Dress To Impress

THE BOY IN THE DRESS

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Monday 16^th December 2019

 

I have seen quite a few stage adaptations of David Walliams’s bestselling children’s books, ranging from rather good to brilliant.  This musical one, with script by Mark Ravenhill, lyrics by Guy Chambers, and music by none other than Robbie Williams, is the RSC’s bid to match the success of its Roald Dahl-meets-Tim-Minchin megahit, Matilda (which is still running in the West End a decade later).

This is the story of Dennis Sims, who feels different in a world of ordinary people.  His mum has walked out, leaving Dennis with his older brother John, and their Dad, who can’t cope, handle emotion, or serve proper meals.  Everything changes when Dennis is irresistibly drawn to a copy of Vogue magazine at the local newsagent’s; he teams up with local stunner Lisa James and before long he’s venturing out, dragged up as a French exchange student, complete with wig, beret, and a gorgeous orange sequinned dress.  Controversy is not far behind, jeopardising Dennis’s education and (seemingly more importantly) his place on the football team.

Playing Dennis tonight is the stunningly magnificent Oliver Crouch, who sings like an angel (not a cue for an old Robbie track), shows impressive range as an actor (I’m in tears ten minutes in) and whose dancing would have the Strictly judges adding extra zeroes to their ’10’ paddles.  Honestly, I have never seen a better performance from a child star, and Crouch continues to amaze as the show goes on.  A stellar, heartfelt and funny performance.  He will knock your frocks off.

The second time I well up with tears is when Dennis puts on the orange dress for the first time.  It is a moment of revelation, transformation and self-acceptance, building to an all-out discoball drag number that is absolutely joyous.

Rufus Hound pitches the depressed Dad perfectly – the third time the tears are wrung from me is his eventual acceptance of his remarkable son.  Natasha Lewis is an absolute hoot as Darvesh’s embarrassing mother, and Irvine Iqbal is a real treat as newsagent Raj (a character who features in every David Walliams book I’ve come across).  Max Gill’s Big Mac is a study in infatuated schoolboy nervousness, while Alfie Jukes finds a balance between oafishness and affection as Dennis’s big brother John.  Asha Banks shines as schoolgirl stunna Lisa James, and the mighty Forbes Masson storms it as the gleefully hateful headmaster Mr Hawtrey (the characters share surnames with Carry On actors).

The score is marvellous, catchy and tuneful, and is Williams’s best work.  Take that, Gary Barlow!  Ravenhill’s adaptation brings the book to life, with tweaks rather than changes, adding topical references to update the action to today.  Robert Jones’s design maintains a colour palette restricted to mainly greys and blues (so that Dennis’s orange dress really ‘pops’) and the set consists of movable houses that open up to provide interiors, wheeled around by the cast.  Gregory Doran’s direction delivers all the emotion and humour of the story – the football matches, for example, are inventively and hilariously staged.

It’s a joy from start to finish, tickling your funny bone and tugging at your heartstrings, and it makes me think how bloody daft it is that we impose gender norms on the way people dress.  “Everyone should be able to wear what they want,” asserts Lisa James.  You go, girl!

A great story, brilliantly presented, that looks like it could match Matilda for longevity – it certainly deserves too.  And Oliver Crouch must have a glittering career ahead of him, and I don’t necessarily mean on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Masterful: Forbes Masson as Mr Hawtrey. Photo by Manuel Harlan (c) RSC copyright

 

 

A Revealing Drama

THE FULL MONTY

Birmingham Hippodrome, Tuesday 26^th February, 2013

Writer Simon Beaufoy adapts his own screenplay from the much-loved film for this touring stage production – a play, unlike the musical version of a few years ago, which transplanted the action to the USA.  The good news is this adaptation brings the story back to Sheffield and works brilliantly.  Playing to a packed house, the story is something of a period piece but I was struck by how pertinent it is to today’s economic woes.

Driven by necessity to stealing girders from the factory in which they used to work, the men of Sheffield hit upon the idea of forming a male strip troupe for a one-night only, get cash quick, performance, that will ease their situation and lift them (albeit temporarily) out of the mire.

The premise immediately taps into a rich vein of humour but also a richer vein of pathos.  What the film did, and what the play does, is give dignity to the jobless by emphasising their humanity.  They are not just statistics, or the ‘undeserving poor’ – these are individuals each with his own story.  In Thatcher’s Britain, the unemployed were perhaps more visible than they are nowadays in the land of Cameron and Clegg.  These days, they are hidden in fudged figures and online job-seeking.  These days they are clumped together as scroungers and shirkers, vilified and demonised.  This play reminds us the unemployed have skills, feelings and aspirations.  I found it very apposite.  Members of the misguided Cabinet should be made to watch this show until they get the point.

Led by Gaz, the group of men stumble their way through rehearsals, in hilarious bouts of physical comedy.  None of them are Chippendales material, but that is entirely the point.  They are bloke-shaped blokes, willing to objectify themselves from economic necessity, in circumstances that were not of their making.  It all builds to the performance itself and the final reveal.  Backlighting protects the actors’ modesty, but that final moment of triumph when the characters go the full monty is uplifting in its symbolism.  We are men, the gesture asserts, here we are.  In their northern dialect, one might say “Ecky homo!”

The cast is excellent.   Kenny Doughty’s Gaz is the Jack-the-lad figure, desperate to retain access to his son (a very strong Jay Olpin).  Roger Morlidge is Dave, the biggest bloke on a diet of cream crackers.  He’s a gentle giant and his scenes with wife Jean (a superb Rachel Lumberg) are among the most touching moments.  Craig Gazey is weirdo Lomper, displaying perfect comic timing.  Simon Rouse is effective as ex-foreman Gerald who comes to learn that even people who don’t attend the Conservative club, and yes, even his own wife, have more to them than he at first supposes.   Sidney Cole brings dignity as well as broad comedy to his role as a man called Horse, and Kieran O’Brien brings confidence as cocky Guy – if I can use that epithet!

Robert Jones’s design keeps the architecture of the disused factory present throughout.  Its girders and corrugated iron haunt the men’s lives wherever they go.  Director Daniel Evans handles the changes in tone and the action expertly.  I suspect that a large contingent in the audience come to see some grown men take off their clothes rather than a play about grown men who take off their clothes.  There’s a difference in perception there but the drama wins out.  When the men achieve their aim, reclaiming their masculinity, we cheer their endeavour and their success rather than the actual stripping.   I’d like to think that’s the case, anyway.  And any anti-Thatcher sentiment is always welcome.

A thoroughly entertaining evening and a flawless production, The Full Monty is much, much more than a bit of a giggle for a girls’ night out.