Others were still totally baffling, and extremely effective.

So basically it’s an enjoyable romp. Nothing that’s grim, nothing that’s Greek. Pure entertainment. Occasionally you could let your mind wander and then return a minute or so later and it wouldn’t be a problem. A very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Review – Calendar Girls, Derngate, Northampton, 17th November 2010

Posted on by

Well I must confess that I am behind with writing a few blog posts, for two reasons.

Firstly – I’ve not been well. No it’s true, and man that I am, it’s kind of taken its toll on me. Sniffles developed into a nasty cough, which became a chest infection, and I’m still on antibiotics. It’s been hard sleeping because of night-time coughing. But I am getting better honest. I’m not properly better yet, mind. But getting there.

The second reason is that we saw Calendar Girls on 17th November and frankly it didn’t inspire me to write anything.

We saw the original production in Chichester four or so years ago and absolutely loved it. I was convinced at the time that it made a much better play than film, and that it triumphantly called the shots dealing with emotion and humour. A star studded cast carried it off magnificently. We had Patricia Hodge, Lynda Bellingham, Sian Phillips, all fresh with the piece and giving it all it deserved.

Four years on and I felt it was a very different offering. Most noticeable was how incredibly slow the whole thing is to start – frankly the first half hour or so is pretty boring. The scene where they have the photoshoot is still hilarious. And I did like the portrayal of John’s declining health. It was sensitively and elegantly done. But really – the majority of the rest of it was uninspiring. I fear Lynda Bellingham may be just too stale with the play now – we thought she was rather shouty. June Watson as the older lady Jessie had a confidence with the material that was rather winning. But on the whole it all lacked spark. Even the final scene where they walk through the field of sunflowers struck me a heavily laden rather than the charmingly moving scene I remember in Chichester. I should say that there were a few understudies performing the night we saw it, so maybe they were under-rehearsed or somehow the balances were upset, but to be honest I don’t think that would be the reason for my feeling of underwhelmingness.

It packs houses though – the week in Northampton was more or less a sellout. But I didn’t feel it got a sellout response from the audience. Politely appreciative maybe.

I don’t think I shall want to see it again.

Review – A Number, and Primadoona, Menier Chocolate Factory, October 31st

Posted on by

A Number is the first play by Caryl Churchill that I have actually seen in a theatre. I have read several others but never before witnessed the words coming to life in front of an audience. And her words are fascinating. A Number is a 50 minute one-act play with two actors in constant conversation, and the structure of her writing is based on that ability of people to keep a conversation lively whilst rarely finishing a sentence. This means you have to keep close attention to what’s going on. I can see a link to Pinter, who was also adept at conversational plays, but with Pinter the pauses gave you time to take it in. There aren’t many opportunities to sit and reflect in this play.

And I think that’s one of the problems. Without the ability to reflect on what’s going on you end up somewhere in the range between “not quite sure what happened there” and “what on earth was all that about”. In our post show discussion, Mrs Chrisparkle and I differed on at least two aspects of what actually happened in the story, let alone any philosophical interpretations one might apply to it.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know the story – or at least the story as far as I understand it. Son finds out that he is not unique genetically as there are “a number” of people who were cloned from the same cells at or around the time of his birth. The extent to which Father is complicit in this is one area in which Mrs C and I differ. Son (let’s call him Son A) doesn’t cope with this very well and visits Son B and puts the frighteners on him. Eventually Son A kills Son B. Father and Son C meet – it is revealed that Son B killed himself. (Another area in which Mrs C and I disagree). Son C is well balanced, unlike Son A. Any further dramatic tension comes from how you think the characters react to the situation in which they find themselves.

And that’s the second problem. Delightfully, (at first sight) the Menier has restructured itself so as to present this play in the round (well in the square really). The trouble with our seats (A1 & A2 bought on the first day available) was that they were directly behind the armchair on which one of the two characters is often seated. That meant that for many of the conversations we could not see the reaction of the character facing away from us. Despite being so close to the stage it was a real distancing effect. It may be that others got more from the production because of its staging but, I have to say, we got less. I think it would have worked better on a traditional platform stage at one end of the room.

It goes without saying that real life father and son Timothy and Samuel West gave excellent performances and that the play is definitely thought provoking. But in the end I think it promised more than it delivered.

So on reflection it was a great relief that we also decided to book to see Doon MacKichan’s one-woman-show Primadoona 90 minutes later. This apparently has gone down a storm in Edinburgh earlier this year and is an hour’s tour-de-force encapsulating Doon’s life from award-winning tv comedienne to divorcee and mother of a very sick child. Her comic timing is immaculate; her story is moving and hilarious. We came away from the day feeling that she had got to the heart of the human condition much more directly than Caryl Churchill.

Review – The Duchess of Malfi, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, 20th October

Posted on by

“Anyone local got a thurible?” came a tweet from the Derngate’s Chief Executive a few weeks ago. I knew I didn’t, so regretfully couldn’t help. But now I know why he wanted one. Because as you enter the Royal auditorium for this production of The Duchess of Malfi, you are confronted by this huge swaying thurible, puffing out its incense against the pitch black, giving that eerie sensation of a hallowed monastic environment, and bringing to mind all those feelings of religious guilt that make you shudder at the prospect of High Church. (Well it does me.)

If that thurible was being wafted around by some officer of the church, on the same scale you’d be absolutely diminutive. And so too, when the set opens up and is dominated by a large golden cross against the background, you feel really small in the stalls. It’s no ordinary cross, this one looks like a segment of an old window frame; on the same scale you’d be about the size of an ant, powerless to oppose the evil that’s about to unfold on stage, much like the Duchess herself.

“Webster was much possessed by death”, as Eliot says, and wasn’t he just. By the time the interval has ended and the audience is brought crashing back to attention by the sound of the prison gate clanking shut, there is no way forward but for mass destruction of almost all the main characters. I’ve never seen this play before and I haven’t read it in almost thirty years, so I wasn’t really prepared for its content. It’s fascinating to see a play that was contemporary of Shakespeare but not written by him – today we’re familiar with the usual Shakespearean play construction and poetic language, but in this play the words are so obviously not Shakespeare’s, that this alone makes for a revealing experience. To my ears, he’s less poetic, and less adept at explaining the character’s motives, but still there are some wonderful passages that you feel would not be out of place in modern drama.

Well what can one say about this production. It’s sheer magic. Laurie Sansom is a creative genius. Don’t let him go to another theatre! In fact I hope they won’t let him out of the building; well maybe, tagged, and allowed to stray no further than Prezzo’s. His artistic insight is amazing, he creates a company that bonds together so well and he has an extraordinary ability to get to the heart of the text and lay its truth bare.

He had the idea to introduce contemporary madrigals to this otherwise music-free play, which at first I thought might not work; but actually this intensifies the emotion and the spookiness. The singers double up as minor courtier roles occasionally taking part in the action, which allows for unnecessary passages to be cut easily to keep the pace up. The music is stunning; the effect inventive.

Charlotte Emmerson is the Duchess, with ardour, horror, compassion, sadness and forgiveness in her eyes. She takes you through the stages of recent widowhood, taking happiness with a new husband in secret, being a loving mother, kind to her lady-in-waiting; then you see her easily out-tricked, but bravely committed to survival; and finally too insignificant to fight the evil. It’s a great performance.

Daniel Fredenburgh as the Cardinal has an excellent steely glare; and there is a marvellously realised scene in the confession box where his hypocrisy is most obvious as he paws at his mistress Julia. There is superb use of the chorus of madrigalers in this scene too. David Caves’ Bosola is no ogre but a calculating chancer, with a warped but understandable morality, and Nick Blood’s Antonio convinced throughout as the scribe who had greatness thrust upon him and who was out of his depth in the trickery and evil of Calabria.

But the real star of this show is Laurie Sansom. The sound effects; the lighting effects; the clever cutting, the deft use of the Royal’s stage, which isn’t big – sometimes people just try to cram too much on there. The man is gold dust.

Review – A Month in the Country, Chichester Festival Theatre, October 9th

Posted on by

Every year we take an annual pilgrimage to Chichester to see a production at the Festival Theatre. This is our fifth year – and I reckon this is the second best production we’ve seen there. (The two part dramatisation of Nicholas Nickleby is still tops.)

When you enter the theatre you’re in for a treat. The stage appears enormous! You see the back of the Islayev house, and the garden – and the trees! Trees shoot up from the back of the stage and their branches overhang the auditorium right up to the back row, welcoming you into this idyllic environment. You get to see inside the house, through windows, pathways round the back, and the details of the garden – real plants, a real water pump (with real water!) This is the kind of realistic staging you can imagine would have been the norm in the Victorian era. And it feels luscious.

Then you have what turns out to be a damn good story. I’ve not seen or read this play before, and I was very impressed. A bored lady of the house with a wandering eye is bewitched by the enthusiastic and unsophisticated charms of the young tutor brought in to teach her son. Unfortunately, so is her 17 year old ward, who age-wise is a much more suitable match. Problems ensue.

It’s a marvellous production. Janie Dee plays Natalya, her soul aflame with love that she knows she really shouldn’t consider, with complete conviction. You get every nuance of her emotions from her expressive eyes, the twitches of her mouth, her languid/coy/come-on body postures. Wonderful.James McArdle, as the target of her affection Aleksey, does an excellent line in gauche enthusiasm, faltering delivery and youthful charm, a Turgenevian David Tennant. You can see how he has been completely overwhelmed by his surroundings and fallen in too deep, without being able to do anything about it.Michael Feast, as the family friend Michel, who has held a candle for Natalya for decades by the sound of it, is by turn impressively forlorn, confused, distressed and decisive.Kenneth Cranham, blustering about as the incompetent and corrupt Doctor Shpigelsky, and looking like Stinky Pete from Toy Story, also gives a first-rate performance. In fact there are no weak links in the cast at all.

I don’t know if it is the brilliance of Turgenev or Brian Friel who has adapted the work for this production, but I really enjoyed the use of soliloquies for Michel and Natalya, asking themselves about their inner feelings and reactions to a situation in a way that I know I do frequently. Very believable.

I also very much enjoyed the use of British regional accents to emphasise who’s “in” and who isn’t.The well-to-do members of the household have splendid clipped southern English accents, whereas the servants are from Lancashire; and the incomer Aleksey is pure Glasgow. The other accent employed was over-the-top German by Teddy Kempner as Herr Schaaf, which was appropriate for a role whose main reason it seemed to me was to laugh at his misuse of language.

Another marvellous aspect of this production is the terrific lighting. The lighting plot takes us through all times of the day and night and plays an important part in the realism of the design. Especially Natalya and Aleksey in the moonlit garden – you could almost touch the moonlight halo that framed their bodies, incredibly effective. It’s officially fabulous.

It’s a super production that certainly deserves a life hereafter.

Review – The Talented Mr Ripley, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, October 6th

Posted on by

I love going to the Royal and Derngate. Such variety. Such good value. A friendly, creative environment where anything can happen. That’s not particularly relevant to my thoughts about The Talented Mr Ripley, but I thought I’d state my case anyway.

It’s not often you get a story about someone who is completely without any redeeming features. Tom Ripley is first seen posing as a taxman, terrorising some poor pap who didn’t pay enough of his debt to the state. But it’s the power that enthrals him more than the financial gain, as he patterns delicate cigarette burn holes in the cheque he has fraudulently obtained rather than trying to bank it. If he goes on a journey – and I’m not sure he does really, he’s a bad bastard at the beginning and a bad bastard at the end – I guess he moves more towards the financial gain aspect of his machinations.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know the story. Ripley establishes his badness credentials by hoodwinking an old/sick couple to send him to Italy in an attempt to track down their missing son Ricky so that he can return to the US before his mother dies. Ripley quickly tracks him down; falls in love with him (or not – you decide); manipulates him out of love with his girlfriend; ingratiates himself in his affections; then bumps him off in a boat and takes on his identity. Meanwhile another guy Ricky knows in Italy smells a rat, and in attempt to find out where Ricky has gone also gets himself bumped off by Ripley. The girlfriend retires hurt, like a gracious cricketer; Ricky’s parents decide to bestow all their worldly goods on Ripley instead of Ricky; and Ripley lives happily ever after.

It’s a thoroughly nasty story. Ripley is a thoroughly nasty person; but to get away with it the character must have a Charisma As Big As The Ritz. Although technically I thought Kyle Soller as Ripley gave a faultless performance of a very demanding role, I personally couldn’t see his charisma. He portrayed Ripley much more as the conniving weaselly little s**t that he really is. He was particularly sinister when laying out Ricky’s clothes and assuming his appearance. But if I were Ricky, I would never have trusted him.

There were some excellent performances from other members of the cast – Sam Heughan as Ricky credibly showed all aspects of his personality – the all-American sports hero, the guy who likes to have a good time with his mates, the weak-willed potential rapist (a nasty scene if ever there was one), the guy who was under-prepared for surprise attacks by the person who he thought he could trust.

Michelle Ryan, too, very good as Marge, the wronged girlfriend – and possibly even better doubling up in the minor role of Sophia the prostitute who nearly gets raped.Nice to see Chris Ravenscroft again, once sidekick to TV’s Detective Inspector (“there bin a murder”) Wexford. Not overly convinced by his performance as Ricky’s father, but very effective as the Italian detective who’s just beginning to suss out Ripley’s guilt – a cross between Columbo, Morse and Topo Gigio.

But, you know, there are problems. Boy are there problems.

The end of act one has a most ingenious way of showing the boat on which Ripley and Ricky go further out to sea, and from whence only one of them would return. But – really – the “fight” between them was choreographed as balletically hokily as you could imagine and I found it laughable. It was the least convincing stage fight I have ever seen. I was waiting for the handbags to come out. And then there was a video projection which (I assume) was to convince the audience that two people were struggling underwater and one of them was drowning. Hmmm. Sometimes the imagination can work much better.

Another problem was the ending. If ever a play ended with a whimper and not a bang, this is it. Possibly because Ripley never gets a well-deserved come-uppance, one feels really deprived of a proper denouement. His aunt has come out to see him in Italy and is droning on about something boring – a hideously boring speech. Now – this is a long play. Too long. I don’t think I fell asleep. Very hard to do so from Row B of the stalls because you feel (normally) so involved in what’s going on. But maybe I did, as during the course of this speech my brain decided it had had enough and didn’t want to follow it any more. So I thought to myself I’d let this bit pass, and then catch up with the story in the next scene.

Only there was no next scene. The boring speech ends, and so does the play. Having tuned out, I was suddenly rather freaked by the fact that it had all finished and I hadn’t noticed it. And I don’t think I was alone in that thought in the audience. It took a long time for the applause to start up – I think there was a mutual feeling of “That can’t be the end, can it???” and then I have to say I thought the applause was tepid and short-lived at best. Shame because it was a hard working cast who deserved more.

The play would definitely be improved with a few cuts – probably a bit of a re-write really, to prune it back by about half an hour. A lot of the dialogue at the beginning of the play was very stilted and unnatural. It didn’t really pick up until Ripley arrived in Italy.

So – in brief – a lot of effort, a lot of effective sinisterness, some good staging ideas, but with a feeling of overall disappointment at the end. At times this could have been a four-star show; but on reflection it’s more of a plucky two-star than solid three-star. Pity.

Review – Spamalot, Derngate, Northampton, September 29th – Stick with the Quest!

Posted on by

When we saw Talent at the Menier last autumn, we really hated it. And that was because I quickly realised that it was only fun if it was performed by Victoria Wood and Julie Walters. Anyone else stepping into their parts, no matter how good they were, just didn’t cut it. And I seriously wondered if Spamalot would suffer in the same way. Could the Pythons be replaced?

Yes they can!

To be fair, one Python remains, Eric Idle in the role of video-wall-God, turning crotchety in His old age at the obsequiousness of mankind in its attitude to Him. But Marcus Brigstocke is perfect casting as King Arthur – tall, majestic (to an extent), looking down on ordinary humans with the natural loftiness of royalty. He is also a wonderful corpser to the delight of the audience. Todd Carty is also very entertaining as the long-suffering and largely invisible Patsy, the King’s backpacker, horse and general dogsbody.Hayley Tamaddon was a surprise as the Lady of the Lake, as I have only seen her in Dancing on Ice (where she was jolly good it must be said), and I originally booked hoping to see Jodie Prenger in the role (but alas she had previous commitments for the Northampton week). Ms Tamaddon looks and sings beautifully and brings out all the comedy in the role.

There isn’t a weak spot in the cast at all, and of the noble Knights that support the king, I particularly enjoyed the wry performance of Graham MacDuff as Sir Lancelot (and also the French Taunter and the Knight of Ni), partly I think because his appearance reminded me of Derren Brown, and you don’t think of him as being a Knight of the Round Table.

Stick with the Quest, because the first half did for me get a little bogged down in following the film of MP & the HG. I’ve not watched that film for over twenty years but I still found myself able to recite half the script before the interval. So it didn’t quite work for me, not because comparisons are odious, but simply because I knew what they were going to say. In the second half however, it becomes much more of its own show, with the wonderful “You Won’t Succeed in Showbiz” as Sir Robin advises on how to mount a musical that would satisfy even the most pernickety of Northampton critics; and The Diva’s Lament where the Lady of the Lake rues her own lack of a role.

Suffice to say, they find the Grail in the most unlikely of places, and everyone ends up happy ever after.

It’s a jolly good production, and everyone seemed to go home content. In fact the lady to my left guffawed so much that I thought she was watching another show. Few things are that funny!