Category Archives: Theatre

Review – Platonov, Ivanov, The Seagull – Young Chekhov, Festival Theatre Chichester, 31st October 2015

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I saw my first Chekhov at the age of fifteen – Three Sisters, directed by Jonathan Miller – and I was hooked. I saw Jonathan Miller in the bar but was too shy to say hello – and to be fair he didn’t look like he’d welcome an approach, as he looked like he was having a thoroughly miserable time. As a result, I asked for the Penguin edition of the Complete Chekhov as part of my sixteenth birthday present, and I read it avidly. I even recall hiding away in the locker room at school during break so that I could get Uncle Vanya finished.

So, the prospect of a full day of Chekhov was perhaps a little bit of a hard sell to Mrs Chrisparkle, although I was keen as mustard. Three plays in one day: 10.30 am, 3 pm, 7.30pm. I think she equated it with the heaviest possible day at the Edinburgh Fringe; the very thought of it made her exhausted. Still, I lured her with the prospect of lunch at the Minerva Brasserie and a gluten-free fry up breakfast at Spires’ on Sunday. She caved in. Less than half an hour into the first play and I could already tell she was loving it – and by the time we came to late night dinner at Cote, twelve hours later, she was adamant that she had been looking forward to it all along. Because I’m delighted to tell you, gentle reader, that these three plays, produced in old fashioned rep style at the Festival Theatre (all three on a Saturday) are a rare treat indeed. We’d seen the Ian McKellen production of The Seagull back in 2008 but couldn’t remember much about it because it was on New Year’s Day, we were frankly knackered, and had our eyes shut for most of the time (as did much of the audience). I’d seen Michael Frayn’s version of Platonov, Wild Honey, at the National in 1985, but hadn’t realised it was the same play. And although I’d read Ivanov all those years ago, neither of us had ever seen it, so this was a perfect opportunity to get up to date and immerse oneself in the output of the Young Chekhov. And the plays, the productions and the performances are without exception absolutely stunning.

By the time The Seagull had reached the stage, Chekhov was 36 years old; and given that he would die just eight years later of tuberculosis, it’s perhaps misleading to consider it the work of the “Young Chekhov”. Nevertheless, it’s still a good halfway point in his career to consider what went before as his earlier attempts and what followed as the more mature writer. The texts have been adapted by David Hare, who insists in his introduction that these are three completely individual plays that deserve to be considered individually and not just looked at as some kind of blur and a mere source for the themes that Chekhov would develop more fully in his later plays. Fair enough. However. When you watch all three on the same day; in the same theatre, with the same set, the same lighting, the same director, and many of the actors appear in two or even all three of the plays, it comes across as one big project – a theatrical vision that encourages the audience to make thematic comparisons. I was struck, for example, how, structurally, each of the three plays started in the same way. First, there would be a conversation between two people on stage, which would shortly be interrupted by another two people, of whom the more senior of the two continues a conversation they were already having offstage, and the two people already on stage join in with their conversation. Similarly, use of the same actor to portray similar characters emphasises how Chekhov frequently employs a “type” in his plays – the impoverished schoolteacher, the doctor, the uncle, the landowner, the merchant, the writer, the frumpy female relative, and, of course, the old retainer. Chuck in some actors and some military men and you have a smorgasbord of Russian characters that Chekhov could mix and match to create village life – a microcosm that reflects the macrocosm of Russia in its entirety.

The Seagull is quite frequently performed; Ivanov, less so; Platonov, rarely. So it is a delight to have a chance to see that very early play in this riveting production. There are differences of opinion as to how old Chekhov was when he wrote it; anything between 17 and 20. What is certain is that it was not performed in his lifetime – he wrote it for the rising star Maria Yermolova, who rejected it out of hand – and the manuscript that remained was rambling, unedited, and hugely long. David Hare has done an incredible job in creating a really full and vivid play out of these ashes. Many of the usual Chekhovian themes are there, but what really makes it stand out in comparison with the rest of his work is the comedy element. Ayckbourn has been likened to Chekhov for his observations of family life and his ability to juggle hilarity and tragedy in the same sentence. You’d have to go back over a hundred years to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, to find as many laugh out loud moments in a play as you find in the third act of Platonov; and I noticed several instances throughout the entire day when Chekhov gave us a comic twist to a tragic situation and I thought: “that’s Ayckbourn all over”. Platonov himself is a truly Ayckbournian creation – like Norman, in The Norman Conquests, attractive to women beyond all reasonable expectations without going out of his way to pursue them; just being playfully irreverent, primarily taking care of himself at the expense of others, wheedling his way out of awkward situations, loving others but not as much as he loves himself.

There is a lot of comedy in Platonov, some in Ivanov (mainly from the card-playing, food and drink-hunting guests of the Lebedevs), but precious little in The Seagull. At least sixteen years pass between them – Platonov was written circa 1880, Ivanov in 1887, and The Seagull in 1896, so he wasn’t exactly bashing out these full length plays in a frenzy. The level of comedy declines over the years, in the same ways as does his use of soliloquies. Platonov is full of characters proclaiming their confessional monologues alone on stage. However, there are just two such occurrences in both Ivanov and The Seagull, as Chekhov learned more subtle ways of revealing the inner self of his characters.

In all the plays, the characters seem completely affected by the weather – they’re either suffering from the stifling and oppressive heat, or they’re hiding from the damp air in the evening for the sake of their health. Being Russian, they’re martyrs to their alcohol, perhaps the one unifying source of comfort in the three plays and one that inevitably gives rise to some humour. But additionally you really get an understanding of how the ubiquitous vodka is used to bring all parts of society together – it’s just something that everyone understands and appreciates. All the plays deal with the subject of acting, and thus create an argument between artifice and reality, whether it’s by actually having actors as characters (like Arkadina and Nina in The Seagull), or by Nikolai’s taunting of Platonov that he doesn’t actually feel anything and any sentiment he offers is “just acting”; or Ivanov seeing himself as a Hamlet character.

You can see the roots of Chekhov’s theme that “life will always be better elsewhere”, which culminates in the Three Sisters’ desperate need to return to Moscow, with Glagolyev joining his dreadful son in Paris to enjoy life whilst he still can, and with Arkadina escaping back to Moscow to rid herself of irksome family ties. Naturally, the subject of loyalty and adultery are never far from Chekhov’s nib, and whenever there’s a revolver lying around, you just know there’ll be murder or suicide, committed by someone with what we would call today Mental Health issues, driven to distraction by the world around them.

But what of these productions? As I said earlier – they are stunning. Tom Pye’s set has enough individuality to reflect the differences between the plays but also enough unifying features to make it clearly all part of one endeavour. The great central space at the Festival theatre is given over to the garden for outside scenes and living rooms/studies for indoor scenes, with a useful two storey building on one side and a forest clearing on the other. I loved the use of the divider that sprang up from down below to create the back wall of Platonov’s schoolroom or Ivanov’s study; and the additional features that come into their own for each play – the lonely train track in Platonov, the front of stage river bank in Ivanov, the back of stage lake shore in The Seagull, all add some realistic magic to the proceedings. Mark Henderson’s evocative lighting also had many high impact moments, none perhaps as memorable as the silhouette of Ivanov at the back of the stage near the end of the play, providing us with a visual representation of what a loner he was. David Hare’s words bring Chekhov’s originals to superb, natural life – including the use of antisemitism shown by the characters in Ivanov, which still has the power to shock – the audience’s gasps were palpable.

And how about the performances? Equally stunning. A handful of actors appear in just one of the plays, several appear in two, and four absolute stalwarts appear in all three. Each play relies highly on a strong sense of ensemble performance, even though Platonov and Ivanov have eponymous characters at the centre of the action. James McArdle is a brilliant Platonov, quirky, confident, daring, and still essentially a louse – yet you can’t help liking him. You know that old saying that, deep down, women always prefer the bad boys? He’s proof positive of that. And he’s virtually unrecognisable as Doctor Lvov in Ivanov; soberly dressed, clean shaven, decent and moral – the complete opposite of the rather reprehensible schoolteacher. You can’t imagine a smile ever crossing his lips. His Anna Petrovna (in both plays, so Chekhov really must have liked the name) is Nina Sosanya. In Platonov, she’s splendidly gung-ho about not giving a damn about her debts and with a distinct charm that causes men to fall in love with her – a very strong performance of a strong character. In Ivanov, again it’s an opposite type of portrayal – in frail health, but still resolute of spirit and looking for the good in life, until her husband, piqued with cruelty and mental fragility, blurts out her hopeless prognosis.

Joshua James gives two excellent performances – I particularly liked him in Platonov, as the rather useless young doctor Nikolai, constantly teasing and sniping at the world, and especially at Platonov himself. The administering water scene at the end of the play was one of the best comedy-in-tragedy moments I’ve ever seen. As the troubled Konstantin in The Seagull, he is very effective as the young pup trying to assert himself in a household of patronising superiors, and at the end of the play, his neat and deliberate destruction of his papers was very moving (and much more suitable to the character, unlike Chekhov’s original stage directions which say he just throws them under the table). Elsewhere Platonov is studded with top quality performances – Jonathan Coy as the courtly failure Porfiri, and Mark Donald, totally vile as his spoilt, cruel son Kiril – a performance more memorable than you might have thought the role normally receives. There’s a wonderfully bright and hopeful Sergei played by Pip Carter, who becomes devastated when he discovers the truth about Platonov; he’s equally good in The Seagull as Medvedenko, where he brings out all the character’s pathetic, kick-me-I’m-a-puppy qualities.

Taking a couple of the smaller roles, Nicholas Day steals the first act of Platonov with a wonderfully warm and strangely outrageous performance as Ivan; and Sarah Twomey is brilliant as Maria Grekova who can’t bear to be kissed, a nerdy porcelain doll whom Platonov simply regards as a challenge. There’s a strong, threatening performance by Des McAleer as Osip – I loved his performances in the other plays too – and a wide-eyed enthusiastic performance by Olivia Vinall (another of the three-play stalwarts) as Sofya.

Samuel West leads the cast of Ivanov, wonderfully convincing as the self-obsessed, mentally unstable, cruel title character, almost visibly being eaten up by the black dog as he either retreats into inner nothingness or lashes out at those who care about him. I also enjoyed his rather self-effacing Trigorin in The Seagull, flattered by Nina’s attentions, overwhelmed by Arkadina’s, quietly feathering his own nest and just immune to the feelings of others – their feelings and emotions are mere words for him to write down in his notebook and use for his own benefit. Peter Egan gives two rumbustious performances as Shabyelski in Ivanov, and Sorin in The Seagull, and Lucy Briers is brilliant as the ghastly Zinaida in Ivanov, for whom money is everything; when Ivanov asks for a deferment of the loan she reacts as if he’d suggested a threesome with Putin. She also excels in the role of Polina in The Seagull, idly longing to run away with the Doctor, but saddled with her family commitments – and the appalling way she rejected her son-in-law’s goodbye kiss was worth the ticket cost alone. In addition, I have to mention the delightful performances of Emma Amos, showing how beautifully shallow Marfusha Babakina is; and of Beverley Klein, strutting her stuff as the redoubtable Avdotya with great comic timing.

And of course, there’s Anna Chancellor as Irina Arkadina, the actress who acts her emotions rather than feels them, who undermines her son’s attempts to impress and fit in, who rides roughshod over the feelings of others and does it all with charm and grace, although you never know when’s she might turn into a cobra and attack. But the whole cast of all three plays don’t put a foot wrong and everyone gives their very best to create these three insights into 19th century Russian society.

One of the most exciting, stimulating and revealing days of theatre I have ever enjoyed. A splendid vision, splendidly realised. The Young Chekhov season ends on 14th November, but there’s no way this remarkable experience should finish there. Surely the West End awaits?

Review – A Streetcar Named Desire, Leicester Curve Studio, 24th October 2015

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I’ve been an admirer of the plays of Tennessee Williams for as long as I can remember. I recall being blown away by a TV adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when I was about 16, then I took a young lady to see The Glass Menagerie when I was 17 (what a romantic gesture that was!) and the only other time I’ve seen A Streetcar Named Desire was at the Oxford Playhouse back in 1978, directed by Nicolas Kent. So it was high time I got reacquainted with the play. Mrs Chrisparkle had also never seen it, nor had our friend, Lady Lichfield, who struggled up to Leicester by train on the most circuitous of routes, but that’s another story.

I had forgotten what a simply magnificent play this is. It is so beautifully written, creating an uncertain air of mystery with almost every new plot progression, that you, as an audience member, can interpret it in many different ways. These basic plot details are for certain: Blanche Dubois has come to visit her sister Stella who lives in a dingy downstairs flat in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Blanche seems used to a more refined lifestyle, dressing in lace and assuming an almost unnatural politesse. Stella, however, has married Stanley, an uncultured Polack (Blanche’s word), and appears content to live with (indeed emotionally and sexually satisfied by) his violent and brutish behaviour. The Grand Estate – Belle Reve – where Blanche and Stella were brought up has been “lost”, and Blanche is now homeless. Stella hasn’t forewarned Stanley that his sister-in-law is coming to stay, and it’s fair to say that they don’t hit it off. In the following months, Blanche gets courted by one of Stanley’s poker-playing buddies, Mitch, who’s less Neanderthal than the rest of them; but her past catches up with her and none of it ends happily. I could go into more detail about the plot but a) you probably know it already, b) maybe you don’t want to know it, and c) there’s a fine line between what you see on stage and what might just be figments of Blanche’s imagination. Although Blanche is taken away by a doctor and nurse at the end of the play, it’s debatable at which point her mental instability takes control. It could be at the end of the play, it could be much earlier; and what you see may be a hazy blend of reality and fantasy. That’s just part of the play’s mystery.

It was first produced in 1947 and had its first UK production in 1949, directed by Laurence Olivier and with Vivien Leigh as Blanche. Of course, back in those days, drama was censored on the British stage and the producer had to apply to the Lord Chamberlain’s office for a licence to perform. This must have provided more than a few difficulties for the censor, as the play deals with – amongst other things – insanity, victim mentality, suicide, rape, and paedophilia. But none of this was, apparently, a particular problem. The only thing that almost caused the production to be banned at the last minute was the story about Blanche’s late husband Allan, whom she found in flagrante delicto with someone else: “Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it…the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years”. For the censor, this was the bridge too far. The reference to homosexuality had to go. Bizarrely, the censor himself suggested it should be replaced so that Allan should have been caught at it with a black woman. Eventually a cut was agreed, with the line now just reading “which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it…” And that is how it reads in my Penguin edition of the play and how it is currently spoken in this Curve production. Oddly, by not spelling out precisely what it was that Blanche saw her husband doing, it actually adds to the play’s overall air of mystery.

I had read some very disappointing reviews of this production after press night – none of which are remotely recognisable to the show we saw on Saturday – so I can only assume that the team have continued to work on earlier criticisms, because we all thought the show was quite brilliant. Michael Taylor’s set cleverly encompasses the several acting areas of the play – the Kowalskis’ two roomed apartment, the bathroom, the porch area, Eunice’s flat upstairs, even the streets around New Orleans. There’s a very realistic rain effect right at the end of the play that might get your knees and legs wet if you sit in the front row (as we did, but it’s great to be almost part of the action). There are lots of off-stage music effects that confront and unsettle you, the emotionally moving image of the flower vendor selling her flores para los muertos, and, of course, there are some magnificent performances.

The character of Blanche is so central and so iconic that it is vital to get it right – and Charlie Brooks gives us a terrifyingly stressed Blanche; jittery, anxious, and clearly disturbed right from the start. Mrs C and Lady L both thought that her characterisation made the first act rather frenetic – you were constantly being so bombarded by her words and her anxieties that you hardly had time to reflect. I think that’s possibly true – but I also think it’s entirely justified. In fact, I found it virtually impossible to take my eyes off Ms Brooks all the time she was on stage, so vividly and profoundly did she inhabit the character. I thought it was an amazing performance. We’d seen her a few months earlier in Beautiful Thing and she was terrific in that too – she’s not putting a foot wrong at the moment.

Her anxiety makes the perfect contrast with Dakota Blue Richards’ portrayal of Stella – calm, collected, accepting, practical, and surprisingly assertive. When Blanche tries to load the emotional blackmail on her she simply rejects it; when Stanley behaves badly to her sister she remonstrates with him. Nevertheless, she’s no match for Stanley’s brute force, and the simplicity of her return to him after he’s assaulted her speaks volumes about what she wants from life – and we the audience watch disapprovingly at her contentment with her victim status. Ms Richards gives us a Stella of great clarity and warmth; and turmoil too, when she wonders if she has done the right thing by bringing the doctor to Blanche. That was the moment when both Mrs C and Lady L reached for the Kleenex.

There’s also a wild and brilliant portrayal of Stanley by Stewart Clarke; loud, cruel, calculating, and intimidating – a really strong and intense performance, never straying into an over-the-top pantomime, but always unpleasantly believable. There are also some great supporting performances from Sandy Foster as Eunice, and Patrick Knowles as Mitch,both caught up in an environment where survival of the fittest and not rocking the boat is an imperative, even if you have to do things of which you are not proud.

A stunning production of what is still a very moving and important play – one of those theatre experiences that will live on long after you come home. It’s on at the Curve until 7th November – strongly recommended!

Production photographs by Manuel Harlan

Review – Gaslight, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 21st October 2015

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Hot on the heels of the superb Brave New World comes another well-known British work of the 1930s which has completely passed me by. I’d never seen the play of Gaslight, nor any of the film adaptations; my parents used fondly to recall Fanny by Gaslight but that’s another thing entirely. Patrick Hamilton, the author, was also responsible for the play Rope, famously adapted for the memorable Hitchcock film. Although written in 1938, Gaslight is set in 1880, and so I was expecting a spooky Victorian psychological thriller with a touch of melodrama thrown in – and to a large extent, that’s precisely what the production delivers.

Jack and Bella Manningham lead a rather gloomy and austere life in a gloomy and austere house in London. She is obviously a nervous wreck, desperate to please her husband and play the role of the good Victorian wife; he is a controlling, ruthless, unkind Victorian husband, languishing at home by day and absent who knows where in the evening. And the key to the success of this play is not knowing anything more about it in advance, so that’s all the plot summary you’re getting.

There’s a huge amount to admire and enjoy in this production. William Dudley’s set is amazing, offering so many opportunities to accentuate Bella’s paranoia, including opaque walls that let you see what’s happening in the next room, and a very surprising extension that takes your breath away. At portentous moments, mysterious music will just gently seep its way into your consciousness to add to the general eeriness. This is all strongly juxtaposed with the realism of the costumes and props; I appreciated the scrupulous attention to detail here, I especially liked the Victorian bone china tea set, and the very clear sound effects from the street outside – you could almost smell the horses.

However – and for me it’s quite a big however – I found this an extremely curious play. In fact, it’s almost two plays dovetailed in together. There’s the classic dark thriller, where a husband mistreats his wife with psychological game-playing; and there’s an almost farcical comedy struggling to get out, based on the character of the police inspector Rough, a self-confessed dandy whom you suspect could just as easily turn into Clouseau as Holmes. Thanks to good old Youtube, I’ve had a quick flick through the film and see that the characterisation of Rough there is also somewhat larger than life. In this production he is played by Paul Hunter, an actor and director of immense talent and experience, so I am completely certain that this isn’t a case of miscasting or accidentally getting it wrong.

But whereas the contrast of fantasy and realism works very well with the set and effects, I found the difference of characterisation of the inspector sat ill-at-ease with everything and everyone else. I just didn’t find him remotely believable. I didn’t get a sense that he was in the same period as the other characters – he felt too modern, too unconventional. Mrs Chrisparkle and I both agreed that the scenes between Jack and Bella were superb; a really fantastic study of the chilling domination of one person over another. We also loved the interaction between both characters and their servants, and the unexpected way in which the servants’ relevance in the story develops. But as for the inspector? We just didn’t get it, I’m afraid. In the interval, we both thought it was going the way of An Inspector Calls – apparently J B Priestley was a great admirer of Patrick Hamilton’s work – and Gaslight predates Inspector by seven years, so it would be Hamilton influencing Priestley and not the other way round. But no – whilst there may be all sorts of psychological games going on, Inspector Rough is indeed proper flesh and blood. Yes, at times he makes you laugh, and you might well feel that a laugh nicely breaks up the heavy atmosphere; but all I can say is that the characterisation wasn’t to my taste, and that’s not Mr Hunter’s fault – it’s a disconnect between me and the play.

Tara Fitzgerald is simply brilliant as Bella, conveying immaculately her mental fragility, her desire to be loved, her awkwardness with the servants, and her fighting spirit too. There’s an extremely moving moment when she discovers a hidden letter, which really moved me to tears. I enjoyed how she portrayed the character opening up to the police inspector as if he were a kind of therapist – it’s an all-round amazing performance. Jonathan Firth is also superb as the calculating and cruel Jack, really using the pace and control of his voice both to dominate and to lull Bella into a false sense of security. It’s a beautifully understated characterisation of evil – it wouldn’t surprise me if he committed any appalling act he wanted.

Alexandra Guelff takes on the role of Nancy the maid with great gusto, subtly sneering at her mistress and becoming more challenging – and forward – as the character grows in confidence. Veronica Roberts gives great support as Elizabeth, particularly in the delightfully suspenseful scene where Jack goes in and out of his dressing room. And Paul Hunter is very funny and very charismatic as Rough, a character that I just feel deserves to be in a different play.

The suspense lasts right until the very end and it’s an extremely rewarding, as well as thoroughly moral, climax. It was a pleasure to see the Royal so full for a Wednesday evening, and I’m sure this is going to do great business. I just think it’s a very strange play!

Review – King Charles III, Milton Keynes Theatre, 12th October 2015

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I didn’t have much expectation of King Charles III before we saw it, as I didn’t know much about it. I knew it had received some glowing reviews and had done very good business in the West End – and that it had won the Olivier Award for Best New Play of 2014. I knew it was written by Mike Bartlett, whose Love Love Love we had seen in 2011, which we thought was a meaty and challenging play, and largely enjoyable. It wasn’t until I arrived at the theatre and read the programme that I realised it starred Robert Powell – a big name and seasoned performer – and not until I actually started watching the play that I realised it was in blank verse; like Christopher Fry, and TS Eliot, and…Shakespeare.

Hold that discovery a moment whilst I give you a flavour of the plot. The Queen is dead, long live the King. The play opens with the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the reality for Charles that he is finally to become King. His close family and aides are there for support, but you don’t really get the sense that he is ready for the challenge. However, when he has his first regular meeting with the Prime Minister, he questions a bill he is about to sign – that of restricting the freedom of the press following all the News International phone hacking scandals (yes, Murdoch, I’m looking at you.) The PM and the King don’t see eye to eye on the bill, and with the PM refusing to give way because it has gone through both Houses of Parliament and has received the necessary backing, the King refuses to sign. This simple action – or inaction – starts a chain of events where no one backs down; and when the PM sets up another bill to make it unnecessary to have the Royal Signature for the law to be enacted, the King turns up at the House of Commons, and, as is his right, dissolves parliament.

It’s an intriguing story line, and, approached differently, could I think have made for a lively, dynamic, dramatic play which would have educated and entertained with humour, satire, characterisation and some funny lines. However, sadly, in my opinion, being chained to the sub-Shakespearean blank verse makes you link it inextricably in your mind with the Bard’s History Plays; and as Mr Bartlett isn’t Shakespeare – I doubt you’d consider him a poet – he is weighed in the balance and found wanting. As a result, this just came over to me as an immensely tedious play, hugely self-indulgent, and almost totally lacking dramatic tension.

To me it seems to be a play that doesn’t know its own identity. Is it a comedy? A straight play? A fantasy? A parody? Half the characters are real members of the Royal Family, the rest are Mr Bartlett’s inventions; that’s fine, but within the characters whom we know, some of them are impersonations (William and Kate), some are half-impersonations (Charles and Harry) and one is nothing like an impersonation (Camilla). There’s no consistency in the way the characters are presented to us. Combine that with the use of versified text, some of which rhymes, most of which doesn’t, and you get an overwhelming feeling of artificiality. The use of plainsong, the use of masks (including a Fluck and Law Spitting Image Charles which I thought was just woeful and killed any vestige of dignity to which the play might have had pretensions) and the use of equally cringe-making ghosts (not so much Hamlet’s Father but William’s Mother) means there’s no attempt at reality and, I felt, barely any connection to the audience at all. We had a long should we/shouldn’t we leave at the interval session but decided to stay because I did have a faint interest in how it was going to get resolved. However, there’s a long scene in the second act where William proposes to act as a go-between between the King and the country, and the writing is as dull as ditchwater and completely without drama; it was about this time that I decided the only way this play could be rescued would be by having Fortinbras arrive in the final scene, defeat the House of Windsor in battle and take control over the land. Not that we want Norwegian prices in this country, I confess. Mrs Chrisparkle instead decided to give up and just go to sleep, believing that giving her brain and body a well-earned rest from the rigours of the day was a much more productive way of spending those sixty minutes.

Credit where it’s due, Tom Scutt has created an imposing stage design that nicely conveys the austere grandeur of the Westminster Hall setting for lying in state, and functional parliamentary offices where constitution issues are debated with increasing incredulity. But you don’t get a feeling for any other setting, such as the opulence of the Royal Palaces or the outside world where Prince Harry might have a fling. Jocelyn Pook’s moody choral compositions for the State occasions are atmospheric and sung quite beautifully. Robert Powell is of course a fine actor with a strong stage presence, and he does bring some warmth and a sense of self-awareness to the role of Charles. Richard Glaves gives a good performance as Harry, with a suitably Sloany voice and a surprising lack of interest in Things Royal; but other than that, the performances that impress more are of the imaginary characters – Tim Treloar in great form as the Kinnock-based PM, Giles Taylor as the manipulative Leader of the Opposition and Lucy Phelps as Harry’s girlfriend Jess; part fish out of water, part wise Fool who sees the truth.

Fortinbras doesn’t turn up – shame – and I think the ending is something of a damp squib, which is saying something considering the general level of boredom that the rest of the play engenders. In the programme notes, Robert Powell says he thinks the play is a masterpiece. Well, considering it sold out the West End, is touring the country and going to both Broadway and Australia, it’s certainly convinced some people of its worth. Personally, I thought it was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I really didn’t like it. I guess it was just not my cup of Duchy Originals Organic Earl Grey.

Review – Dinner With Saddam, Menier Chocolate Factory, 11th October 2015

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Back in 2003, in the face of international criticism, overseas sanctions and the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, apparently Saddam Hussein regularly took to paying surprise visits to the homes of ordinary people for dinner and to stay the night, in an outward attempt to show solidarity with his people – and to try to stay hidden from overseas forces, of course. Can you imagine answering a knock at the door only to discover Saddam Hussein had come for a sleepover? I think it might throw your plans for the evening into disarray, as indeed it does for the Alawai family, as Feydeau meets Fallujah in this brilliant new farce by Anthony Horowitz.

Not that life was flowing particularly smoothly for them in the first place. Ahmed and Samira have a bickering relationship – she’s unhappy with him because he’s lazy; he’s unhappy with her because she never stops arguing; I was going to say that underneath it all, they love each other, but actually I’m not entirely sure that’s the case. Ahmed insists that his forward-looking free-thinking daughter Rana will marry the horrendous Jammal, a bullying traffic cop who’s in it for the bribes and the blackmail; whereas Rana is in love with Sayid, an out-of-work actor, but, even worse than that, he’s Shia and they’re Sunni, so it’s a complete no-no. Sayid poses as a plumber to fix the Alawai’s rather distressing toilet issue, in an attempt to whisk Rana away from under their noses. Into this dyspeptic combination comes the knock on the door, first by Colonel Farouk of Saddam’s personal security services to make sure the home and family are suitable, and then by the great dictator himself. I’m not going to tell you what happens next; suffice to say murder, mayhem and mixed spice are all on the menu. For some, things end well; for others, not so well; for a couple, things end completely. And who knows what happens to them all at final curtain?

You know how, at his best, Alan Ayckbourn can present you with a painfully funny situation that makes you burst into uncontrollable laughter, which then catches in your throat as you realise the genuine personal tragedy that you’re laughing at? Well, in Dinner with Saddam, Anthony Horowitz has the same ability– setting up brilliantly funny scenes and conversations that make you laugh hard and long until you remember you’re laughing at or with a mass murderer, or at the destruction of a state and its people. Thus you pause and you reflect, and it’s very, very uncomfortable – but it’s also very, very funny. This play contains some of the blackest humour I’ve ever encountered and my advice is to go with the flow, accept it as comedy, and allow it to take you where it wants to go. If you need to question why you’re laughing at genuine terror, wait till after the play. Comedy can be savage; and even in the darkest worlds humour exists and keeps people going. Laughing at this play is a testament to human spirit and endurance.

It’s actually fascinating to observe a domestic situation in an ordinary house in Baghdad and to compare it with the Home Counties we know and love. It’s stating the obvious, but it’s somehow strangely rewarding to be shown just how like every other slightly errant family the Alawais are. The old-fashioned, faintly useless father figure. The hard-working, grumpy mother. The rebellious child. The bullying cousin. The wheedling wannabe son-in-law. The notion of braving the bad side of town to get the shopping you want. The over-ordering of tiles for the new mosque so that all the friends and family have lovely new bathroom and kitchen surfaces. A side terrace with climbing roses and a herb garden, screaming out for a makeover by a true horticulturalist. The fact that all this is so recognisable emphasises the horror of when ordinary people get caught up in tyranny, war and bombardment. The next time you hear about deaths from suicide bombers in the Middle East, the victims are probably just like this family – and by extension, just like yours. So it’s a real strength of this play that it brings home the reality of the situation for these people, yet retains its ability to be superbly funny at the same time.

It’s always a pleasure to return to the Menier because they rarely show a dud, and it’s eye-opening to see how they will have re-invented the auditorium to fit each new production. For Dinner with Saddam, they’ve got it as a traditional proscenium arch in front of the bench seats, with the stage extended very wide, so there may be areas of the stage you can’t see if you’re too far to the front; still, I love being in the front row of the Menier, because you can almost touch what’s going on. Tim Shortall’s set suggests a very respectable house, with some lovely Islamic blues and archways mixed in with common day-to-day functional designs. His costumes go a good way to playing a part in the comedy too, with Ahmed’s too-small pinstripe suit and Jammal’s explosive faecal disaster pants. As Mrs Chrisparkle so delicately put it, it’s probably not the first time someone had shat themselves in Saddam’s presence. As an aside, I’m not normally one to be impressed by jokes about farts and turds, but for some reason they really integrated well into the rest of the play and I surprised myself by finding them really funny.

Anthony Horowitz’s gleefully drawn characters have encouraged a genuinely sparkling cast to give some tremendous performances. It’s always a delight to see Sanjeev Bhaskar (we last saw him in Art back in 2002) and here he can really get to grips with handling the farcical downfall of the complacent and lazy Ahmed. Whether it be with his verbal duels with authority figures, engaging in sarcastic banter with his goodladywife, anxiously covering up his little corruptions or dragging corpses around the kitchen, it’s a brilliantly funny portrayal of a man out of his depth and scrambling to survive. And how inventive the casting to have him up against Steven Berkoff as Saddam – an actor and playwright I have long admired but never seen live. Mr Berkoff has blended Saddam with a little bit of Mafioso Godfather to create a genuinely threatening (would you expect anything else?) quietly ruthless ogre whose every word you would distrust. And jutting out of this characterisation at odd angles are brilliantly funny looks, asides, gestures; even the playful teases you might expect from an endearing uncle. Just his enunciating every letter in every Arabic name he mentions sends a slight shiver of fear down your spine. It’s a marvellous creation and a spellbinding performance.

The supporting cast are also excellent. There’s a wonderfully funny performance from Shobu Kapoor as Samira, hectoring her inadequate husband whenever she can, then transformed into a scared little girl when Saddam comes to call. Rebecca Grant plays Rana with just the right balance of gutsiness and compliance that you might expect from a daughter wishing to make her own way in life but also not wanting to upset her parents. Ilan Goodman brings out all the pantomime villain in Colonel Farouk, and the hamminess of the well-meaning Sayid; and there’s a terrifically greasy performance from Nathan Amzi as the ghastly Jammal, portraying him both as a vicious bully and a pathetic victim. Bally Gill and Zed Josef don’t have to say anything as the two soldiers, but they do it with authority.

We both absolutely loved this play; it’s beautifully and challengingly written, and features some brilliant comic performances. It’s not always a comfortable watch, but that’s what I love in the theatre: something to show me life from a different angle, and make me come out of the theatre a different person from the one that went in. This achieves that brilliantly. A must see!

Review – September in the Rain, White Cobra Productions, Playhouse, Northampton, 29th September 2015

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Having discovered White Cobra Productions back in April when we saw their jolly Shakespeare Revue, I was keen to see what other tricks they had up their sleeve. For their current show, September in the Rain, they have left behind the world of song and dance and gone for a traditional two-hander play, written by John Godber. It was first produced back in 1983, and is largely drawn on and inspired by his own grandparents’ lives, and their annual sojourn to Blackpool for their holidays. I usually associate John Godber with more rough and ready settings, like Bouncers or Up ‘n’ Under, so to discover this rather gentle and Alan Bennett-esque play was a very pleasant surprise.

We meet Liz and Jack, an elderly Yorkshire couple, preparing to go on their week’s trip to Blackpool, and, as they reminisce about previous holidays, the play takes us back to their younger days so that we can relive many of their experiences with them. The play becomes an amalgamation of several holidays, which, whilst there are occasional sunny days, mainly reflect several Septembers in the rain (hence the title). We see their fondness for particular guest houses; fish and chip suppers (mainly takeaway, occasionally the treat of an eat-in), dealing with the donkeys on the beach; memories of their children doing daft things; and it’s all interlaced with an elaborate sequence of bickering that acts as a cement to their entire relationship.

This is one of those plays which triggers your mind and memory into recollections of events in your own childhood. We never used to go to Blackpool as a kid (far too Northern for the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle’s liking) but we would go to Devon, or Bournemouth, or Ramsgate; and, as Liz and Jack encourage their kids to be the first to spot the Blackpool tower from the car, we always had the race to see who could be first to spot the sea. I remember the long walks along the beaches; my dad in a deckchair barely taking off his tie; tickets for the end of the pier show; sharing tables with other holidaymakers (sometimes nice, sometimes tedious); staying up late to watch Match of the Day in the guest house’s TV lounge – televisions in your room were just unheard of! Just as Liz and Jack’s daughter Pam sings at a seaside talent show, I remember being entered for the Butlins Bognor Picture of Health contest, amongst dozens of others equally bored children. I didn’t win. I also remember being forced to wear those ghastly pacamacs that Liz and Jack sport because of the inevitable downpours associated with the English summertime. I quake with embarrassment at the memory of being caught out in the rain on the Isle of Wight one year with no rain hat (shock horror) and the only alternative the Dowager could find for me in the local shops was…. a tea cosy. I spent the afternoon with this ****ing tea cosy on my head in case I caught a cold. I should have phoned Childline.

I don’t think Liz and Jack would have been that cruel to their kids – instead they would have saved their verbal cruelty for each other. I doubt if there would be anyone who’d been on a family holiday as a kid who hadn’t witnessed their parents rip each other to shreds like Liz and Jack do. Because that generation worked really hard, and laboriously, and probably only had one week off a year, the pressure to enjoy themselves on the annual summer holiday was really intense. There’d be months and months of happy expectation, and then it would be all over in a flash. And of course holidays are never that perfect, and travel plans always go amiss somewhere along the line. So while Jack takes a relaxed and practical view of the travel plans, Liz is frantic with packing, traffic, the weather, the destination, and every minutiae in between. Once they reached Blackpool, it would be Jack’s turn to get agitated when things go wrong – the room too small, the waiter too handsome, the donkey too flea-ridden. Hs method of complaining would be virtual fisticuffs, much to the embarrassment of Liz who would far sooner see it out in silence – until she got Jack on her own, that is.

It’s a very funny, charming and nostalgic play, and you feel Kate Billingham and Richard Jordan get right to the heart of their characters. There’s something of the Olivia Colman in Kate Billingham’s portrayal of a woman who normally manages to stay just on the safe side of high anxiety but will erupt when pushed. We both loved how you could see how one little word or action would slowly but inexorably turn her from Seaside Sunshine to Tyrantosaurus Rex. I also really enjoyed her voice and characterisation for their dining companion, all toothily smirking and snaffling the last biscuit. Richard Jordan too was perfect as the taciturn Jack, in his old age rarely needing to add more to a conversation than a considered “aye” or a risky “nay”, grimacing at the world going by, not miserably, just elderly. There were some lovely exchanges between the two – for example, an excruciatingly funny scene in the deckchairs when Liz kept on insisting that Jack took various clothes off to enjoy the sun whilst he was perfectly happy minding his own business fully clad – she would have tried the legendary patience of a saint. There’s another great scene where Liz’s travel anxiety causes a car accident – I’m pretty sure Mrs Chrisparkle recognised something from her own childhood there; a memorable moment where Jack gets his own back at Liz from the top of the Blackpool Tower; and their final scene where they go back into the pub for one last drink is very heart-warming.

It’s all neatly and simply staged, with just a few chairs, props and sound effects to awaken, in the audience’s mind, their own childhood holiday memories, both affectionate and otherwise. The backdrop slides that revealed different aspects of and locations around Blackpool weren’t really necessary as our imagination did all that work for us – although I did like the image of the Ford Popular. A very charming and funny performance of a very moving and endearing play, it’s on at the cosy and intimate Playhouse theatre in Northampton until Saturday 3rd October, and then has some touring dates later in October and November which you can find here. Definitely worth catching!

Review – Hairspray, Derngate, Northampton, 28th September 2015

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The prospect of the return of Hairspray the Musical filled Mrs Chrisparkle and me with delight. We loved the original show in 2008 with Michael Ball and Leanne Jones, and remember leaving the theatre energised and upbeat. The original film, too, is a heap of fun, with the amazing Divine as Edna – casting that thereby required all future Ednas to be played by a bloke. One quick check of the creative team for this revival tells you you’re in the safest of hands, with Leicester’s Paul Kerryson directing, top-of-his-game Drew McOnie choreographing, and a cast of huge talent. So it was no surprise that the Derngate was packed to the rafters with an almost full house on Monday night for its first performance in Northampton.

I’m sure you know the story, but in a nutshell: “pleasingly plump” Tracy Turnblad longs to be a TV star but she has neither the figure nor the middle class background to break into the big time. When she tries to audition for Corny Collins’ music and dance show she comes up against the ruthless producer Velma whose sole ambition is to get her pretty but obnoxious daughter Amber into the limelight, primarily by fixing her to win the “Miss Teenage Hairspray” title. But Tracy’s natural vivacity and talent shine through and when Corny sees her perform he insists on her being in the show. We’re talking 1962 Baltimore, and there’s racial segregation everywhere you look. Prim parents, like that of Tracy’s best mate Penny,refer to “race music”, and the prejudiced Velma has an “all-white” policy for the show. One day a month is “Negro day”, when the black performers are allowed to take to the stage – no other time. Tracy tries to use her new influence to break down this barrier by organising a protest march for all the dancers on the show to demand full integration between the races. When the march gets out of hand, the police are called, they’re all arrested, but “the new Elvis”, Link, sneaks into the prison and helps Tracy escape so that she can get back to the studio just in time to win “Miss Teenage Hairspray”. In the end, segregation becomes integration in what turns out to be a very moral story where good wins through and evil is defeated.

There’s so much to enjoy this production, and a good night was had by all despite some technical problems, no doubt related to the fact that this was its first night on tour. Given that it’s Paul Kerryson in charge, perhaps surprisingly the majority of problems are down to the staging. We were in the middle of row F of the stalls – and I spoke to a friend who was in the side stalls in Row K – and we both had the same problem: you can see far too much of what’s going on in the wings. Now, you might expect that if you’re right on the edges of the seating plan; and sometimes a little hint of what’s going on is quite exciting from a stagecraft point of view. But this level of movement was distracting. The problem is that the side drapes don’t hang low enough to mask what’s going on – maybe because of the two platforms that get wheeled on and off at the sides, representing the Turnblads’ house and Motormouth Maybelle’s record shop. The band are also positioned at the back of the set, which means from time to time they are in full view, normally something that would lend an added, exciting dynamic; but during the course of the evening I looked up at them occasionally and when some band members were not playing their instruments, they simply looked bored! So that really didn’t work. I also felt that the scenery representing the prison was distracting, as it flew in and out of position just a bit too often; and I also didn’t realise that the place where Seaweed and his pals hung out was meant to be a record shop; I thought it was just a street.

Hopefully the technical issues will get quickly ironed out – there were, for example, too many moments when actors were performing unlit, and where the pauses between scenes were too long. Fortunately, the cast coped with the problems admirably; particular kudos to Jon Tsouras for deftly switching from hand-held mic to no mic and back again without a flicker of an eyebrow. I must say though this is the first time I’ve ever seen a dancer (no names, no pack drill) come on stage in a pair of trousers at least three sizes too small for him, unzipped and unbuttoned up at the top, do a few moves and then run off, not to reappear for the rest of the scene. What on earth happened there?! Had he put on someone else’s trousers? Despite that, I thought Takis’ costume design for the show was first rate, providing a stage billowing with primary colours and creating some enormously snazzy shirts and jackets of which I was thoroughly jealous.

Talking of dancing, and dancers, this is one area in which this production absolutely excels. Drew McOnie’s choreography is sparky and funny, and reaches out to the audience with a huge pair of open arms and welcomes us in. He creates dances that manage to tell a story, even within the context of a big show number, in a way that other choreographers would just create something that looks pretty. It was his choreography for the song “Run and Tell That” that was so instantly captivating and that matched perfectly the creativity of his dancers, that made you feel you were watching something really special. The whole dance ensemble are fantastic, but amongst them there is one Layton Williams, whom we saw in Lord of the Flies, who is just an amazing dancer, and for whom I predict Really Great Things.

Of course the role of Edna is really larger-than-life, and Tony Maudsley has some very big shoes to fill when you consider other performers who have taken the role before him. When he first appeared on stage, I was completely thrown as he was the spitting image of my Nan in the 1970s. Even their gravelly voices were similar. He plays Edna more demurely than I would have expected; very respectful of her maternal role, and not remotely playing up the drag aspect. I was unsure of this interpretation at first, but it worked particularly well with the show-stopping “You’re Timeless to Me”, as his surprisingly refined and elegant Edna provides a great contrast with Peter Duncan’s cheeky-chappie portrayal of Wilbur. With Mr Duncan cutting a diminutive figure in comparison to Mr Maudsley’s statuesque Edna, it was a bit like Tigger romancing Winnie-the-Pooh’s granny. I didn’t expect to have to say this, but I still think he could brighten up (maybe even camp up) his more glamorous appearances; in particular his final entrance didn’t quite have a sufficiently outrageous wow factor for me. Mr Duncan is, however, pitch-perfect throughout, conveying just the right mix of parental kindliness and general facetiousness that you would expect a joke shop proprietor-father to have.

Freya Sutton is a great Tracy; full of teenager enthusiasm, hopelessly infatuated with pop stars and delightfully open-minded and unprejudiced. She sings with great strength and charm and can turn in some wicked dance moves too. There’s a cracking performance from Brenda Edwards as Motormouth Maybelle, putting all her heart and soul (and then some more) into that big rousing number; and a funny yet very strong musical performance from Monique Young as Tracy’s dorky friend Penny, who graduates from Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan in front of our eyes. Jon Tsouras cuts a charismatic dash as Corny Collins, nicely massaging away the fixed grin from his face whenever the camera is turned off, and there’s excellent support from both Adam Price and Tracey Penn as the two “authority figures”. Lauren Stroud is a splendidly smart-arsey Amber, the perfect representation of what you become when you’re spoilt rotten as a child. I thought Ashley Gilmour rather underplayed the role of Link Larkin; I’m not sure I could see him as the next Elvis, to be honest, and you couldn’t really tell when he was being a louse and when a hero. There was an unintentionally hilarious moment when he came through the audience to rescue Tracy from prison. Waving his torch in all directions he called out “where are you?” to which an audience member replied “here!” and we all had to stifle our giggles.

I always love it when I see A Star Is Born performance – and this show has one in the form of Dex Lee as Seaweed. We’ve already seen him once in the incredible Scottsboro Boys but in Hairspray he absolutely shines and confirms he is a brilliant song and dance man. His voice, his dancing and his enormously likeable stage presence make for a winning combination; and he and Monique Young made a really charming young couple together. There were also brilliant contributions from the three Dynamite girls, Vanessa Fisher, Aiesha Pease and Bobbie Little. They looked gorgeous, sang like a dream and danced their little socks off.

Of course the show has lots of amazingly entertaining moments, none more exhilarating than its brilliant finale – You Can’t Stop the Beat – which, as Mrs C pointed out, is worth the ticket fee alone, and which guarantees you leave the theatre in the bounciest of moods. It also has some hard-hitting and poignant moments where it exposes the racial segregation system of the time, and its occasional uncomfortable scenes stand out as moments of telling dramatic tension. Once it’s taken a couple of days to bed in this is going to be a really slick show – fingers crossed for no more technical failures! It’s on a pretty massive UK tour right round to next May, so if you’re local to Malvern, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Wimbledon, Bradford, Southampton, Ipswich, Brighton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Inverness, Bristol, Woking, Cardiff, Norwich, Milton Keynes, Canterbury or Stoke, I’m sure you’ll have a great time!

Review – Brave New World, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 9th September 2015

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I can’t believe I’ve got to the grand old age of [insert grand old age here] and have not yet read Brave New World, nor seen a film, nor a TV adaptation of it. And me an English student. It’s a disgrace. I do remember school friends devouring it, saying it was the best thing since sliced bread, but at the time I was too into my drama to lower myself to the level of mere novels. How wrong was I?

So I was very excited at the prospect of seeing James Dacre’s production at the Royal and Derngate, because I was going to fill in a major gap in my general knowledge. I also suspected it would be stunningly good. Mrs Chrisparkle had also never read the book, so like a pair of innocents we settled down in the front stalls of the Royal. There was a noticeable buzz about the place – people were clearly very curious to see how this dramatisation would work.

I’m sure you know the story, but I’ll give you a quick rundown. Set some time in the future, mankind has been streamed into five castes – alpha to epsilon – and people are no longer simply born, they are created in laboratories, hatched and decanted, then subjected to conditioning education in order to achieve a sort of mindless positivity about well-ordered life. There are no families, no close relationships – people have sex willy-nilly with whoever they want, as much as possible, because everyone belongs to everyone. Alphas take the best jobs, betas support them; gammas, deltas and epsilons are left to do the menial work, but they’re all perfectly content with their lot as they have been programmed to do so. No books, no religion, no creative thought; they’ve all been banned. Instead, you work, you take soma (a hallucinogenic drug), you go on dates. One such date is the holiday that Bernard Marx, an alpha scientist who doesn’t seem quite as alpha as he could be, takes Lenina, a beta nurse at the London Hatchery, to a Savage Reservation. These are parts of the world where this perfect order hasn’t reached, and where savages that live there lead impoverished, blighted lives. There they meet Linda, an older woman who once worked at the Hatchery, but who got left behind on a visit to the Reservation, and John, her literary-minded son. Bernard takes them back to London for research purposes, but their return leads to disaster all round. And if you want to know how it all develops and resolves itself, you’ll just have to see the play.

Aldous Huxley wrote the book in the early 1930s but its dystopian vision is still enormously relevant today. Within a few minutes of the play starting, Mrs C was guffawing at the Brave New Worldisms that she could recognise in the modern day business environment. Its portrayal of two life-systems that are at complete odds with each other can be translated into present day political, philosophical or moral systems; in fact almost any situation where you have rivalries and where people are confronted with the opposite behavioural patterns. Brave New World beautifully highlights individual hypocrisies of the people who attain high rank – very much like the works of George Orwell with whom Huxley is frequently compared – and the petty arguments between those who are clambering up the ladder to supposed greatness. But its most telling element is the growing, contrasting relationship between the creative, poetic savage John, whose ability to speak is cloaked in his knowledge of Shakespeare, and the artless, conformist Lenina, for whom the meaningless shag is the epitome of recreational achievement.

Naomi Dawson’s comfortless sets emphasise the spiritual emptiness of this new World order, with powerful use of video screens and artificial colour to create a fake sense of life and excitement. Colour is just one of the conditioning tools; the alpha men always wear grey and white whilst the beta women are always in purple and puce. The original music is by These New Puritans, an Essex band whose music, according to the programme, “ranges from the intimate to the expansive, from industrial to orchestral”. However you categorise it, their music is highly impactful, both uplifting and eerie, and really adds to the atmosphere of the production. Not having read the book, I can’t tell how faithful Dawn King’s adaptation to the original is, but it’s a compelling script that had us riveted from the start. Wryly amusing, sometimes horrifying, frequently uncomfortable, I loved how it didn’t shy away from showing us the grim horror of the aversion therapy techniques for those whose conditioning hasn’t quite succeeded; and how it took the subject of erotic play amongst children as being something to be encouraged, in order better to fit them for a subsequent life of promiscuity. In our world, where paedophilia seems to play a part in almost daily news coverage, this may feel quite a challenge to the audience.

The cast of ten form a superb ensemble – there are some wonderful group scenes where conversations take place intermittently whilst the non-participants stand frozen in time – but each cast member also shines individually in their own roles. Gruffudd Glyn is excellent as Bernard, the picked-on misfit alpha, struggling to fit in with the social norms required of him, but nevertheless keen to succeed despite his ineptitude. With his rise in celebrity status through his association with John comes increased self-confidence which Mr Glyn conveys with a real sense of joy. Yet when it ebbs away, as John refuses to play the celebrity game, and with the constant threat of being exiled to an island, Mr Glyn depicts the character’s knife-edge existence with barely concealed fear and emotional rawness. Olivia Morgan as Lenina absolutely gets the character’s beta status – enthusiastic, compliant, intent on her own ambitions and pleasure, selfish, and essentially one-dimensional. It’s a very clever performance. I really liked James Howard as Thomas the Director, full of apparent alpha leadership charisma, the corporate lame duck who reels off the right words but who will eventually be hoist by his own petard, even though that phrase would be banned in the new World order – a nice mixture of bully and sham. Sophie Ward gives a classy, authoritative performance as Controller Margaret Mond – the character is Mustapha in the original I understand, but making the Big Boss a woman is very 21st century and gives it extra bite. Dressed in grey like the men, and giving the impression of caring and enabling her team to do well, she is essentially a manipulating hypocrite who glories in the power she wields, and Ms Ward conveys this with icy assurance.

Abigail McKern is superb, as always, as Linda, the much-maligned and helpless mother in a world that dare not speak that name, providing a recognisable trace of the humanity of real life, rather than the warped one of the new World order. David Burnett is excellent as the bright and bumptious Henry, alpha through and through, embodying the new values of this valueless society. Scott Karim plays Bernard’s friend Helmholtz, subtly expressing his anxiety at also not fitting in; when he declaims his self-written poem there’s a light-bulb moment where you can see his sudden, moving, self-realisation that this is what life ought to be like. Samantha Pearl is great as Lenina’s friend and confidante Polly, and I also really liked her as the Headmistress of Eton – haven’t times changed. Theo Ogundipe as Benito is another stalwart of the new order, he’s obviously going to be next in command under Henry; and I also enjoyed his characterisation of the “guardian” of the Reservation, giving travel tips and inoculations to Bernard and Lenina as if he were some kind of Huxleyesque Club 18-30 rep.

But it is the character of John the Savage, and the performance of William Postlethwaite that shines. The character stands out as a beacon of moral decency and goodness, partly because he belongs to a world that we recognise and want to cling on to, and partly because of his firm reliance on the Bard to say the right thing. The Shakespearean quotes are an absolute joy, showing a determination to hang on to a world where love and creativity are seen as positive contributions. John is an idealistic figure, but very human too; willing to learn and to improve but unwilling to give up the things he holds dear as truth. Mr Postlethwaite is totally convincing throughout as the noble fish out of water, a lost Everyman character, and, with a great stage presence, I’m sure he’s going to be One To Watch.

Both Mrs C and I were gripped from the opening scene, spent the interval in open mouthed appreciation of what we’d already seen, and walked home at the end dumbstruck with enjoyment. A riveting story, crackingly well told, superbly acted, vividly depicted. Its run at the Royal and Derngate lasts until September 26th, but afterwards you can catch it at Edinburgh, Oxford, Nottingham, Cheltenham, Wolverhampton, Darlington, Blackpool and Bradford up until December 5th. It’s certainly inspired me to read the book, and a copy is already winging its way to me courtesy of those tax-dodgers at Amazon. And you can discover much more about the production at the TheatreCloud website. A co-production with Touring Consortium Theatre, this is, quite simply, one of the best productions I’ve ever seen.

Review – Volpone, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, 5th September 2015

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For the third weekend in a row, we met up with Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters for an afternoon of culture and drama. It was the Countess who was particularly keen on seeing this production, immersed as she is in all things literary and old, and that’s not just her husband. I’d read the play when I was younger but none of us had actually seen it on stage, so it was about time we got ourselves some education. So if, like Mrs Chrisparkle, you thought Volpone was Ben Jonson’s more successful prequel to Volptwo, maybe it’s time to reacquaint yourself with some Jacobean dramatists. Whilst Shakespeare continues to make his presence felt in every outdoor summer venue and traditional theatre space at least once a year, his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries sometimes get overlooked. For at the same time that Shakespeare was whacking out King Lear, Jonson was proposing a very different kettle of fish in the guise of Volpone.

Guise is a good word in the circumstances, because Volpone – the man – is the ultimate dissembler. In reality a hale and hearty manipulator of idiots and lover of riches, to the outside world he is a feeble old man, languishing on his sickbed, dribbling incontinently into a spittoon. When not creating that illusion, he might be pretending to be Scoto the Mountebank, or a courtroom official, or any number of bogus creations. With its carefully chosen Italianate names for its characters, Jonson created the classic satire on greed. It’s set in Venice, where Volpone (the fox) with his co-conspirator servant Mosca (the fly), attempt to outwit the wealthy Voltore (vulture), Corbaccio (raven) and Corvino (crow), to prove that fools and their money are indeed soon parted, preferably in Volpone’s direction. Innocents are drawn into his web of deceit, like Corbaccio’s son Bonario (kindly) and Corvino’s wife Celia (heavenly). In a subplot, we are introduced to Sir Politic Would-Be (at the time politic meant “scheming” or “sly”), his garrulous and airheaded wife the Lady Would-Be, and the traveller Peregrine, whose name means…er… traveller. In a very moral resolution, the good, the bad and the foolish are all shown to be precisely what they are, with the wrath of the courts coming down heavily on the transgressors; with liberation and exoneration as the reward for the wronged.

With its completely original plotline, many consider this to be one of the finest Jacobean plays – certainly of the comedies. It is, however, rather long-winded. Structurally it starts with an elaborate opening scene where Volpone and Mosca fleece and con the three fools individually, and I sense that the more you emphasise the differences between these three characters, the funnier it is. It then breaks away to the street scene where Sir Politic and Peregrine have their conversation, giving Volpone and his entourage time to re-create themselves as Scoto and his team, which gives rise to a lengthy performance by Volpone-as-Scoto, encouraging his audience to buy his amazing cure-all oil. Finally, Volpone wins the attention of Celia – which is what all this has been leading up to. Benjo allows Scoto to rule the stage, and extemporise at length – and I really do mean at length. My own feeling is that it was because the original Volpone was played by Richard Burbage who was the Laurence Olivier of his time; the longer he was on stage, the happier the audience would be. Once Corvino has taken his revenge on Celia for her sassy behaviour but nevertheless agreed to offer her to Volpone for sex – yes this is quite an adult Jacobean comedy – humiliation and disgrace is the inevitable outcome for all concerned.

Trevor Nunn has created an updated version of Volpone for the RSC. No sense of Venetian gondolas and canals remain in this stark modern environment, where entrycams show us who’s knocking at Volpone’s door, video projections display the allegedly sick Volpone’s feeble heartbeat and erroneous blood pressure readings, and with a click of a button we can even see the stock exchange figures scroll past whenever Volp wants to play the markets. Overhead cameras show the sexy modern bed on which he plans his liaison dangereuse with Celia – you can just imagine that he would threaten to upload a coital video to YouTube in order to extort extra dosh. Sir Politic Would-Be points out how many followers he has on his iPad; and Lady W-B is followed everywhere by a camera crew. For me, the most effective use of the camera was during the court scene, where Volpone stops the proceedings to have a little private soliloquy whilst everyone else stands stock still as if frozen in time. The camera that was targeted on the judge also freezes and goes from colour to black and white, then resumes in colour again when life carries on. A relatively simple effect perhaps, but really arresting.

Not only is this a modern, technological age Volpone, it’s also a world where celebrity rules, which gives plenty of opportunities for telling juxtapositions between the 17th and 21st centuries. The programme credits translator and updater-extraordinaire Ranjit Bolt with “script revisions”. There are certainly plenty of these, most notably perhaps in the Scoto scene where the majority of Jonson’s original text has been replaced by a brand new speech. Fair enough; that’s in keeping with it being a cadenza-like sequence where the words and gestures play to the actor’s strengths and allow him simply to entertain to the full. However, I think it’s regrettable that Mr Bolt decided to retain Jonson’s original concept of this being a long scene. Funny and innovative as it is, it really does go on too long for no apparent plot progression benefit. It’s like one of those interminable drum solos in a concert that shows off the performer’s skills and range, and is very entertaining whilst it lasts, but then when you move on you can hardly remember it. As an aside, I realised when watching this scene the derivation of the word mountebank – because Volpone sets up a bench/table (bank) and stands on top of it (mounte) to deliver his spiel. You probably knew that already.

But where the production and its technological vision really works is with the characterisation of Lady Would-Be. A vacuous glamour-puss from the Katie Price/Made in Chelsea stable, she preens and pouts her way through the show whilst always ensuring the camera gets her best side. Her attendants are make-up girls and hair stylists, haute couture-shopping bag carriers and minders. Living life for her reality show, everything is captured on film until such time as she might be seen in a bad light, when she turns off the charm (such as it may be) and the cameraman gets the unsubtle call to “cut”. A great source for humour, and totally in keeping with the modernised version of the character, it was particularly funny in the courtroom when Lady W-B realised the trial was being televised, and thus kept bobbing about like a Hallowe’en apple trying to remain in shot. You can even follow her on twitter @LadyP_W.

At the heart of the play is a bravura performance by Henry Goodman as Volpone. He is perfect for the role, being very experienced at playing the dominating central character of many a fine production. We saw him in Chichester as Arturo Ui and he was mesmeric. In the course of this play he has to perform many parts, all of them Volpone. His transitions from one to another are seamless. It’s particularly enjoyable in the opening scene where he quickly changes from the fit-as-a-fiddle fox to the invalid in his domestic hospital bed. In a split second he ages about forty years; in “All the world’s a stage” terms he goes from the fifth age of the Justice in fair round belly, to the seventh, sans everything, in a snap. But all his characterisations are rounded, individual, and well considered to give maximum comedy value. It’s a very fine performance.

Buzzing around Volpone is Mosca, the fly, or, as more pejoratively termed, his parasite. Mosca is a constant presence, reliably assisting Volpone with his mischief and crookedness, darting here and there to serve and to misrepresent. He is His Master’s Voice where it comes to liaising with the three fools, trying to out-donate each other where it comes to adding to Volpone’s collection of riches. It’s an assured and cheeky performance by Orion Lee on his RSC debut, very believable as Volpone’s Rottweiler in his dealings with the outside world; just maybe when the tide turns and Mosca is in the ascendant, trying to outwit his master, he lacks a certain gravitas in the courtroom scenes.

Of the three dupes attempting to get their mitts on Volpone’s legacies, I was most impressed by Miles Richardson as Voltore the lawyer, with a good level of pomp and decency, which gets blown apart in the courtroom scenes where he is run ragged by attempting manipulation after deviation. He gives a great comic performance. A chip off the old block, he has much of his father Ian Richardson’s slightly lugubrious stage presence which is perfect for the humiliation of his general unravelling. Matthew Kelly is a very stern and unyielding Corvino, which works very well when he’s dominating his wife, but I felt there wasn’t a lot of light and shade in his performance. Geoffrey Freshwater’s Corbaccio is a deaf and doddery old thing, and, despite it being a good performance it makes you realise that, as a character, it’s something of a one-trick pony. Once you’ve laughed at his deafness a few times, there’s not a lot left to laugh at.

There are, however, some terrific other performances. The always excellent Steven Pacey as Sir Politic Would-Be is an avuncular and persuasive presence in his rich but tasteless clothes, stringing out fanciful plots and nonsensical concerns to the mild amusement and subsequent deep annoyance of Peregrine, an energetically youthful portrayal by Colin Ryan. In this modernised version, Sir Politic doesn’t get disguised in a tortoise shell but is squeezed into one of his wife’s outfits, make-up and beard at sixes and sevens, looking like Conchita Wurst after a hard night on the town. Mr Pacey carries off his shame with a nice mixture of anger and resignation. He is matched by the wonderful Annette McLaughlin as Lady Would-Be, capturing all that essential hollowness of a wannabe reality star, a bitch when thwarted, control freak par excellence, the true definition of beauty being skin-deep. Her stand up argument with Peregrine is theatrical bliss.

Jon Key, Ankur Bahl and Julian Hoult give good outlandish support as Volpone’s triumvirate of servants, representing the full range of humankind – you have to ask yourself, why Volpone does choose to be surrounded by a dwarf, a hermaphrodite and a eunuch? What was in the person spec for those job descriptions? Their mini-shows to entertain Volpone are well performed but, rather like the Scoto scene, tend to act as a pause-button to the play as a whole rather than driving on the drama – but that’s Jonson’s fault. Andy Apollo and Rhiannon Handy as Bonario and Celia don’t have a lot to do apart from outraged indignation, but they do it very well.

You come away from this production part impressed, part exhausted; the modernisation works well provided you don’t mind liberties being taken with a sacred text – not that it’s that sacred – and it offers several excellent performances. On the other hand, the play lasts three hours ten minutes, which is quite an ambitious project if you’ve just had a nice lunch with a bottle of Chablis, and you do get the feeling that there were some self-indulgences that could have been stripped away to bring it in at a more reasonable two and a half hours. But nevertheless it’s enjoyable and inventive, and when everyone gets their come-uppance at the end, you feel that justice has been done. Only a few more performances left, so you’d better get in quick.

Review – Mack and Mabel, Chichester Festival Theatre, 29th August 2015

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Just as one swallow does not a summer make, one show is insufficient for a proper Chichester weekend. So after a perilously short afternoon nap we braved the Sussex rain and made our way back to the Festival theatre for our evening’s entertainment, Jonathan Church’s production of Jerry Herman’s 1974 musical, Mack and Mabel. I’ve always been interested in the history of musical theatre but for some reason this is a show that’s always passed me by. I remember the overture being used by Torvill and Dean to great effect, but that’s about all.

But then it didn’t set the Broadway world alight when it first hit the stage. It may have been nominated for eight Tony awards, but it didn’t win any of them; and its original run lasted a mere 66 performances. Odd, considering it had something of a dream team with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and choreography by Gower Champion (repeating their joint success of Hello Dolly, ten years earlier). But sometimes great ingredients don’t necessarily make great shows, and even if they do, sometimes, somehow, they just don’t click.

To fill you in (and if you don’t want to know what happens, you probably should skip this paragraph): it’s the story of the partnership of Mack Sennett (he of the Keystone Kops) and Mabel Normand, one time waitress, swept into stardom by Sennett as she appeared in many of his very popular two-reelers. They have a romance, even though he’s not the romantic type; but when Sennett refuses to make the film of Molly, in which writer Frank has written her a role of (we suppose) depth and class, she gets ideas above her station and leaves Sennett’s slapstick, pie-flinging studio and takes up with William Desmond Taylor’s more serious and respectful manner of film-making (and, indeed, romancing). As Sennett’s popularity declines (there are only so many Keystone Kops and Bathing Beauties that a nation can take), he entices Mabel back to make the film of Molly but he still can’t resist jazzing it up and turning it into a comedy, so she walks out on him again. Talkies come, and Sennett finally sees the light – not with spoken drama but with music – and he makes one more play for Mabel, but she’s now a drug addict (we saw Taylor giving her cocaine) and she dies before he has the chance properly to make amends, let alone another movie with her.

So despite Jerry Herman’s outrageously tippety-tap-happy show tunes, there’s a fair bit of sadness in the story, which makes for an interesting mix. In fact the ending was re-written for the 1995 London production, with Mack and Mabel happily reunited in each other’s arms at the final curtain, and I believe that is now the “default setting” for other revivals; although this Chichester production returns to the more sombre original. Whether that gives the story a little more “bite”, or whether you feel the happy/sad combination is a little awkward, is very much a personal thing. Personally, I quite like the bite. Perhaps what is more controversial about the show is how it very much misrepresents what actually happened in reality. This is definitely a fictionalised account of Sennett and Normand; for example, it suggests to you that the Keystone Kops were brought in to boost flagging ratings (not so, they were right at the forefront of Sennett’s early output) and that the Bathing Beauties were an alternative to Mabel once she had left the studio (again not so, she performed alongside them in their earlier films). There is no mention made of Mabel’s directing and producing career, nor of her marriage to actor Lew Cody. The show would have you believe that she left Sennett’s studios to work with William Desmond Taylor, but in fact it was Sam Goldwyn that she first worked for after leaving Sennett; any dalliance with Taylor came later. The show also implies that it was Taylor who introduced Mabel to the cocaine habit, whereas in fact she was already an addict and had approached Taylor to try to wean her off it. So don’t take the story of Mack and Mabel the musical as Gospel – just think of it as a collection of characters jumbled together in some sort of serving suggestion.

The last time we saw a musical at Chichester (also with Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters) it was the extraordinary Gypsy with the even more extraordinary Imelda Staunton, which has gone on to do great things in the West End. So it was almost inevitable that the four of us would compare Gypsy with Mack and Mabel to see who would come out on top. For me, it’s no question that it’s the former; and that’s nothing to do with the standard of this production of Mack and Mabel, which is superb. It all comes down to the characters. Rose in Gypsy is really complex, giving Ms Staunton a gift of an opportunity to flesh out the character with humour, horror, kindness, dementia and everything in between. By contrast, Jerry Herman’s Mack is one-dimensional. He makes films. He falls in love with Mabel but it’s all on his terms, she doesn’t change him. He is addicted to slapstick. There’s not much more you can say about him. Even comparing with Hello Dolly, Sennett is still a very simple creation, whereas Dolly Levi schemes, manipulates, cajoles, supports and is all things to all men. In Gypsy, both Rose and Louise go on an incredible journey. In Hello Dolly, Dolly starts with an ambition, achieves it, and (I believe) genuinely falls in love. However, in Mack and Mabel, Sennett ends where he started; a retrospective of his career and his relationship, but with no sense of progress. Mabel, for sure, does go on a journey, but ends up in a dark place; but that’s almost irrelevant as the structure of this musical (despite its title) means this is definitely The Mack Sennett Show, and that other characters are relatively incidental. In many ways it’s an unbalanced and under-written show (not in the actuarial sense) and to make a success out of it, you have to heap it with stunning performances and top quality production values.

And that’s precisely what they do. From the moment the 15-man orchestra (not being sexist, they are all men) strikes up that glorious overture, your “good-time” endorphins kick in and you just know you’re in for a musical treat. I wasn’t familiar with the songs before the show, but some of them are pure Herman showstopping heaven. Look What Happened to Mabel, When Mabel Comes in the Room, Big Time, and many others all have you itching to get up on stage and hoof along with the rest of them to Stephen Mear’s stunningly entertaining choreography. Robert Jones’ design is a source of constant surprise and delight, as the film studio becomes the observation deck of a train, a pier with a ship in dock, and various abstract celluloid fantasy set-ups. The large acting space that the Festival Theatre provides is perfect for huge set piece moments, with two outstanding scenes; one, where the Keystone Kops run riot – Toby Park and Aitor Basauri from Spymonkey are credited with “physical comedy” and they have their autograph all over this scene; and another, where the company perform the taptastic Tap Your Troubles Away with superb skill and showmanship. I must confess, I’m not a huge tap fan – 42nd Street put me off it for life really – but that scene really was the bees’ knees.

And it’s all brought to life by a tremendous cast. At the heart of it is Michael Ball as Mack, who I don’t think could be anything other than magnificent if he tried. Such a huge stage presence, you can almost feel his delight as the show progresses, as if the cast are his one big family that he is proudly showing off to us. Excellent comic timing, and still with a voice that is just made for this kind of show – simply superb. His Mabel is relatively unknown to us in the UK – Rebecca LaChance, and she’s amazing. She has a wonderful expressive voice, loads of pizazz and is pretty cute too. I really liked how she adapted to Mabel’s various stages of life, like the wide-eyed innocent, the sophisticated actress, the drugged-up victim, with (seemingly) effortless ease. I predict great things!

A bonus to any cast is the effervescent presence of Anna-Jane Casey, brilliant in both Forbidden Broadway and Sheffield’s Company a few years ago. She plays Lottie, a silent character actress in the Sennett squad who comes into her own when the talkies start – her performance fronting Tap Your Troubles Away is sensational, but she always brightens up the stage whenever she’s on. There’s a very nicely controlled comic performance by Jack Edwards as Fatty Arbuckle, another of the Sennett studio actors for whom life would turn sour; and also great contributions by Ashley Andrews (memorable in Drunk), and Rebecca Louis, as the production’s Dance Captains – the ensemble’s overall superb standard of dance is a testament to their ability to keep them on their toes. But the whole cast do a terrific job.

So all in all it’s a really enjoyable production, with some stand-out performances and stunning routines. Once it’s finished in Chichester it’s embarking on a national tour until December and I strongly recommend you catch it at either Plymouth, Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh, Nottingham or Cardiff!