The Beast's Pen

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews: http://www.thepublicreviews.com

Union Jacks draped across trestle tables, a notice board plastered with parish council news, Women’s Institute announcements and a photo of a lost guinea pig. We are unmistakably in a community hall in rural England. In the Derbyshire town of Bakewell to be precise, where the annual baking contest is taking place. The seven finalists proudly parade their cakes and compete for the chance to create the definitive Bakewell tart (or is it a pudding? or maybe a cake?). This musical is the work of The Baking Committee, a group consisting of the 11 performers in the show plus three others who all came together at Guildford School of Acting, sharing a common love for musical theatre and for cake. It is not high art but it is relentless fun, leaving no pun unturned and discarding no double entendre for being too awful. Alexandra Spalding is a jolly presence throughout as Victoria Sponge, the MC. The contestants include: a saucy Lucy Emmott as “the original Bakewell tart”; Tom Beynon as Henrietta Apfelstrudel, a German transvestite who champions her Black Forest gateau and complains that “you always bake alone when you sound like a baritone”; Victoria Humphreys as a singing nun who glows over her angel cake; and Tim Stuart as a shy postman who strikes up a romantic chord with one of the judges and, clutching his mixing bowl to his chest, sings to her “you make me rise”. Individually, the singing is passable, but the team seems to have decided that they sound better as a chorus and they deliver several well-harmonised numbers, culminating in the excellent How Do I Feel? The lyrics are of variable quality, occasionally bland but often quite witty, with some sparkling rhymes. They combine well with the tunes which, if not too memorable, are always easy on the ear. Musical director Kevin Michael Cripps ensures that all the numbers are performed with aplomb. Choreography by Nicole Tiffany Rushing and Kayleigh Thadani also adds to the merriment. Undoubtedly this show is a little rough around the edges, but what it lacks in polish and sophistication is more than made up for by the energy, good humour and enthusiasm of the performers. As a first stab at a musical it is not bad at all and shows considerable promise in all departments. If the Baking Committee turns out to include a budding Sondheim, that will really be the icing on the cake.

Not content with just being one of the finest stage actors of his generation, Rory Kinnear now  makes an outstanding debut as a playwright. He has constructed a heart-warming comedy on the foundations of a heart-rending drama, dealing with the strains put on a family when one of its members is severely disabled. The family is gathered to celebrate the 21st Birthday of Andy, never seen but ever-present, who suffers from an unspecified disorder that is described as “much worse than Downs Syndrome”. The production is very strongly cast with Amanda Root and Louise Brealey superb as Andy’s brittle and bruised mother and sister. Kenneth Cranham and Anna Calder-Marshall contribute splendid comedy turns as his grandparents. Unusually for a fringe production, the performance area is much too expansive, it taking eight large rugs to cover the floor of the living room set; much of the space is never used and the actors sometimes look lost in it. However, this is a very minor criticism. Kinnear’s play is beautifully written and performed, making for a highly entertaining evening.

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews: http://www.thepublicreviews.com

Alexandra is a Greek Cypriot who was driven from her homeland by the 1974 Turkish invasion and now runs a small shop in London. She lives alone with only Neil Diamond’s music for company and she dreams of returning to her home city of Famagusta, the Greek name for which is Ammochostos, meaning “hidden in the sand”. But the city is now part of Turkish Northern Cyprus, so she can only cling to memories of her lost life, unable to move forward until, one day, Jonathan, an English academic, walks into her shop and they fall in love. James Philips’ tender and passionate new play is a middle-age romance taking place against the backdrop of 20th Century European conflicts. The play is set in 1999 and Alexandra’s niece (Daphne Alexander) is a photo journalist working in Kosovo; she has seen at first hand the terrible consequences of war and displacement, but she is a generation removed from the Cyprus invasion and she does not even speak Greek. Alexandra’s estranged sister (Yolanda Vazquez) has re-married and cut her ties with her home country. Just Alexandra herself remains stuck in a time warp, still believing that her former lover, who disappeared on the day of the Turkish invasion, will return; she cries “to give up hope is to betray”. Can Jonathan help her to become reconciled with the past and reclaim her so that she can live and love again? As Jonathan, Scott Handy is earnest and sincere, even if his character is slightly under-written. However, it is a luminous performance by Sally Dexter as Alexandra that elevates this production to a higher level. She simply lives the part, conveying emotional turmoil, confusion and vulnerability as her character confronts her demons. Quite literally, she moves us to tears at several points during the course of this play and few better performances are likely to be seen on the London stage this year. The story begins in London and ends in Cyprus, but Timothy Bird’s predominantly white set design is more Mediterranean than British and back projections of faces from the past effectively evoke sadness for worlds now lost. This studio space is so small and the drama, particularly in the second act, is so intense and intimate that we feel like intruders who have no right to be there. Phillips’ writing is truthful and believable, always holding our interest and, whilst political themes are always present, he never allows them to overshadow the human drama. His writing and direction rightly focus primarily on Alexandra. She and the actor who plays her tower above everything else.

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews: http://www.thepublicreviews.com

A remote Welsh cottage made inaccessible by the worst snowstorm in decades and, inside, a dead body. No, this is not an Agatha Christie whodunnit, rather it is a curious little play that edges between black comedy, family drama and suspense thriller. The body is that of Granny, who, having called a family reunion, rather thoughtlessly goes to meet her maker after only two family members, sibling grandchildren, have arrived. Left alone with little food, faltering water and electricity supplies, no mobile phone signal and no wifi, the pair settle in for a night of opening up the wounds from past traumas, whilst Granny lies rolled up in a carpet on the floor. This is rather a neat opening premise for a black comedy and the setting is nicely realised in Jenny Davies’ design; cluttered with old fashioned crockery, bric-a-brac, sheep skulls and quail egg shells, this is just where an eccentric old lady could have lived and died However, for the first 40 minutes of this 70 minute play, there is nothing black and very little comedic as the siblings simply bicker childishly over trivia; they each complain of being driven mad by the other, but, in fact, it is us being driven mad by both of them. In the later stages, events take a sinister turn and become more interesting and suspenseful, but there is still little real bite in the writing. Mark (Mathew Foster) is a high-flyer working in New York, whilst his sister Elyse (Pascale Morrison-Derbyshire) is recovering from the breakdown of a five year relationship. Yet, in this production, both look, sound and behave like adolescents. If the characters had been played older, maybe they would have had the gravitas to bring out the play’s darker undertones. As it is, the inconsistency between the characters brought to life on stage and their back stories damages the play significantly and, if Marietta Kirkbride’s intention was to show how adults revert to their childhood selves when with family in pressured situations, the point is lost. So, from a promising start, this all turns out to be rather a disappointment. There are entertaining moments and, being so short, the play does not drag on, but it ends up being lightweight and insubstantial, when we had hoped for much more.

The West End is awash with adaptations from films, using non-original music, but, if any film ever cried out for a stage version, it is “The Commitments”. Roddy Doyle adapts his own novel about the emergence of a soul band in working class Dublin and director of the moment, Jamie Lloyd, injects much the same level of raw energy that made the film so likeable. The first half is a musical with hardly any music and some of the comedy falls flat, but things get much livelier in the second half once the band has been formed. In any event, the story is fairly thin and anticlimactic, so the show relies heavily on the songs. Killian Donnelly as the obnoxious lead singer with the golden voice, is terrific in delivering them. Denis Grindel, as the young manager, carries us though most of the narrative energetically. There is enough entertainment here to ensure a decent run, but anyone who just wants to hear a bunch of soul classics reasonably well performed could do better by simply getting a ticket to see a real band.