The Beast's Pen

Not booking for the National’s Christmas extravaganza means risking missing out on the next War Horse; booking for it risks having to sit through a mindless kids’ show. Sadly, although not entirely without merit, this falls more into the latter category. Written by Erich Kastner and set in Germany (mostly Berlin) in 1929, it is a simple story of a boy, Emil, who has his money stolen by a banker (very topical) and enlists the help of a horde of other children to reclaim it. The plot has no mystery, no twists or turns and, at about two hours with interval, it is stretched just about as far as it can go. Despite deploying much of the technical wizardry that the Olivier stage can offer, the first half of Bijan Sheibani’s production falls very flat. The second half starts well with music evoking Berlin nightlife of the era and includes an excellent chase through a sewer, but, overall,  it is not much livelier until the last 10 minutes when elements of pantomime are introduced to bring about a rousing finale. The leading junior roles are alternated nightly in a company that includes over 30 children, all on stage together at times. At this performance, Emil, a precocious lad, was played with confidence, but the characters of some of the other children were not brought out as strongly as they might have been, more due to writing and direction than to weak performances. Amongst the adults, Stuart McQuarrie stands out as a dastardly villain. Okay, maybe I am 60 years too old for it, but I found this show a real disappointment. As a postscript, it is interesting to note that the National has just opened two new shows playing in repertory in its main auditoriums – this and From Morning to Midnight in the Lyttelton; both are set in Germany in the early part of the 20th Century, both have a similar look, both have key scenes in a bank, a hotel room, a small house and a street. Perhaps thrift does not come high on Mr Hytner’s agenda, but would it not have been possible for them to alternate on the same stage, using the same sets?

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

The grand master of Theatre of the Absurd, Eugene Ionesco, has become rather out of fashion in Britain in recent times. Yet this one-act play, written in 1948 and Ionesco’s first, is the French equivalent to The Mousetrap, having run in Paris since 1957. Romanian by birth, Ionesco spent most of his adult life in France and, at the time of writing this play, he was learning English, apparently fascinated by English words and phrases. He sets the play in London, but his knowledge would have been too rudimentary for him to have written a meaningful satire of English ways, rather it seems to be a nonsensical flight of fancy developed from ideas arising during his studies of the language. If the play’s popularity in France is because the French really see the English as depicted here, it is rather worrying, but perhaps it could explain a few things. The setting of this production is a fancy dress party taking place in a vault, with sounds from outside of some sort of apocalyptic event audible over Wham’s Last Christmas. Hosting are Mr and Mrs Smith (Patrick Lenney and Helena Payne), who are dressed as a convict and a hornet. They will be serving cold ham and warm beer to their guests, Mr and Mrs Martin (Darren Beaumont and Cheska Moon), dressed as a clown and Cinderella. Their maid (Judy Tcherniak) appears as Queen Victoria and they are later joined by a fireman (Rupert Baldwin). Unshackled from responsibilities for characterisation and exploration of hidden meanings, the performers can overact with impunity and they all do so with great glee. This play is about as grounded as a helium balloon and trying to find the point of it would be missing the point of it. The only way to approach it is to go along for the ride, but those of us used to grappling with the complexities of, say, Pinter or Stoppard can enjoy sitting back and relaxing in the knowledge that what seems a load of nonsense is, in fact, a load of nonsense. Occasionally absurdist comedy here comes to mean sequences of an absurd length, with endless repetition, or jokes that are only funny because they are so absurdly unfunny. But normal rules of dramatic structuring have been thrown out of the window and what we see is a play that has no logic, goes round in a circle and ends with its beginning. The titular character never appears and, when someone asks “what about The Bald Prima Donna?” towards the end of the play, the fireman replies “she always wears her hair the same way”. So at least the title is explained, but, as for everything else, it is anyone’s guess.

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2004 novel of the supernatural has already been turned into a highly successful Swedish film and an American one. However, this stage adaptation by Jack Thorne, produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, gives stunning proof, if more is needed, that, when its forces are properly harnessed, live theatre has a power that can be equalled by no other medium. It is a relatively simple story of a young adolescent boy, brutally bullied at school, and his friendship with a “vampire” who appears as a girl of similar age. This is not the soppy romance of the Twilight series; the characters being much younger, the relationship is chaste and there is a sense throughout of childhood innocence coming face to face with the harshness of adulthood. Underlying themes of self-empowerment and the merging of clashing cultures also give the play depth and texture, making it much more than just a feast of shocks and gore, although there are plenty of both during the course of the evening. The set is beautiful to behold – snow on the ground, bare Winter trees towering high, lit in amber and then in blue – and director John Tiffany’s staging is rich with imagination, incorporating several sequences of balletic movement to the accompaniment of a haunting, atmospheric score by Olafur Arnalds. The two leads give performances that belie their tender years; Martin Quinn makes the boy diffident and awkward, gaining fresh confidence through the friendship; Rebecca Benson transforms convincingly from sweet little girl to ferocious predatory animal in an instant. This is an evening of beauty and terror in equal measure and, immediately, it can be ranked amongst the theatre highlights of 2013. If Bill Kenwright’s involvement with the production can be taken to mean that a West End transfer is already assured, it could also become one of the big commercial successes of 2014.

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

The news that a co-founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Company would be turning his attentions towards another of Britain’s literary giants has created great curiosity and high expectations. If Adam Long could whisk us through the Bard’s complete works in a couple of hours, the canon of Charles Dickens should present no problems at all, but does it leave us, like Oliver Twist, begging for more? The show’s opening song informs us that “Shakespeare was good but Charlie was better” and a group of five American hicks proceed to explain their reasoning, looking at the author and his works with American eyes throughout. Maybe Long decided that we British take our national institutions too seriously to poke irreverent fun at them as American may do, or maybe he simply sought consistency with the show’s musical style (rockabilly with touches of Southern blues) which is itself inconsistent with the subject matter. However, such analysis hardly matters when things get into full flow. During the show’s high points all of the ingredients, however odd, mix together perfectly. The plot of Oliver Twist takes barely a minute to recount in an an original song that makes several nods towards Lionel Bart; the sprawling Little Dorrit is condensed into a five-line limerick; Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop and Great Expectations fly by at breakneck speed and it is mostly splendid fun. No mention is made of Dickens the social reformer or Dickens the biting satirist of the institutions of the Victorian age, but these things would not bring laughs. The only changes in tone come when scenes from Dickens’ own life are depicted. David Copperfield is seen as autobiographical and too much of the first half of the show is devoted to it, with parallels to Dickens’ life being interwoven with the novel. Heap and Micawber appear in order to berate the author for representing them so unsympathetically, very cleverly merging fact and fiction, but, otherwise, Long finds it difficult to draw any humour from the true story. It seems that Dickens had marital difficulties and an unhealthy fondness for a violent scene in Twist, but there is little else to interest us or to make us laugh and these scenes, which continue intermittently throughout, prove to be something of a millstone around the show’s neck. The second half begins well with an amusing Nicholas Nickleby, followed by a hilarious A Tale of Two Cities (“I’m very nervous as this will be my first decapitation”), leaving the biggest crowd-pleaser until last with an uproarious spoof of A Christmas Carol, sending everyone home full of seasonal spirit. Damian Humbley, is excellent as the “American” Dickens and several other characters, very ably supported by Gerard Carey, Matthew Hendrickson, Kit Orton and Jon Robyns, who share all the roles between them. Having an all-male cast, the show is never shy about getting cheep laughs from bringing on bearded men in drag whenever more original jokes run dry. There is a great deal more to like about Dickens Abridged than there is to dislike. Sometimes it hits sticky patches, occasionally it is repetitive, but, when it is funny, which is for much of the time, it is very funny indeed. Overall, this is up there with the best entertainments on offer this Christmas.

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

No, the BBC is not reviving its property makeover show for a live tour, but all doubts as to what to expect here are removed as soon as the set for this production comes into sight. Three large doors at the back of the stage can mean only one thing – a farce. Marc Camoletti never quite achieved the same status as his fellow countryman Georges Feydeau, but two of his farces, Boeing Boeing and Don’t Dress for Dinner, were sizeable West End hits. The former was revived in 2007 and, largely thanks to a star turn by Mark Rylance, triumphed in London and then in New York. Rylance at his most formidable would have struggled to resuscitate this creaking museum piece, yet Anna Ostergren has managed to breathe enough life in it to provide a pleasant enough couple of hours. In essence the plots of all farces are usually the same, but the best of them are given novel twists, different characters, locations, etc to flesh them out and make them more interesting. However, there is hardly any fleshing out here. This is skeletal farce, the basics and little more. A middle-aged husband and wife each contrives for the other and their housekeeper to be away from their Parisian apartment for the weekend so that they can bring back their respective lovers; of course, all five end up in the apartment in different rooms and mayhem ensues. Kevin Marchant is suitably slimy as the lascivious husband, a high ranking Government official, and Maria de Lima makes the wife a vampish predator, impatient to devour her nervous toy boy (Milan Alexander). Anna Lukis amuses as the bimbo girlfriend, begging for a wedding ring whilst sucking on a lollipop, but the evening’s biggest delight is Jill Stanford as the housekeeper. Her every utterance is laced with sarcasm as she strives valiantly to direct traffic through the apartment whilst milking her employers of every franc (this is set in the 1960s) she can extort in bribes. The venue, a small pub theatre is a plus, so long as the performers remember not to overact, which is not always the case. When the audience is so close to the action, events in the play somehow come to seem less preposterous than they obviously are. Ostergren keeps things moving at a decent pace throughout, possibly helped by the characters having such a short distance to move as they chase around the room from one door to another. Vacuous and predictable it may be, but this production of Changing Rooms has enough charm to bring smiles to our faces and warm up a cold December evening.

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

Broadly defined as a prominent group of people who follow hedonistic lifestyles, perhaps known as Bohemian in English or Demimonde in French, Habwelt is used here to describe a group of seven women living in Berlin during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s to early 30s and, as a postscript, during the Third Reich through to the outbreak of World War II. They are performers, writers and political activists. This piece of musical entertainment, running for around 80 minutes, is divided into seven sections, each showcasing one of these extraordinary characters. Of course, as the show makes clear, these women and other similar groups were already heading for a full-on collision with Hitler’s Nazis, who would regard them as depraved and seek their destruction. Berlin during this period is very familiar from the writings of Christopher Isherwood, adapted for the musical Cabaret. The influence of the director/choreographer of the film version of that show, Bob Fosse, is clear in the look of this show and in the style of the dance routines. We enter the theatre with the seven ladies already on stage, wearing only short petticoats and black stockings, as they will do for most of the evening. They include the Communist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (Alma Fournier-Carballo), dancer Anita Berber (Samantha Clark) and cabaret performer Blandine Ebinger (Stephanie Hampton). The most internationally famous of the seven, Marlene Dietrich (Sarah Bradnum) sings the familiar Honeysuckle Rose and Falling in Love Again, but most of the other songs, all from the 20s and 30s are rarely heard in this country. Their music and lyrics are of a very high quality, beginning with the chorus number Kick Out All the Men (from the Reichstag etc), written by Friedrich Hollaender, which establishes the bold political and feminist tone. Hollaender also contributes the stunning Liar Liar, heard later in the show. A strong lesbian theme runs throughout, which is exemplified by the anthemic Lavender Song (we’re not afraid to be queer and different…”) written by Mischa Spoliansky, as is When the Special Girlfriend, beautifully sung by Gabriella Schmidt, playing the cross- dresser Claire Waldoff. Other songs, varying widely in styles and moods, come from Hanns Eisler/Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. There is serious quality here and lovers of musical theatre may find it worth more than double the ticket price just to hear these rarities performed live and performed so well. Making up the performers are Alyssa Noble (also the show’s choreographer) and Julia Cugini. Here we have seven exceptionally talented young singers/dancers/actresses, performing superbly both as individuals and as a company. A five piece band accompanies the singers, with Peter Mitchell as musical director. Several excellent dance sequences include a chorus line tap routine and director Patrick Kennedy along with his choreographer work a small miracle in achieving so much in this tiny space. The links between the musical numbers are intelligent, informative and, occasionally, extremely moving, evoking the feel of the era perfectly and the sense of helplessness in the face of the on-rushing storm. The show ends leaving us wanting more and there is obvious scope for developing it further, incorporating a fully-formed book. In the meantime, it is already a small gem.

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

Welcome aboard for the maiden voyage of the state of the art ocean liner Death Ship 666 as it sets sail for the Bermuda Triangle! Maybe James Horner’s theme from Titanic is not the most reassuring background music as we set sail, but not to worry, this ship has exterior radiators to melt any threatening icebergs. We have had Titanic the movies(s), the television series, the musical, so now the pantomime? Well not quite, but only because there is no dame. We are treated to a non- stop bombardment of verbal and visual gags, a pastiche of James Cameron’s film, with touches also of The Poseidon Adventure. The passengers and crew are all played by Michael Patrick Clarkson, Carrie Marx, Anna Morris, Mattias Penman, Rachel Parris and Andrew Utley. They raise the art of quick costume changes to a new level. This is an evening of undiluted silliness, the style of which seems to be to deliver the jokes so rapidly one after the other that the audience will not have time to reflect on how dreadful most of them are. The show has no foothold in the real world, no depth and no subtlety, making it difficult for it to sustain its appeal over a long period and, inevitably, it outstays its welcome long before the end of its 75 minutes running time, 25% longer than when it ran in Edinburgh. It does not benefit from being stretched out or, more likely, padded. The show’s main assets are its six performers, who demonstrate a youthful zest and enthusiasm that is infectious. It is impossible not to like them even at points when their material is sagging. They even treat us to a song. As the water levels are rising around them, they sing Ten Minutes More to the melody of One Day More from Les Miserables. Another plus is that the show is almost completely free of smut, making it suitable for all ages. Much of Death Ship 666 has the feel of a student revue and, judged as such, it would probably rate quite well. Whether it cuts it as a professional production for this venue must be questionable, but it is harmless fun anyway.

After The Light Princess, this is the second successive production in the Lyttelton which begs the question as to whether the source material is really worth the enormous resources that the National has poured into it. Every inch of the width, depth and height of this huge stage is used for a production in which sets revolve, descend, collapse, ascend and move sideways. This is always inventive, often eye-catching and occasionally breathtaking: sometimes there is so much going on that it is difficult to know what we are supposed to be looking at, still less to concentrate on the play. This German expressionist drama by Georg Kaiser, dating from the early years of the 20th Century, is a very odd affair indeed. It deals with a lowly bank teller (played at this performance by Jack Tarlton) who abandons his post and his life of boring drudgery to abscond with a fortune, only to discover that there is nothing worthwhile for him to spend it on. As the title suggests, the action all takes place over the course of one day. The first half of the drama often resembles an absurdist comedy and Melly Still’s direction, incorporating mime and dance movement devised by the company, usually comes up with something imaginative or amusing to see us through the dull patches. Unfortunately, in the second half, a production that was always precariously balanced, topples over and becomes completely bogged down with social, economic and moral messages, all of which seem naive, dated and very obvious. So, the staging is spectacular and the acting is generally good, making the show intermittently entertaining but, ultimately, it is a ridiculously bloated production of a very small play which might have been seen in a better light if it had been staged on a smaller scale.

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

Discarding their masks and without a chandelier in sight, three actor/singers with one role in common lead us through this sampler box of musical theatre delights. Matthew Cammelle, Stephen John Davis and Glyn Kerslake have all, at some stage, played the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. They are joined by Rebecca Caine, herself once Christine in Phantom, and accompanying singers. The songs are taken from stage musicals, although they include some, such as Unchained Melody, which have been drafted onto musicals but do not originate from them. Very familiar songs like I Am What I Am from La Cage Aux Folles and I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady are mixed with obscure ones such as Into the Fire from The Scarlet Pimpernel, never seen the UK. Caine’s rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s No One is Alone from Into the Woods is truly memorable and, over the course of the evening, we dip into shows as diverse as The Boys from Syracuse and Jersey Boys, The King and I and The Book of Mormon. London is soon to be reminded how good the score for Miss Saigon is and here we get a foretaste, together with a reminder of the ill-fated Martin Guerre. In fact, although this show’s title nods towards Lloyd Webber, there is much more Boubil and Schonberg in its content. The first half climaxes with a medley of familiar songs from Les Miserables, beginning with a superb a cappella version of I Dreamed a Dream and ending with the rousing One Day More, which, it seems, always needs to be followed by an interval. The second half is more of the same mixture and it is not until near the end that we hear anything from Phantom itself, preceded by songs from two other less famous musical adaptations of the story by Ken Hill and Maury Yeston and then from Lloyd Webber’s own sequel Love Never Dies. Our Phantoms do not get round to the song most associated with their common role, Music of the Night, until the encore, when they join forces to perform it. The back screen of the set is filled with twinkling stars, but this is a show without star names. This makes it a heartening celebration of the strength and depth of talent working in British musical theatre. Long after stars like Crawford and Brightman have flown to their next projects, it is guys like these who keep shows fresh, maintaining the standards set by the original casts. The songs are performed accompanied only by piano, cello and backing singers and Anthony Gabriele’s arrangements are tip-top. Less successful are the attempts at comedy, in which all the performers tell anecdotes and jokes. This becomes rather tiresome after a while, but it is only a very minor quibble. All in all, this is an enchanting evening.

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

So well known is Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella that its title characters have become part of our everyday English language. This gripping and sometimes terrifying one hour monologue is an adaptation of the novella by James Hyland, who also performs it. It approaches the story from a very different angle and connects it neatly to real life events. Dr Jekyll – pronounced Gee-kyll (be careful not to upset this man) – is seen lecturing the sceptical members of the Royal Society of Surgeons about his pioneering work in exploring split personalities. His belief is that all humans consist of both good and evil, which can be separated by chemical inducements. He tells the Society the story of how, having taken such a chemical, he came across a man called Mr Hyde and followed him to Whitechapel, witnessing him commit the horrific murder of a prostitute. Returning home, he looked into a mirror and the face that he saw was Hyde’s and not his own. The theory that a fictional character from a work published in 1886 could be connected to the series of real murders by Jack the Ripper that began in 1888 would not, of course, stand up to scrutiny. However, Hyland is conjecturing that a form of schizophrenia could have explained the Ripper’s actions and that his ability to submerge his evil side into his good one is a reason why he escaped detection. Hyland then takes this one step further by pointing the finger at the Duke of Clarence, a grandson of Queen Victoria and a real suspect in the Ripper case. None of this is particularly faithful to Stevenson, but completely faithful is the sense of fear generated by Hyland’s commanding performance. Bearded and dressed in Victorian costume, he uses only a lectern as his prop and his connection with the audience is instant. In the opening stages, he appears to be a rational scientist, but occasionally and then increasingly, signs of rage and madness appear as Hyde begins to emerge. Then, in full flow as Hyde, he resembles firstly Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo; he snaps like a mad dog, howls like a werewolf; and finally, as he devours a victim’s liver washed down with a glass of wine, he is Hannibal Lecter, thereby cleverly completing a bridge between generations of fictional monsters. When Jekyll/Hyde wields a dagger around the room as he concludes his lecture, every member of the audience quivers in terror. This play is not recommended for anyone who needs a good night’s sleep.