Review – Till The Stars Come Down, National Theatre Dorfman Theatre, London, 15th February 2024

Posted on February 18, 2024 by therealchrisparkle

Sylvia and Marek are getting married – and we’re invited to the wedding. The morning is the usual race against time for all the women to get their hair done, check their outfits, and maybe even start on a few early cheeky glasses of something sparkly. It’s a great opportunity for a family reunion for Sylvia and her sisters Hazel and Maggie, especially as Maggie left the area suddenly a few months ago. They’re still missing their mum – none more so than their dad Tony. Marek, Sylv’s intended, is of course Polish, but they’re fine with that; after all, Brexit is a thing of the past now. Isn’t it?

But old sins cast long shadows, they say; and in these ex-mining communities people still remember the wrongs done by not only the Thatcher government of the 1980s but the scabs who undermined the strike. Fortunately, it’s a happy occasion! What could possibly go wrong at a family wedding? As you’ve probably guessed, gentle reader, quite a lot. Passions run high, old enmities are exposed, prejudices are teased out, and it can only take one little misjudged event to push a whole family over the edge. When someone takes it on themselves to deal out summary justice, it becomes a no-turning-back moment for everyone.

Beth Steel has written earlier plays based on East Midlands communities – she is from Nottingham originally – and as my own hometown of Northampton just counts as East Midlands too, Till The Stars Come Down was strangely calling my name. Unexpectedly classical in structure, the play – largely – observes the unities of the French tragedians, by all taking place on one day, having basically one action (the wedding) and occurring in one place (you could argue that isn’t quite the case here.)

Ms Steel’s writing exquisitely fills in the details of these larger than life characters, as truths, lies and everything in between emerge over the course of two and a half hours. She has a knack of giving a character a simple, seemingly innocent line that instantly makes us realise a whole new side to someone that we thought we already knew. The play is bound by a gritty realism that does not hold back from showing us the tougher elements of life; and the characters’ irrepressible strength and resourcefulness comes out in some genuinely and unexpectedly hilarious scenes and conversations. For me, the only times the play doesn’t quite succeed is when it drifts away from realism, such as the scene (cleverly staged though it may be) when some of the characters represent the planets and stars revolving around each other.

Bijan Sheibani’s production is beautifully and simply staged on set designer Samal Blak’s big green block of astroturf, with minimal props or scenery apart from a few tables and an electric fan. It’s a great example of how effective it can be to suggest a scene with just the basics, allowing our imaginations to work harder. Paule Constable’s lighting design constantly astonishes with its surprise effects – you’ve never seen a glitter ball make such an impact.

The cast are uniformly excellent and work together to create a true sense of ensemble. There isn’t one role, nor one performer, who dominates the proceedings; the play is written so that every single character is, at some point of the procedure, the most important person there. Lorraine Ashbourne is great fun as the bossy Aunty Carol, picking fights over the seating arrangements, the embodiment of living life to the full, no matter the consequences. Lucy Black’s Hazel is a seething mass of anxieties and heartbreaks that are never far from the surface, and Lisa McGrillis’ Maggie is a study of someone trying to come to terms with both the past and the present whilst still giving off confident vibes. Sinead Matthews presents Sylvia as an optimistic fiancée and happy newlywed who only wants the best for herself and Marek.

Alan Williams’ Tony is a man brought down by the experiences of a lifetime yet carries on undefeated; Derek Riddell’s John also puts on a brave face despite his internal torments; and Philip Whitchurch’s Pete does his best to water down Carol’s excesses whilst refusing to give way to his principles of the past. Marc Wootton’s Marek is a contented self-made man who can neither understand nor forgive the barely concealed racism that he faces. There’s excellent support from Ruby Stokes’ Leanne, trying to make sense of the family issues as she understands them, and, in the performance we saw, Bodhi Rae Breathnach was excellent as the young Sarah, a child in an adults’ world, mixing playtime with the horrors of reality.

Superb performances in a highly entertaining and frequently shocking play. The final scene is so full of almost uncontrollable emotion between the three sisters that, as the lights came up to signify the end of the show, the actors were all mouthing to each other you okay hun as part of their return to the real world, before they could turn to the audience to take the applause. Remind me to resist the temptation to attend any more weddings. Till The Stars Come Down continues at the Dorfman until 16^th March.

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Noises Off, Garrick Theatre, 27th December 2019

Posted on January 3, 2020 by therealchrisparkle

Some shows never go away. Sometimes that can be regrettable; sometimes remarkable; on a few occasions, totally wonderful. Noises Off, I’m delighted to say, falls into that third category. Michael Frayn’s marvellous farce, that never progresses our hapless cast of TV B-listers past the first act of Robin Housemonger’s clearly pathetic Nothing On, stars TV’s Dotty “I can ‘ardly ‘old me lolly up” Otley – and she’s sunk her life savings into this “investment”. Will she get a return on her risk? Will she buffalo.

The date – 15^th April 1982; I had a front row seat at the Savoy for the newly opened Noises Off, starring Paul Eddington and Patricia Routledge; and I thought it was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen or was ever likely to see. Four years later, and still at the Savoy, I introduced young Miss Duncansby (now Mrs Chrisparkle) to the joys of Stephanie Cole and Hugh Paddick in the cast; from then till now, we still love to intone our own posh-voiced ladies and gentlemen, would you please take your seats, as the performance will begin in one minute instructions, at the drop of a hat, whenever the moment sees fit. In 2008 we saw it again at the Milton Keynes Theatre, with Maggie Steed on fine form, and it had lost none of its spark. And now it’s back again, and so are we, revelling both in the comedy of today and the nostalgia of yesteryear.

And it’s great to see that the cast of TV’s On the Zebras has-beens is still as useless as ever. At first we see them struggling through the Dress (“we’re all thinking of it as the Tech, Lloyd love”) Rehearsal before the opening at the Grand Theatre, Weston-super-Mare; then we see them at daggers with each other during a vengeful midweek matinee at the Theatre Royal, Goole; and finally in exhausted devastation during the final performance at the Municipal Theatre, Stockton on Tees.

Nothing On is clearly a dreadful little play, the last vestiges of the mildly titillating sex comedy genre that soared in the 60s and 70s with masterpieces (and I mean that) like Boeing Boeing, No Sex Please We’re British and There’s a Girl in my Soup. Today these have dated very badly – and in fact the recently planned tour of Boeing Boeing has had to be cancelled due to poor advance sales. Shame really, as it’s an exceptionally funny and beautifully structured play. I daresay Feydeau would have struggled to get bums on seats if he was writing nowadays. When Noises Off first hit the stage in 1982, that style was already on the way out, but still familiar, and thus ripe for Frayn to satirise mercilessly. I would not be remotely surprised if any twenty-something theatregoers seeing Noises Off today hadn’t got a clue as to what Nothing On was all about.

Apart from taking the mick out of those old sex comedies, Noises Off assembles a relatively ghastly cast of creative types with recognisable foibles, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies and so on. The faux-polite leading lady, the tense and irritable ingénu, the arrogant director, the well-meaning buffoon, the old sot; they’re all there, thrust together in a survival battle. And this creates Noises Off’s great strength; it’s utterly hilarious. Every possible theatrical disaster that could befall that woeful cast happens with dire consequences; to anyone who’s ever been on a stage it’s your worst nightmare come true. Physical pratfalls, mental and physical violence, drunk colleagues, nosebleeds, missing/not working/broken props/scenery, inappropriate affairs and jealous lovers all vie for prominence. And, whilst on the face of it, you might suspect it would be too forced, too unreal, too slapstick, too unsubtle to be taken seriously – in fact it’s such a superb piece of writing, requiring a high level of choreographically excellent performance, that only the most sour-faced misery-guts wouldn’t bellow with laughter ecstatically through it. That second Act, in particular, is simply a perfect nugget of comic genius. I was slightly sorry that this current production, directed by Jeremy Herrin, has done away with the visual “duck” joke in Act Two. If you remember it from previous productions, I’m sure you’d too be disappointed that it’s missing. If you’ve never seen it before then I’ll not explain it – suffice to say that it can be made even funnier.

Although it’s a play that’s always attracted star performers, there are few plays that require greater ensemble skills and attitude, and the cast do indeed throw everything at it to make it succeed. Meera Syal plays Dotty as a rather sweet old thing, until her anger is riled, that is; Lloyd Owen’s Director Lloyd is a sorely-tried, hard-nosed kind of guy – very tired, very unhappy and more acerbic than I remember from previous productions. Lisa McGrillis emphasises all of Brooke’s vacant automaton acting to terrific effect, and there’s very nice support from Adrian Richards as the long-suffering Tim, the Stage Manager. But, for me, the best characterisations come from Sarah Hadland as the kindly and impossibly positive Belinda Blair, and Daniel Rigby as the tongue-tied, gently seething Garry Lejeune.

It’s the perfect show for a holiday season; strenuously funny, and with plenty of excellent performances to admire; and you can pick and choose just how much you want to extrapolate from it about the nature of human existence to the extent that you can be bothered. Consider it deep, or consider it shallow, there’s loads to enjoy here, and I’m glad we caught it again before it closes on 4^th January.