Wasted Talent

WITHNAIL AND I

The REP, Birmingham, Tuesday 14^th May 2024

Bruce Robinson’s film from 1987, which he wrote and directed, quite rightfully became a cult classic, with its depiction of decadence and squalor at the end of the 1960s.  Now, Robinson adapts his own screenplay for the stage, bringing to my mind two initial questions: Will the fans be satisfied?  Will newcomers get it?

First and foremost, I want to declare my undying (and unrequited) love and adoration of Robert Sheehan, one of the most exciting actors of his generation.  Here he takes on the named title role, the part originally created by Richard E Grant.  It’s a big coat to fill.  Sheehan doesn’t even attempt to give us a Richard E Grant impersonation.  What would be the point of that, other than to reduce the enterprise to play-acting?  Sheehan adopts the plummy tones and his delivery of those famous lines of dialogue have his own rhythm and emphasis.  Being on stage rather than on screen, the performance by necessity has to be larger.  Sheehan’s Withnail struts and frets his hour upon the stage, throwing himself around with verve and gusto, posturing for the gods.

This heightened performance style permeates the whole show.  The eccentric characters come across as crazier.  The absurdity of their behaviour is amplified.  Withnail and fellow out-of-work actor ‘I’ (named Marwood in the script but never in the dialogue) played by an excellent Adonis Siddique, share the grottiest of flats in Camden Town.  All around them is being demolished, which is symbolic of the end of an era but also foreshadows the coming end of their association.

There is more of Beckett to their domestic scenes than The Odd Couple.  Unlike Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, our pair of protagonists actually make a move to escape their situation by venturing to a holiday cottage in Penrith.

Siddique is the most ‘normal’ one we encounter, addressing us with moments of poetic narration – even while he’s pissing in a pub urinal.  Through I’s eyes we meet Withnail’s Uncle Monty (a marvellously camp Malcolm Sinclair) a hammy old poove with designs on his nephew’s attractive companion.  There is spaced-out drug dealer and conspiracy theorist Danny (Adam Young) and an imposing but silent figure, Presuming Ed (Israel J Frederick) who makes a strong and hilarious impression in his brief appearance.

Fleshing out the company are Morgan Philpott, Matt Devitt, Adam Sopp, and Sooz Kempner, each playing a variety of roles and, crucially, forming the live band that plays hits from the period during scene transitions, with Kempner’s searing vocals a big hit of the night.

Director Sean Foley keeps the action flowing, not seamlessly but the music keeps us in the zone while various pieces of furniture glide on and off the stage.  A swordfight is wonderfully overacted as the two friends demonstrate stage combat skills they must have acquired at drama school.  There is a comedy cat and a comedy chicken.   And when the iconic car, a Silver Wraith I believe, makes its first appearance, it elicits as warm a welcome to the stage as any of the characters.  Monty’s presentation as a predatory homosexual is as outdated as smoking in pubs, but we laugh along, possibly  because he’s so bad at it.

Yes, it’s an extremely funny show, played to the hilt by all and sundry.  The film has been described as the funniest tragedy ever made, and the same description is true of the play.  It is Withnail’s tragedy that he has wrecked his life with alcohol and substance abuse, born from the frustration of not being able to reach his potential.  When (spoiler) I gets an acting job and leaves, Withnail, alone in the rain, recites “I have of late…” from Hamlet.  Yes, he’s drunk, but even so, it’s a powerful and moving demonstration of talent gone to waste.  So many talented people wind up the same way, and that’s the same today as it was in 1969 and 1987.

Fans of the film will be more than satisfied and newcomers will enjoy the elan of the histrionics on display.  Bruce Robinson has enhanced what makes the film so enjoyable.

And the candle I hold for Mr Sheehan burns on undimmed.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Road to ruin: Adonis Siddique and Robert Sheehan (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

Stars and Strips

GYPSY

Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, Sunday 12^th May 2024

They’re an ambitious lot at the Crescent.  I’ll say that in their favour from the off.  Now they’re tackling this mammoth of a musical, which brings its own challenges: the many locations, the large cast of characters, and the musical numbers.

Ostensibly the origin story of burlesque star, Gypsy Rose Lee, it’s really the story of her mother, the formidable Rose, the epitome of pushy stage moms.  Rose provides the backbone and the heart of the show, so you really need someone with irresistible stage presence for so colossal a role.  This production is lucky to boast such a performer in the form of Kimberley Maynard, who encapsulates Rose’s skewed maternal instincts, her bossiness, her drive and her delusions.  With vaudeville dying on its arse all around her, Rose insists on keeping her dream alive: making one of her daughters a star, while the other, neglected, performs as a boy backing dancer.  She drags her exploited troupe across the States, seeking that one gig that will make daughter June a star.

In the first half, it’s Maynard’s energy that keeps things afloat.  She is supported by a capable ensemble but, for some reason, the action seems undercooked.  Perhaps it’s something that a couple more rehearsals might have ironed out. 

Not that we’re short of things to enjoy.  Annabelle Hodgetts is spot on as Baby June.  Pink, perky, precocious and patriotic, she squeaks and high kicks her way through a cringeworthy routine.  The young boys singing and dancing also do a bang-up job.  And the moment when time passes, via stroboscopic effect, is beautifully done, amping up the theatricality of the production.

Slightly older actors take over the roles of Rose’s troupe, whom she continues to infantilise and forces them to perform the same tired routine.  Here, more needs to be made of the awfulness of their act: the top hat falling off, the cane being dropped… So that when the characters perform numbers outside their routine, they don’t come off so pedestrian.

Energy levels pick up after the interval.  The boys have quit and so Rose has a new gaggle of girls.  Their rendition of the act, inexplicably Spanish-flavoured, is hilariously (intentionally) poor.  The character of neglected daughter Louise comes to the fore after June (a marvellous Ava Bryan) quits – she can’t stay nine years old forever.  As Louise, Joanne Brookes is marvellous, going from unconfident chorine to assured and assertive stripper – all in the best possible taste!  Louise is the only character with a definable arc; Rose never changes, which is her tragic flaw.  Other characters, including a likeable Paul Forrest as Herbie, their long-suffering agent, just have their fill of Rose and leave.

The girls wind up in a burlesque theatre, where they encounter three veteran strippers, Elektra (Bev Heynes), Mazeppa (Michael Redican), and Tessie Tura (Amanda Nickless).  The trio perform a comic number about the various gimmicks they use to differentiate their acts.  They’re game old birds, I’ll give them that!

The score (by Jule Styne) is beautifully played by a splendid band under the baton of Chris Arnold.   The dramatic scenes in Arthur Laurents’s book are handled well; director Kevin Middleton is particularly strong with the more domestic scenes.  While Dean James’s choreography is appropriate for the period and the genre, again there are moments where it seems undercooked.  Rose, during the showstopper Everything’s Coming Up Roses, should either be given less or more to do.  Maynard sells the number with emotive power but seems unsure where to put herself.

Of course, this being The Crescent, the costume team have gone all out, and everyone looks fabulous, within context. The changes of locations are indicated by captions on TV screens flanking the pros arch.  These are so subtle as to be unobtrusive, but perhaps a more theatrical, more period method could be used, like the manner in which distance is shown during the car journey: railway station signs wheeled across the stage or something, I don’t know, do I?

For me, it’s a treat to hear the music, and Stephen Sondheim’s marvellous lyrics.  There are some stand-out performances but on the whole it’s like more has been bitten off than can be chewed.

☆ ☆ ☆

Paul Forrest, Kimberley Maynard, and Joanne Brookes (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)

Wit to Woo

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Thursday 25^th April 2024

Three men and a King pledge to devote the next three years of their lives to study, abstinence and celibacy.  Of course, as soon as the oath is signed, along come four beauties on a diplomatic mission.  Each of the men starts writing love notes and poems to one of the beauties, behind his confederates’ backs…

One of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, it brims with elements he was to refine in later works: letters going astray, loves adopting disguise… Leading the cast is Luke Thompson as prototype Benedick, Berowne, leaving behind the country estates of Bridgerton in favour of a tropical resort hotel that wouldn’t look out of place in White Lotus.  Thompson is very good, showing off the character’s wit and, if you can’t keep up, he takes his shirt off a couple of times to keep you interested.  Believe me, I’m not complaining.

As his friends and pledge-mates, we have Eric Stroud as Longaville, Brandon Bassir as Dumaine, and Abiola Owokoniran as Ferdinand.  There is little, textually, to differentiate these characters and so it’s all done by physical appearance: a skinny one, a short one, and so on.  But at least Ferdinand can switch on a regal air when required, to show he’s not just one of the lads.

Similarly with the female four: it’s their physical appearance that distinguishes them.  They are led by Melanie-Joyce Bermudez as the Princess (see above note about Ferdinand), Joanna Kimbook as Rosaline, Amy Griffiths as Katherine, and Sarita Gabony as Maria.  Of course, the women outsmart the men at every turn to humorous effect, but most of the comedy comes from the exotic Don Armado (Jack Bardoe), a ridiculous figure with a ridiculous accent, and from Nathan Foad’s camp Costard.  Tony Gardner adds pomposity and additional verbosity as the boorish Holofernes, and Jordan Metcalfe busies about as a somewhat nerdish Boyet.

Yes, it’s a very ‘witty’ play.  Perhaps young Shakespeare was seeking to dazzle his contemporaries with his intricate word play, puns zinging like fireworks.  Without Cliff’s Notes, it’s unlikely anyone will get all the puns and references, and so director Emily Burns imbues the production with oodles of physical comedy and comic business.  It works: we laugh throughout, enjoying our time at this resort.  The cast punctuate Will’s dialogue with present-day asides.  Purists may bristle, but let them.

The Nine Worthies presentation, by Costard and other serving staff, is chaotic and hilarious. The heckling from the courtiers is ahead of the similar scene in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I wonder it Shakespeare is not just parodying masque entertainment but also holding up the bad behaviour of his supposed betters in the audience.

Famously, the play reaches its resolution with the arrival of a new character.  Not a deus ex machina in this instance, but rather a spanner in the works.  The couples’ courting is interrupted when the Princess receives sad news from home and has to plan her immediate return.  This leads to speculation that there’s a sequel, Love’s Labour’s Won, but I don’t think there needs to be.  I prefer to speculate that the fledgling playwright was seeking to subvert the genre.  Rather than giving the happy rom-com ending we’d all expect, surprise!  Guess what!  Tragic occurrences can come along and upset your apple cart at any moment.  This gives the piece depth.  Or perhaps that’s just my take.

(Unfortunately, during this matinee performance someone’s phone started ringing just as the sad news was announced.  Well, that happens, and it’s usually no more than a few seconds of annoyance.  But this culprit let it ring for at least five minutes, two rows in front of me so I couldn’t reach to strangle them.  The ushers were too slow to pounce, and so the powerful, emotional ending was somewhat ruined for me.  A surprise ending I didn’t see coming!)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

View from the Bridgerton: Luke Thompson (shirt-on version)

Photo: Johan Persson (c) RSC

Canvas Opinions

ART

Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Wednesday 24^th April 2024

Prior to tonight, I had seen three professional productions of this play and loved each one.  The pressure is well and truly on then for the Bear Pit company to match if not surpass the high bar set by the likes of the League of Gentlemen, Richard “JohnBoy” Thomas, and even Nigel Havers.

French playwright Yasmina Raza’s masterpiece first appeared thirty years ago and still has the power to amuse and illuminate.  Serge, one of three middle-aged friends spends €100,000 on a painting, a 4’ x 5’ canvas painted white.  He shows it first to one friend (Marc) who derides it immediately, and then to Yvan, who sits on the fence.

The painting is a trigger for the flaws in the friendship.  Niggles, peeves and objections all come out, as the men tear into each other, bickering, kvetching and hurling hurtful insults as only good friends can.  Long held resentments cut deep.

The genius of Raza is that she gets the men bang to rights.  Their inability to say what they feel, their attempts to intellectualise their emotional responses.  It’s a wonderful piece of writing that is well served by Christopher Hampton’s masterly translation.

All three players are in excellent form.  Christopher Dobson’s brittle, prissy and waspish Marc; Richard Sandle-Keynes’s excitable and conciliatory Yvan; and Roger Ganner’s sarcastic and reserved Serge.  They all give as good as they get and each of them is at ease addressing the audience in sporadic asides.

Sandle-Keynes delivers a show stopping monologue, ranting about wedding invitations, that has to be heard to be believed.  Ganner shows that despite Serge’s maturity and aesthetic outlook, he can be as petty and childish as the other two.  Dobson has never been better than he is here.

Director Lynda Lewis navigates the dynamics of the trio, keeping the outbursts far from one-note, knowing when to keep things fast-paced and when to give the action time to breathe.

It’s a bitterly funny show with the odd moment that pricks your tear ducts.  It’s simply presented on a mainly white set with black details (like the cushions on the sofa) but clearly, relationships are never black and white.

It’s also profound, not just in its depiction of male friendship, where actions work better than words, but also in its affirmation of modern art, which can be so self-referential the lay observer can find it inaccessible.  “A man moves across a space and disappears,” Marc at last comes to understand the white canvas, the art of painting, and the human condition all at once.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Roger Ganner, Richard Sandle-Keynes and Christopher Dobson (Photo: Chris J Clarke)

Christ on a Mic

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

Birmingham Hippodrome, Monday 22^nd April 2024

The partnership of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber created their best work together.  Only their second work, Superstar is still rocking out over fifty years on.  Controversial when it first appeared, the show deals with the last week of Jesus’s life, mostly from the point of view of Judas (perhaps the most wronged man in history!)

This current production, originating from the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, has come indoors, and I wonder if it’s a little cramped.  Director Timothy Sheader stages the story as a rock concert, with the principal characters using handheld microphones, picked out by tightly focussed spotlights.  It’s a sung-through musical, so why not?  Well, it can detract from a sense of place, causing Rice’s lyrics to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to who is saying (singing) what to whom and where.  It’s a good job the story is rather well known!

That said, the singing is utterly magnificent.  Shem Omari James (Judas) has a voice that pierces and soars, powerfully and emotionally, giving the most impassioned performance of the night.  Louise Francis’s Mary the sex worker gets all the sweetest melodies, but I find her phrasing a little too rubato at times.  Other standouts are Jad Habchi whose wonderfully deep voice reminds us this is a rock opera, after all, and Matt Bateman’s Annas, the perfect foil for Habchi’s basso profundo.   Ryan O’Donnell’s Pilate, Luke Street as Simon, and Timo Tatzber as Herod all get their moments to shine.  Herod is the comic relief of the piece; Tatzber brings a sense of danger to this traditionally camp number.

In the title role, Ian McIntosh has an impressive range, even though Jesus isn’t as well-written as Judas.  McIntosh delivers both status and humanity – the show emphasises Jesus’s human nature, regardless of any other attributes he may have possessed.  Perhaps it’s just me but I prefer my Jesuses long-haired.  This one is a bit too clean-cut.

Some of the ideas work brilliantly: the ceremonial staffs of the Jewish priests flip around to become mic stands.  A cross-shaped rostrum foreshadows Jesus’s fate but also represents a crossroads on which the characters stand.  Events could have taken a different turn had other paths been chosen.  A mic drop is emblematic of Judas’s suicide by hanging… Other ideas baffle: the merchants in the temple are carrying illuminated crucifixes for no apparent reason.

Drew McOnie’s choreography brings 1970s moves up to date.  The ensemble, more urban than hippie, are angsty and expressive – my one note is there’s perhaps too much of it.  They dance and they dance and they dance, making for a very busy stage.  We can have too much of a good thing. Perhaps there was more room for it outdoors.

There are moments when the juxtaposition of images and music can be jarring.  Simon skips across the stage, singing about being terrorised.  When Jesus receives forty lashes, glitter showers everywhere.  Thus the violence is glamourised, which might be a comment on how Christians regard the suffering of their martyr – but I don’t want to dwell on such things here.  The show is best enjoyed if you don’t regard it as a religious tract.  It’s a story of how we build up individuals only to tear them down.  We see it in celebrity culture all the time, how the mob (these days, usually on the internet) can turn against someone they once supported and venerated.  Secular meaning is still meaning.

Wonderfully sung, with excellent musical accompaniment under the baton of musical director Michael Riley, this is a banquet for the ears, with the occasional treat for the eyes (a nod to Da Vinci’s Last Supper is remarkably realised).  Come for the voices, come for the tunes, and you’ll have a great time, but be prepared for a sobering ending that is visually and emotionally powerful.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Forever tainted by silver, Judas regrets his actions. Shem Omari James is pure gold.

An Ice Time

Disney FROST – Musikalen

Det Norske Teatret, Oslo, Lørdag 20 Avril 2024

 

Disney’s big hit animated feature, Frozen, got the Broadway treatment a few years ago, because of course it did.  Now it appears in Norway in this new production and it seems fitting for a story set in the fictional Norwegian kingdom of Arendelle.  Appropriate rather than appropriation.

It’s the story of two sisters, the elder of whom becomes Queen after their parents are lost in a shipwreck.  The trouble is the new ruler has the power to conjure and control ice.  Branded a monster, she is chased from the city.  Her emotional state plunges the realm into a seemingly endless winter.  It falls to the younger sister to venture across the frozen landscape to break the spell and bring her sister home.

Yes, it’s based on (or rather, suggested by) Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen but it has been Disneyfied almost out of recognition by scriptwriter Jennifer Lee.

Leading the cast as the two sisters are Mimmi Tamba as Elsa and Ina Svenningdal as Anna.  Tamba convinces as the troubled young woman, with snowflakes appearing as she winds her hands.  The practical effects in this show are impressive, with windows blowing open and scenery cracking apart, but never more so than in Elsa’s transformation scene in a reveal that would gag many a drag queen.  Tamba’s real special power lies in her voice.  A highlight is when she belts out hit song Let It Go (Det må ut!) Never mind all the wintry weather, this is what gives me the shivers.

Ina Svenningdal’s Anna is the backbone of the show, providing most of the humour and the heart, with a touch of Dawn French in her delivery and demeanour.  We take to her at once.

Then along comes Olaf, the living snowman in the form of an ingenious puppet operated and voiced by the marvellous Mathias Augustad Ambjør.  Even though the facial features are fixed, Ambjør renders the little snowman as expressive as his human counterparts.  When things are reaching crisis point and Olaf literally goes to pieces, I am surprised by the emotional impact this moment has.

Also in fine voice is Espen Bråten Kristofferson as dashing Prince Hans, and Hans Magnus Hilderhavn Rye as Kristoffer.  Kaia Varjord is mutely and amusingly expressive as Kristoffer’s reindeer sidekick Svein.

Director Gísli Örn Gudnason delivers the magic of the story, successfully translated from the animated to the theatrical.  Yes, there’s a corporate feel to the production but this version has a distinctly Norwegian flavour.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Make it snow, Queen! Mimmi Tamba as Elsa

Alt kan kjøpes

BESØK AV GAMMEL DAME

NationalTheatret, Oslo, Fredag 19 Avril 2024

 

When the richest woman in the world returns to her home town to save it from economic ruin, there is more than philanthropy in play.  Clara Zachanassian has a cheque book in her purse and a fistful of revenge where her heart should be.  She will donate a humongous sum of money on the proviso that someone kills the childhood sweetheart who abandoned her to face pregnancy alone.  The man in question is now a respected shopkeeper with a wife and grownup daughter.  At first, the Mayor rejects the offer outright but before long everyone is buying things on credit and all of a sudden everyone is toting firearms…

Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1950s play is translated from the original German by Øyvind Beg.  The adaptation, directed by Sigrid Strøm Reibo, feels very much like an Emma Rice production (and that’s a big compliment, by the way) with its onstage musicians underscoring the action, the heightened playing, the stylisation — even the scaffolding seems familiar. 

The music is superbly atmospheric.  Composer Synnøve Gustavsen Ovrid also leads the band.

It’s a dark fable and, while entertaining, the style of presentation invites us to think about the quandary, the immoral dilemma at the heart of the story.

As Clara, Jan Sælid (yes, a man!) brings much more to the role than looking like Elon Musk in quick drag.  Despite her physical frailties (among them two false legs and a prosthetic hand!) Sælid brings out her strength of character, her power and status, her faded beauty, her pride, her bitterness, her pain, and her cruelty.  It’s a powerful performance that rightly dominates proceedings.

Clara arrives in town by rising from the orchestra pit and leaves by sinking back into it.  The suggestion is she has come from Hell (not the Norwegian town) to bring this diabolical deal.  I am reminded of the vengeful ghost from Don Giovanni come to collect his murderer.

Ola G Furuseth brings a voice of reason as the potential victim, Alfred, keeping his head while all around him are losing theirs.  There is a touch of Peter Cushing to this silver fox.  Silje Lundblad’s Mayor is a woman under pressure.  Lundblad keeps the Mayor’s humanity to the fore but also demonstrates neat comedic stylings, for example at a press conference.  Leo Magnus de la Nuez is a skilled physical comedian, making the sounds of and evoking the trains that go by, and later, with his trousers down.

Also good value are Trond Høvik as the doctor and Øystein Roger as the priest.  Helene Naustdal Bergsholm goes positively deranged as the teacher.  There are gasps in the auditorium when she gets her hands on a knife…

There are absurd elements too, not least the two blind eunuchs, Koby and Loby ( Lasse Lindtner and Eindride Eidsvold)  In fact, everyone is in great form, singly and together.  The action scenes and comic business are well handled but we never lose sight of the darkness at the heart of the situation.  The action builds to a stark and sobering resolution — before a gaudy curtain call of glittering bad taste!

Its an engaging and provocative piece, entertainingly presented.  The inevitability of human fallibility mixed with the manipulation of the masses by a sociopathic billionaire is all too pertinent.  That is our tragedy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

  Can’t buy me love: Jan Sælid sitting pretty as Clara Zachanassian (Photo: Erika Hebbert)

Hairy Moments

BLUE BEARD

The REP, Birmingham, Wednesday 17^thApril 2024

Emma Rice is one of theatre’s most distinctive directors, with a style of her own she honed during her years with Kneehigh Theatre and now continues to  apply to her work with new company Wise Children.  All the hallmarks of an Emma Rice production are here: the live music underscoring the action, the use of archetypes, the humour, the original songs, the stylised physicality…

It’s the famous story of the new bride who can’t resist her blue-bearded husband’s forbidden room, in which she discovers the dismembered corpses of his former spouses.  Rice concentrates on the women.  We convene with some kind of religious order at the Convent of the Three Fs, where the women wear shapeless dresses, cover their heads with woolly beanies, and sport white-framed sunglasses.  Their identities are concealed.  They are any woman.  They are every woman. 

A handsome young lad arrives, asking for help.  The women set about him like Bacchae until Mother Superior intervenes.  This fierce little woman narrates the main story, encouraging the boy to share his as a subplot.  His story is of a big sister and a little brother.  After a stilted start, he learns to mimic the Mother Superior’s mythic style of storytelling.

It’s a thoroughly absorbing piece: funny, surprising, horrifying and ultimately moving.  The Emma Rice style enables the story to breathe, rather than suffocating it.  Form and content are perfectly blended.

As Mother Superior, Katy Owen is a fiercely funny MC before the shows blistering final moments.  Adam Mirsky is endearing as the Lost Brother, squabbling with Mirabelle Gremaud as his Lost Sister.  Gremaud also appears as Blue Beard’s glamorous assistant, performing a most flexible display!

In the title role, Tristan Sturrock is debonair and flamboyant, commanding and seductive.  Blue Beard is an accomplished stage magician and the volunteer he slices in half (Robyn Sinclair’s Lucky) becomes his latest wife/victim.  Sinclair, along with Stephanie Hockley as sister Trouble, are a lot of fun, their movements punctuated by jazzy dance moves.  Their mother, Treasure, a widow, is played with elegance and humour by Patrycja Kujawska – who also plays a mean violin.  The cast augment the musicians when not in a scene, with Hockley’s featured number being a definite highlight in a show bristling with splendid songs.

The play covers a lot of ground: why are women attracted to bad men?  And domestic abuse.  And, crucially, why can’t women walk home alone?  The bad men of our world aren’t debonair and dashing, with blue beards as red flags.  They aren’t castled psychopaths amassing corpses.  They wear ordinary clothes. They are opportunists and narcissists and they are not marked out by brightly coloured facial hair.  They could be anyone.

A great deal of fun, an absorbing piece of storytelling that delivers an emotional body blow and an all-too pertinent message, this is Emma Rice back on form.  She makes us fall in love with theatre all over again.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Mirabelle Gremaud bending over backwards to please Tristan Sturrock. Photo: Steve Tanner

Cast Adrift

THE DRIFTERS GIRL

Birmingham Hippodrome, Tuesday 16^th April 2024

The Drifters were responsible for some of the timeless classics of the 60s and 70s, but what you may not know is that their line-up changed so much and so often, the recording studio may as well have had a revolving door, with changes of personnel on a scale rivalled only by the Sugababes.  Much is made of a comparison with the New York Yankees: the players may change, but there’ll only be one Yankees.  This got me thinking about the old philosophical puzzle, the one about the ship of Theseus, every bit of which was replaced over the years, so is it still the same ship?…

With such a fast turnaround, there are too many members of the group to focus on their individual stories.  Instead the show centres around Faye Treadwell, their manager, who narrates the story to her daughter, known only as ‘Girl’.  I guess we’re not meant to get emotionally involved with her, nor, as it turns out, with anyone else.

The cast of six play all the characters: band members, executives, hotel and bar staff… With the band members, it’s hard to keep track of who’s whom.  The smaller roles, like backing dancers, are depicted as crude stereotypes, which adds to the humour of the piece but reinforces the notion that women aren’t meant to be taken seriously.

As Faye Treadwell, Carly Mercedes Dyer is fierce and formidable from the get-go.  You wouldn’t want to mess with her.  Trouble is, she’s like that all the way through.  In the acting parts, her performance is decidedly one note.  Which can’t be said for the singing.  What a voice!  When widowed, Mrs Treadwell belts out a searing number.  It’s incredible.  But in a musical about a musical group, one wonders why the character with arguably the strongest voice isn’t a recording artist!  It would make more sense within the world of the musical, if the performing was restricted to the band members.

The quartet who portray the Drifters contain multitudes.  Daniel Haswell, Tarik Frimpong, Ashford Campbell, and Miles Anthony Daley populate the stage with a host of characters, and the singing is never short of impeccable.  It’s also delightful to see them in their matching suits doing all the moves.  Take That could never.

What lets the piece down is the drama.  Or rather the lack of it.  Tension never really ignites.  Each scene results in damp squib after damp squib.

“Rudy, you’re late for rehearsal.”

“Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“Oh, Rudy’s dead.”

And

“Oh no, we have to go to court.”

“We won!”

Events are skipped over.  We’re never sure what year it is.  Even the racism faced by the group on both sides of the Atlantic, although cleverly presented, is shrugged off.  The upshot is, despite some snappy dialogue, I don’t engage with the characters.  I just want to hear the next song.  Luckily, the hits keep coming.

The script only glances at issues that would put meat on the bones of the slender story.  The racism.  The chauvinism.  The misogynoir – especially when only last week, some racist morons chucked their toys from their prams at the casting of a black woman as Juliet in an upcoming West End production.

Beautiful singing, great songs, slick moves, and stylish presentation aren’t enough to keep my attention from drifting.  They’d be better off ditching the script and becoming a tribute act.

☆ ☆

Miles Anthony Daley, Tarik Frimpong, Ashford Campbell, Tré Copeland-Williams as The Drifters
©The Other Richard

Stranger Flings

LOVE FROM A STRANGER

Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, Saturday 13^th April 2024

Written by Frank Vosper in 1936, based on a short story from 1924 by Agatha Christie, this is not so much a whodunit as a who’s-gonna-get-it, as the identity of the murderer is hinted at almost from the start.  It’s the story of Cecily who, having won much more than a lucky dip on the lottery, finally believes she can have some independence at last.  Which involves pleading with her fiancé Nigel for a postponement of their nuptials.  Nigel won’t play ball and their relationship flounders.  Along comes Bruce, tall, blond and handsome, to rent Cecily’s London flat, and it’s goodbye to Nigel and ‘I do’ to Bruce.  The couple move to a remote country cottage and cracks begin to show… Is the whirlwind romance nothing more than a fling? What is Bruce hiding?

Director Rod Natkiel and voice coach Michael Barry have clearly worked hard to train the cast in RP.  They all sound so teddibly posh, it’s like listening to a radio drama from the 30s.  Together with Poppy Chalmers’s judicious choices of period furniture (most of it brown), the period is convincingly conjured.

Helena Lima combines determination with vulnerability as heroine Cecily.  Her slight stature and elegant manner conceal grit and backbone.  Savannah Gallo is so good she could have time-travelled from the past to deliver her spot-on evocation of a post-flapper era young woman about town.

Alex Morey-Wiseman warms into his role as charming chancer Bruce, his obviously dyed barnet and the vagaries of his action clues to Bruce’s true nature.  Alexander Pendleton’s Nigel is an intense and volatile chap, so much so we begin to wonder if we’ve backed the wrong horse…

There is strong support from Kaitlyn Elward as rough-and-ready Ethel, the housemaid, and Crescent stalwart Brian Wilson as village doctor Gribble.  The production also boasts a couple of jewels of character acting: Julie Lloyd’s snobby Auntie Loulou and Michael Barry’s Hodgson the gardener.  These two add most of the comedy to the piece and maintain our enjoyment levels as the slow burning plot lays its clues and sows the seeds for the explosion of tension in its final act.

And there’s the rub.  It’s such a slow burner, a couple of times I think the fuse has gone out.  It’s beautifully played and presented but the story is not meaty enough to fill the running time.  Yes, Christie surprises us with plot twists, revealing darker aspects of the human psyche.  Even seemingly respectable upper middle-class people have their dark sides.  The original short story is neat and clever, winding its tension tautly.  Vosper fleshes out the action to fill the running time, and its clearly spread too thin.  How do you cut something so intricately constructed?  Which pieces of the jigsaw puzzle do you take away without ruining the finished picture?  I suppose in this day and age we’re simply more accustomed to thrillers that rattle along at a faster pace.

The gorgeous production values of the Crescent and the superb playing of the ensemble (with special mention of Lloyd and Barry) keep us engaged and entertained.  It just takes its time to reach its explosive resolution.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Helena Lima’s Cecily falling for the charms of Alex Morley-Wiseman’s Bruce (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)