Category Archives: Theatre

Lysistrata – November 2011

6/10

By: Aristophanes, adapted by David Stuttard

Directed by: James Albrecht

Company: aod (Actors of Dionysus)

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Tuesday 8th November 2011

This is the no-nooky play, or ‘How the Greek women won the Battle for Peace’. We’ve seen it done before, in masks, and with an all-woman cast. This version, which uses modern dress and (very) contemporary references, had a cast of five – three women, two men – and was a lively romp through the sexual farce and political arguments of the original. They want to tour it, and although we found it patchy, I do hope they get the chance to show it to a wider audience.

The set was nice and simple. There were three plinths of varying sizes dotted round the stage, and a stepped dais with two pillars centre back. A couple of large banners were attached to the balcony – only one of them unfurled today – and there were various props at the sides of the stage – Zimmer frames, shopping trolleys, etc. When the Treasury sit-in started, placards were slotted into the plinths on either side, and the women strung crime scene tape between them and the pillars to create the sense of a barrier. There was also a folding lounger, an inflatable mattress, a pillow and a sheet used in one of the scenes – more on that story later.

The story was told in a succession of scenes, some of which worked better than others. Before the start, we could just make out a news broadcast talking about the war between Athens and Sparta. Unfortunately, many in the audience didn’t realise that this was relevant and kept chattering, which made it hard to hear. We did make out some of the information, including the scheduled summit meeting, and then after the news section there was a brief mention of a new play opening in Athens that night – Lysistrata by Aristophanes – a nice touch. With the news bit starting up again, at a much louder volume, the lights went down and we were into the opening scene.

Lysistrata, or Lucy as she’s called here, entered on her own, and started pacing up and down on the stage, looking at her watch. After the clock struck several times, she told us how disappointed she was that no one else had turned up. She’d summoned all the women of Greece to meet her here at this exact time, and nada. Nobody’s bothered to turn up. Well, actually one woman did turn up a few seconds later – Cleo. Fanny arrived a few minutes later, and then success! The Spartan women turned up, accompanied by the Thracian women. We only got to see the leader of the Spartan women though, played by Joseph Wicks (times are hard) and as she posed on a plinth we can see she’d been working out. She looked rather fetching in her red top and shorts; she was well padded in the tits department but her midriff needed some serious waxing.

With all the women gathered, Lucy was urged to tell them all her proposal. After making sure that all the women were keen to see not only their husbands come home from the war but also their lovers, Lucy finally screwed her courage to the sticking point (they used a lot of Shakespeare quotes in this section) and suggested they all withhold ___ from their husbands. What, they all asked? She was too nervous to get it out the first time, and they had to work really hard to persuade her to have another go. They swore they’d make all sorts of sacrifices to get their men back safely. But when she did finally explain the details of her plan, it was a step too far for these ladies. Give up cock? No way! I even found myself agreeing with Cleo that we couldn’t do without sex (sitting next to an aisle can get you into all sorts of trouble). Still, these women weren’t getting enough as it was, and they did want their men folk back….. Eventually Lucy inspired them to see it through, and when they heard the signal that the Treasury had been taken, the revolution was well and truly under way.

The next section involved a couple of elderly men bringing sticks and a bin on stage to make a fire and smoke the women out of the Treasury. It ended in ignominious defeat for the lads, as the women fought them off with frying pans and plastic doodads (including plastic ducks). I couldn’t make out much of the dialogue in this bit, but it seemed to mainly involve the two men saying dick instead of stick and suchlike.

I think the next scene was a debate between Lucy and an official, where the male view was that women were incapable of serious thought, never mind running the treasury! Lucy did her best to argue against him, but couldn’t overcome the ingrained attitudes of the ancient Greek mind. Despite the modern dress, the prejudices were distinctly old-fashioned, though still depressingly present at times today.

The biggest challenge to the women’s position came in the shape of Dick himself, Fanny’s husband, sporting a massive erection in a tasteful shade of pink. Having seen The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus years ago, we weren’t surprised by the size of the member, though it was used in an unusual way. Wrapping a cloth around it, Dick claimed it was Fanny’s baby which needed her help. She had to come down from the balcony, but of course it was a trick. Mind you, she handled the situation very well, despite her own sexual yearnings. She worked Dick up into a frenzy of sexual excitement (and he wasn’t far off it to begin with) then delayed the moment of pleasure by insisting on a bed, then a mattress, then a pillow, then a sheet. At the end, when she couldn’t delay anymore, she tied her bra over his face, and while he was waiting for her to get on with it, she snuck off back to the treasury building. How cruel! (and very funny)

Eventually the total lack of action got to the men, and they started to consider giving the women what they wanted – peace. The Spartan and Athenian representatives came together to discuss the problem, and their problems were so ‘up front’ they could compare sizes as well (Sparta won). With every incentive to sign a treaty, the men still held off until finally Lucy forced their hand. This was done in the form of a game show, with the ‘contestants’ asked a series of questions, and then given an ultimatum – sign the peace treaty or else. They didn’t fancy the ‘or else’, so they signed, pronto.

There was another scene with two old couples before this, but I couldn’t make out much of it, and I don’t remember how they ended the play either; as I said before, it was patchy. But we did enjoy enough of it to feel happy with our afternoon, and since this was only their second performance, I’m sure it will come on fairly quickly if they get a reasonable run at it. Compared to the Carry On brand of sexual innuendo, the humour was more direct, and I reckon this worked better with so many teenagers in the audience. Nothing wrong with innuendo, of course, but it’s refreshing to have the knob jokes so ‘in your face’, as it were.

There was a short post-show afterwards, and the problem of updating the piece was discussed; the cast found it hard to deal with some of the events, such as the men who signed the treaty being allowed into the Treasury to have sex with any woman they want. The pressure of having so many quick changes made it harder, but also gave the production extra energy; in one scene, the two male actors played two parts each, dragging their own injured characters off stage. And they said men were no good at multi-tasking!

There were plenty of references to Greece’s current financial problems – very topical – and the two or three scenes that worked well made up for the ones that didn’t. I do hope they get a chance to continue with this show.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Marat/Sade – November 2011

4/10

By: Peter Weiss, English version by Geoffrey Skelton, verse adaptation by Adrian Mitchell

Directed by: Anthony Neilson

Venue: RST

Date: Friday 4th November 2011

I’m not fond of protest plays at the best of times, and even though this play was set circa the French revolution, it certainly wasn’t the best of times for us tonight. The underlying intention of shocking the audience into a new view of the world and events never seems to succeed with me, and I find myself expanding my understanding more through sympathetic treatments of difficult subjects or through humour rather than polemics.

The original production, put on by the RSC in the early 1960s, was a response to events at that time, expressing the frustration and anger at the way western society appeared to have failed to bring about a better world for all. There was still social injustice, war, hunger, poverty, ignorance, and many a bra was as yet unburned. Coupled with this discontent was the belief that a better world was possible, a peaceful world where all needs were met and everyone lived a happy and fulfilled life. Well, we were all young once. The older generation, having fought and lived through at least one world war (some had managed two) were perhaps more content with a spell of peace and the end of rationing, but hold the slippers and cocoa for a while, as we take a trip to a lunatic asylum somewhere in France during the reign of Napoleon.

The set was fairly simple, but contained some ingredients of menace. The balcony above the stage at the back held the musicians and some chairs for the on stage audience – the director of the asylum, his ‘guest’ (a very attractive young lady) and several other people, including an Arab gentleman. Below this balcony was a row of security barriers, the sort with alternating bars; these worked like revolving doors. There were four ladders arching out from the sides of the stage – two each side- and connecting with the circle balconies. And above all this was a white circular thing which was lit by a flickering light from time to time – I don’t really know what that was about.

The main piece of furniture was the bath that Marat is killed in – this mainly rose up through the floor, but was wheeled off at one point and brought back on again later. Marat sat in it for long periods – his skin must have been so wrinkly – working on his laptop. There was a loo at one point, and various props such as buckets full of pig entrails, mobile phones, dildos, etc. The costumes were modern, and a lot of the references were contemporary too – hijabs, Marat filming his terrorist manifesto, tasering a prisoner, etc.

The idea of the play is that the Marquis de Sade, who has been locked up in the lunatic asylum for being seriously unpleasant, is putting on a play about the death of Marat with the help of his fellow inmates. The asylum’s professed purpose is to help these poor lunatics, so artistic endeavours are encouraged, and the director and guests are attending the performance along with members of the public (us) to see the results.

My first difficulty with this production was that I couldn’t make out the dialogue very well. Some bits were fine – Jasper Britton as de Sade was good, and one or two others were usually OK – but I lost large chunks of the story, particularly Charlotte Corday’s bits. That meant I couldn’t engage with the characters, and so I lost interest fairly early on. Marat and Corday’s stories were interspersed with the story of the lunatic asylum, and in many ways that was the more interesting, and disturbing, part of the evening.

Every inmate had a mobile phone, and when any of them transgressed seriously enough, they received a text message from the director. All well and good, you may think, but then the creepy bit happened. The offender would kneel on one of the walkways, take out a black hood from a pouch in their trousers, and put it on, They then had to stay in that position for several minutes as a punishment. And the scariest thing  was the way all the inmates accepted this treatment – what had they been subjected to beforehand to make them so compliant?

The tasering was also uncomfortable to watch. It was a part of the ‘show’ in which de Sade starred. He was expounding his philosophy at the time, while also being chained up and then tasered by the inmate playing Charlotte Corday. At one point, she stopped briefly to have her picture taken beside her ‘victim’, with her thumbs up. All of these images evoked the gratuitous violence of the torture camps and prisoners of war, but the point was hard to fathom. Comments were made at the post-show discussion about the public being de-sensitised to violence, but Steve and I have probably seen more horrific images when we were growing up, courtesy of WWI, Vietnam, etc., images that just wouldn’t be shown nowadays. And in the time of the play, just after the French Revolution and in Napoleon’s reign, people regularly saw acts of extreme cruelty and violence which would drive most of us insane.

My problems with using these images on stage are twofold. Firstly, I know it’s a play, so if things get too bad I protect myself by either looking away or by disengaging with the performance. It’s not real, and what matters to me is the emotional impact such depictions can have if used wisely. In fact, there’s often a greater impact when the images aren’t so graphic – less is more. The other problem is my awareness of how often images in the media have been faked, specifically to generate a response of disgust or horror. After many years, I’m not so easily hooked by this sort of sensationalism, which again undercuts any impact the production is hoping to have. In the tasering case, there’s also the difficulty that de Sade opted for the experience, so although Jasper Britton’s suffering was horrifying real-looking, I still wasn’t as affected as the creative team may have intended.

Having heard some stories about the nature of the audience participation, I was also braced for more revolting objects being thrown amongst us than actually happened, which was sort of a relief, but then that expectation may have also kept me from being engaged with the performance – not very helpful. We do our best to avoid this sort of foreknowledge, but it didn’t work this time as the fuss was too high profile – damn the Daily Mail!

So now for the good bits – this won’t take long. Apart from Jasper Britton, who’s always watchable, I liked Golda Rosheuvel very much. Her lunatic act was heartbreakingly believable; she seemed to be listening to voices in her own head, and her occasional claps punctuated the action very cleverly, while still being a sign of her madness. Of course, not everyone in the asylum was there because they were mentally ill, so some of the inmates looked pretty normal, if somewhat scared, but there were also one or two false notes struck in the madness department which let the side down.

One of the other inmates had a sex obsession, and this was played with great gusto by Lanre Malaolu. He was so distracted by his lustful urges that he could hardly get his lines out, apart from a couple of minutes when he’d relieved himself by humping the stage. I also liked Christopher Ettridge’s Director Coulmier; whenever the inmates’ play became too satirical, he was quick to point out how much better things were under Napoleon. At the end, he also takes his clothes off and has some words scrawled on his body. I couldn’t make out if his craziness at the end was meant to imply that he was also crazy, or that the whole world was full of crazy people, or what, but it was an amusing ending.

The music was also good – kept my feet tapping – but despite the cast’s best efforts I just didn’t enjoy this very much. I can understand the desire to bring the play up-to-date, and make it more relevant to today’s world, as well as getting away from any memories of the original production, but I found this approach too bitty. From the post-show we learned that the cast had worked on their characters for the first four weeks, without looking at the text. They’d only turned to that when they ‘knew who they were’, and then had four weeks working with the text. From my perspective, treating a play with such disrespect and focusing on aspects of the performance that aren’t actually going to come across to an audience as readily as the dialogue seems to explain the lacklustre nature of this production.

There was also a very short actress, Lisa Hammond, who played the herald. She had a motorised wheelchair, and was a sort of mistress of ceremonies, a role she shared with de Sade. At one point, she turned to the audience and spun a sob story about being short of money. Getting down into the stalls, she even asked one chap in the audience for money, and apparently he gave it to her! Twenty quid! Nothing much came of it, so I’ve no idea why that was included. At the post-show we found out she varies what she needs the money for. Tonight it was food, but it’s also been shoes and other things.

I might be willing to see another production of this play in the future, but it would probably have to take a different approach to tonight’s version. We couldn’t get a copy of the text – all sold out – so I can’t fill in the blanks and gauge the quality of the play itself. I suspect there’s a lot more there than was on show tonight, despite the blow job and de Sade’s wide-ranging wardrobe.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Importance Of Being Earnest – October 2011

7/10

By Oscar Wilde

Directed by Stephen Unwin

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Saturday 29th October 2011

This was the Rose’s own production, and they made a good stab at this old favourite. Unfortunately the audience wasn’t ‘in the giving vein’, so some of the humour fell flat. We enjoyed ourselves and although it wasn’t the best we’ve seen, it was a well-balanced production with good performances all round.

The set was by Hayden Griffin but looked like a Simon Higlett special, with the large picture frame straddling the set. The frame’s distressed gilt finish was picked up on the door frames to left and right of the stage, and along the front of the stage as well. Algernon’s flat was furnished with a sofa and tables on the left and a heap of cushions with an upright chair and drinks table on the other side. Double doors at the back and plenty of rugs on the floor completed the scene. The garden had the table and chairs on the right – Merriman had a larger table brought out for the tea things – and a hanging branch behind the frame on the left. Cecily used a real watering can to water imaginary flowers, and the Canon and Miss Prism strolled off through the auditorium for their little perambulation. The drawing room had the usual seats, while a large bookcase centre back held the necessary reference works. It was all nice and simple and, with the elegant costumes, very effective.

Kirsty Besterman gave a lovely performance as Gwendolen; she’ll be as tough as her mother in no time. This was Jenny Rainsford’s first professional role, playing Cecily, and she did a fine job, matching the rest of the cast perfectly. Daniel Brocklebank and Bruce Mackinnon as Earnest/Jack and Algernon were not picked for the similarity of their looks – Daniel is shorter and dark, with regular features, while Bruce is much taller with lighter hair and an agile face made for comedy. Even so, their performances worked very well together.

Ishia Bennison as Miss Prism and Richard Cordery as Canon Chasuble gave nicely detailed performances in these minor roles, while Walter Van Dyk gave Merriman a Scottish accent and slicked down hair to contrast with Lane, who had fluffier hair and an English accent. I always enjoy Lane’s little dig about ‘ready money’ – this was no exception.

Of course the big question hanging over this play is how Lady Bracknell will be played. Jane Asher is almost too good-looking to play such a battleaxe, but her performance overcame that minor difficulty very well. She skipped nimbly over the ‘handbag’ hurdle to get a good run up to the ‘railway station’, which she delivered with astonishment bordering on distaste. Her predatory instincts regarding a prospective suitor’s qualities, especially those which are ‘in the funds’, were great fun to watch.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

My City – October 2011

7/10

By: Stephen Poliakoff

Directed by: Stephen Poliakoff

Venue: Almeida Theatre

Date: Wednesday 26th October 2011

Stephen Poliakoff is very good at evoking memories, and this play has more than its fair share. When Richard finds his former head teacher lying on a bench by the river, this chance encounter triggers a memory-fest for characters and audience alike. It’s fascinating to look at the layers of memories, the different perceptions we have when we’re young, and of course the different memories each person can have of the same event, and the different meanings those memories evoke.

The overall story was another simple one, though there were a lot of other stories told during it. After Richard meets Miss Lambert on the bench, he gives her his mobile number, as he wants to keep in touch. She’s more enigmatic about that, but does arrange to meet him and Julie, another former pupil who’s been friends with Richard since school. They meet up in a bar at the top of a huge shopping mall, and after a while arrange to meet again an hour later down in the subterranean depths of the same mall. Miss Lambert spends her nights wandering around London, and this strange behaviour, plus his fond memories, have hooked Richard into finding out more.

Downstairs they find that Mr Minken and Miss Summers are also joining them for a drink. Quite a lot of drink, in fact. These were two other teachers from the same school whom we’ve already met through flashbacks showing us Miss Lambert’s unusual style of school assembly. I don’t remember any of my teachers impersonating large dogs or big black birds during our school assemblies – would have been more fun if they had. Mr Minkin is carrying a suitcase, and explains that he’s clearing his brother’s house out. The suitcase has the things he’s keeping, and these are all old toys he had when and his brother were growing up – as in the assemblies, the toys are used to help tell more stories.

Eventually Mr Minken offers to make supper for the whole group – he’s an excellent cook – and so Richard and Julie find themselves in another basement, this one so close to the underground that they can hear the rumble of trains quite clearly through the walls. A cornucopia of childhood memories is stored in this room, including many of the large pictures which a whole class had made together. There are also some slides and a recording of Richard and Julie doing one of their presentations to an assembly. With Richard’s story of his successful career crumbling, Miss Summers leaves, and then the rest go to a 24-hour café to continue their nocturnal journey. When Julie leaves to take Mr Minken home, Richard and Miss Lambert are left to have the final confrontation, one which will hopefully heal some of her pain and bring her back to the light that she’s been avoiding.

So it’s a ramble through the past, as is usual with Poliakoff. What makes this play interesting is the story-telling aspects. Miss Lambert is particularly prone to telling little stories throughout the play, and during the assembly ones she encourages the children (i.e. us) to listen to the sounds they can hear outside the classroom. It’s amazing how powerful these sounds can be in bringing pictures to mind, and the sound effects were very well done. Many of the stories seemed unbelievable at first, but Poliakoff is known for his research into little known areas of history, so I would guess that they were mostly based on reality. [After checking the program notes, only the Titus Meredith story was entirely made up.]

I found the story-telling so good, in fact, that I felt the energy of the play dropped a bit in the second half. We had been kept in suspense, wondering what had caused Miss Lambert to become nocturnal. We toyed with the idea that she and her fellow teachers were deliberately finding old pupils and sorting their lives out in some way, even going so far as to bump them off perhaps (Sweeney Todd’s still a bit fresh in the memory). Once the real story started to come out, I felt a bit deflated; it was much more fun having the possibilities in front of us compared to the relatively dull reality. It was still interesting, though not as much.

The set was amazing, with lots of different locations created very quickly with lighting effects and some furniture and props. The basement location was the most elaborate, while the cafes were simply tables and chairs with a few signs. The assemblies were represented with two or three small red chairs, kid’s size, and the opening and closing scenes had a large head on the back wall and a park bench – nice and simple.

The performances were all excellent. Tracey Ullman was very prim and proper as Miss Lambert, even reminding me of the Queen at times. Her story-telling was marvellous, and I could well imagine children being inspired by such a teacher. David Troughton was very good as Mr Minken, especially telling the story of his father’s escape from Germany after the Nazis came to power. We were aware of the importance of his little model plane and the box he was carrying, and nearly lost, and I found this the most moving story of the lot.

Sorcha Cusack was lovely as Miss Summers, and Sian Brooke was very good as Julie, tough as nails to begin with, but showing her kindness as well. Hannah Arterton played several waitresses with varying attitudes, ranging from hostility to friendliness, and Tom Riley held it together as Richard, the young man whose career hasn’t been quite as dazzling as he pretended. When he was confronted about this by his teachers, he began to stammer again, a problem from his childhood, and I reckoned they had guessed he was lying because he hadn’t stammered before. It’s as if he could only speak clearly when he was lying in some way, or at least not talking about his own life. When the truth came out, so did the stammer and they could tell it was real.

There were many layers to this play – memories, changes in society, strange lives, the difference between children and the adults they become – and I would probably get even more out of if I saw it again. It was enjoyable to watch, and it’s good to have Poliakoff back in the theatre; he has a distinctive voice, and it’s one I’ve missed.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

How To Be Happy – October 2011

6/10

By: David Lewis

Directed by: David Lewis

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 20th October 2011

This play, written and first-time directed by David Lewis, is a look at consumerism and the ways in which it prevents increased happiness in society. It’s a patchy piece, with overlapping scenes in two houses which have identical sofas, and while there was some excellent humour and five excellent performances, it never seemed to have a clear focus; a scatter-gun approach instead of laser precision.

In one house live Paul and Katy, his second wife. He’s a semi-successful writer who went through a rough patch when his marriage to Emma broke up several years before, and who wrote a self-help book about being happy based on his experiences at that time. Katy is a primary school teacher, who was attracted to Paul because of his book. When she met the real man, she realised he wasn’t anything like her image of him, but decided to marry him anyway; it’s clear they’re not suited to each other.

Emma and her new husband, Graham, aren’t a great match either. He’s an advertising ‘guru’, always focused on the newest way to get into the consumer’s mind so he can sell, sell, sell. In this play, he’s trying out a very direct method for getting into people’s minds – an electro-cap which is connected (by wires – very old-fashioned) to his laptop so he can check up on his own brain activity. He does attempt to use the cap while making love to Emma, but the absurd look of him, plus some unexpected news, puts her off. Mind you, she’d thought Graham meant a different sort of cap! – we weren’t fooled.

Also living with Graham and Emma are Daisy, the soon-to-be-eighteen daughter of Paul and Emma, and Jack, Emma and Graham’s new baby. He’s giving them a lot of sleepless nights, which seems to be putting their relationship under a lot of strain, but is it? Or is just stopping them from dealing with their real issues?

The two houses are fairly close, so Daisy in particular keeps popping back and forth until leaving home ‘forever’ on account of her guilt at causing her parents’ divorce. Unfortunately, Emma then freaks her out by finally telling her that the reason she and Paul split up was that he had an affair – too much for the sensitive young thing to take. She’d already walked in on Emma and Graham’s attempt at sex with the electro-cap – too gross for words!

With Paul believing he’s got lung cancer, and then finding out he’s been misdiagnosed and has something less deadly (not good with medical lingo – sorry) there’s a fair amount of life’s ups and downs packed into the first half, never mind the whole play. There’s also a lot of humour in the way Katy doesn’t know how to react to Paul’s ‘good’ news; she takes another bite of her biscuit before responding, which tells us a lot about their relationship as well as giving us a huge laugh. But my favourite joke of the afternoon happened when Paul apologised to Katy for misleading her when he pretended to be a success story. Her tart reply – ‘I’m not a fool! I never thought you were a success story’ – really put him in his place. And in his underpants, too.

So, not a searing indictment of consumer capitalism, but a fairly enjoyable couple of hours at the theatre with some good laughs and excellent performances.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Death By Fatal Murder – October 2011

5/10

By: Peter Gordon

Directed by: Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 18th October 2011

Not a great play, although the cast did a good job with what they were given, and the audience were remarkably appreciative. The humour was pretty basic, with plenty of sexual innuendo, grabbing of buttocks and breasts, the occasional fart joke, etc. Some if it worked quite well, and we did have a few good laughs, but most jokes signalled their arrival a fair way out and fell limply onto the stage, hardly raising a chuckle.

The set was a sitting room with an old-fashioned look; turned out it’s an old country house setting. There was a main door at the back, a door to a linking corridor on the right, sofa, chairs, table and the usual assortment of furnishings including two large pictures, one above the fireplace and the other on the right-hand wall. The time was November 1940, and the costumes were appropriate.

The opening scene had a man sitting in one of the chairs in the gloom, and when a woman arrived, she found that he was dead, made some comment about her mother, and then grabbed the poker to defend herself when she realised she’s not alone. Someone else was lurking in the corridor, and she got as far as exclaiming ‘it’s you’, or some such, before the lights went out again and we were left in the dark. The next scene started us off on the quest to discover what had happened to a missing constable, PC Atkins. Along the way we met two randy women, one fake husband, an even more fake Italian, a fake medium, and an elderly local called Miss Joan Maple, with at least one skeleton in her closet! The local police inspector was called Pratt – yes, the humour was that obvious – and kept calling people by the wrong name, as well as mangling nearly every other word. The constable who was helping him, PC Tomkins, was much smarter, and figured out the solution before his boss, but as he’d also broken the law he was likely to be in trouble too. Never mind, it all ended happily enough, although the ghost of Colonel Craddock showed his displeasure at the end.

There were references to other works during the evening; Miss Maple quoted from The Importance Of Being Earnest before the rest of the cast pointed out that was from the wrong play, and the Squadron Leader’s limp and cane were highly reminiscent of a certain Herr Flick – not too surprising since the Squadron Leader was played by Richard Gibson. I suspect David Callister is doing the near-corpse as a technique now – we’ve seen him do it a few times, and last night I found it unconvincing, even though other cast members did their best to back him up.

Overall, the cast did a decent enough job, and I particularly liked Katy Manning’s Welsh psychic. The material wasn’t up to much, but they managed to create a passable performance out of it, which is worthy of an award in itself. Not one I’ll see again, but well done to the cast.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Three Days In May – October 2011

7/10

By: Ben Brown

Diretced by: Alan Strachan

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 14th October 2011

This is a play of two halves. The first half was a bit slow, introducing historical characters that needed no introduction for many of us, and setting up the central dilemma: with France nearly taken by the Germans, should Britain’s government consider negotiating a peaceful settlement, or should they focus entirely on resisting the Nazi advance? The official history held that they never thought about negotiations at all, but the reality appears to be that there were three days in May 1940 when the War Cabinet did debate such a possibility. Their final choice, to fight on, shaped our world in ways we probably haven’t fully appreciated yet, and by looking at this ‘wobble’, the play brings the importance of that choice into greater focus.

The set kept things relatively simple. The back wall was covered by a vast map of Europe, which obscured the two entrances to the Cabinet room. The entrance on the left was double doors, while there was a single door on the right. The raised platform in front of the wall held a long table, and there was a drinks table behind this. In front of the platform was a space which held the chairs at the start but was otherwise empty, and Jock Colville’s desk was front right. The costumes were naturally of their time, including Chamberlain’s Edwardian frock coat which he continued to wear.

The play was narrated by Jock Colville, Winston Churchill’s secretary at the time. We were shown the five Cabinet members – Churchill, Chamberlain, Halifax, Atlee and Greenwood – at prayers on the Sunday, followed by a meeting between Churchill and the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud. This triggered the Cabinet debate, with Halifax and Chamberlain keen to avoid the bloodshed of another war, and Churchill temporarily uncertain. Atlee and Greenwood didn’t push the matter initially, although they spoke up later on about the importance of keeping the momentum going so that the British workers (for these were Labour men) would be up for a fight. With Halifax threatening to resign if the negotiation option was ruled out, Churchill has to put pressure on Chamberlain to keep the War Cabinet together.

The second half started with Churchill and Chamberlain having a little meeting before the rest of the War Cabinet arrived. This scene contained most of the play’s humour, and livened things up a lot. Despite his natural inclinations, Chamberlain finally agrees to support Churchill, and keeps his word in the Cabinet debate. The play ends with Churchill smoking and drinking in typical fashion, while Jock gives us a brief update on the history, ending with a quote from Stalin. He leaves, and Winston is left in the spotlight for a moment, then they fade to black.

It was a good ending to an interesting play, as Ben Brown’s usually are. I did think the first half could do with being beefed up a bit; I felt we could have done with more background on just how much these men had been put off war from their experience of WWI (well, not Churchill, obviously). It’s hard to get into the mentality of the time when no one knew the outcome of these choices, while us knowing how things turned out automatically removes any possibility of suspense. But the second half made up for the first, and I thought all the performances were very good. Robert Demeger was not in the original cast, but was excellent as Chamberlain, while Warren Clarke did a very good impersonation of Churchill’s voice and delivery, so good in fact that I couldn’t make out what he was saying a few times early on. But I soon tuned in, and his stage presence was reassuringly strong. Jeremy Clyde was equally as good as Lord Halifax, and the rest of the cast were fine, though they didn’t have as much to do. It will be interesting to see how this gets on in the West End.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Sweeney Todd – October 2011

6/10

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler

Directed by: Jonathan Kent

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 13th October 2011

I didn’t think I would enjoy this as much as I did, but it was a superb production, and although it’s not my kind of thing I’m glad I’ve seen it. Steve would have rated it higher, at 8/10.

I’m not sure I can even begin to describe the set, which was absolutely fantastic. The central roller door concealed the large square platform which had the barber’s shop on top of it (and space underneath for the bodies to be deposited). To the left was the pie shop, with the main counter pushed forward as needed, and the recesses behind, and on the right were a steam whistle and the oven for the pie shop! There was also a large set of stairs which came forward for Johanna’s song about birds and freedom, and a trapdoor through which came various items, including a sofa and a meat grinder (not at the same time, of course). There were electric lights everywhere, and the period for the costumes and set was the 1930s – an unusual choice, made deliberately to bypass the musical’s Victorian ‘baggage’. Personally, I think this period setting worked very well, and gave the piece a more contemporary edge.

The story was very well told, and I was surprised to find how much I sided with Mr Todd and his macabre accomplice in crime, Mrs Lovett. Knowing about the back story helped, and in this production they showed the rape at the back of the stage, up on the platform, while Mrs Lovett was describing it. It was tough viewing, but certainly won my sympathy for the revenge aspects of the story. Of course, I realised who the mad beggar woman was early on, so I settled back for an intelligent and dark Victorian melodrama to music.

And the music was excellent, too. The cast were all miked up, of course, but even so the singing was fantastic – Michael Ball was on great form – and the pie-eating song at the start of the second half was the highlight for me. The choreography for that bit was excellent too, with that delicious pause after the barber has cut another throat before Mrs Lovett announces ‘fresh supplies’! Imelda Staunton is never less than superb, and her Mrs Lovett was wonderfully creepy – she thoroughly deserved her final roasting. John Bowe was a good villain as the judge, and the whole ensemble worked wonderfully well together.

Although I enjoyed some parts of the evening, I found a lot of it quite boring, especially the young lovers’ sections. I found I could hear some of the sung words clearly, usually when there were only one or two people singing, but then the chorus joined in and it all became a jumble of sound. This was also true of the young lovers, who sang well but not clearly enough for me, and I lost interest as I couldn’t engage with them at all. The plot was pretty obvious, so there wasn’t a lot to hold my attention for most of the evening, especially when Imelda wasn’t on stage. And even then, some of the songs went on a bit too long, such as the fantasy human pie-eating. Still, I wasn’t as put off by the murder and cooking as I thought I would, and there was more humour than I expected, so the evening was by no means wasted. Not one I’d see again, though.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Browning Version – October 2011

9/10

By: Terence Rattigan

Directed by: Angus Jackson

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Friday 7th October 2011

This had really come on since we saw it last. All the performances were sharper, and my main difficulty with the earlier performance, back in September, had been totally rectified. I’d felt then that Anna Chancellor’s Millie wasn’t as unpleasant as she needed to be for the play to work; tonight she was as bitchy as could be, and everything fell into place. The only down side tonight was that our viewing angle cut out quite a bit of Crocker-Harris’s reactions, so I couldn’t enjoy Nicholas Farrell’s performance as much as I would have liked. Nevertheless, this was a very enjoyable way to spend an evening.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

South Downs – October 2011

8/10

By: David Hare

Directed by: Jeremy Herrin

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Friday 7th October 2011

Yet again, another great performance of this new play. While the performances had sharpened up a bit over the run, I didn’t feel this had come on as much as The Browning Version – Steve disagrees – but that was mainly because they had nailed the play so well from the start, so there was less scope for improvement. If anything, the audience was much better tonight – we laughed much more and much sooner, it seemed to me. No significant changes at all that I could see – I hope this play gets another outing soon.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me