Tag Archives: Sheffield

Review – The Effect, Studio at the Sheffield Crucible, 11th July 2015

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Laughing in the face of M1 roadworks, we drove up to Sheffield for the third time this year for yet another Crucible-based theatre weekend. And what could be a more enjoyable and sociable way to start than by meeting up with Lady Lichfield and the young Duchess of Dudley at Wagamama for a yummy lunch of warm chilli chicken salad followed by white chocolate and ginger cheesecake. Add some Sauvignon Blanc into the mix et voilà! Instant delight.

All four of us headed off to the versatile little Crucible Studio, one of the best small acting spaces anywhere, which, rather like the Menier, lends its own personality to any production lucky enough to take place there. The Studio’s current offering is The Effect by Lucy Prebble, which won the Critics Circle award for Best New Play in 2013, when it was originally produced by the National Theatre. This is the first time I’ve seen anything by Ms Prebble – we missed ENRON, much to our dismay. But I can verify she is a writer of great wit and imagination, and that The Effect is a fascinating, thought-provoking play that intrigues, amuses and horrifies in equal measure.

I’ve never been involved in a drug trial. I don’t think I know anyone who has been involved in a drug trial. And, having seen The Effect, I’m not sure I would ever want to. The scene is a science lab, where Connie and Tristan, amongst unseen others, have volunteered for a trial of a new drug, which will require their undivided presence and compliance for four long weeks. No mobile phones, no outside contact, and oppressed by near-constant supervision. Once Dr Lorna James, who’s in charge of the trial, has satisfied herself that the volunteers are indeed suitable for the task ahead, the experiment commences. Small dosages at first, followed by regularly rising dosages of the drug on trial appear to create side effects that the doctor and the Pharmaceutical company were not expecting; and Connie and Tristan fall in love. But is the trial all it seems? Is the doctor as in control as she seems? Is the pharmaceutical company as open about the trial as they seem? And is the future rosy for the two young lovers?

The play is so beautifully and subtly written that you can interpret many of its events in different ways. For example, there’s the question of the placebo. If one of the clinical study participants is taking placebo rather than the drug, then it can’t be the drug that’s causing the side effect – can it? But maybe no one’s on placebo. Maybe it’s not only the drug that’s on trial here. And what happens if someone accidentally overdoses? Supposing one of the candidates hasn’t been fully truthful about their medical history? Supposing the pharmaceutical company and/or the doctor in charge have their own private agenda? How scientific can any trial be when you’re dealing with people, because people have their own emotions, foibles, secrets; and nothing can ever be 100% watertight. Can it? You’ll go on asking these questions for hours.

Daniel Evans’ direction suggests the audience are minor participants in the trial too. The stark white chairs on the stage are the same as the stark white chairs on which the audience sit. The computer readings are displayed on large screens in all four corners of the auditorium so no matter where you sit you can see them. The fifteen minute interval is counted down on a screen both inside and outside the auditorium, daring you to be late back after your half-time Pinot; nobody was, as we didn’t want to face short shrift from Dr James. All in all, you get a great sense of everyone participating in the same experiment; it’s a real shared experience.

The cast of four give outstanding performances, fully inhabiting the intricately drawn characters that Lucy Prebble has created. Ophelia Lovibond is simply stunning as Connie. Careful to conceal aspects of her current relationship and resentful of questions that she considers are too personal, she appears nevertheless willing to play the clinical trial game to the best of her ability. But you never quite know what her attitude to any event, any question, or any situation might be. You can read in her eyes as she processes new items of information, that she is working out what her reaction is going to be. My guess is that in every performance she is probably understanding anew each time what her character is going through; and you, the audience, are accompanying her on that rather savage journey. Emotional, anxious, uncomfortable; Ms Lovibond takes Connie through a gamut of reactions, before finally becoming a changed person; one with a purpose in life that she had previously lacked.

She is matched with an equally brilliant performance by Henry Pettigrew as Tristan. Where Connie is initially reserved and careful, Mr Pettigrew presents Tristan as an instantly self-confident, flirtatious charmer; a natural rule-breaker (not the kind of person you’d really want on a clinical trial!), a pusher of boundaries, a loveable rogue, with more than a side-dish of lock up your daughters about him. Mr Pettigrew interprets him as a really credible, adult version of a naughty schoolboy, encouraging other classmates to skip lessons and sneak off into an out-of-bounds area where they will get up to no good.Together the two have a wonderful chemistry, and you’d swear they were either in love in real life or really, really good actors. As the play progresses and the balance of power between the two characters changes, so that Connie is more in control and Tristan’s fortunes have declined, the love still continues, albeit more in an “in sickness or in health” vein. Nevertheless, I note with amusement the first appearance of a stagey “masturbation under the bedclothes” scene since Miss Julie Walters did it to the late Richard Beckinsale in Mike Stott’s Funny Peculiar back in 1976; although if I remember rightly, her provision of erotic stimulation wasn’t limited just to her hand. You can’t beat a good “providing sex to a patient” scene for shock comic purposes.

Connie and Tristan are not the only twosome to have their problems in this play. There’s obviously been some history between Dr Lorna James and Toby of the Pharma. It’s never made totally clear quite what went on between them, but as a result Dr Lorna has something of a tenuous grasp on sanity; and, like Tristan, but in her own way, she too falls foul of the Pharma client. In a slightly heavy use of symbolism, Toby continues on, wrecking lives one way or another, where you might otherwise traditionally expect the drug company to look after people’s wellbeing. Priyanga Burford gives a mesmerising performance as Lorna, the doctor with a steely eye for the accuracy of the trial but who begins to fray around the edges as her ability to control comes into question.And Stuart Bunce is splendidly disconnected as Toby, ostensibly reasonable and professional, but hurting too; and with just the right lack of empathy not to notice the trail of destruction in his wake.

A fascinating play, with first class performances in a stunning production. What’s not to like? It’s running until Saturday 18th July – unmissable.

Review – Blasted, Sarah Kane Season, Studio at the Crucible, Sheffield, 21st February 2015

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Thanks to Jack Tinker, theatre critic of the Daily Mail from 1972 to 1996, Sarah Kane’s Blasted will always be referred to as a “feast of filth”, a beautifully alliterative phrase dismissing what he regarded as “a play which appears to know no bounds of decency yet has no message to convey by way of excuse”. I always enjoyed reading Jack Tinker. He had a very entertaining style, and for many years was the only possible reason for buying the Daily Mail. Now that the Mail’s theatre crits are written by Quentin Letts, there’s no reason at all to buy it. Of course, Sarah Kane got her own back on him in her own inimitable style by naming a sadistic concentration camp manager in her play Cleansed after him. It’s what he would have wanted (not!)

Blasted first saw light of day in 1995 at a time when Mrs Chrisparkle and I rarely saw plays in London. I remember the controversy about it at the time, and hoped that one day I would get to see the disgraceful filth for myself (having researched stage censorship as a postgraduate, dirty plays have always been my *thing*). Lo and behold, twenty years later, the Sheffield Crucible decide to mount a Sarah Kane season. I’m sure the fact that Daniel Evans, the Crucible’s Artistic Director, was in many of Miss Kane’s original productions, will have been a contributing factor to this decision. After a little research, I discovered we were to be treated to nudity, oral sex, cannibalism, racism, rape (twice), and other assorted violence. I admit, I do like to be challenged in the theatre.

There’s a very interesting introductory note by her brother Simon in the programme. I expect you know, but just to fill in the gaps if you don’t, Sarah Kane suffered from severe depression throughout her short life and committed suicide in 1999 at the age of 28. Before she died, she left instructions that no one should ever write a biography of her, she destroyed her diaries, and requested that none of her friends should ever publish any letters of hers. Those wishes have all been respected; but as a result there has been much in the way of guesswork and fantasy in trying to fill the consequent knowledge vacuum about her life.

Blasted is, in many ways, an extraordinary play, taking the relatively simple basis of a couple staying in a hotel room, and then subsequently blowing it apart – literally. So much of what it’s about appears to be in what’s not said. Again, from Simon Kane’s introduction: “she once told me that everything you need to know to understand the plays is contained within the plays themselves; anything else is as likely to be misleading as it is to be enlightening. So when you’re watching them, keep an open mind…. the plays are as much about you as they are about her”. Wasn’t it Ronan Keating (I think it was) who said, “you say it best when you say nothing at all”? Much of Blasted is littered with silences and pauses, enough to make even Pinter believe the actors had forgotten their lines. But whereas in Pinter, the silences are sometimes so portentous – and loud almost – that they’re like the contributions of additional invisible characters; in Blasted, the silences are just that – moments when there isn’t anything to say, because the characters are merely thinking, or waiting, or daydreaming, or conspiring. It feels like a very realistic conversational style in a way that Pinter often (to me) feels very artificial. The speech patterns throughout the play have a surprising delicacy despite the harshness of the actual words being spoken. Sarah Kane had a remarkable feel for language.

In a nutshell, Ian and Cate are staying in a hotel room in Leeds. He’s much older than she is, and has poor health, no doubt in part due to too much smoking and drinking; she has some form of learning disability causing her to stutter when stressed and occasionally faint. They’ve obviously had some kind of relationship in the past and it quickly becomes clear that he is hoping for lots of sex from their hotel stay and she is hoping to avoid it. In the world outside there is warfare, with soldiers on the streets; in the world inside there is the more conventional champagne and room service. The following morning it’s obvious that he’s raped her, and she takes her revenge in a number of ways (especially painful ones). She escapes through the bathroom window, and when a knock comes at the door, Ian, expecting a waiter with more food and drink, lets in a fully armed soldier, desperate for food, and seemingly ready to kill. A mortar bomb blasts through the wall (a literally smashing special effect), and the ordinary, unremarkable hotel room is transformed into Armageddon. Facing very little resistance, the soldier rapes Ian, then sucks out his eyes and eats them. The next scene shows the soldier having committed suicide, and Cate returned with a baby, that she has been given on the street to rescue. The baby dies, Cate buries it under the floorboards; then there are some short scenes featuring Ian in various stages of distress, including digging up the baby’s body and eating it. Cate appears one last time with some food and drink which she shares with Ian. Curtain. As we got up from our seats at the end of the play, Mrs C turned to me and said, “Well, Leeds has gone down a bit”.

I’m getting a number of references here. Not only do you have Pinteresque dialogue, there’s some Edward Bond with the dead baby (Saved), there’s Gloucester’s eyes being put out (King Lear), Ian’s head alone being visible above the floorboards suggested to me Winnie being buried up to her neck in Beckett’s Happy Days, and the cannibalism brought to mind certain religious rituals. If everything you need to know to understand the play is contained within it, then you have to piece together the clues from what you hear and what you see. Thus clarity in the direction and presentation is absolutely vital. The clarity of the spoken word was excellent – I heard every word that every character said because they were enunciated to perfection. However, visually, I’m sorry to say I think this is where this production slightly falls down.

It’s directed by the redoubtable Richard Wilson, who knows a thing or two about modern texts and bringing life to difficult drama. I thought the first two scenes, with just Ian and Cate, were clear, powerful, full of tension and dark humour; but once the soldier had arrived the clarity started to wane. Things that should have been fully visible were obscured. Although we were one of the first people in to the Studio to “bags” our good seats (reasonably central, more or less eye level with the actors), from our viewpoint (and I’m sure for many people) the soldier’s dead body was obstructed by an overturned table. As neither of us were familiar with the play, we couldn’t work out what had happened to him. I guessed he was dead, but how? Mrs C could see his leg; I could see his leg and some blood, but neither of us could see the gun that he was apparently holding. Kane’s characters don’t remark on the body; it’s not as though Cate trips over him and says, “oh I see the soldier is dead, did you kill him or did he shoot himself?” That turned into an unnecessary mystery for us.

The play contains a lot of graphic images and gruesome content, all of which contribute to Tinker’s feast of filth. But in Richard Wilson’s production all this tough material was staged in an extraordinarily discreet way. It’s as though Mr Wilson has done his best to make the play acceptable for a Women’s Institute coach party. For me it felt almost sanitised. The final scenes where Ian is, inter alia, masturbating, strangling himself, defecating, laughing hysterically, having a nightmare, and hugging the dead soldier gave Mrs C the impression that Ian had fallen into some kind of general madness, and made me think he was trying to relieve his intense hunger. Of course, it’s fine for two people to interpret what they see differently. But because some of these actions took place in hidden corners of the set, it wasn’t easy to draw a conclusion as to what you were actually seeing.

Earlier in the play, when Ian takes his clothes off, faces Cate and tells her to “put your mouth on me”, he stands at an angle where I would estimate maybe a maximum of 10% of the audience could see what happened (if anything did). The scene where Cate bites his penis in revenge, the other masturbation scenes, the soldier’s rape and the brief defecation scene are all staged so that you can’t really see what’s going on. Now I don’t wish to sound prurient, but Sarah Kane’s text and stage directions don’t pull any punches and I would have thought that the additional visual shock element would have been much truer to her intentions. Considering the subject matter, I just found the whole presentation, using discreet angles, and obstructing sight-lines, remarkably coy.

One thing that was made very clear from the play – and the production – is that rape is an act of power, not of sex. It’s used as a tool to dominate, both by the pathetic Ian and the murdering machine that is the soldier. The soldier’s behaviour with Ian, from urinating on his pillow (also shown discreetly) to raping him, reminded me of two dogs, working out which one was the higher in the pecking order. But why did the soldier commit suicide? After all, he was riding high with power, and everything was going his way. But he was also devastated at the loss of his girlfriend, due to her being raped and murdered by another soldier. That’s why he did what he did to Ian. It was like passing on the baton in a relay. I also have a theory that there may be a connection between the otherwise unexplained war on the streets outside, and its incursion into the hotel room, with Sarah Kane’s own state of mind. Maybe she saw the warfare as all the darkness of depression that’s within constant touching distance, whilst the hotel room is a kind of sanctuary, a scene of normality. After Ian has desecrated this haven by committing rape, the forces of mental darkness encroach the room, both in the form of the soldier and in the mortar blast that takes away the wall. Or this could be precisely the kind of guesswork that Simon Kane believes to be unhelpful.

There would have to be a huge sense of trust between the three actors to convey the content of such a vivid and daring piece of writing. Jessica Barden as Cate stood out for me as an immensely strong yet fragile creation, as pale as a porcelain doll, concealing her emotions behind an exterior of pure practicality, making the apparent inconsistencies within the character appear perfectly reasonable. Her chilling, mocking, slightly unhinged laugh, which she can turn on or off in an instant, provides the biggest clue to her personality. A very unsettling, unpredictable and amazingly effective performance. Martin Marquez is an excellent Ian, a moral lowlife throwing out racist and homophobic insults like confetti, wheedling out the occasional “I love you” to Cate, (which sometimes you believe and sometimes you don’t), living his life selfishly as he expects it not to last much longer. Like all bullies, when confronted with a stronger force he just caves in. It’s hard to make such an unpleasant character the object of your sympathy, but Mr Marquez makes Ian so utterly pathetic, especially at the end, that I think he succeeds. Mark Stanley’s soldier is an excellent study in animalistic brutality whilst still believing in his ability to love; a truly ominous outside influence that breaks and enters the real world with devastating effect.

At an hour and three quarters with no interval, it’s certainly an intense experience, but thrilling too. This was the final performance of this run, but if you’re up for it, there’s more to come in the Sarah Kane season in March. This is an excellent opportunity to judge for yourself her place in modern drama. Give it a go!

PS. Richard Wilson sat behind us for this performance. Before it started, part of me was itching to turn around and let out a huge “I don’t belieeeeeeeeve it!” just like Father Ted did when he kept bumping into him. However, Mr Wilson has that serious look that implies he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, so I thought discretion was the better part of valour. Instead, I resolved to tell him afterwards what a terrific production it was. Trouble is, for the reasons mentioned earlier on, I didn’t think it was that terrific a production, so for the moment, Mr Wilson and I remain strangers.

Review – The Absence of War, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 21st February 2015

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First produced in 1993, David Hare’s The Absence of War centres on a pleasant but unconvincing leader of the Labour party who fails to win a general election – again. Is this ringing any bells? In the previous year, the pleasant but unconvincing Neil Kinnock snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the general election – again, having failed to win as Labour leader in 1987 as well. And here we are in 2015, with the Labour party led by the pleasant but unconvincing Ed Miliband, and there’s a general election due on 7th May. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the nine-venue tour that starts this week in Norwich will finish on 2nd May.

George Jones, the aforesaid (fictitious) Labour leader has a natural ability to rise to the top through his sheer strength of personality, but he has surrounded himself with a team of advisers who tell him what he can and can’t say (people like the word “fairness” but they’re not so keen on “equality”), what he should and shouldn’t believe, and what he must and mustn’t do. He’s running around on auto-stifle. There’s something of the Shakespearian tragic hero about him; he has vision, sociability, kindliness and bravery; he is decent to the extent that it works against him, maintaining loyalties where he should be suspicious. And despite all his good works and good intentions, you know that, at the end, he will be found wanting. There is no surprise, victorious ending; he is destined to fail. For him, it is a personal tragedy. Jones is a cultured man, a charismatic man, an inspirational man; but in the final analysis he lacks the ruthlessness and sheer hunger for power that a successful party leader requires.

It’s more than a little appropriate that this co-production between Sheffield Theatres, Headlong and the Rose Theatre Kingston should start its life at the Crucible. For it was in Sheffield that Neil Kinnock held his famous pre-election rally, culminating in his over-animated, over-passionate and over-confident appearance at the podium, where he shouted interminably “We’re Alright!” several times before saying anything of consequence; and it is widely held that that is where he lost the election. But George Jones is no Neil Kinnock. When he is encouraged by the election campaign manager to deliver a powerful, sincere, no-notes, from the heart speech from his podium, he starts off all emotional and idealistic, giving the rally just what they want. Then he just blanks; he can’t think of another fire in the belly thing to say; he scrabbles around for his notes and looks totally incompetent. If this were a job interview, and he was required to do a presentation as part of the selection process, he’d be back on the dole faster than you can say Downing Street. It’s a brilliant piece of theatre, mind you; your toes curl in cringing embarrassment.

David Hare’s play is immaculately structured, starting and ending with the traditional Armistice Day ceremony at the Cenotaph; at the beginning with Conservative PM Charles Kendrick leading the floral tributes, followed by George Jones; and at the end, Kendrick is still the PM, but is Jones still the leader of the opposition? We’re then taken to Jones’ private office, where new publicity officer Lindsay Fontaine is bursting at the seams to make him electable, despite the distrust of other members of the team, including his intimidating political adviser Oliver Dix and his personal minder Andrew Buchan. A TV switched permanently to the Ceefax page (what a wonderful trip down memory lane to see one of those again) flashes political news, including the sudden announcement of the General Election, which catches the Labour party unawares; George Jones is rightly furious that it means he will have to miss seeing Hamlet that night. The Ceefax page also occasionally shows the weather, which is a nice touch. TV cameras concentrate on the pompous Prime Minister, always accompanied by his silent wife, at his side like a faithful hound, and we too see the simultaneous TV broadcast of him outside No. 10 (another nice touch). A campaign strategy is rapidly assembled; old hands like Vera Klein (she’d probably be the equivalent of a Barbara Castle figure) turn up to the dismay of the entire team (except of course that George Jones is far too decent and polite to kick her into touch); no one really knows what they’re doing, but somehow things fall into place. We go into the interval with a sense that the campaign has started, and, despite complete disarray backstage, it’s not looking at all bad.

After the interval Sauvignon Blanc, you quickly realise that all the positives that have been mounting up in Act One are about to get knocked down in Act Two. A thrilling “live” TV debate with Rottweiler broadcaster Linus Frank goes badly wrong as Jones is side-swiped with a question about Mortgage Interest Relief at Source. Remember MIRAS? So many things in this play remind you of the good old days; Gordon Brown abolished it in 2000. There’s a riveting showdown between George and his (allegedly) faithful cabinet colleague Malcolm, where George finally realises that his blue-eyed boy isn’t as faithful as he had thought – the scene got its own round of applause. Then there’s the end-of-campaign rally, where everything falls apart, and the final ghastly defeat, where the Labour leader even has to endure the humiliation of being rounded on by the tea lady.

Jeremy Herrin’s production is crisp and entertaining, making great use of the apparently “old technology” (like the Ceefax screens) and TV cameras; projecting the live rally action against the Labour banner is visually a very powerful effect. Bold colours on the backdrop fill the stage with a real sense of life and vigour, as well as reminding us of the association of specific colours with specific political parties. The cumulative excitement of the election campaign is well paced and full of dramatic power, even though you know it’s as doomed as Private Fraser in Dad’s Army. Mike Britton’s useful set relies on a few office desks, suggesting functionality rather than lavishness, and uses screens and blinds to suggest further activity at the back of the stage whilst largely leaving the front free as a big acting space. And there’s an excellent cast who all portray their roles very convincingly.

Reece Dinsdale plays George Jones with charm, integrity and honesty, and just that touch of being flawed, as every good tragic hero should be. It’s a strong, serious central performance, and he really shines out in those big scenes like the showdown with Malcolm and the disastrous rally speech. But David Hare’s text provides many of the other characters with some of the best quips, as they pass judgment on the action, and their leader, from the side-lines. Cyril Nri plays political adviser Oliver as a hardworking, quick to ire, slightly larger than life character – you’d imagine he’d be a difficult boss, and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. Another solid performance, maybe a little underplayed at times, but very credible as a result. I really enjoyed James Harkness’ good-humoured performance as Andrew, George’s minder, projected into a world of cut-throat high flyers from what you sense is a very ordinary background: “Croissant? I’m from Paisley!” He very nicely gives the impression of someone who enjoys playing with the big boys, occasionally to get brought down a few pegs just to show he’s not as significant as he’d like to imagine.

Charlotte Lucas is excellent as publicity adviser Lindsay Fontaine, the new broom attempting to sweep clean in what she sees as a very backward looking office, and of course coming up against a lot of resistance en route. Gyuri Sarossy plays Malcolm as an untrustworthy cold fish – not inappropriately – he and his minder Bruce, played by Theo Cowan, coming across as the new brand of Labour, riddled with posh school mentality. They are the complete opposite of honest working class George, and Bryden, his campaign co-ordinator, played with down to earth gusto by Barry McCarthy. Maggie McCarthy (any relation?) gives great support as the long-suffering diary secretary Gwenda, as does Don Gallagher playing a number of roles including the condescendingly slimy PM, and the irascible argument manipulator Linus Frank. Amiera Darwish is a busy and sincere press secretary Mary, Helen Ryan excellent as the seen-it-all-and-would-rather-see-no-more veteran politician Vera, and Ekow Quartey gets some of the best laughs in the play with his deftly delivered vignette as George’s Special Branch protector.

“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.” So said the 17th century philosopher Spinoza. If this play is about the Absence of War, then is Hare arguing that it does not represent peace or benevolence, confidence or justice? And about what? The Labour party? Modern Britain? Democracy? Or just the flawed character of Jones? You decide! It’s an excellent, thought-provoking play, produced at a most timely moment, and performed with great conviction. We saw it on its last day in Sheffield, but now it goes on to Norwich, Watford, Bristol, Cheltenham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Oxford, Kingston and Cambridge, before we see whether George’s fate presages that of Ed Miliband in May.

P.S. Pet hate time. Last day of the show and they had run out of programmes! As Mrs Chrisparkle pointed out, as I let out a disgruntled squawk, the usher who handed me a photocopied cast list beamed his most appeasing of smiles; but, for someone who’s kept all their programmes as far back as 1967, it’s a resource lost. I was tempted to rename the play The Absence of Programme, but that’s probably taking it a bit too far. Just one of my first world problems!

Review – Dick Whittington, Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 3rd January 2015

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Where do the years go? This was our fifth annual trip to Sheffield for a theatrical weekend over the Christmas period where we take in the Lyceum panto and the big show at the Crucible. Christmas really wouldn’t be Christmas without it. It’s a family occasion, so we brought Lady Duncansby and her butler William along for the ride.

The beautiful Lyceum theatre is looking even more spick and span since the last time we visited it, and is a credit to its city and local theatre trust. That whole theatre square, with the Crucible as well as the Lyceum, plus the Crucible Corner bar where you can mingle with the stars late into the night (as we did later on) always makes me feel as though I’m coming home, even though I’ve never lived in Sheffield. In fact my only connection with the place was, at the age of 19, going to a friend’s house in Hillsborough for dinner, only she didn’t realise you couldn’t cook a frozen chicken from scratch. After a long time of thawing it in sinks full of hot water, it was finally ready to eat at 3am. Not sure how I survived the experience.

Back to 2015, and after a tasty light lunch at the Museum (which is a pub, not a museum), it was time for Dick Whittington. Ever since she knew which panto we were going to see, Lady Duncansby’s not let up with her favourite line “half past seven and still no sign of Dick” (or variations on that theme). Who said panto is for kids? I guess someone must have, as there were plenty of them in the audience, but strangely, our row was almost entirely populated with Adults Who Should Know Better. At least we resisted the temptation to buy flashing wands and princess dresses.

As ever, the star of the show was Damian Williams – one wants to call him “Sheffield’s own” but he actually lives in Tilbury. This year he played Dolly the Cook. He really understands the over-the-top spirit of the pantomime dame – gutsy, inelegant, boisterous; breaking that fourth wall like there’s no tomorrow. In all my years of theatre going and seeing pantomime dames the only one I can recall who came even close to Mr Williams for rumbustiousness was Terry Scott. Mr Williams knows that he looks like a fool, and plays up to it massively. During the course of this show he had all sorts of outré outfits, including being dressed as an East Midlands Train (and saying “East Midlands Train” as often has he could, which was pretty often – kerching!) But his most memorable costume this year, for all the wrong reasons, was his skimpy bikini, a hilariously inappropriate feat of engineering created by Helga Wood.

All the usual scenes were there, including the patter running gag between Mr Williams and Andy Day as Captain Crabstick (cue for a pirate’s “Harr, harr” every time he appears), where they named as many towns and villages in the Sheffield area that they could in five minutes whilst holding up the appropriate road sign (that scene was a particular favourite of the chap who checked us in at the hotel later on). And it wouldn’t be a Sheffield panto without the world famous Lyceum bench scene that this time featured gorillas sneaking up behind the cast. We’ll have to do it again, then, won’t we!

A highlight this year was a particularly splendid villain in the form of John Barr as King Rat, a star struck scoundrel who peppers his wicked attempts to send a plague of rats to blight the kingdom with songs from the shows, much to the delighted booing of the entire theatre. Mr Barr ends the first half performing from one of the boxes, which meant that when we pottered out during the interval to retrieve our half-time bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, we, and a family full of little kids, bumped into him in the foyer. “BOOOOOO!!!!” the children all screamed at him. “But I’m really very nice” he mildly protested with a knowing glint in his eye. That’s the magic of theatre.

This year’s fairy was played by Samantha Womack, fresh from her tricky will she-won’t she die Eastenders Christmas special (or so I understand – Mrs Chrisparkle and I see far too much live stuff to have time for soaps). With a name like Fairy Bow-Bells, I was rather expecting a cor blimey sort of wood-nymph, all apples and pears and how’s your father; but in fact she was a rather prim and proper fairy, with nothing very Laandaan about her at all. To be honest we didn’t care much for her material where her rhymes didn’t rhyme because of north/south accents – when she turned on the northern accent to make the rhyme work it sounded patronising to me. Still what do I know? Reading through her bio in the programme, I’m always disappointed when someone airbrushes out of history the fact that they appeared in the Eurovision Song Contest. Representing your country not worthy of a mention, Samantha? We don’t forget your 1991 10th place with A Message To Your Heart that easily, Miss Janus.However, I was delighted to see one of my favourite actresses, Gemma Sutton, as Alice Fitzwarren, having seen her in the last twelve months in Chicago, Drunk, and Gypsy. I’m really not stalking her, honest. She played a very earnest Alice, but not without a twinkle of mischief, and of course she has a great singing voice. She and Jo Parsons (Dick Whittington) made a cute couple and will have beautiful babies together.

The rest of the cast are all excellent, with an entertaingly bumbling Alderman Fitzwarren played by Patrick Clancy, a neatly feline Tommy the Cat played by Craig Garner (whose meow, meow, meow, meow, meow’s were enunciated beautifully), an imposingly hunky Sultan in the form of Tramaine Wright and with lots of enjoyable singing and dancing from the ensemble. I’m not sure which team of kids we saw, but they were great –and the girls making Mr Williams work hard for his living in the sweetshop scene were really funny. As you might expect, given its popularity, this year there were a number of Frozen references – I’ve not seen it but I gather they were quite clever. There was a brilliant “dick” line – see Lady Duncansby’s penchant in paragraph 3 – but sadly I can’t quite bring it to mind. I did, however, like Dolly’s East Midlands Train (kerching) comment – “all aboard, Deauville for the Continent, Skegness for the Incontinent”;and any panto that makes a reference to Tinder can’t be all bad (“We met using an online dating site. Tinder? No Tesco. I got a bag for life”.

Next year Mr Williams is back – yet again – in Aladdin. These Sheffield pantomimes are consistently brilliant. Can’t wait!

Review – Translations, Brian Friel Season, Sheffield Crucible, 1st March 2014

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Mrs Chrisparkle and I had invited our friends Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters for a day’s immersion in the works of Brian Friel, courtesy of the Sheffield Theatres. We found ourselves licking our post Wonderful Tennessee wounds with a pre-theatre meal at Café Rouge. “This one should be much better” I ventured. “Translations is the play that really made his name”. They looked at me as if to say “we trusted you for the matinee. Why should we trust you for the evening?” But I was right. Translations is like the Eiffel Tower lit up on New Year’s Eve, in comparison to Wonderful Tennessee’s out-of-order Belisha Beacon. It was first produced by Friel’s own Field Day theatre company in 1980 with a cast including such worthies as Stephen Rea, Ray McAnally and Liam Neeson and is considered to be a modern classic.

We’re still in Friel’s fictional Ballybeg in County Donegal, and it’s 1833. We are introduced to a hedge-school where a cross-section of the locals come to improve their education; from the barely-able-to-speak Sarah to the Latin- and Greek-scholar Jimmy Jack, both young and old are welcome provided they pay their fees. Hugh, the teacher, is a pompous drunken Stentor who treats his lame son and assistant Manus like a skivvy; and Manus is in love with milkmaid Maire, although she is disappointed by his lack of ambition and assertiveness. Into this mix come representatives of the British Army in the form of Captain Lancey and Lieutenant Yolland who are to re-map the area and to anglicise the Gaelic place names at the same time – for consistency, you understand, of course. Yolland finds himself attracted to Maire, and from then on you sense it’s not going to end well.

But the great trick in this play is in the language. Most of the Irish don’t speak English and none of the English speak Gaelic. The whole text of the play is in English though – apart from the Latin and Greek quotations – so you have the situation where, for example, Yolland is fumbling through his tentative words of love to Maire and she is saying similar things back to him but neither of them are understanding each other – because they’re speaking different languages – although we the audience understand them fully. It’s a superb comic device but also emphasises the various difficulties there are with communication in general.

The language also becomes symbolic of power in the struggle between Irish independence and the British presence. Friel makes it clear that anglicising the old names is a form of violation, even though, ironically, it’s being carried out by the mildest and most romantic innocent in the form of Yolland. He is being assisted by Manus’ brother Owen, six years in Dublin and now a man about town, who becomes a kind of quisling figure. As further evidence of miscommunication between the two camps, Yolland constantly thinks Owen is called Roland – a name similar in spelling to his own; maybe this is symbolic of the British moulding the Irish into a replica of themselves (or maybe I’m reading too much into it). And there’s also a chilling lesson in army tactics, shown by the very polite way in which the British first start their work but then, when they perceive threat, as in the fate (whatever it is) that befalls Yolland, they become clinically aggressive and ruthless.

This is a super, lucid, simple production that allows Friel’s words and characters to flourish. Lucy Osborne has designed a useful clear space to allow for the maximum interaction between the characters which is the best way to use the wonderful Crucible stage – when it’s littered with furniture and scenery something of the magic can be lost in that theatre. The back wall just provides a door to the barn and upstairs leads to the living quarters, but that’s all hidden; all we see are the steps that Manus has to slowly and delicately negotiate every time he is at his father’s beck and call.

At the heart of the production is the very tender and gentle burgeoning relationship between Yolland and Maire. James Northcote is fantastic as Yolland, a well brought-up starry eyed young romantic, not only about Maire but about Ireland itself. Caught up in his own dilemma of having to do what the army requires but thoroughly disapproving of it, he reminded me of a young Nigel Havers, all clean-cut and noblesse oblige. There’s a wonderful scene where he tries to join in with some Irish dancing, occasionally getting it right but largely as confused as any Englishman would be trying to follow those steps. Beth Cooke’s Maire is a strong character who knows her own mind and is very no-nonsense with the under-achieving Manus (a delicately drawn performance by Ciarán O’Brien) but who reverts back to simple girlishness when confronted with what she considers to be the magical sound of Yolland’s voice. The two actors work together really well to create this brief but emotional moment of romance.

There’s also a fantastically quirky but never over-the-top performance by stalwart Niall Buggy as Hugh, the bellowing Magister. Of course the role is beautifully written by Friel, but Mr Buggy absolutely convinces you he is the epitome of classical schoolmaster from top to toe. I wonder if he ever met my old Latin master Mr Edge? He absolutely encapsulated everything about Mr Edge that I can remember, even his dismissive “too slow” whenever you were struggling to work out the right answer. In many respects Hugh ought to be some kind of bullying monster but actually you really feel quite a lot of affection for him. We also really enjoyed John Conroy as Jimmy Jack, beavering away with his Virgil or Homer, living a life devoted to dead languages but whose stories are as real to him as life itself; acclaimed as the Infant Prodigy in his youth but with nowhere to take that learning other than to carry on being the Infant Prodigy throughout the rest of his life.

Paul Cawley’s Captain Lancey is a figure of fun at first, with his faulting speech to the locals, talking to them as though they were idiot children, and then with his complex words translated by Owen in a very dismissive, abbreviated style. When he reappears at the end of the play he is on the warpath with his cold threats to obliterate the neighbourhood if the locals do not comply with his wishes. It’s a very chilling volte-face, and very effectively performed. Cian Barry is a smart and sophisticated Owen, enjoying his near-complicitous friendships with the English as evidence that he has “made it”. Hannah James-Scott and Rory Murphy give great support as the Friel equivalent of rude mechanicals Bridget and Doalty; and Roxanna Nic Liam is a touching, timid wallflower of a Sarah, who could have blossomed under Manus’ tuition but will doubtless revert to a life of silence.

A beautifully crafted play, given a top quality Sheffield treatment under James Grieve’s direction. It’s a moving look at a fascinating time in Ireland’s history, but what makes it special is that Friel has invested the story with some memorable characters and that it’s not just some dry and dusty old historical re-enactment. With its lightness of touch and its linguistic trickery, no wonder this play made his reputation. We were only grateful that we’d decided to see this in the evening and Wonderful Tennessee in the afternoon – the other way round would have been a serious downer.

Review – Wonderful Tennessee, Brian Friel Season, Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 1st March 2014

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Having enjoyed the Royal and Derngate’s production of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa last year, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discover more of his writing by making a trip up to Sheffield for their Brian Friel Season. Mrs Chrisparkle and I made a weekend of it and invited our friends Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters.

Wonderful Tennessee is a play that almost defies description. It’s a play with music – but distinctly not a musical. Its setting in the beautiful Lyceum Theatre, which I associate with the panto and the big touring shows, is maybe a little misplaced. It’s a very introverted play and would probably have suited the intimate and slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of the Crucible Studio better. When you enter the auditorium you are greeted by the view of the quayside of Ballybeg (Friel’s fictional town where the majority of his plays are set), nicely jutting out into the auditorium at a quirky angle so that they have to sacrifice the front three rows of seats. Ballybeg pier is so identical visually to the pier in last summer’s Cripple of Inishmaan that I had to check whether it’s the same designer. It isn’t. We’re lulled into a false sense of security with the traditional relaxing seaside sounds of seabirds and waves, which mentally prepares you for some romantic Erin idyll; but that’s not what the play delivers.

In a nutshell, three couples have come to Ballybeg armed with lavish picnic baskets and an accordion to celebrate the birthday of their apparently most successful member, turf accountant Terry; and it’s Terry’s wish that they all take a boat that will magically appear by virtue of Mr Carlin, local boatsman, to visit the mysterious island Draíochta for an overnight camp and then back to reality the next day. The next two hours are filled with the characters revealing that they are, on the whole, not as happy as they make out, as Friel gets them to tell stories, revive ancient rituals, and even re-enact some aspects of an unexplained murder that happened on the island in the past.

The whole production is littered with enough distancing effects to make Bertolt Brecht blush. Right at the very beginning of the play you hear the off-stage conversations of the arriving day-trippers as they make their way from their car, driven by Terry’s chauffeur Charlie, on to the quay. I wish I had timed how long it takes for members of the cast finally to appear on stage. That off-stage conversation went on and on and on. Not all the words were clearly audible, you could sometimes only get an impression of the kind of things they were saying. It was a remarkably effective distancing effect, so much so that when cast members did finally appear on stage I was already finding myself irked by the production.

The interspersing of the action with songs on the accordion is straight out of Mother Courage; and the songs themselves seem anachronistic. They’re the kind of songs your grandparents, or even their parents, might have sung. We don’t actually know when Wonderful Tennessee is set – it was originally produced in 1993, but was it meant to be contemporary? The murder on the island that appears to have taken place due to some religious frenzy is said to be in the 1930s, so, one assumes, it’s somewhere between the 30s and the 90s. “I want to be happy” and “Happy Days are Here Again”, both sung early on by Angela, are from the 1920s. Terry has a 1920s bottle of whiskey, the implication of which is that it’s probably expensive and has been maturing nicely for some time. On the other hand, Frank only wears Hawaii shirts which might suggest the 60s or 70s onwards, and Angela’s outfit is fairly hippy. So even the dating of the play is not straightforward, and makes it feel somehow even more elusive.

There are also many allusions to other plays and writers. Friel is a true Chekhov man; not only are his plays likened to Chekhov but he is also a significant translator of his work. We all felt that the island was the equivalent of the Three Sisters’ Moscow – life would be hugely better if you could get there but it just ain’t ever gonna happen. The unexpected savagery of the attack on Terry by his friends when they want him to leave his shirt behind reminded me of Lord of the Flies. Carlin, the ever absent boatsman for whom they wait and wait is a Godot character, and the rather pointless timewasting of the six characters has a lot of the Vladimir and Estragon about them. Interestingly, the play follows the classical unities, in that it all takes place in one location, all within the same 24 hours, all dealing with one theme – and any interesting activity takes place off stage and gets reported.

It’s a very static play – there is very little dramatic intensity on stage to nourish the audience. The characters occupy their own little bubbles and they slowly resituate themselves at the front or the back of the stage depending on whether or not they’ve got any lines to say. The only dramatic moments are the final few seconds of Act one and when everyone turns on Terry to rip his shirt off. And if you’re trying to identify exactly what aspect of the human condition Friel is trying to explain to us – well I’m not sure I can really help you. Our matinee audience was quite small and of our party only the Countess didn’t nod off. At one stage I noticed that the three people sitting separately in the row in front of us were all asleep. It’s that kind of play.

There are some very good performances – right from the start, I really enjoyed Cathy Belton as Berna, Terry’s mentally unstable and long suffering wife, quietly begging him to be released from the weekend of “fun”, and finding all the relentless attention of their friends and family excruciatingly painful. After she’s made her very dramatic point at the end of Act One, it’s as though she has finally committed an assertive act and she starts to blend in with everyone else. As she blends in, her husband Terry (Dermot Kerrigan) begins to become alienated, with his confession that he too is as much of a failure as the rest of them, and I enjoyed Mr Kerrigan’s portrayal of a character both bumptiously confident and privately vulnerable. Trish – Terry’s sister (I think – there’s something about the relationships within this play that doesn’t stick in your head) – is played disarmingly innocently by Melanie McHugh; part airhead, part savante; she can’t remember which county she’s in but she knows how many beans make five. Andrea Irvine makes an imposing Angela, loved by both her husband and Terry, all sweetness and light when it suits her and then laying down the law like the bossy teacher she probably is in the classroom. Jean-Paul van Cauwelaert (a veritable European Community of a name) nicely captures Frank’s well-meaning ineffectuality and Luke Carver Goss is a quietly dignified George, always ready to accompany the others on the accordion; vocally challenged through some unnamed medical condition that doesn’t look like it’s going to end well. When he wants to explode emotionally (like everyone else does eventually) he does it through the power of his instrument.

This really is a most strange play. Not without merits, and in many ways captivatingly fascinating, but it also deeply irritated me. The Brechtian devices work so well that it’s impossible to identify with the characters and therefore doesn’t satisfy at all on the emotional level. There are some puzzles there in the story that might stimulate you cerebrally but I came away from the play slightly resentful of it and distinctly exhausted by it.

PS At least Milord Liverpool was extremely pleased to bump into Miss McHugh later in the evening in the rather crowded Crucible Corner bar so he could tell her he really enjoyed her performance. Her look of total delight suggested that not many people might have said that yet.

Review – Oliver! Sheffield Crucible, 4th January 2014

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“Oliver!” is another of those shows that’s been with me since I was a kid, although mainly in the film version, until 10th November 1977 when the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle insisted I accompanied her to Cameron Mackintosh’s pre-West End production at the New Theatre Oxford starring Roy Hudd as Fagin. I remember him being pretty good in a funny, avuncular way. Looking over that old cast list, not many names stand out as being active today, although we did enjoy the performance of Marilyn Cutts, who played the Sowerberrys’ daughter Charlotte, in High Society last year.The late Michael Attwell was Bill Sikes, Mr Sowerberry was played by Graham Hamilton (Equity president 2008-2010); and I also remember Robert Bridges and Joan Turner being a formidable Mr Bumble and Widow Corney, alas neither of them are with us anymore. Many years later in 2009, Mrs Chrisparkle and I took our nieces Secret Agent Code November and Special Agent Code Sierra to see the Rowan Atkinson version at Drury Lane, primarily because we had all fallen in love with The Nation’s Nancy, Jodie Prenger. For Daniel Evans’ new production at the Crucible Theatre we were joined by Lady Duncansby and her butler William, who beat us all in terms of history with this show, having seen the original 1960 production in London, when he was but a mere trainee footman.

This show comes as a worthy successor to the previous fin d’année spectaculars we’ve seen at the Crucible, last year’s My Fair Lady and 2011’s Company. One of the most enjoyable aspects of My Fair Lady was Alistair David’s superb group choreography and once again his skill at filling the Crucible stage with a huge ensemble of cavorting street traders and urchins is used to magnificent effect. The big feel-good numbers work incredibly well, especially “Consider Yourself”, led by a fantastically confident Dodger (Jack Armstrong in our performance) and “Oom-Pah-Pah”, which allows the character of Nancy to shine like the happy carefree girl she ought to be.Oliver! is of course, one of the country’s (maybe the world’s?) favourite shows and every production seems to run and run; it’s as though we the public can’t get enough of it. But, like Chicago, I do have some reservations about the show as a whole. For me, the first act is almost entirely scene-setting and episodic, the pace and structure slightly ploddy. You go from the workhouse, to the undertakers, to Fagin’s den, but I never get a sense of genuine plot development. That’s not a criticism of this production – I blame Lionel Bart. The second act, however, feels completely different. The story really takes over and each scene or song seems to grow organically out of the scene before.

What makes this production stand out from the previous two I have seen, is the way it presents the genuine hardship and violence of the Oliver Twist story, and refrains from straying into loveable caricature. Sometimes I think Fagin can be portrayed like that – a villain, yes, but more sinned against than sinning, and with a heart of gold. Ron Moody, Roy Hudd, Rowan Atkinson are all thoroughly loveable performers. Tom Edden’s Fagin is very different from that, a very realistic creation; a manipulative, wheedling, sinister creature whose interest is pure self. You sense any affection he shows for the boys is just for profit, and his heart is made of stone.Mr Edden’s amazing ability for physical comedy, as shown supreme in One Man Two Guvnors, is still evident in this production but turned down a little to create a Fagin devoid of caricature. The highlight of Mr Edden’s performance is his performance of Reviewing the Situation; a showstopper combining comedy and egoism in equal measure.

But the most hard-hitting realistic presentation comes in the form of Hayley Gallivan’s Nancy, the tragedy victim supreme, singing a song of love and loyalty about Bill Sikes whilst still wiping the blood away from her mouth where he has socked her one. There’s nothing sentimental or sympathetic about this relationship; and when he finally murders her (sorry if that spoils it for you) it’s simply the inevitable outcome of domestic violence – not so much a horrific shock, more a blessed relief.Miss Gallivan gives a stunning performance (two in fact) of As Long As He Needs Me which absolutely raises the roof, and which contrasts beautifully with her enjoyably light-hearted Oom-Pah-Pah. Ben Richards’ Bill Sikes is a terrifyingly dark demon; quietly vicious, intimidatingly overbearing, totally pathological. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr Richards on stage before, and I understand this is something of an unusual role for him. Well, he’s very convincing!

There are a couple of excellent partnerships – David Phipps-Davis and Rebecca Lock make a wonderfully squabbling Bumble and Corney, and their disintegrating relationship in Act Two is extremely funny to watch. They are both in very fine voice and sing “Oliver” with suitable vindictiveness. We loved the selfish and insensitive way Miss Lock sat on the recently deceased Old Sally; just one sit-down speaks volumes about the character. Equally fun are Chris Vincent and Liza Sadovy (brilliant in Alice in Wonderland a couple of years ago) as the ghoulish Mr and Mrs Sowerberry, Mr Vincent in particular conveying a really creepy demeanour, with a pallid face that looks like it’s never been within a mile of a vein. Their lovey-dovey routine provides a briliant comic juxtaposition with their ghostly otherworldliness.Andrew Bryant is an amusingly phlegmatic scouser Noah Claypole, and Bob Harms (superb in the Menier’s Pippin) is a cynically dour Dr Grimwig. The ensemble, who are bright and energetic and revel in inhabiting their various characters, include A Chorus Line’s Georgie Ashford and Barnum’s James O’Connell, both of whom are surely destined for Much Greater Things.

But Oliver! wouldn’t be Oliver! without a pure, vulnerable Oliver, and we certainly had one of these in the form of Jack Skilbeck-Dunn. Not knowing that asking for more was asking for trouble, and too honest to pick a pocket perfectly, he is the embodiment of innocence and sings like a dream. The whole staging of “Who Will Buy”, with his clear, optimistic voice and the wonderful accompaniment of the street traders, was sheer theatrical magic. The other workhouse and gang children are all incredibly gifted and blend seamlessly with the adult cast members, which must be an amazing feat of both rehearsal and performance. I don’t know if we saw the Red Team or the Blue Team, but the tall chap who played Charlie was full of attitude, and the two smallest boys in Fagin’s gang, dancing arm in arm, had us all in hysterics – hats off to you lads!

This is a really enjoyable production, with some great performances, lively choreography, a super band and a timeless story, all blended together with Daniel Evans’ master touch. Another triumph at the Crucible!

PS. Not sure what happened to Bullseye, but Daisy, Lola and Patches (as credited in the programme) must all have been washing their hair that night.

PPS. What do you do when you cast boys in a musical, they suddenly turn into men before your very eyes and their voices break? I think they got round it very nicely in this performance.

PPPS. Apparently it’s only Oliver! (the musical) if you put an exclamation mark after it. Otherwise it’s just a first name. Who knew?

Review – Jack and the Beanstalk, Lyceum Theatre Sheffield, 4th January 2014

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Another of our now regular yuletide practices is to pay a visit to Sheffield on the first Saturday of January to see the Lyceum panto at the matinee, and whatever spectacular is on at the Crucible in the evening; and each year it continues to pay dividends. I have a very soft spot for Jack and the Beanstalk as it was the first pantomime I ever saw; January 1st 1969 at the London Palladium, aged 8. I’d seen a few amateur plays at the local memorial hall but this was not only my first panto but also my first visit to a London theatre. Since then, I think it’s safe to say, I haven’t looked back.Jack was Jimmy Tarbuck; the Dame was Arthur Askey; and like all those late 60s/early 70s Palladium pantos there were Charlie Cairoli and Company (who I loved), Ivor Emmanuel, and host of other variety acts interspersed. I remember very clearly that the opening song was the villagers singing Manfred Mann’s “My Name is Jack”, which introduced Jimmy Tarbuck as being the chief of the wayward boys and girls who lived in the Greta Garbo home – Google the lyrics if that doesn’t make any sense to you. I think I was so ecstatic at being there that the memory is imprinted on my brain. Funny how something simple like that can stay with you for a lifetime.

The Palladium panto was always a stylish, flashy, music- and dancing-packed affair, with the latest in technological elements (such as they were then). The recently finished Derngate panto, Sleeping Beauty, was very much in that vein. Then there is another kind of panto, where 3D effects and big star names take a back seat, and the show relies more on traditional routines, and a funny script, and the annual Sheffield panto is a perfect example. For Jack in the Beanstalk, Sheffield’s favourite Damian Williams returned for his sixth consecutive panto season, and he’s already signed up for Dick Whittington this December. Why break a winning run? You’ve never seen an audience so happy to welcome back an old favourite, and Mr Williams absolutely knows how to keep the crowd in a constant state of laughter. He’s also really gifted at appealing to the adults too, with a quick witted turn of phrase that might occasionally befuddle the kids but will have all the grown-ups guffawing. And he knows that sacrificing one’s personal dignity is all part of the game – for which much thanks, if only for his phenomenal appearance as Miley Cyrus with her wrecking ball. Just brilliant! As long as Mr Williams keeps coming back to Sheffield, so will we.

Jack was played by Ian H Watkins, or H from Steps as he’s better known; cue lots of gags about how brilliant S Club 7 were. Messrs Watkins and Williams had a good double act going, where both would readily step out of character and be themselves defending their careers. They used the pop music theme for the annual patter gag scene – this year it was the names of groups and singers all strung together to make a story, and very clever and funny it was too. Sarah Earnshaw was the Vegetable Fairy, who spoke in rhyming couplets that were actually witty, had some good comic accents and I for one was very happy to give her a big cheer every time she appeared. Andrew Fettes was the Giant’s villainous sidekick Hefferflumphenstein, whose running gag about how his name should be pronounced was used perhaps a couple of times too many; but he was suitably wicked and it was very kind of him to allow us to call him Shorty.

Madeleine Leslay was a very pure and pretty Princess Tamara; cue for a sequence of puns with “tomorrow” that we were encouraged to count out as the show progressed. I bumped into her (literally) in the Crucible Corner bar later that evening and just managed to stop myself from saying, “sorry Princess”; which would have been quite embarrassing. There was a nice twist that whenever anyone talked about infiltrating the Giant’s lair at the top of the Beanstalk, it was to save Molly the Cow and the Lyceum bench (more of which shortly) rather than the Princess, whom they kept on forgetting. Pete Dunwell was a larger than life King Eric, a buffoon who assists the Dame in mixing the ingredients to make ice-cream and literally uses his head, as the Dame suggested. Cue for a tarpaulin on the stage to catch all the slimy goo so we can quickly move on to the next scene. The talented ensemble of six singing and dancing adult boys and girls gave great support and added a little eye-candy to the proceedings together with some good hearted fun. And we all went crazy with the peas; soft green balls that we all had to throw at the stage when the Fairy said we could to help beat the Giant.I managed to get hold of one chucking pea, but the little lad next to me didn’t get one, so I selflessly let him have my pea. He was thrilled; but he was useless at throwing it. Never mind, we still defeated the Giant. The band were great as usual, under the direction of Andy Booth, and the junior ensemble were very well schooled and fun to watch.

A couple of years ago, it seemed like every panto we saw was blighted by that wretched dog Churchill going “oh yes” or “oh no”, presumably as a sop to the insurance company that was sponsoring the show. This year at Sheffield we had Molly the Cow. Now, of course, the cow is an intrinsic part of the show. Jack thinks he’s getting a big bag of gold in return for her but he is duped by the wicked Hefferflumphenstein and only gets a handful of beans; and of course the pantomime cow is sister to the pantomime horse (so to speak),and so definitely has her place in the show. But I did think they overplayed the association of Molly the Cow with Sheffield Theatres’ interval ice-cream of choice, Our Cow Molly. Having said that, I loved Mr Williams saying that if your parents don’t buy you an ice-cream in the interval, that is a proven fact that they don’t love you. I hope no one took it seriously! Similarly, the constant references to the Lyceum Theatre bench, which is also captured by the Giant, actually meant that when the bench scene finally takes place (“it’s behind you”) I thought it slightly lost its usual impact. I think it’s funnier with ghosties than with zombies. Nevertheless, that bench had better still be there next year!

Those are very minor quibbles by the way. It’s an extremely fun, fast-paced and entertaining panto, and we’ll definitely be back for Dick Whittington!

Review – This Is My Family, Studio at the Crucible, Sheffield, 13th July 2013

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The last time we saw Calendar Girls (the play), I didn’t like it much. I liked the film and the original stage production at Chichester a lot, but by the time it had toured and toured and toured it had got a bit tired. However, fresh as a daisy and brightly emotional comes a new work from the pen of Tim Firth, This Is My Family – a rather pedestrian title for an intricately woven little musical of a “typical” family – bonkers Grandma, well-meaning and inept dad, overworked mum, promiscuous auntie, Goth teenage son, cheeky teenage daughter. It’s full of charm, comic insights and affectionate characterisation.

The whole story is seen from the point of view of Nicky, the aforementioned cheeky daughter, who successfully enters a competition to win a family holiday anywhere in the world. Whilst everyone else finds it hard enough just to get through a normal day, Nicky imagines all sorts of holiday scenarios in every continent, but, being a typical 13 year old, ends up opting for the only place she can think of that the rest of the family will like – a place her parents used to take them when they were younger, and which she knew had a special meaning to them. However, when they get there it’s not quite as they remember it! It’s become a hideous campsite in a godforsaken corner of England where they “enjoy” typical English weather and arguments and bickerings ensue. But despite everything, the holiday brings the family together in a way that none of them could have foreseen. I won’t tell you how; suffice it to say that the second act is at times extremely moving and very tender – enough to bring a tiny tear to Mrs Chrisparkle’s eye.

It’s a very effective set; the Studio doesn’t have a huge acting space, but this tall, shallow backdrop against one wall depicts the many rooms of a busy cluttered house, enabling scenes to take place in different rooms whilst not encroaching on the main acting area. The small band led by Caroline Humphris whack out some engaging tunes and quite complex musical sequences too where all the cast sing some multipart harmonies immensely skilfully.

The strength of the show is in its structure. On the one hand, it’s instantly appealing as we all recognise the characters. Even if you don’t personally have one of those six types in your family (and I bet you do), you will still personally know someone closely who fills the bill. The underlying message of the show is that there is nothing new under the sun. As the holiday develops, we realise that Steve and Yvonne had precisely the same kind of ritualistic communion experience that they have scorned Matt for (a Druidic wedding to the unseen Rachel), and that May and her “Ralphie” also had some similar arrangement long in the past. Each generation, whether they realise it or not, becomes the blueprint for the next generation, and if the current family is a bunch of crazies, no doubt so were the forebears. When Matt decides to keep the letter Steve wrote to Yvonne as a teenager, you can see that the future generations are likely to continue that family tradition. It’s a real affirmation of love.

At the heart of the show is a great performance from Evelyn Hoskins as Nicky, a cheerful, precocious but never caricatured portrayal of a young teenage girl with lots to look forward to. She has a great stage presence, a charming voice and is, in the words of T S Eliot, “the still point in the turning world” (I don’t think I have yet recovered from seeing Cats last week). Alongside her is another excellent performance from Terence Keeley as her older brother Matt, who has the mumbling speech of a disrespectful teenager to a tee, is a frankly terrifying Goth, is very convincing in striding the gap between being a stupid boy and nearly a man; and who absolutely comes into his own at the end as he matures into a proper university student. He has a great singing voice, terrific comic timing and I think he could become A Name To Watch For.

Bill Champion plays Steve, the much criticised, helpful and wannabe practical dad who is never happier than when making things, despite a total lack of skill, and much to the dismay of his family. Their lives are littered with the evidence of his hopeless attempts – an old bath becomes a spa, night vision head torches are constructed out of old bike lamps; fortunately, Matt puts his foot down early enough to prevent Steve from destroying his new university rooms. It’s a great performance of humour tinged with some pathos. Clare Burt makes an excellent Yvonne, the mother torn between practicality and romantic ideals, and Rachel Lumberg, last seen here in the Full Monty, gives a brilliantly funny performance as Yvonne’s slightly more wayward sister with a new man for every occasion.

Last, and certainly not least, comes a superbly controlled performance from Sian Phillips as May, Steve’s mother, which shows a decline into dementia in a most affectionate and gentle way. Losses of memory, misunderstandings and the occasionally bizarre act are contrasted with some insightful speeches of great wit and understanding too. I’ve seen Sian Phillips in many productions over the years (going back to Pal Joey in 1980) and she still has a marvellous presence and gives a great performance. She hasn’t lost her singing voice either.

It’s a reflective, feel good show, which can make you both laugh and cry, and you certainly come away from the theatre feeling a little bit wiser about what makes us all tick. It really ought to have a life after this short Sheffield run!

Review – The History Boys, Sheffield Crucible, 8th June 2013

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Here’s another play that most people know something about but which Mrs Chrisparkle and I had never seen; and the film passed us by as well. The National Theatre’s original production in 2004 had tremendous reviews and a rather brilliant cast, by the sound of it; but I’m delighted to say that the recent revival by Michael Longhurst at the Sheffield Crucible, the last night of which we saw on Saturday, also has a brilliant cast and was a very enjoyable, although not quite flawless, production.

A simple set greets you on entering the auditorium – the floor of a school gym, that slightly uncared for parquet flooring that I remember all too clearly, and with sketchy well-worn sports court tramlines painted on top. That gym floor has the power to bring back all one’s own school memories in an instant. Scary! The school staffroom, and the movable glass encased pod that becomes the Headmaster’s Office, get wheeled on and off the stage along with school desks and chairs in a sometimes frenzied manner by the boys en masse, acting as scene setters whilst apparently doing sports training or performing one of the musical numbers that the eccentric teacher Hector has taught them. These scene changes work incredibly well; they help the show proceed with great pace and it maintains the humour even whilst we are waiting for the next bit to continue.

Whilst it is all very inventive and clever though, the staging is a problem from time to time. Sometimes the shape of the Crucible stage can really work against the audience. Much as when we saw Macbeth last year, depending on where you sit, some important scenes can get masked, and important character reactions can become invisible. From my seat (B16), whoever was sitting opposite the headmaster in his office was completely obstructed by the glass edged corner frame. Admittedly, the door was left open, and the reflection of the person could be seen in the door, but I didn’t feel that made up for the poor sight. The setting of the classroom scenes were rotated so that everyone got a different view in each scene, which sounds fair; but whenever a teacher had their back to you, it was a) hard to hear what they said, and b) impossible to see or hear the actor who was facing the teacher. I heard other people grumbling about that on the way out of the auditorium. That always makes me very frustrated – when you’re centre of Row B, you really ought to have a great view!

Whilst I’m on the subject of frustration, I was also very disappointed to discover that they had run out of programmes for the final performance. To someone like me, who has kept all their programmes (and ticket stubs) going back to 1968, who likes to read the programme from cover to cover, including the bios of the cast and creative team, and who refers back to them on and off throughout the years to see the photos of the cast, and of the rehearsals (they’re often in programmes nowadays), I found the lack of a programme a slight mental barrier to bonding with the production. It also means I can’t illustrate this blog with photos from the programme – instead I have borrowed some photos from the Internet. I hope you don’t mind.

I was, however, very impressed with the play itself. Funny, sad, taking very believable characters and making them just slightly larger than life; dealing with big questions about the nature of education and trust, and that sometimes perilous interaction between virtually adult pupils and teachers. It’s full of accurate, instantly recognisable characterisation: everyone knows a teacher like Hector, who believes in education for life rather than exams; everyone knew a boy like Dakin, more sexually precocious than is good for him; everyone knows an administrator like Headmaster Felix, keener on statistics than real life and only happy when he can label and categorise people and events.

Matthew Kelly gives a very entertaining performance as Hector, profoundly useless at preparing the boys for Oxbridge but creating a bond with them in an appreciation of everything that nourishes the heart, mind and spirit. Hector and the boys are a team; he’s the leader but he also allows himself to be dominated by the team dynamic if he sees fit. Hector comes across as both the stereotypical “tweedy jacket with elbow patch” teacher, and the surprisingly leather clad rebel on his motor bike, looking for a likely lad pillion rider for thrills and a grope on the way home. It’s a fascinating character because he’s human, he’s far from being 100% good; and you ask yourself the question, how much bad behaviour are you prepared to tolerate from one person for the greater good? The play’s answer is, quite a lot. If you’re familiar with your 1970s British drama, I’d say Hector makes a very interesting comparison with David Mercer’s unorthodox and unpredictable vicar, Ossian Flint. Anyway, Matthew Kelly gives a great performance of schoolmasterly bluster, kindly counsellor, personal rage and emotional outpourings.

It’s an excellent contrast with the cool and reserved performance of Edwin Thomas as Irwin, the graduate new recruit brought in to sharpen the boys’ brains for the rigours of applying for Oxford and Cambridge. As Irwin attempts to break into the Hector/Boys club, it becomes a very interesting study of what happens when an outsider interrupts a cosy set up. Loyalties are tested, judgements called into question. The play’s two acts both begin at a later moment in time, when Irwin, now a presenter of History TV programmes, is filming an episode which will be interrupted by one of the boys. Irwin’s perhaps unsurprising bitterness is clearly revealed in a very effective use of dramatic irony, and I thought Mr Thomas’ performance here became disquietingly sinister. Brilliantly done.

I very much enjoyed Nicholas Day’s performance as the Headmaster, clearly intellectually outsmarted by his colleagues but secure in his power of status and seniority. Alan Bennett gives the character some of the best lines in the play and he makes the great use of them. Julia St John as Mrs Lintott, the third teacher, also gives an excellent performance, treading a sensible path between the extremes of the others and amusingly giving voice to Bennett’s subversion of the rules by virtually coming out of character to revel in the fact that she’s the only woman in the play. Great use of shock language! I was reminded of the character of Maria Feletti in “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” turning on the writer, Dario Fo, for his sexism in making her the only woman in his play. I also loved the scene where the three teachers coach each of the pupils on how to be interviewed for Oxbridge. It’s a hoot, and really heightens the differences between the characters.

There are superb individual performances too from the actors playing the boys. Both Mrs C and I agreed that Oliver Coopersmith as Posner was outstanding. In Posner’s own words, being small, Jewish, homosexual and from Sheffield notwithstanding, he gives a superbly subtle performance of being discriminated against and vulnerable but also incredibly defiant and unsentimental. His singing was immaculate, and his comic timing fantastic. I also really liked Tom Rhys Harries – who gave great support in the Menier’s Torch Song Trilogy last year – as Dakin, the good-looking popular boy on a mission to spread the boundaries of sex as much as he can dare; a really confident and insightful performance. Joshua Miles, brilliant in Bully Boy, here plays the outspoken Lockwood, again excellent, although I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see more of him as it isn’t really a major part. Will Featherstone’s Scripps was another no-nonsense portrayal of a character who knows he’s going to have to make lots of sacrifices in his life, a surprisingly moving and very believable performance. The rest of the cast give solid gold support and in particular the eight actors who play the boys put in an amazing overall ensemble performance – you can see that they’ve got a fantastic working relationship and it gives tremendous drive to the whole production. Thought provoking, funny, and very satisfying – this was an excellent revival and I’m glad we got the chance to see it.