Category Archives: Comedy

Twelfth Night – February 2011

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Peter Hall

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday, 24th February 2011

A slightly weaker production than I would have expected. Some performances were excellent, especially Charles Edwards as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but Viola and Olivia were remarkably bland. Both actresses were reduced to grinning and simpering a lot, with no sign of the grief that both characters are supposedly suffering. Most peculiar. Malvolio was a nasty piece of work, and his mistreatment particularly unpleasant, as he was penned in a large bird cage and had to crouch on the perch with his knees up around his chin. His later appearance indicates how this has affected his knees. Sir Toby was full of life, and Feste was an older version, with good delivery of the lines, but overall the piece felt lacking in pace and focus.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Rivals – February 2011

7/10

By: Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Director: Peter Hall

Venue: Theatre Royal, Haymarket

Date: Saturday 19th February 2011

Bit disappointing, this. The set was fantastic, all in cream, with a marvellous trompe l’oie curve of Georgian rooftops in a crescent above the flat back wall, which had a magnificent central door, and two smaller doors to either side. Exits and entrances could also be made directly from the wings, and the curve of the rooftops came forward to yet another Simon Higlett picture frame, about halfway up the stage. In front of this were two elaborate doors, one on each side, and I did finally notice a beautiful parquet oval in the floor. So the location was abundantly clear, and with the extra furniture brought on and off (by liveried servants to boot), and wonderful costumes, there was plenty to enjoy visually.

This version of the play was an amalgam of the three ‘original’ versions, and while it was coherent, it did feel a bit minimalist at times. However, we got a fuller Mrs Malaprop than usual, which in this case was a real treat. Perhaps just shaded by my memories of Stephanie Cole’s portrayal, Penelope Keith did a fine job of getting across her character’s misuse of the English language, and I’m sure there were several instances which I’d never heard before. Peter Bowles was entertaining as Sir Anthony Absolute – not as physical as some we’ve seen, but he conveyed the changes of mood very nicely. The servants, Fag and Lucy were splendid, and I’ve often thought the servants’ parts are some of the best in the Restoration Comedies.

The main problems I found today were the weakness of the romantic leads, and the lack of a brisk pace to keep the energy up. It’s a problem with Peter Hall’s directorial style now that his productions are a lot less physical, and this can make things a bit dull, although there’s no doubt the language comes across brilliantly. Jack Absolute was played by Tam Williams, and seemed a bit weak. Lydia Languish was played by Robyn Addison, making her professional stage debut, and was sadly wooden and inexpressive. Annabel Scholey was fine as Julia, although Tony Gardner, excellent in other stage comedies we’ve seen, was rather dull as Faulkland. Gerard Murphy was good as Sir Lucius O’Trigger, but had relatively little to do, and I did like Keiron Self as Bob Acres, the unsuccessful suitor to Lydia, who manages to avoid a duel, but not the makeover from a tailor.

I still enjoyed seeing the play again – it’s a total classic – but I wouldn’t recommend the production as the best I’ve seen. Perhaps they’re just getting a bit jaded towards the end of their run.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Reluctant Debutante – February 2011

7/10

By: William Douglas Home

Directed by: Belinda Lang

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th February 2011

Despite a quiet start, this became a rollicking good comedy, with a marvellous final act leaving us well pleased with our evening. The performances were all fine, although I find Jane Asher doesn’t manage scatty or neurotic very well – she always seems so organised and self-contained. Even so, the part came across well enough, and with good performances from the younger actors, and a great comic turn from Clive Francis as the reluctant father-of-the-debutante, we had a great time.

The set was a large sitting room in a London apartment, hired for the season by the Broadbent family, father, mother and seventeen year old daughter, Jane. Colours were basic cream, there was a table on the right and a sofa and chair on the left. The front door was off back right, bedrooms off back left, and the door to the kitchen was on the left behind the sofa. The telephone was prominent, sitting by the back wall beside the wide entrance to the sitting room. The costumes were naturally splendid, as befits a summer season with young ladies being presented at court.

The story worked itself out nicely. Jane isn’t keen on the young men she’s had to spend time with at the numerous balls and events so far. In fact, to her mother’s great concern, she doesn’t seem interested in young men at all, preferring her horse, Thomas, instead. Since William Douglas Home is a safe pair of hands, we can be fairly sure there’s no likelihood of lesbianism making an appearance, and sure enough it simply needs a misunderstood rakish sort with a preference for water and biscuits to change Jane’s mind. She’s fortunate enough to have two men after her though, both of them called David, the aforementioned rakish type and a Guards officer whose conversation is limited to car routes, and who has a nasty habit of grabbing young woman to try and kiss them. He’d tried it on before, at a weekend party, and when the young lady in question fled his embrace, she sought help from Jane’s other suitor, leading to the misunderstanding which brands him as a ne’er-do-well. Fortunately, he’s also the heir to an Italian Duke, and when his great-uncle dutifully pops off, leaving him with a title, Mr Broadbent soon takes advantage of the situation to change his wife’s mind about the Italian gentleman’s suitably as a husband for their daughter. We’re left with Mrs Broadbent, blissfully ignorant of the young man’s change of fortune, telephoning the new Duke to invite him to dinner, positively gushing in her excitement at Jane landing such a great prospect. I wonder what her expression will be when the Duke turns up for dinner.

I enjoyed a lot of the comments about the debutante production process, with references to the white slave trade and cattle markets. And the obvious mistaken identities were good fun too, along with Jane’s precocious understanding of sexual relationships, although she doesn’t quite grasp the idea of a ‘working girl’, probably to her father’s relief. Steve felt the audience were slow to get going, finding himself laughing at a lot of lines pretty much on his own; I just felt it was a bit of a slow-burner in the first act, but I still found several funny lines which weren’t getting the recognition they deserved. Anyway, it all turned out well in the end, so we went home happy.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hayfever – October 2010

7/10

By: Noel Coward

Directed by: Stephen Unwin

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Thursday 7th October 2010

This was a bit disappointing. We were glad to be seeing Celia Imrie on stage, and hoped the production would be better than the one at Chichester last year, which was rather let down by Diana Rigg’s age. Celia Imrie is a better age for the lead role, but her portrayal came across as too schoolmarm-ish at times, and much too self-aware, which reduced my enjoyment somewhat. She did her best, and the rest of the production was perfectly fine with the two Bliss children being particularly good and Alexandra Galbraith giving us the sultriest vamp I’ve ever seen on stage.

The set was the usual eclectic jumble. The stairs were to the right, French windows centre back, door to the library on the left, and there was a pretty landscape visible through the windows. The effects of rain and sun were clearer at Chichester, with the sun coming out almost before the guests had finished fleeing the scene, and overall I find I preferred that production despite its flaws, but we still enjoyed ourselves well enough this afternoon. The writing is still as good, and there are plenty of lines that are almost guaranteed a laugh. I hope they do well for the rest of the run.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Enron – September 2010

8/10

By Lucy Prebble

Directed by Rupert Goold

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 16th September 2010

Fantastic! We’d wanted to see this again, after enjoying it so much last year in the Minerva, and we weren’t disappointed. This cast were almost as good as the originals, and the production hadn’t changed much; a lot of the video clips had been dropped, we noticed, including the ones with the three blind mice in the Enron advert, which may have been confusing for some of the audience. But the raptors were still there, the lights, the music, the dancing, the humour, and, sadly, the massive financial collapse.

The post-show was entertaining as well. Apparently the show had started out as a musical (made sense – that’s what we’d felt last year). American critics hated the show, but many Americans enjoyed seeing it – a sort of guilty pleasure. There were some veterans in the cast and some new folk, and keeping up with the changes had been hard work. I’ve forgotten the rest now, but it was a very good evening.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Critic – July 2010

6/10

By R B Sheridan

Directed by Jonathan Church and Sean Foley

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 5th July 2010

Second play of the double bill, this wasn’t quite as sparkly as I remembered from the National production, where the collapsing scenery at the end was massively impressive. To be fair, this is a smaller theatre and Health and Safety would probably be a bit squeamish about putting the audience at risk, but even so the theatrical effects were still pretty good. I liked the waves and ships, and the final falling wall providing a Buster Keaton moment was good fun. The costumes were spot on, literally in some cases, and the dialogue was pretty good, although Sheridan can be pretty impenetrable at times to the modern ear.

Again, I found Nicholas Le Provost’s delivery less clear than the others, but overall the performances were fine, with Una Stubbs again turning in a superb performance as the largely unspeaking maid.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Real Inspector Hound – July 2010

7/10

By Tom Stoppard

Directed by Jonathan Church and Sean Foley

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 5th July 2010

This was the first play of the double bill. Even though I knew the play, it took me a few moments to realise what was going on, as the Minerva’s seating has been rearranged to include seats at the back before. This time, I spotted Richard McCabe, and realised the seats at the back were for the cast.

When the second critic arrived, the lights had already gone down so he had to sneak on past the audience like a regular latecomer. The extra cast members sitting around the two critics were a plus this time – I think the two men sat in splendid isolation in the National production – although it did seem a little odd that they weren’t bothered by two men chatting away next to them.

The set was excellent for the stylised crime piece the critics are watching. A few pieces of furniture places around the central square created the drawing room, and across the corner nearest us was the sofa which concealed the dead body. Una Stubbs was marvellous as the charlady, the rest of the cast were also excellent at conveying the mannered delivery of the time/genre, and the only let down was Nicholas Le Provost’s delivery, which lost a lot of the dialogue as far as I was concerned.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

As You Like It – June 2010

6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Mendes

Company: Old Vic Bridge Project

Venue: Old Vic

Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010

This was a bizarre mixture. The Bridge Project brings together British and American actors for joint productions – this year’s offerings are As You Like It and The Tempest – but we expected they would rehearse in one group. Today’s effort looked liked they’d rehearsed separately, and were still trying to figure out how to put the two halves together. For the most part, the Brits were good, with clear delivery of lines and some animation to their performances. For the most part, the U.S. team were OK, despite noticeably weaker delivery, but with Christian Camargo as Orlando the standard of performance nose-dived. His delivery never rose above the mechanical, his demeanour was lacklustre, his expression deeply depressed, and I even wondered if he was on some form of medication, he seemed so out of it. This obvious weakness brought the whole production down, and it was all the worse for us because Edward Bennett was in the cast, playing Oliver, the younger-looking older brother to Orlando – ‘unless the master were the man.’ One quick cast change would improve this production enormously; as it is, the better performances saved it from a miserable 2/10 rating, and judging by the empty seats which appeared after the interval, we weren’t the only ones suffering. I did nod off a bit in the second half, but according to Steve, I didn’t miss much.

The set was pretty good, though. The stage had been brought forward again, and there were exits through the first boxes on either side, as well as stairs at the front left of the stage. A couple of tall skinny tree trunks sat one on either side of the forestage, and there were stacks of chopped wood nestling in each of the boxes. A long garden bench sat further back on the left for the opening scenes, and during the play all sorts of furniture, carts, etc. were whisked on and off, so efficiently that I really didn’t notice them.

For the opening scenes, there was a full length wooden wall not far behind the bench, with a door in the centre. Once into the forest, this wall rose up and exposed the rest of the stage, with lots more tree trunks and a ramp up to the central exit at the back. In the summer, the undergrowth was rampant, and there were plenty of locations for an ardent romantic poet to stick his oeuvre. The costumes were modern.

Last year there were lots of interesting aspects to the productions; this time I found little to excite me, but there was one gem nestling amongst the straw. When Touchstone was describing the seven degrees of quarrelling, he involved the Duke and Jacques, encouraging them to act out the various stages. When he came to the end and made the reference to a quarrel being patched up with an ‘if’, he looked meaningfully at the Duke. I caught the reference to the two men being ‘sworn brothers’ afterwards, and at first I thought the Duke’s reaction was his recollection of how his own brother had treated him. But then his words to Touchstone were accompanied by a gesture, touching his nose I think, which made me realise that Touchstone had been referring to something in the past between the Duke and his brother. We enjoyed that idea very much.

I wasn’t so taken with Jacques imitating Bob Dylan for his verse of the first song in the forest. It was a good enough impression, especially with the mouth organ, but it distorted the words so that I couldn’t hear the ‘Ducdame’ line. Since I know the play well enough I still got the humour of Jacques’ next line, but it was weakened for me.

Touchstone was pretty good, Audrey, Phoebe and their swains were fine (William headbutted Touchstone, good for him), Celia was OK, and LeBeau was fine if a bit too affected with his very slow delivery. Antony O’Donnell was fine as Corin, and Michael Williams as both Dukes did very well. I liked the changeover, although it took a little time. Duke baddie discovered his daughter’s flight at court, standing in a square of light. The scene ended, the wall rose, and the Duke and his men walked back to where some boxes sat, took out the extra clothes they needed and put them on, while the boxes were repositioned for the next scene. It worked quite well, and at least we were clear that the same actor was playing two parts.

Charles was the skinniest wrestler I’ve ever seen, not much bigger than Orlando. The fight scene was played out under a swinging light, à la Callan, which made it harder to see what was going on. Perhaps they weren’t confident in the fight director, as the little I could make out wasn’t very convincing.

I’ve already put the boot into Orlando, so that just leaves Juliet Rylance as Rosalind. It sounds like faint praise to say she was fine, but with such a limp Orlando I don’t know that she could have done any better. I did like the way she ran the lines together into unintelligibilty when questioning Celia about Orlando – it got the point across even better than clear enunciation of every word. She’s certainly a good actress to make us believe Rosalind was actually in love with the big lump. Better luck next time.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Quartet – June 2010

6/10

By Ronald Harwood

Directed by Joe Harmston

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 25th June 2010

It’s early days still for this new play by Ronald Harwood, and although there’s some excellent material here, there’s still scope for further polishing. The four hugely experienced actors were all fine – Timothy West in particular seemed to relish his part – though I felt a few funny lines missed their mark, whether through audience inattention or a slight mis-timing I wasn’t sure.

The set was quite impressive. To right and left were two imposing walls, with a door in the left one. At the back were some large arches with light coloured curtains or blinds in front of them. A baby grand was back left, some chairs and a table front right, with another chair front left. There was a sofa centre back in front of the curtains, and on either side just past the performing area were some hospital screens.

The story took place in a retirement home for musicians, and the four characters we meet are former opera singers, now in their twilight years and living in the home through necessity or, in one case, choice. All four know each other, though as it turns out not biblically, and all sang together in a production of Rigoletto, the recording of which has just been reissued.

One of the home’s traditions is to hold a gala performance on October 10th, Verdi’s birthday, to honour the great man. These four are asked to sing together, and the play is mainly about how they get over their ‘professional’ and personal difficulties to perform the famous quartet from Rigoletto as the gala’s star turn.

Along the way there’s a great deal of humour, mostly to do with the ageing process, and of course we come to know the characters very well as past secrets are uncovered and some kind of peace made with both the past and the present.

For the finale, the stage is cleared of all but the side walls, as the quartet take to the stage to demonstrate the talent of their earlier days. They do this by miming to the CD of their greatest hit, although I didn’t realise that was what was going on until the next day. I mean, I knew they were miming, I just didn’t register that it was a deliberate choice on the part of the characters at the time. In my defence, I will point out that Rigoletto is one of the few operas I have seen staged, it was a magnificent production – the set for the final act received a round of applause on its own – and it’s also one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had in the theatre (i.e. I cried a lot). So naturally the music brought back the memories, which brought back the sniffles…… So I was clearly in no state of mind to grasp what was going on, m’lud. The defence rests.

There was a bit of (planned) heckling from the audience just before the final song, and when the music ended, so did the play. While I think that there’s still more to come, we did enjoy ourselves, and I hope the tour does really well.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Stop Messing About – June 2010

6/10

By Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer

Directed by Michael Kingsbury

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 11th June 2010

This radio series originally followed on from Round The Horne, just as this show is building on the success of that program’s stage tours in previous years. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as funny as the earlier shows; the humour seemed more dated, with references to products and radio stations, etc. that folk younger than us might struggle to recognise, and the lack of an ‘authority’ figure like Kenneth Horne weakened the mix. And of course, there was no Julian and Sandy sketch.

Even so, there were a number of very good sketches, such as the legal chap reporting on recent cases, the phone-ins and the film adaptations. The presenter for this show was Douglas Smith, and he and Joan Sims flirted with and flattered each other outrageously throughout the evening, while Kenneth Williams threw his usual strop in each half, and Hugh Paddick also inserted some of his other work, as well as taking over the important special effects, per Equity regulations, from the lowly presenter – another bit that worked well. The set was similar to the Round The Horne ones, but updated to reflect the Sixties style. All in all, an enjoyable night out.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me