Review – The Addams Family, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 10th May 2017

Posted on May 11, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

When you think back to The Addams Family, in what year, would you say, did they first appear? No Googling now. No, you’re wrong. They actually first appeared in print cartoon form way back in 1938. The TV series started in 1964 – the very same week that “rivals” The Munsters started; The Addams Family beat them by six days. Since then, we’ve all more or less forgotten about the Munsters. But The Addams Family has been kept alive by a series of films, and in 2010 this stage musical appeared on Broadway, where it did pretty well, running for twenty months. Since then it’s toured all over the world, but this production, by those nice people at Music and Lyrics, is the first time it’s hit the UK.

It’s a fairly simple, and maybe surprisingly moral, story. The Addams Family, who delight in the ghoulish, and wear the macabre on their sleeve as though it were from Tiffany’s, are having their annual meeting of their ghostly ancestors because that’s what happens when you’re an Addams. Young Wednesday Addams has been seeing a “normal” boy – Lucas – and they want to get married, but Wednesday knows her parents are going to be a problem. Lucas and his parents are coming around for dinner, in the hope that they all get along swimmingly so that Wednesday and Lucas can announce their engagement. Unknown to the rest of the family, Uncle Fester has refused to let the ghostly ancestors (remember them?) depart back into their own world until they help him ensure that Wednesday and Lucas get married. Lucas’ dad is an intolerant Conservative (with a Large C) and his mum is a mousey little thing and they’re both way out of their comfort zone at the Addams Family estate. Gomez really only wants to see Wednesday happy, but will Morticia come to terms with a) her daughter marrying a “normal” boy and b) the family withholding secrets from her?

No question, this is a terrific production. It looks thoroughly gorgeous. The costumes, the lighting, the set are all totally spot on. The way the cast have been dressed and made up to look like the original characters is absolutely extraordinary. It’s like the 60s never went away. Alistair David’s choreography is slick and evocative; Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s book (they also wrote Jersey Boys) is funny and smart – although I thought our audience on Wednesday evening responded fairly feebly to it, at times I thought it was only Mrs Chrisparkle and me who were understanding the jokes! Andrew Hilton and his eight-piece orchestra filled the theatre with rich, solid, lively sounds. Andrew Lippa’s score includes a few great show toons – Full Disclosure, Just Around the Corner, Happy Sad, and (my favourite) Crazier Than You.

Above all, every member of the cast absolutely gives it everything they’ve got. Cameron Blakely’s Gomez is riveting throughout. Chucking every Flamenco/Spanish idiosyncrasy at it that he can, his physical comedy is brilliant and his range of vocal expressions are just hilarious. He’s a perfect blend of caring family man and total smartarse. I’ve seen Mr Blakely a couple of times before and he has rather specialised in being the best thing in some iffy productions, so it’s great to see him leading a total success for a change! Samantha Womack is also brilliant as Morticia, absolutely capturing that elegant but mournful look, delivering all the comic material with a knowing charm, and of course she absolutely excels in the musical numbers. I’m still upset that she doesn’t include her Eurovision appearance in her programme bio, though; you really shouldn’t be ashamed of being chosen to represent your country. Carrie Hope Fletcher is superb as the lovelorn Wednesday, coming to terms with becoming a woman yet still wanting to torture your kid brother; and Les Dennis is totally unrecognisable – and extremely convincing – as Uncle Fester, part narrator, part moral guide, part weirdo.

Dale Rapley – the excellent Horace Vandergelder to Janie Dee’s Hello Dolly a few years ago – is delightfully pigheaded as the very Ohio Mal Beineke, and Charlotte Page’s Alice Beineke is a wonderful creation; the talking Hallmark greeting card who regains her mojo in a subplot that owes a lot to Rocky Horror. Dickon Gough cuts an immaculately gloomy figure as the grunting Lurch (one of the best curtain call moments for a long time), Grant McIntyre conveys a splendidly spoilt Pugsley, Valda Aviks a suitably batty Grandma and Oliver Ormson stands out as the one and only uncomplicated character as the somewhat hopeless and hapless Lucas.

Criticisms? If you think about it, the ghostly ancestors play absolutely no dramatic role at all, although they do serve as a background chorus line to pad out the big numbers. And I really didn’t understand Fester’s obsession with the Moon. I sensed that I should have enjoyed his romantic number with this celestial being much more than I did, and that his final departure was probably meant to be hysterical – it passed me by, I’m afraid. Still, none of that gets in the way of a very enjoyable night out. We’re not talking serious messages here; there are no social issues to get your teeth into on the way back home. Just straightforward entertainment, expertly done. The tour visits every part of the UK between now and November, and it’s a fun, family show you’d be hard-pressed not to enjoy.

Production photos by Matt Martin

Review – The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ The Musical, Curve Theatre Leicester, 21st March 2015

Posted on March 23, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

I don’t think there can be many lives who haven’t been affected by the character of Adrian Mole in one way or another. I can remember when the original book came out, and the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle bought it for me as part of my Christmas Present Package. I thought it was brilliant, and over the subsequent years bought and read all of young Mr Mole’s diarised works. The TV series with Julie Walters and Stephen Moore was great too. Moley was one of the author Sue Townsend’s greatest creations, and definitely her most successful. Sue Townsend herself was from Leicester, as is Adrian Mole, and she based his school environment and council estate home on the places where she was educated and lived. So it’s entirely appropriate that The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ The Musical should start life at the Curve in Leicester. Young Adrian would have been so impressed by the artistic and cultural hub that is the Curve.

The original book runs from New Year’s Day 1981 to April 1982 (Mole’s 15th birthday), but the show just takes the full year from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Eve. In that time Adrian charts a painful course as an adolescent falling in love with the blessed Pandora, watching his parents’ marriage fall apart and coping with their new loves, visiting and being used as a slave by old Bert Baxter, getting on with some schoolmates and being bullied by others, habitually writing to the BBC and generally being a typical, angst-ridden teenager. But this isn’t a simple dramatization of the novel – it’s a musical, with book and lyrics by Jake Brunger and music and lyrics by Pippa Cleary, two Bristol University graduates who are starting to carve out a career in the genre. Director Luke Sheppard has brought together a talented team to tell the story of Moley’s early adolescence, and the result is a bright and breezy show with many enjoyable aspects, plenty of drama and some extremely humorous scenes.

Tom Rogers has designed a wonderful set, full of quirky corners and jagged angles, with pencils that pierce the sky like chimneys and with ink blots all over the floor. Tantalising glimpses of Adrian’s diary pages frame the stage and everything appears bright in satisfyingly child-like primary colours. Congratulations, by the way, to the props department for sourcing all those old Skol cans and the Woolworth’s carrier bag. It’s effectively staged with the Moles’ kitchen at the front and their living area/bedroom to the side – that area also doubles up as Bert’s Stalinist living room and the school room is towards the back of the stage. There’s plenty of useful space for acting as well as singing and dancing. A small thing, but I really enjoyed the way the child actors opened the side doors for the rest of the cast to come out on stage for their curtain calls. It looked very stylish and showed that the kids were in charge.

I’d been looking forward to this show for ages, as I was really curious to see whether this story would actually work as a musical. The answer is Almost. The songs do fit very neatly into the plot and they’re tuneful and entertaining if not over-memorable. In the schoolroom scenes, I liked the way the adult actors joined forces with the child actors to create a whole classroom of the little blighters, which gave rise to some very amusing moments where age was juxtaposed with behaviour. The climax scene – so to speak – when Adrian and the other kids stage an alternative School Nativity play, was full of bravado, delightfully outrageous and very funny.

But there was something about the whole show that just didn’t quite click for me. It didn’t really engage me. I didn’t feel much sympathy for many of the characters, which never helps when you’re trying to identify with a show. It hadn’t properly occurred to me before just how unpleasant a character Adrian’s mum Pauline is. I thought Kirsty Hoiles showed just the right amount of sentimental detachment and lack of empathy to make the character of Pauline very credible. As Adrian’s dad George, Neil Ditt turned in a nicely downtrodden and “victim” performance, and I thought his scenes with Adrian, the two guys home alone, were often quite moving. I really enjoyed Cameron Blakely’s creepy seduction techniques as the slimy Mr Lucas from next door, and his scenes where he’s wooing Pauline with his Latin moves were hilarious. You just don’t expect that kind of thing in Leicester.

So it wasn’t the performances (for the most part) that caused (for me) the show not to soar. I think the main problem is that in order to condense the book into a two and a half hour show – with songs – they had to omit so much that you only have the barebones of the story to work with and not a lot of depth of character. Doubling up roles also caused its own problems. Amy Booth-Steel is excellent as Miss Elf and Mrs Lucas, but as Doreen Slater she presents a completely different character from that in the book. Miss Booth-Steel is a fine comely woman, but Adrian always referred to Doreen as “stick-insect” in his diaries, and, with the best will in the world, Miss Booth-Steel is never going to achieve that epithet. There’s also no Queenie for Bert to settle down with, no Singh family, no parents for Pandora, and the story stops before Argentina invades the Falklands.

Adrian himself, in the book, as far as I can remember, wavers between nervous enfant terrible and neurotic sidekick. He’s hypochondriac, hyper-sensitive, self-deludingly confident about his own intellect; he’s patronising, he’s hideously class-oriented; basically, he’s an insufferable little prig. But we recognise our own adolescence in him, so forgive him and laugh along at his mistakes, his foibles and anxieties, as we know that life will iron them all out in the fullness of time. The Brunger and Cleary version of Adrian struck me as being simply far too nice. That’s no criticism of Sebastian Croft, who played Adrian in our performance, who’s an amazing little song and dance man, has wonderful stage presence for someone so young, who enunciated beautifully (it’s a skill, and one to be appreciated), fitted in to the rest of the cast like a dream, and absolutely deserved his very enthusiastic curtain call.

His Pandora was played by Lulu-Mae Pears, splendidly mature compared to Adrian, delicately fluttering into his world and very credibly being the target of the Optimum Girlfriend Award. I’d say Adrian was boxing way above his weight here. The rest of the cast all give very good support; although, unfortunately, there was one actor who, for whatever reason, was considerably below par for our performance. Maybe they weren’t feeling well or maybe they were under-rehearsed; but it’s probably not very fair to make further comment.

So, for some reason, for me this all added up to something less than the sum of its parts. However, the audience enjoyed it and gave it a very good reception, and there was certainly something for everyone to enjoy. Maybe not for purist aficionados of the book, but if you want to see teenage angst set to music, this is a good place to start!

P.S. There’s been a creeping trend (and I don’t mind it) that the programme on sale to accompany the show of your choice is basically the printed text of the play but with some biographical details of the cast. Now I like reading plays, and giving you the text to take home with you can only add to your knowledge and appreciation of what you have seen; plus it works as an excellent memory aid should you wish to revisit it in sometime in the future. However, I did think it was a bit cheeky that the programme for this show is an adapted version – not of the book/libretto of the show as such, but of Sue Townsend’s original novel. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least half the households whose families come to see this show already have a copy. I know that at £5 it’s not an unreasonable price, but I think if you’re going to combine the programme and text into one book, it should at least contain the words of the show you’re seeing!

Review – Smash, Menier Chocolate Factory, April 3rd 2011

Posted on April 5, 2011 by therealchrisparkle

I read in the programme that it was Maureen Lipman who had suggested to David Babani when she was appearing in the splendid “A Little Night Music” that it would be a great idea for the Menier to revive her late husband Jack Rosenthal’s 1981 comedy Smash, inspired by his experience of rewriting his TV play “Bar Mitzvah Boy” as a stage musical. Rosenthal’s play turned the character of the writer into a woman and it was Maureen Lipman herself who played the role originally when it did a provincial tour but didn’t reach the West End.

Maureen Lipman was of course a major contribution to the success of “Little Night Music” which transferred to the West End and Broadway and has done a lot of good for the Menier Brand. No doubt Mr Babani was feeling very warm and fuzzy towards Ms Lipman. However, sometimes when one is closely involved in a project, emotionally attached to its creator, or simply grateful for a job well done, you just can’t see the wood for the trees. I can think of no other explanation for mounting a production of this – regrettably – very unfunny and boring play. If I tell you that I preferred “Paradise Found”, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Now, if you’ve read any of my other play comments, you’ll know I’m not naturally vitriolic. I can always find something – SOMETHING – that I love in a stage production. But I think this one has darn near beaten me. Our seating position didn’t help. As a loyal supporter of the Menier (we try to go whenever we can), I always book a Sunday matinee online on the first day that the tickets become available. It’s normally seats in Row A. But you can’t always tell with the Menier as they often – very inventively – adapt the space and change the seating layouts (for example as they did last year with “A Number”). So when you expect their website to sell you the best available tickets and they are row CC, you trust them.

Well I have to tell you our seats CC12 – 13 were totally useless. Back row on the side, close to the end wall which meant that the back third of the stage was totally invisible. I felt very sorry for the two guys to my left who had even more of an obstructed view (although I understand their seats were sold as such, and were cheaper). Our seats were full price and thoroughly inadequate. On more than one occasion I heard an invisible voice on stage taking part in a scene and I had no idea the person was even there. It might as well have been a radio play.

The director Tamara Harvey seems to have only blocked the play from the view of the front of the stage so as a result there were long passages where characters were sat with their back to us. They may have been making facial expressions – we will never know. I estimate about 35% of all the seats in the auditorium were on the side, so it wouldn’t only be us who were ignored this way.

I’m not going to go on about our bad seats, but from our vantage point a) we had a good view of the rest of the audience and saw that a number of them slept through the first act and b) as a stickler for verisimilitude I saw an advert for Google on the inner pages of one of the apparently “1981” newspapers the cast were reading in the final scene. Not good enough attention to detail, I’m afraid.

The alienation I felt from the play was enhanced by having thoroughly unpleasant characters populate it, to the extent that I found it impossible to care about what happened to them. The opening scene has the star composer Bebe (based on Jule Styne) blanking the writer Liz in such an offensive sort of way that I hated his character thenceforward. Additionally, there seemed to be no personal progression for any of the characters throughout the play, despite the fact that the events cover over a year’s timescale. The writer started insecure and ended insecure. The composer started unreasonably bombastic and ended bombastic. Same for the director. The lyricist started – well I don’t know how he started really, I can’t think of any words that sum up such a vacant character – and he ended the same. If everyone’s character ends up in the same place that they started, what’s the point of that?

What appears to be an excellent cast on paper didn’t really translate to the stage either. They didn’t seem to gel as a team. I never got the feeling that any of the characters was actually listening to what any of the others was saying. Now I appreciate that the characters largely had their own agenda and wanted to get their own way within the story but even so I didn’t feel that many of the reactions of the actors to their colleagues’ speeches were really genuine.

As an actor you can always rely on to provide a star turn, Tom Conti is the best thing about this production. He gives us his New York Jewish act more or less exactly as I remember him playing Vernon in “They’re Playing our Song” over thirty years ago, only older. It’s enjoyable, if safe. His best lines are when he can’t think of what to say, and his words peter out into a befuddled murmur. He does it well – but I think that says a lot (not) for the wit element of the script.

The writer Liz is played by Natalie Walter who does the “inexperienced writer abroad” aspect of the role fine enough, but she gave me no sense of despair, anger, frustration, tiredness, or any of another hundred possible emotions when she is found on the floor of her hotel room surrounded by rewrites. It’s meant to be late at night and with urgent work to do for heaven’s sake! She had all the urgency of composing her Waitrose shopping list. The effect on me of her plight was just like A Chorus Line’s Diana hearing the news of Mr Karp’s death, “because I felt Nothing”.

Richard Schiff took over the role of Bebe the composer pretty late in the day before the show opened, and I think it showed. His prop handling wasn’t great – he gives Liz a boxed bracelet as a gift on opening night, except that he mishandled it and gave it to her with the box half open and the bracelet swinging all over the place, whilst trying to stifle a giggle at his ineptitude. On another occasion, having been seated on an upturned suitcase, he knocked it over when he stood up – that kind of thing. I think he corpsed again in the final scene because of something Tom Conti said to him at the back of the stage – but I can’t be sure as this was in the hidden “dark area” you’re not permitted to see from seats CC12 & 13.

The role of Mike the lyricist, modelled on Don Black, was so feebly written a part that Josh Cohen playing him seemed to “feeble down” to occupy it. The character keeps on coming up with statements like “I had to turn down 16 black lesbians” or similar nonsense, and I couldn’t work out why he was saying these things. Were they his own private fantasies? Were the stories he shared with his wife? Were they fantasies he wanted to share with Liz? I couldn’t understand their relevance in the play, but anyway they weren’t funny and I was past caring. Sorry, but Josh Cohen had little charisma or stage presence and was frequently not noticeable. It’s the kind of performance I’ve described in the past as being “phoned in”. I’m afraid this was so bland that really it was texted in.

Cameron Blakely as the director Stacey was fine to the extent that he had to play an unpleasant man irascibly and noisily. But I didn’t care about the character and when he alluded to a possible affair with Liz it came as a bolt from the blue. Where did that come from? There was no discernable romantic interest earlier in the play. Also in the script were totally anti-British, anti-English comments from Stacey and Bebe. Now this may very well be a true reflection of Jack Rosenthal’s experience, but I felt quite bludgeoned by their constant criticisms of how useless the British are in every job, in every creative sphere, in every attitude. It was really quite racist. Oh yes, and there was a fight scene between all the main characters. Seen from the side, it was one of the most embarrassingly ham-fisted theatre sequences I’ve seen for a long time.

Just before the final scene the sound track failed. The Sound Supervisor came on stage and said due to a technical problem there would be a short break before the production could resume. The audience buzzed with engaged excitement – at last. Given they had no flying cars or descending chandeliers I thought they should just get on with it in silence. Mrs Chrisparkle prayed that if they couldn’t finish the show and offered us tickets for another performance that there would be no convenient dates. But the show did start up again, and there was a clever line spoken by Natalie Walter about a technical fault – if it was quickly ad-libbed that very moment it was very well done. If it was already in the script then it was a sign from the Gods.

So, in brief: a script bereft of wit played by actors portraying tedious characters who didn’t seem to engage with each other very much and who had their backs to me for much of the time. “Smash” for me used to mean dried convenience mashed potato pieces. It would have been funnier to watch one of their old adverts.