Tag Archives: Adrian Dunbar

Review – Kiss Me Kate, Barbican Theatre, London, 11th July 2024

Posted on by

There aren’t many musicals where there isn’t a duff song in the entire score, but Cole Porter’s fantastic Kiss Me Kate is one of them. The very definition of an Evergreen show, the new production at the Barbican features an eye-catching set, a lush orchestra and a quirkily talented cast; and it seemed a perfect opportunity to catch up with the old thing.

It was also an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the Barbican Theatre – it’s been an extraordinary 38 years since we were last there! And I’d forgotten what a pleasant experience it is. A huge stage, comfortable seats, terrific sightlines and a plethora of bars, cafes and toilets. I wonder what they did to upset us so much that we had to wait so long for a revisit?!

Porter’s musical retelling of The Taming of the Shrew sees actor/producer Fred Graham trying out the show in Baltimore as Petruchio opposite his starry ex, Lilli Vanessi, as Katherine. Lilli has moved on, and is now being courted by General Harrison Howell, a military bigwig who’ll promise her the earth – for at least three months. But for now, Fred and Lilli have to rub along together as best as they can for the sake of the show. Meanwhile second billing male, Bill Calhoun (Lucentio) is dating second billing female, Lois Lane (Bianca). No sooner does he earn money than he loses it through gambling; and he’s just signed a $10k IOU for one big night’s losses. However, he signed it as Fred Graham; so when two heavy gangsters turn up at the theatre to put pressure on, it’s Fred they target, not Bill. It turns out that these gangsters have an artistic streak; but not enough to prevent them from threatening Lilli when she decides she’s going to walk out of the production. Honestly, if you haven’t seen it before, it’s very easily understood when it’s acted out.

Whilst the story is good fun – although alarmingly misogynistic in some respects, just like Taming of the Shrew is – the prime interest in seeing this show is in the music. It would be unforgivable if the production cut out any of the songs; but as soon as I opened the programme, I saw that not only were we missing Were Thine That Special Face, but to add insult to injury, no From This Moment On! You might try to defend the decision to exclude it on the grounds that was originally written for a different show and was only included in the 1953 film version. But I would parry that with the fact that Could We Start Again Please was not included in the original stage version of Jesus Christ Superstar but written for the film, and woe betide any production that now excludes that song from the show. It’s common practice today to have From This Moment On sung by Harrison and Lilli in the second Act. Definitely an opportunity missed.

Fortunately all the other great numbers are there. The songs in Kiss Me Kate fall into three categories. Those that evolve naturally from the plot – Why Can’t You Behave, Always True To You in My Fashion, Another Op’nin Another Show; those that evolve from the plot of Taming of the Shrew – I’ve Come To Wive it Wealthily in Padua, I Hate Men, Where is the Life that Late I Led; and those that have absolutely nothing to do with anything – Wunderbar, Too Darn Hot, Brush Up Your Shakespeare. If you consider a typical musical theatre show to be a portrait, Kiss Me Kate comes as close as you can to a Picasso, with a dislocated smile in one corner and a nose in the other, all plonked higgledy-piggledy across the canvas. But it works; it’s just one of those amazing shows.

Bartlett Sher’s new production contains some inspired directorial decisions, and the occasional totally bizarre one – for example, in Too Darn Hot, why is nobody, erm, hot? Michael Yeargan’s striking set dominates the Barbican stage, revolving to reveal the dressing rooms and the communal backstage area, as well as the stage of this unnamed theatre in Baltimore. This gives a great opportunity to follow characters from one part of the set into another as they race around the stage in a panic, fury, or simply because they can.

The stage also juts forward to create an apron around the orchestra pit, with the effect that conductor Stephen Ridley’s head pops up in the middle of the stage floor as though he were the next tissue in a packet of Kleenexes. The apron works well as additional acting and dancing space, but the orchestra pit does create a slight distraction, especially as you spend a lot of the time worrying that someone is going to fall into it. However, you have to admit it – Stephen Ridley’s relatively massive stage orchestra sends out a sensational sound, and, from a purely audio perspective, this is about as good as it gets.

But we’ve got to consider that quirky cast head-on. Leading the team as Fred Graham is Adrian Dunbar, a much loved actor primarily because of Line of Duty but also through many other TV and stage appearances. We saw his Claudius to Cush Jumbo’s Hamlet at the Young Vic a few years ago and found him oddly underwhelming. However, he seems much more at ease as Fred Graham, with his quieter delivery very effectively conveying his sarcastic asides; he very much looks the part, and I appreciated this rather less showy interpretation of the role. He has a thoughtful singing style, in that it conveys a lot of meaning; however, what he doesn’t have is a jazz-hands singing style, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need. He underperformed Wunderbar, and slightly mixed up the lyrics of Where is the Life that Late I Led (even thought that is probably still his best moment in the show).

However, he may well have been distracted, because playing Lilli for our performance was Stephanie J Block’s understudy, Anna McGarahan. Ms McGarahan has a terrific voice, no question; I have no idea how much notice she had that she was to play the role, and one must always admire and appreciate an understudy without whom, basically, the show can’t go ahead. That said, I felt that in many of the scenes she was under-rehearsed – not her fault. This was most obvious in the physical comedy scenes which involved a level of stage combat that was amongst the least convincing I’ve ever seen. Like Mr Dunbar, she gave us a very tentative Wunderbar, and her I Hate Men had – I’m afraid – absolutely no conviction to it at all; we came out at the interval reminiscing about how good Nichola McAuliffe had sung it at the Old Vic in 1987.

This had the effect of unbalancing the performance strength, as the lower you went down the cast list, the more impressive and memorable the performances. Charlie Stemp and Georgina Onuorah are excellent as Bill and Lois, the former’s incredible ability to dance, sing and act at the same time coming to the fore whenever Anthony van Laast’s breathtaking choreography called upon his skills; and Ms Onuorah gives one of many scene-stealing performances with her powerfully and intelligently delivered Always True To You In My Fashion.

Nigel Lindsay and Hammed Animashaun give us possibly the best portrayal of the Gangsters I’ve ever seen, with brilliant characterisation, wonderful physical comedy, and a Brush Up Your Shakespeare that we all sang along to. Jack Butterworth’s Paul completely wows us leading the dance in Too Darn Hot – inviting Mr Stemp to keep up with him in a sequence that is performed to perfection – and Josie Benson as Hattie starts the show with arguably the best vocal performance of the production in Another Op’nin’, Another Show.

I guess that all boils down to the fact that – at our performance at least – it was a rather uneven presentation. However, you simply can’t not love it; and there were so many hugely enjoyable songs, scenes and performances that the temptation to book again is surprisingly strong. Kiss Me Kate continues at the Barbican through the summer until 14th September.

 

 

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Hamlet, Young Vic, London, 19th October 2021

Posted on by

It was by lucky chance that I saw that two sumptuously located seats in Row G of the Stalls had become free at the Young Vic for their much awaited Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov and starring Cush Jumbo as the forlorn Dane. I always associate the Young Vic with Shakespeare, even though they’ve always offered a wide range of productions. I was a mere 16 year old when I saw the National Theatre’s Troilus and Cressida there, and Judi Dench and Ian McKellen’s RSC Macbeth when I was 18 just sealed it for me as a theatre where you can see great plays in great productions at – let’s face it – great prices. Over the course of fifty years or so, that philosophy hasn’t changed – and hurrah for that.

For many decades I’ve always considered Hamlet to be my “favourite” play, if you can have so facile a thing. It contains everything; suspense, vengeance, madness, humour, blistering scenes and complex characters. It even has an early version of The Mousetrap. I wasn’t familiar with the work of Cush Jumbo; my loss indeed, but more of that later. I was, however, familiar with Adrian Dunbar, being a firm fan of Line of Duty, and if I’m honest, gentle reader, casting him as Claudius/Ghost was what swung the decision to book. More of that later too.

There are hardly ever “straight” productions of Shakespeare nowadays. They are always either set in a different time or location, or with some other major aspect of the play somehow turned on its head. Watching a modern Shakespeare is a good way of finding out to what extent you’re a Shakespeare purist. On the whole, I think I’m pretty adaptable where it comes to the Noble Bard. Shakespeare is big and strong enough to look after himself, and if you see a production where they’ve taken more liberties than you can shake a stick at, well, there’ll be another production before long which will take the original from yet another unexpected angle. And Shakespeare always survives. With a play as solid and remarkable as Hamlet, no cheeky modern slant could ever ruin it, and indeed it may well shed light on how an old play can still have enormous relevance today.

Greg Hersov’s production takes a reasonable number of liberties, most of which I found refreshingly enjoyable. I only had one quibble with his vision for this production – no Fortinbras. Even though he’s listed in the cast list, the play ends with a mass of dead bodies and no Norwegian saviour to come and make sense of the rotten state of Denmark and start to put it back together again. As such, the play ends in gloom and destruction, with no hope for the future provided. I can’t help but think that Shakespeare would be (as the cliché goes) turning in his grave at that one – and that’s the purist in me.

Apart from that, I liked the freshness and the modernity of this production. Hamlet is a big play (Shakespeare’s longest) so it needs to be pretty pacey to make it comfortable for modern attention spans. Sparky highlights amongst the minor characters help make it go with a swing, and this was one aspect in which this production really excelled. Joseph Marcell’s Polonius steals every scene he’s in with a perfect interpretation of that meddlesome, pernickety character. His pomposity is imbued with kindness (as when he’s giving Laertes laboursome advice) or self-protection (as when he’s gently humouring the “mad” Hamlet), and you can instantly recognise elderly relatives and acquaintances in his self-important mumblings. Absolutely brilliant.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are re-imagined as a couple of hippies, and Taz Skylar and Joana Borja capture a little youthful eccentricity (young versions of Polonius in a way), as they pose for selfies and lead Hamlet on something of a merry dance. They’re funny and a bit kookie, and it works really well. Leo Wringer’s Wray and Nephew-swilling gravedigger is one of those rare performances – one of Shakespeare’s grotesquely unfunny comic characters designed to lessen the horror of the tragedy, reborn as genuinely funny. Jonathan Livingstone is a very solid, reliable, traditional Horatio, whereas Norah Lopez Holden is a more modern, outspoken Ophelia, prone to sullenness, not frightened to be assertive, and (appropriately) unnerving in her madness. Jonathan Ajayi plays Laertes with a light throwaway style that works well in his early pre-France scenes but seems less appropriate when desperate for revenge against Hamlet for murdering his father.

Giving an immaculate, perfectly judged performance throughout, Tara Fitzgerald is brilliant as Gertrude, visibly shrinking into herself with the growing awareness of her awful misjudgement. Her vocal delivery is immaculate, her reactions to the events going on around her are spot on, and her death is probably the best I’ve ever seen for the role, pitched without sensationalism but completely realistically.

Adrian Dunbar’s Claudius is a strangely underplayed performance. He’s beautifully at his ease in conversational scenes, such as when he’s having his man-to-man chat with Laertes over an elegant tumbler of whisky, where his delivery is natural and flowing. However, when it comes to the soliloquies, he becomes all declamatory, as though he’s reciting it from a book in order to make the words sound nice but with little attention to their meaning. He completely looks the part, in his smart blue lounge suit, but when he was praying for forgiveness, I didn’t believe a word of it, I’m afraid.

Also completely looking the part, is Cush Jumbo as Hamlet with her close shaven head, trendy black mourning outfits, and rebellious stance. Her interaction with those characters that she feels are her allies is a pally delight, with a genuine thrill at being reunited with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, her close friendship with Horatio, and the memory of her childhood trust in Yorick. However, if you are Hamlet’s enemy, she is scathing. In answer to the age-old question, Is Hamlet mad? Ms Jumbo’s answer is definitely No – you feel this Hamlet is completely in control of their mental faculties and is calmly and determinedly working towards the desired aim of revenge. The casting works incredibly well, and you completely believe in her compelling delivery of the role. Her soliloquies expressed a clear understanding of their meaning and significance which lent a lot to this production being very easy to follow. A Shakespearean tragedian par excellence!

Hamlet continues at the Young Vic until 13th November – returns only, I’m afraid. However, there are four live streaming broadcasts available from October 28th to 30th, so you can still get to see the show. And it’s worth it just to see Cush Jumbo!

P. S. Our performance got off to an unintentionally hilarious start. Just as Adesuwa Oni entered the stage as Barnardo on the battlements, someone’s phone/watch alarm went off in the audience to signify it was a quarter past the hour. Ignoring it magnificently but in coincidental response to the alarm, she delivered her opening line, “Who’s there?” Cue a considerable ripple of uncontrolled laughter from the audience. Great work from Ms Oni to carry on regardless, but if anything ever revealed why you have to turn off all your devices, that was it!

4-starsFour they’re jolly good fellows!