Getting Wood

TALENT

New Vic Theatre, Newcastle under Lyme, Saturday 28^th May, 2016

 

This production of Victoria Wood’s 1978 play could not be more timely.  Planned before the playwright’s surprising and early death, it now serves as a testament to her brilliance – there is an inevitable memorial air to proceedings, but not in a dour or overt way.  The writer seems very much present; this was an early piece but the style is there: the one-liners, the bathos, the pop culture references (Norman Vaughan, anyone?) along with the witty songs, wherein pain is dressed up in clever rhymes and namedropping of high street brands.

As Maureen, Claire Greenway channels Wood at the paino.  Without attempting an impression, she evokes Wood’s delivery, the timing, the smiles, the eye rolls, while delivering the lyrics as well as Wood’s ornate accompaniments.  I could listen to this all day – but there is much more to the show.

Maureen is accompanying, in a non-musical sense, her friend Julie (Tala Gouveia) to a talent contest in a seedy club.  We go backstage with them to watch Julie prepare, which involves knocking back the Babychams, chain-smoking, and peeing in a hat.  Gouveia is marvellous – her comic timing is spot on, but there is also vulnerability there: her phone call to her no-good boyfriend perhaps reveals more to us than it does to her, and when her history comes to light with club organist Mel (Adam Buchanan), we learn why she wants to escape what her life has become.  Her chance to grasp fame is a way out.  But, not really.

Buchanan is great in his double roles as Mel and the sleazy Compere.  This is the 1970s and sexual harassment is as easy to come by as a raspberry Mivvi.  Mirroring the two women is a double act of male friends, George and Arthur.  George (Brendan Charleson) is an object study in old-school clubland entertainment, in his green jacket and Tony Curtis haircut gone white.  He styles himself as a ‘comedy magician’ and has enlisted as his lovely assistant, Arthur (the sublime Andrew Pollard).  The pair treat us to some vaudeville shenanigans, singing and dancing and some conjuring tricks with scarves and flowers.  It’s a joy to behold them.

The play’s darker side – the exploitation of women in showbiz – is present beneath the surface.  Wood makes her point subtly – above all, she wants to give us a good time.  Which she does, in spades, and it feels like one last time.  The final number has a Sondheimesque feel as, paraphrasing Cabaret, it urges us not to be alone in our rooms but to get out there and enjoy what life has to offer.

An immaculate production, a bittersweet experience, and a fitting tribute to one of this country’s greatest comedy talents, Talent reminds us what we have lost and how lucky we were to have her at all.

Claire Greenway and Tala Gouveia (Photo: Andrew Billington)

Talking Shop

DIANA OF DOBSON’S

New Vic Theatre, Saturday 7^th May, 2016

 

Written in 1908 by Cicely Hamilton, this forward-thinking piece is given a lively revival by the team at the New Vic.  It begins in the dormitory of Dobson’s store, where the shop girls are getting ready for bed.  One of them, the rebellious Diana (Mariam Haque) decries their lot and the starvation wages they are forced to accept.  She’s a firebrand and ahead of her time.  But then she gets news of a surprise inheritance – things turn a bit Spend, Spend, Spend when she decides to blow the lot during a month of living entirely for pleasure.   She winds up at a posh hotel in Switzerland where she is accepted among the toffs, as long as she gives the impression that there is plenty of moolah in her coffers.

With music hall songs interpolated between scenes, Abbey Wright’s likable production creates an Edwardian feel – not least due to Lis Evans’s design work with costume and set.  There is a chirpiness that runs through the show – from Rosie Abraham’s perky Miss Jay, to Kate Cook’s bright-eyed and grasping Mrs Cantelupe.  It has an authentic feel – the songs really help convey the sense of period.  I particularly enjoyed Brendan Charleson’s nouveau riche Jabez, Anne Lacey’s Mrs Whyte-Frazer (along with a couple of other roles that demonstrate versatility) and the sterling support from Susannah Van Den Berg, Ceri-Lyn Cissone and Claire Greenway.  Adam Buchanan shines as well-to-do wastrel Victor, who learns what is truly valuable in this life, and the superlative Andrew Pollard shows us all how it’s done with a delicious song to close the first half, a kind of Sweet Transvestite meets The Lumberjack Song, through the prism of the Edwardian Music Hall.  Absolutely delightful.  Pollard also displays his strengths as a character actor with a warm portrayal of a bobby on the beat.

Unfortunately, the fun and engagement engendered by the songs is not always present in the action.  I find myself interested in the social commentary and the politics rather than affected by Diana’s exploits or her plight.  I think it’s because the leading lady sounds like she comes from another time – she’s a bit too 21^st century in her tone and plays it all on the same level.  A bit more light and shade, and a bit more sparkle and pluck might make us fall in love with her a little bit.  Instead, I find I just don’t care.

Yes, the play still – unfortunately – has much to say to us today in these times of the so-called living wage and the slavery of ‘work fare’ but what I come away from it with is an admiration for the ensemble and a rekindled appreciation of the songs of the day.

Rosie Abraham (left) and Mariam Haque (centre)