Review – School of Rock, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 6th June 2022

Posted on June 7, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Confession time: I’ve never seen the film School of Rock and didn’t see the stage show during its London run. Before seeing this touring production I hadn’t a clue what it was about – I knew there were kids playing rock but that was it. So I came to this show with no preconceptions or expectations. You, gentle reader, are much more in tune with modern cinema culture than me, so you already knew that it was about lazy no-hoper and rock music aficionado Dewey Finn, who takes a supply teacher job in a posh prep school, pretending to be his ex-band member friend Ned Schneebly (who genuinely is a supply teacher), because the money’s good and he’s behind with the rent. Dewey, of course, hasn’t a clue about teaching, and knows nothing about kids, many of whom seem to be quite a lot smarter than him. All he can do is teach them appreciation of rock music; and when it turns out that they are a very musically gifted class, he prepares them to enter a Battle of the Bands contest. Obviously, this isn’t going to go down very well with snooty Miss Mullins, the headmistress; nor the parents who fork out an arm and a leg to get the kids through the exclusive exams. But music has a way of saving the day – and if you don’t know what happens, you’ll have to see the show to find out.

There’s a lot to admire and enjoy in this production; there are also a few things that I didn’t care for at all, but then I am an (occasionally) grumpy old git where it comes to the two things that set this show apart from most others: rock, and kids. I was surprised to see that the show really appeals to the family market – at last night’s performance there was probably even more children present than you would expect at a pantomime. Some were laughing (a lot) all the way through; others, including those nearer to us, were slumped in their seats and pretty unresponsive. I guess it takes all sorts.

There’s no doubting the full-blooded commitment to the show from the entire cast and creative team. Visually, it looks excellent. All the school scenes absolutely capture that rather stiff and starchy pristine bookishness of a prep school; the rock concert scenes featuring Dewey’s ex-colleagues in the band No Vacancy remind you of those heavy metal concerts your mother said you should never go to unless you want to ruin your hearing. And talking of the music – yes, it’s very rocky and it’s very loud. I’m no expert on this musical genre, but it sounded very proficient and genuine; I don’t know if rockstars today still wear that outrageous make up and costumery, but this lot did, and it looked impressive. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s compositions for the show (I suppose you could call them compositions) are unmemorable but authentic.

The downside of the loud music – as is frequently the case, sadly – is that a lot of the lyrics of the songs were simply inaudible. And that is a shame, because I got the feeling they were rather witty for the most part – but I reckon I only understood a third (at best) of the words they were singing. I couldn’t tell if it was an issue with over-amplification of the band, or poor enunciation of the singers; possibly a blend of the two. The clearest (and fantastic) singing comes from Tia Isaac’s Tomika, whose unaccompanied Amazing Grace is sheer joy. I also really enjoyed Rebecca Lock (as Miss Mullins)’s performance of Where Did the Rock Go, probably the outstanding song of the show.

As Dewey Finn, Jake Sharp throws himself into the role all guns blazing, creating a very larger than life character; a part crammed with physical comedy sometimes verging on the grotesque, but he carries it off with total conviction and the kids obviously loved him. Personally, I found the character of Dewey really difficult to get on with; in real life he’d be a laddish plonker who would really get on your nerves. But as an eccentric music teacher, I guess he’d be just about bearable! Rebecca Lock is also very good as Miss Mullins –another character that presents as either strident and humourless, or completely lets go with the help of just one drink and a Stevie Nicks karaoke. For me, not a believable character, but in the context of the show it doesn’t matter; and Ms Lock is a great singer, no question. Matthew Rowland and Nadia Violet Johnson both go over the top with the caricatures of Ned and Patty, milking the excesses of both characters to the extreme – but this is definitely what the script calls for, so – job done. Amongst the other adult cast, there’s good support from Ryan Bearpark as Zack’s demanding and unforgiving father and Richard Morse as Billy’s football-loving father.

But what the show is really all about is the kids. Twelve super-talented and eminently watchable children, who grab their characters by the throat and go all-out to entertain and impress. For me, Daisy Hanna as Katie stands out with her terrific bass playing and stage presence, and I love Harry Churchill’s attacking Zack, owning the stage with his charisma and the pure joy of playing. Local lad Angus McDougall is brilliant as the unflashy Lawrence who comes to life when he’s behind the keyboard; his unassuming personality mixed with his Elton John jacket and boots is a hilarious combination. Evie Marner’s Summer is delightfully bossy and priggish, and comes into her own when given the job as band supremo. But they are all excellent, and I am sure a lot of entertainment careers will be born out of the show.

I said near the beginning that there were some things I didn’t care for. Primarily I can sum them up in one word – the book. Julian Fellowes is a writer of enormous experience and success, but I found much of the text really scraped the barrel for humour and characterisation. Some of the characters are just too cartoony to be believed. Most of the female characters in the show are bossy and difficult, and the suggestion that the trouble with the head teacher is that she needs a good…. defrosting is disappointingly sexist. And then, when that largely turns out to be true, it sends an even worse anti-feminist message. Getting the kids to pretend that they’re all dying of some terminal disease to get on to the Battle of the Bands is tasteless in the extreme. The joke about Mama Cass is body-shaming, the lines about Billy’s glamrock outfit are borderline homophobic, and there’s an extremely dubious joke about paedophilia. It’s full of lazy stereotypes, very formulaic, and dependant on grossness for humour – as when Dewey rubs himself all over (intimately) with a towel and then chucks it over a child’s head, or when he’s considering eating his belly-button fluff. I’m afraid I didn’t get on with the book AT ALL and, cardinal sin of the theatre, there were plenty of scenes when I was bored. The show is at its best when the kids are rocking the joint, and when you come away from the show, that’s what you (thankfully) remember. I fear much of the rest of it is padding. But I know I’m not the target demographic for the show, and at the end everyone was on their feet, clapping and swaying away. Admittedly, that’s in part because they were told to by Mr Sharp! The UK tour continues until mid-August.

Production photos by Paul Coltas

Four they’re jolly good fellows!

Review – Curtains, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 25th February 2020

Posted on February 26, 2020 by therealchrisparkle

Unlike most Brits, Mrs Chrisparkle and I had the pleasure (we’ll come back to that word) of seeing Curtains before its current UK tour, when we caught it at the Al Hirschfield Theater in New York in 2008 – I know, so cosmopolitan. I remember it reasonably fondly; Mrs C less so, and she took some convincing to see this first major British production. I recall I was perplexed at the time that the Broadway production didn’t transfer to the West End. With the benefit of hindsight, I think I understand why.

Curtains comes with a massive pedigree: primarily its composer and lyricist, Kander and Ebb, whose back-catalogue shines with highlights such as Cabaret and Chicago, as well as The Scottsboro Boys, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and the movie Funny Lady. Fred Ebb died whilst writing Curtains, as did book writer Peter Stone, so Rupert Holmes (he of The Pina Colada Song, Him, and The Mystery of Edwin Drooooood) stepped in to complete the task. Nevertheless, all of us can have our off days, and, musically, you can’t deny that Curtains is a severe disappointment. No memorable songs, no songs that have taken a life of their own outside the show, no great tunes. We all know people who say, that whilst they like “the theatre”, they can’t stand musicals. To my mind, musicals are an incredibly versatile art form, capable of creating sheer magic on a stage, exploring characters, revealing truths, deconstructing dilemmas in their own unique way. However, Curtains is the kind of musical that people who hate musicals think all musicals are like. If this was the first musical I’d ever seen, I’d dismiss the genre as kinda woeful.

The trouble with Curtains is (and I’m talking about the bare bones of the show here, not this production) that it’s trying to be a number of things but fails at them all. It wants to be taken as a serious musical in its own right, but the songs simply aren’t up to it – in fact this is far and away the worst score by Kander and Ebb that I have come across. It wants to be a comedy whodunit, but it completely lacks suspense. In its attempt to parody/pastiche landmark musicals like Oklahoma! or Finian’s Rainbow, it concentrates on their trademark scenes, such as big hoedown stomps or dream ballet sequences, but, taken out of the context of their original shows, they just slow down the natural development of this show. It also makes the show feel immensely dated. Whereas in Cabaret and Chicago the music and the style instantly gives you a time-setting without having to spell it out, you forget that Curtains is meant to be set in 1950s Boston, primarily because there’s no obvious reason for it. Musicals and murder are timeless, so why isn’t this?

Chrisparkle’s first law of musical theatre is that each song should progress either the plot or our understanding of the characters, or at least the general setting of the show. There’s nothing more frustrating than a stop-start musical where the story takes a break each time an ensemble assembles to sing something. Unfortunately, so many of the numbers in Curtains consist of the audience passively viewing the performance (or rehearsal) from another show (in this case the fictional Robbin’ Hood) which have no meaning or significance for us the audience. Take, for example, the lengthy Thataway that closes the first Act; it’s all bluster and no content, a very repetitive tune that never soars even when you think it might. It’s just an excuse for some swirling skirts and cowboy high-kickin’ (which, to be fair, the cast perform extremely well). But there’s no drama to it, no character development, nothing with which to lead you into the interval with a greater understanding of what’s going on.

Talking of intervals, it didn’t help that, technically, the performance was a bit of a disaster. The interval climax big effect, where murder victim #2 is found suspended noose-first from the curtains, simply didn’t happen. The characters told us all to “look up there” (or words to that effect) but there was nothing happening “up there”. Then, after Jason Manford’s Cioffi yelled “blackout!” to signify the end of the Act, the curtain fell, only to part rise again to reveal what looked like a degree of backstage consternation at the fact that the effect hadn’t worked. First night in a new theatre, yes, sometimes things go wrong. It happens.

Surely there were some good things? Yes indeed. Let’s start at the top with Mr Manford. I’ve not seen him in a musical before, and I thought he was excellent. The characterisation of musical-loving Detective Cioffi, hankering romantically after the ingénue Niki Harris, fanboying the writers and the director, worked extremely well. The Broadway production we saw starred David Hyde Pierce in the same role and he camped it up rotten. Jason Manford’s performance, however, was much more nuanced, more considered and more believable. And of course he has excellent comic timing, which he used to great effect.

Rebecca Lock also gives a fine, beefy performance as the no-nonsense, hard-nosed producer Carmen Bernstein, chucking out savage one-liners whilst belting out her numbers; think Ethel Merman meets Joan Rivers. It’s just a shame that her one-liners weren’t a little funnier and less predictable, but that’s not her fault. Carley Stenson looks and sounds great as Georgia Hendricks, parachuted in to play the lead role when the actress who was going to play Madame Marian suffers a terminal first-night curtain call. Ore Oduba was good, if a little clinical, as Aaron Fox, the composer, and his voice was a little under-amplified in the singing department.

There’s great support from the rest of the cast, especially Emma Caffrey as the show-off Bambi, and understudy Robin Kent who débuted the busy and important role of Bobby Pepper and did a terrific job. Capping it all, there’s a prize performance from Samuel Holmes as the flouncy director Christopher Belling, bitching his way around the stage, side-stepping blame and trouble like a slalom expert. I last saw Mr Holmes as Lord Farquaad in Shrek, where he stole the show; he really does this kind of spoilt brat incredibly well.

The other person who drags this show up by its bootstrings and does his best to redeem it, is choreographer Alistair David. An alumnus of so many brilliant lavish shows in Sheffield and Chichester, his dance routines for Curtains throughout are exciting, cheeky, and simply enjoyable. And it’s a testament to the great boys and girls of the dance team that they’re more than up to the task and make those otherwise bland set numbers watchable.

Mrs C started to nod off during Ms Stenson’s performance of Thinking of Him – nothing against Ms Stenson at all, just the fact that the plot had stopped in order for her to sing an irrelevant song, and it’s a cue to the audience to take their mind off the story and let their minds wander. I tried to pull her back to consciousness a few times during the first Act but she’d already lost interest, and was only vaguely sentient at odd moments. She experienced more of the Second Act and even laughed at Mr Holmes’ retort to Bambi: “the only thing you could arouse is suspicion” (winner of Best Line in Show). I stayed awake, but, have to admit, felt pretty bored for much of the time.

Alas, the most glittering of casts would have difficulty jump-starting this old banger of a show. After this week, the tour valiantly continues to Blackpool, Glasgow, Leicester, High Wycombe, Wolverhampton and Southampton. Go for the performances and the dancing; look away for the rest.

Production photos by Richard Davenport

Three-sy does it!

Review – Kiss Me, Kate, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 5th January 2019

Posted on January 8, 2019 by therealchrisparkle

Every New Year, Mrs Chrisparkle and I treat Lord and Lady Prosecco to a post-Christmas outing: a weekend in Sheffield (bear with me) to stay at the lovely Mercure Hotel, have some scrummy meals and to see both the Crucible’s Christmas musical AND the Lyceum panto – and we’ve not had a duff experience yet. Over the last couple of years, we’ve taken to seeing the panto in the evening – the weight of a few extra wines and a more end-of-term atmosphere always helps. Which left us this matinee with the prospect of seeing Cole Porter’s fantastic, and now grammatically correct, Kiss Me, Kate.

This was one of the Dowager Mrs C’s favourite musicals and I was brought up on a diet of Always True to You Darling in my Fashion and From This Moment On; not a bad way to be brought up, to be honest. But this is only the third time I’ve seen it; once in 1987 at the Old Vic with the redoubtable Nichola McAuliffe, and at Chichester in 2012 where Hannah Waddingham attempted to rule the roost over Alex Bourne. That London production was great; the Chichester one a little disappointing. But I’m going to throw my hat into the ring and say that this new production at Sheffield by Paul Foster tops them both.

I’m sure you know the story – a touring production of The Taming of the Shrew is the vehicle for an on-and-off love story between the two leads, Fred Graham (playing Petruchio, also the producer of the show) and Miss Lilli Vanessi (playing Katherine, the star attraction). Lilli senses that their romance is back on track (they are already divorced at the beginning of the show) but when she discovers that the flowers she received from Fred were actually meant for cabaret starlet Lois (playing Bianca), she gets into a Katherine-type rage and takes it out on him on stage. He, being not entirely a true gentleman, gives as good as he gets, and she spends most of the rest of the show unable to sit down because – well, because, gentle reader, he gave her a damn good spanking. It happens in Shakespeare, so why the hell not here. Only one way to tame a shrew; women respect it. (That was a joke, by the way.)

Lilli’s plans to abandon the rest of the run are brought to an abrupt halt by the persuasions of two gangsters who (erroneously, as it happens) need the show to be a success so that Fred can pay his dues to their Mr. Big. Her new beau Harrison Howell arrives to take her away – but, will she find true love with him, or with Fred? If you don’t know the answer to that by now, you never will.

It’s true; in the current climate, some aspects of this show have dated to become ever so slightly worrying. The physical animosity between Fred and Lilli does border on domestic violence (even though it’s played entirely for laughs) and the subjugation of women’s will to men’s is still as clear as it was in Shakespeare’s day – you have to feel a cringe coming on when Katherine/Lilli sings I Am Ashamed that Women are So Simple. But this is distinctly a period piece, with no attempts (quite right, I think) to update it to the 21st century. Porter’s showtunes are still as 1940s jazz as they can be; the gangsters are still the same Chicago thickos they always were. Porter’s brilliant lyrics anchor the show in his own era; when one of the funniest lines in any of the songs is “he may have hair upon his chest, but, sister so has Lassie”, there’s just no point trying to update it. Provided there are audience members who remember Lassie, the joke works.

We’ve been used over the years at Sheffield to seeing the big choreography routines by Alistair David, who made such a mark in shows like My Fair Lady and Show Boat. For this show, the choreography is by Matt Flint, and I have to say I’ve not come across his work before. But he’s terrific! His style is much more intimate and involved; he sets up scenes with so many varied things happening in different parts of the stage all at the same time, then brings them all together for a big impact. The second Act opens with his fantastic staging of Too Darn Hot, led with immaculate artistry and precision by Layton Williams as Paul; it’s one of those classic dance sequences when you know you’re seeing something special and you never want it to end. As an aside, our performance was captioned – a great innovation, imho – and it was fascinating to read the lyrics to Too Darn Hot (as well all the other songs) – it’s easy to overlook just exactly what this song is all about!

Elsewhere, the show is peppered with memorable moments, mainly involving the big numbers. Paul Foster has concentrated most of his efforts into getting the maximum entertainment out of the songs, so there is no attempt to shorten any of Cole Porter’s mammoth efforts. I guess a downside to that is that if you don’t like the songs much (then why are you here?) you probably won’t enjoy it much. The show opens with (fittingly) Another Op’nin’ Another Show, at first fronted by Lilli’s dresser Hattie (a beautiful, warm-hearted performance by Cindy Belliot) but then it opens out to a wide-ranging musical examination of all the cast and crew arriving at this new theatre, with all the tensions and excitements that can contain – and it’s an exciting and exhilarating start.

Other highlights include Amy Ellen Richardson’s Lois/Bianca teasing routine with the three suitors for Tom Dick or Harry – one of these, Dex Lee, plays Bill/Lucentio and I always admire his brilliant, acrobatic dancing; Rebecca Lock (a brilliant Katherine/Lilli with a stunning voice) throwing herself around in fits of fury during I Hate Men; Edward Baker-Duly (also brilliant as Fred/Petruchio – I loved his ham, and then even hammier, vocal performance as the stagey actor) ripping through the memories of all those women in Where is the Life that Late I Led; Amy Ellen Richardson’s funny and flirtatious performance of Always True To You Darling in my Fashion; and the simple but oh so effective staging of Brush Up Your Shakespeare by Delroy Atkinson and Joel Montague as the two theatrical gangsters, occupying the spotlights – Mr Atkinson in particular gave a brilliantly expressive physically comic performance. I also appreciated the fact that, for much of the performance, James McKeon’s orchestra was hidden at the back of the set, but for the songs that belonged to Taming of the Shrew, it was on view – a very nice touch, I thought.

The only thing that slightly disappointed me was the staging of one of my favourite songs from the show, From This Moment On. It’s a difficult one. The song was never written for Kiss Me Kate; Porter wrote it for another show from which it was dropped at the last minute, but it was obviously too good to waste, and Cole Porter was an expert musical recycler. From This Moment On appears in the film version of Kiss Me Kate, where it works perfectly as a number between Bianca and her three suitors; but the dramatic usefulness of that has already been taken by Tom Dick or Harry. So nowadays the custom is to have it sung by Harrison Howell and Lilli before he sweeps her away to the magicless life of a military wife – or not. Structurally, it makes perfect sense to have it there; but in practice the characters are too old and the situation too cynical (ouch! Sorry!) for the song to work properly. It’s a young person’s song – a starting out in life song – filled with genuinely great expectations, and I’d prefer to give the song back to Lois and Bill. In characterisation and acting, Dafydd Emyr made an imposing Howell, but, for me, it just didn’t work.

But this is one small quibble in an otherwise excellent show that thrilled us all, and we continued to talk about it later that evening and all through the next. One of those productions to savour and recall with happiness for years to come. It’s on until Saturday 12th January. Would be a crime to miss it!