Ocean of Emotion

SOUTH PACIFIC

The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Wednesday 28^th August, 2022

The Chichester Festival Theatre production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic comes to town and it’s an absolute must-see.  The score reads like a Greatest Hits playlist.  So many great numbers, many of which have become standards.  Hearing them within the context of the drama renews their impact.

Set in World War II on an island outpost where the US Navy is itching for conflict with the Japanese, this is at heart a double love story, where both relationships are blighted by ingrained prejudice.  We have firecracker hick Nellie Forbush falling for the urbane and educated plantation owner Emile de Becque, and handsome young lieutenant Joe Cable having his head turned by Liat, the beautiful daughter of camp follower Bloody Mary.  Joe feels unable to marry the girl because of the way things are ‘back home’; Nellie is horrified to discover the late mother of Emile’s kids was, gulp, coloured.  The revelation of Nellie’s racism comes as a real kicker at the end of Act One.  This lively, perky girl, the life and soul of any gathering, who has entertained us and earned our affection is tainted by one of the most stupid attitudes going.  It’s a real blow, like finding out someone you otherwise admire votes Tory.

Sad to say, the show’s message is just as relevant today.  Cable’s song, You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught gets to the root of a problem that still plagues society today.

As the suave Emile, Julian Ovenden oozes romance.  Some Enchanted Evening has never sounded lovelier or more seductive.  Gina Beck’s Nellie is irresistible, funny and perky, with her heart on her sleeve, her vocals both belting and nuanced.  Rob Houchen’s Cable is spot on: the handsome young officer, dutiful and yet in love.  Houchen’s voice is surely the finest working in musical theatre today.  Sublime.

Joanna Ampil’s Bloody Mary brings plenty of comic relief, as does Douggie McMeekin’s Luther Billis.  Ampil’s impassioned pleas to Cable to give her daughter a better life are heart-breaking, and her rendition of Bali Ha’i is bewitching.

The big chorus numbers are stirring: There is Nothing Like a Dame, by the men, and I’m Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair, by the women.  This production goes all out to deliver the goods.  Ann Yee’s choreography, especially for the marines, is energetic, hoe-down like without being camp, and there are plenty of exotic touches to evoke the island setting.

Romantic, thrilling and humorous, with a strong social comment, South Pacific reasserts itself as a pinnacle of musical theatre in this magnificent production that hits all the right notes, musically and emotionally.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Cable guy Rob Houchen and hair-washer Gina Beck (Photo: Johan Persson)

Absent Friends

MY NIGHT WITH REG

Apollo Theatre, LONDON, Saturday 24^th January, 2015

 

Before Russell T Davies brought thitherto unseen aspects of gay life to the TV screen with the ground-breaking series Queer As Folk, Kevin Elyot wrote this acerbic comedy of manners that must have in some way blazed a trail for Davies to follow.

On the surface, it’s a conventional three-act play but it’s the content that marks Reg out as something new. The characters are gay men of different types gathering for a dinner party in the London flat of mild-mannered loner Guy – this disparate bunch is united by the threat to their way of life that first reared its hideous head in the early 1980s: the spectre at this feast is AIDS, which like an invisible villain, does away with people they know.

It turns out that the characters have something else in common. The eponymous but never seen Reg has touched a lot of… hearts, shall we say.

Secrets come to the fore, relationships come under strain and lives are changed forever, in Elyot’s snappy and witty script where the one-liners come thick and fast, so to speak.

As loner Guy, Jonathan Broadbent cuts a sympathetic figure, consumed by his unspoken, unrequited love for John – a dashing Julian Ovenden, who captures the character’s shallow vanity and selfishness perfectly. But even John has his secrets and passions.

Geoffrey Streatfield’s Daniel is the campest of the lot. His caustic humour barely masks his torment and vulnerability in a striking performance, but it is the arse-achingly boring Bernie (Richard Cant) who touches the heart with his brittle insecurity.

Matt Bardock (formerly behind the wheel of an ambulance in Casualty) is bus driver Benny, a refreshingly blokey note of contrast among these sensitive flowers, like a house brick in a bouquet of roses.

Lewis Reeves is appealing as young ingénue Eric from Birmingham, embarking on his big gay adventure.

All in all, they’re an amusing bunch and director Robert Hastie manages the changes in tone superbly – we’re never far away from a moment of anguish or high drama, and just as close to the next expertly timed wisecrack.  The characters continue to skate on thin ice while cracks appear beneath them and people disappear.

Now something of a period piece, My Night With Reg is worth seeing for more than its significance in theatre history and its depiction of gay lives on stage. It remains an entertaining and relevant piece (AIDS hasn’t gone away, boys and girls) with its tenderness, humanity and bittersweet world-view still intact.

Julian Ovendon and Geoffrey Streatfield

Pan handling

FINDING NEVERLAND
Curve, Leicester, Wednesday 3rd October, 2012

This brand spanking new musical, fresh out of the box for its world premiere performance, tells the story of playwright J M Barrie and the events that led him to create one of the most enduring stories in popular fiction.
A shipload of money had been spent to bring this show to the stage. Production values are higher than the second star to the right. A lot of money and the latest technology to create a show that looks, sounds and feels old-fashioned – and I mean that in a good way.

From the beginning we are pulled into a world of storybook illustrations from the beginning of the 20th Century. It occurred to me – and it’s not an original thought – that the musical is a fantastical form to begin with – the conventions of bursting into song, of scenery gliding in and out – the characters are already in an enchanted world. So, when we enter the world of J M Barrie’s imagination, things had better be pretty spectacular or we won’t notice the difference.

Spectacular is only the half of it. There is a pirate ship that sails onto the stage to close the first act, that is absolutely beautiful. In fact, Scott Pask’s scenic design and Paul Wills’s costumes are superb, and the video projections by Jon Driscoll and Gemma Carrington enhance the action rather than distracting from it.

The songs (by Michael Korie and Scott Frankel) reminded me of Robert & Richard Sherman, the brothers who wrote so many wonderful hits for Disney: “When You Believe It” has more than a touch of Mary Poppins about it, and I was also reminded of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang several times before Barrie acquires his first automobile. In context and as a whole, the score is perfectly charming and the lyrics witty and character-revealing, but I wonder if any of the numbers will emerge as stand-alone hits. A musical needs at least one hit song.

The cast is perfect. Julian Ovenden is in fine voice as the naive Barrie, whose imagination is ignited when he meets the Llewellyn-Davies boys in Kensington Park. He strikes up a friendship with their mother, Sylvia (Rosalie Craig – who, like La Traviata, is able to belt out a good refrain while dangerously ill); the four boys are splendid. Harry Polden’s Peter is confident and touching, but all four of them strike the correct balance of charm and amusement.

Rob Ashford’s direction keeps us on the right side of sentimentality, bringing together technical elements and actors’ performances to create a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears. For me the stand-out moment is a Jekyll and Hyde confrontation between Barrie and his darkest creation, Captain Hook (a delicious performance by Oliver Boot). They sing a duet and engage in swordplay in the perfect fusion of the real and the imaginary. It’s a glamorisation of what goes on in a writer’s mind, but brings some verve and vigour to the second act. As Tinkerbell is in the ascendancy, poor Sylvia’s light is dimming. Barrie’s marriage to Mary falls apart (Clare Foster is excellent as the long-suffering wife and music hall star). But while all this happening, something wonderful is being born.

It’s a long time before we see Peter Pan – there’s a pared-down synopsis of the play – and throughout the piece I was wondering if we would see any flying… Of course, we do – I won’t say when it happens but when it does, it’s exactly right.

It’s a dazzling, lavish production, amusing, touching and technically impressive. J M Barrie, presented here as a man-child who never grew up, not only creates his greatest work but also finds emotional fulfilment, a Lost Boy no more.

Judging from the way this Pan is handled, I’d say producer Harvey Weinstein has found gold.