The Beast's Pen

After her stint playing Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series The Crown, Imelda Staunton will be returning to her role as the Queen of British musical theatre in a revival of Jerry Herman’s Hello Dolly over the coming Summit at the world famous London Palladium. She joined a small gathering in the venue’s Cinderella Bar to chat about the production with director Dominic Cooke and The Reviews Hub’s Stephen Bates was there to eavesdrop.

The idea for the production fist sprang up when Cooke and Staunton were working together on the 2017 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at the National Theatre. It began taking shape and was scheduled to open at the Adelphi Theatre in the Spring of 2020. And then came lockdown. However, Staunton sees the delay as being, in some ways, serendipitous, because it means that the show will now be seen at what she regards as the perfect theatre for a spectacular Broadway musical from a golden era (the early 1960s). She recalls fondly that, as a child, she watched all the great stars of the era performing on ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium and then coming here to see live performances by Josephine Baker and Bing Crosby. She says that she will need to banish these memories from her head if she is not going to be too terrified to set foot on the same stage.

Similarly, the star hopes to banish thoughts of the famous names who have played Dolly Levy before her, including Carol Channing and Bette Midler on Broadway and Barbra Streisand, who she acknowledges was 40 years too young for the role in Gene Kelly’s 1969 film version. She says that Dolly has neither the anger and ruthless ambition of Mamma Rose (in Gypsy) nor the inner sadness of Sally (in Follies), Staunton’s two most recent musical triumphs, but she sees a force of positive energy in the character which will strike a chord with audiences in modern times. She believes that it is important to bring back old musicals for young audiences who may never have heard of them. She jokes that she has already been asked if the show is about Dolly Parton.

Cooke is keen to emphasise the musical’s roots. It is adapted from The Matchmaker by the great American playwright, Thornton Wilder. He sees the relationship between the play and the musical as similar to that between George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and My Fair Lady in that many lines are common to both. However, in this new version, additional lines have been taken from Wilder’s play and the director believes that this will make a musical that is already very funny even funnier.

Another change will be the the insertion of the opening number which Herman wrote for the film. Staunton knew the composer/lyricist slightly, having worked with him many years earlier on a production of Mack and Mabel, so she telephoned him to gain permission for the change, which she got. Sadly he is no longer with us, but, hopefully, he will approve from above. When asked how she would like to see theatre grow as it rebounds from the pandemic, Staunton replied that her concern is that the current boom in the West End is not being matched elsewhere. and she would like to see more support for regional theatres. Perhaps a national tour of Hello Dolly could help.

So, after a delay of four years, the sets are being built, the costumes are being sewn, the actors and dancers are in rehearsal. Now we all await now for the curtain to rise.

Attended for The Reviews Hub on 20 March 2024

Photo: Craig Fuller

Writer: Harry McDonald

Director: Matthew Iliffe

⭐️⭐️

Could anything be more unpleasant than spending an evening stuck in a public convenience? Well, yes, possibly being in such a place and watching Foam, Harry McDonald’s unflinching one-act account of London’s skinhead scene of the 1970s to 1990s.

We share the Finborough’s cramped performance space with a urinal, a wash basin and a cubicle that is complete with spy hole. Nitin Parmar’s set design has all the essentials. In 1974, 15-year-old Nicky Crane (Jake Richards) walks in and begins to shave off his hair. He is followed by the vaguely aristocratic Mosley (Matthew Baldwin), dressed all in black, who invites the boy to join his “club” and presents him with a signature pair of boots. This opening scene has a surreal feel, with Mosley as a demonic figure, but the drama reverts quickly to realism.

The play has five scenes, each with confrontation as its main ingredient. Nicky’s journey takes him from night club bouncer to punk rock singer, a prison term and gay porn star. Each scene has a different protagonist, including a gay photographer (Kishore Walker) and a violent defender of black rights (Keanu Adolphus Johnson) as director Matthew Iliffe’s gritty production mounts aggression on aggression.

What McDonald seems most keen to explore are the interactions between the skinhead subculture, fascism and homoeroticism. As Nicky adorns himself with swastika tattoos and chants nationalist slogans, he has numerous sexual encounters with men, while forcefully denouncing the gay world, The connections and the contradictions are laid out clearly by the writer, but maybe they are not adequately explained. Most crucially, McDonald fails to explain Nicky. Does this monster have a heart or a soul? We never know and the omission leaves a gaping hole in the play.

To its credit, Foam does nothing to mask the ugliness of the lifestyle that it depicts, but it is a tough watch, packing into its 90 minutes as much aggression as in a dozen episodes of Eastenders. When it is over, the night air of Chelsea smells sweet.

Performance date: 22 March 2024

Photo: Mariano Gobbi

Writer: Tobia Rossi

Director and translator: Carlotta Brentan

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Italian playwright Tobia Rossi has found a novel way of exploring the growing pressures placed on teenagers in modern times. His 85-minute two-hander is a dark and sometimes shocking parable for the age of social media,

In Hide and Seek, the hider is Gio (Louis Scarpa), a teenage schoolboy who we assume to be gay, and the seeker is Mirko (Nico Cetrulo), a slightly older boy from the same school in rural Italy. Gio has taken refuge in a remote cave to escape the bullying and torrents of online abuse hurled at someone who happens to be different from their social group. His absence could be construed by the wider world as kidnapping or murder and, when Mirko finds him, he becomes complicit in a growing deceit.

The boys’ conversations centre around Tik Tok, WhatsApp, “hits”, “likes” and so on, They share their admiration of comic book super heroes. When Mirko relays news of the frenzy that Gio’s disappearance is causing in the local community and throughout Italy, Gio shows more delight in his newfound celebrity status than concern about worrying family and friends, thereby highlighting the dehumanising effect of social media.

Rossi’s script requires Gio and Mirko to be both mischievous boys and sexually awakened young men. Occasionally the dialogue jars, feeling not quite right for a situation, but the actors, both excellent, have few problems in bridging the gap between the different sides of each character. The bond between the pair grows and takes on more sinister undertones as Mirko becomes dominant and manipulative and Gio’s ambitions become more irrational. Once more, youngsters who are at ease in the virtual world are seen to struggle when dealing with real emotions.

Having translated to play into English, Carlotta Brentan directs a production that is consistently engrossing and equally disturbing. The entire drams unfolds inside a cave which has no natural light, leaving set designer Constance Comparot to fill the tight studio space with a central representation of a rock and Gio’s essential provisions scattered around. Seemingly more challenging is the job of lighting designer and Alex Forey copes admirably.

In the closing stages, Rossi’s play seems to emulate the plight of the two lads, finding itself in a dark place with no clear escape route. The conclusion which the writer finds is not entirely satisfying, but, at least it gives cause for hard reflection.

Performance date: 15 March 2024