Tag Archives: James Fox

Review – Let It Be, Derngate, Northampton, 29th May 2014

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Ah, the Beatles! Eight glorious years of recording hit after hit, all of it long lasting, top quality, innovative, memorable music. They were at the right place at the right time, with a worldwide appeal, amazing creativity and the ability to excel at an extraordinary range of styles. As Mrs Chrisparkle and I often reflect, no one else we can think of can create an album which might contain rock, ballad, pop, lullaby, 1920s pastiche, or orchestral sounds – and with lyrics that might be inward looking, soul-searching and spiritual, or full of imaginary, lively characters, with their own stories to tell. As a very small child I was hooked. The first record I can actually remember the process of buying was “I Feel Fine”. The first film I ever saw at the cinema was “A Hard Day’s Night”. The word “Beatles” was the first long word I could spell – and I wrote it everywhere. Any spare scrap of paper, books, walls, curtains, furniture…. I spared nothing from the indelible “Beatles” mark. My parents must have been so proud.

If you’re expecting a musical based on Beatles songs which depicts the progression of the group’s career, then you might be a tad disappointed. Lady Duncansby and her butler William saw the show on its first night in Northampton and, expecting to see a Beatles version of Jersey Boys, felt a little cheated. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But basically this is a staged Beatles concert, set at different times chronologically advancing through the group’s oeuvre. We see them in the Cavern, raw and enthusiastic, in the Please Please Me era. They’re at the Royal Variety Performance doing She Loves You and Twist and Shout. We’re transported to the Shea Stadium for Can’t Buy Me Love and Ticket to Ride. They appear as Sgt Pepper’s band; in the “Our World” TV studio; and at Abbey Road. All in all, the cast play 42 Beatles songs over a good two and a half hours.

What makes this different from, say, going to see a tribute act like The Bootleg Beatles? Good question. Primarily, it’s the production values. This is a superbly presented show and technically a masterpiece in many ways. What bowled me over right from the start was the extraordinary accuracy of the re-enaction of the original arrangements. The four gifted musicians (together with additional instruments courtesy of the very talented Steve Geere in the performance we saw) recreate the richness and excitement of those guitar performances and the brash confidence of the drums and percussion. Later on, the reflective beauty of the piano work in Let it Be and Hey Jude feels like magic. Every nuance you can remember from playing your old Beatles records you will hear on that stage. It’s an incredible achievement.

There’s also fantastic scenic, lighting, sound and video design which incorporates live action from the stage and mixes it with contemporary film footage; supremely effective in the Shea Stadium scene, where you really felt like you were there. Jack Galloway’s costumes are 100% faithful to the various stages of the group’s career, with the early 60s sharp suits, the Shea Stadium safari jackets, the Pepper outfits, and the Indian-influenced hippy garb. And of course four tremendous performances. Unusually, the cast changed at least once during the course of the week. We saw a different cast from the night Lady D attended – and I discovered that, on the Friday, our cast were doing the Late Late Show on RTE in Dublin, so presumably the first cast was back on stage.

I was really happy that we got to see one of my favourite performers, James Fox, playing Paul McCartney. I’ve been a fan ever since he did Eurovision for the UK in 2004, and indeed Mrs C and I helped do a radio interview with him on a stairwell in Jury’s Inn at the Eurovision convention in Birmingham five years ago. But more than that, he was superb on stage when we saw him in Jesus Christ Superstar and Chess; and now, in Let it Be, he continues to have a fantastic stage presence as well as great vocals and guitar skills. Our John Lennon was Michael Gagliano, who really captured John’s cheekiness and love for entertaining. John Brosnan was a superbly taciturn George, just quietly getting on with his job of providing lead guitar, occasionally coming forward to sing – most memorably in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, so pleased that they found space for that one. Ben Cullingworth was our Ringo, showing great mastery of the drums and chipping in with typical Ringo spark through the course of the evening.

It would, of course, be impossible for them to play all the Beatles hits, but I was a little disappointed at a couple of sins of omission – most particularly I had hoped for Lady Madonna, and Hello Goodbye would also have added to the general happiness of the evening. There’s no Paperback Writer or Yellow Submarine; no She’s Leaving Home or Ballad of John and Yoko. Lady D was unhappy with the accents – despite her posh title she’s a scouser at heart – and, as I touched on earlier, there’s no attempt to tell the story of the Beatles. You don’t get a sense of the breakdown in the relationships – John and Paul are as happy together in the final scenes as they are at the beginning. Having said that, there’s no lack of drama, because the songs themselves are of such high quality that each one brings with it its own sense of drama. The urban effervescence of Penny Lane, the life-assertion In My Life, the quiet tragedy of Eleanor Rigby, the weird one night stand of Norwegian Wood, inter alia, all capture your attention and remind you of what a sensational legacy the Fab Four left behind.

Personally, I really loved the show, and felt I could easily see it again the next night. With that attention to detail, the engaging performances and the wonderful songs – who could ask for more? After a few more weeks’ touring, the show is returning – again – to the West End, keeping the spirit of Beatlemania alive. If you like the Beatles – and especially if you never saw them – here’s your chance.

The production photographs are by Paul Coltas and are from letitbelondon.com

Review – Chess, Milton Keynes Theatre, January 28th

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Way way back in the days of yore, Mrs Chrisparkle and I saw the original production of Chess, starring Elaine Paige and Tommy Korberg. We think back fondly of it as one of our favourite shows. So it was with great anticipation that we were looking forward to this new production, directed by Craig Revel Horwood no less.

We really really wanted to like this show really really much. And although some aspects of it are excellent, overall I was really really disappointed that I couldn’t like it a lot lot more.

Let’s look at the good things. It’s spectacular. The lighting, the video wall, the set in general are all very innovative and lively. The cast sing beautifully. Shona White and Poppy Tierney give us the old favourite “I Know Him So Well” with purity, clarity and lots of guts. It’s delightful on the ears. James Fox’s interpretation of “Pity the Child” is a masterclass in intensity, a terrific musical and acting performance.

And some – some – of the cast act it brilliantly too. James Fox again – to be honest he wipes the stage with the rest of them. We saw him a few years ago as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and he was mesmerising. He has a superb stage presence and here makes the rather unattractive character of the American Chess player Freddie Trumper into a complex person that you feel empathy with. You could easily come away from this showing disliking that character – but you don’t. It’s a marvellous performance.

I also very much liked the acting performance of Steve Varnom as Molokov, the Russian Chess player’s Second; an amusing and at the same time threatening presence, nicely getting into the subtleties of the character. You wouldn’t trust him an inch.

I found Daniel Koek fine enough as Sergievsky the Russian challenger. He sang Anthem well (albeit he was no Tommy Korberg) but I thought he lacked some stage presence, although Mrs Chrisparkle found him quite pleasing to the eye. For us the big disappointment as far as the acting was concerned, was Shona White as Florence. I didn’t get any sense of the character’s development throughout the story. Yes she sings well and looks good but I didn’t feel it was enough. Her falling for Sergievsky came as a complete surprise as there was no growing warmth between them. They had all the sexual chemistry of the queue at Morrison’s.

And there were some other aspects of the show that I think were meant to have the “wow” factor but for me just got in the way. Having all the chess pieces intricately costumed and playing an instrument is jolly clever but it doesn’t half make for a messy stage. At times there was so much going on, performed by so many people, that there really is a “less is more” lesson to be learned. Another problem with that is that all the cast members have to find somewhere to go – and many times during the show they plonked themselves down along the front of the stage, thereby completely blocking the view of the Front Stalls. I’m old fashioned enough to think that when you block the show you do it so that the audience can see it, not to distance them from it.

It was also over camp. I’m never one to complain about a reasonable level of campness. But this is too much, and without any obvious justification from the story. The only thing that really suggests camp in the book is the setting for One Night in Bangkok, and unsurprisingly, the costumes and the dance routine for that number border on the obscene. The rest of the show though is a rather serious love-triangle/rectangle where nobody’s on nobody’s side. I would love to see the complete opposite of this production – really pared down with minimal staging and cast numbers – a set that comprises of a chessboard and a black backdrop. You could imagine it at the Menier. Let the book and the score do the talking – they’re really very good. But the chess pieces were distracting in all their camp finery and the whole presentation of the role of the Arbiter was (I felt) camp gone mad. It was all just much too much. Busy busy busy. Distraction distraction.

And one last thing. I wonder if anyone has ever surveyed audience satisfaction at the volume amplification of musicals. We blame Rent, that’s where it all started. Whilst the volume level didn’t actually hurt my eardrums (sometimes it can) it did mean that a lot of the subtleties of the lyrics were lost. We enjoyed the Embassy Lament, but primarily because we remember the amusing performance of it on the Original Stage Cast album and could remember the lyrics from that as we were listening in the theatre. If it had been our first exposure to the song, a lot of its meaning would have been lost on us. We overheard people talking on the way out “Well I got the gist of what was going on but it would have been nice if we could make out the words”. Mrs Chrisparkle gave up trying to unravel the distorted sounds of words in the “Endgame” sequence and just sat back waiting for it to end. Which is a shame really as it’s the denouement.

I think it’s in “Deathtrap” where the characters refer to a play that’s so well written that even a gifted director couldn’t ruin it. That’s rather how I think of this production. Chess is a terrific musical, full of great songs and complex characters. And I think it will continue to be a great musical after this production has gone away. And it’s a huge shame really because so many people have tried very hard to make this work. I do feel that the hard work and its spectacular nature probably does mean it deserves a West End transfer, but to be honest, I can only recommend it on the grounds of James Fox’s performance and the songs of Bjorn, Benny and Sir Tim.