London theatre – Page 116

Review: Mrs Henderson Presents

Published on February 20, 2016 by LizLeave a comment

The Windmill Theatre in Soho is a little piece of London’s history, for two main reasons: its proud slogan, ‘We Never Closed’, and – probably even more famously – its naked ladies. Mrs Henderson Presents, originally a movie starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins, tells the story of the Windmill, its girls and its eccentric owner in a feel-good, high-energy spectacular that makes you feel proud to be British.

It’s hard to top Dame Judi in pretty much anything, obviously, but Tracie Bennett’s Mrs Henderson is a delight: her prim exterior hides a dry wit and occasional coarseness that’s all the more brilliant for its unexpected appearances. And she can belt out a tune as well, but then we knew that already. The relationship between Mrs Henderson and her manager, Vivian Van Damm (Ian Bartholomew), is lovely to watch – though they drive each other crazy, they also develop a strong and loyal friendship, and it’s not surprising to learn that she left the theatre to him when she died in 1944.

Mrs Henderson Presents — Photo credit: Paul Coltas

Now, let’s talk naked ladies. The Windmill Girls were known for their nude tableaux vivants, which had to be motionless to get around the Lord Chamberlain and his aversion to wobbly bits (I suspect it may have been a little more complex than that in reality, but let’s move on). Even so, the brave ladies in Terry Johnson’s production are on full display – albeit very tastefully presented – and you have to admire their nerve, particularly since in the one scene where the men get their kit off, they all have music stands or pianos to hide behind. Laura Williams gives a particularly classy performance as Maureen, whose rapid transition from shy, clumsy tea girl to glamorous star of the show is a forgivable stretch of the imagination. Despite the title of the show, this is really Maureen’s story (after the opening scenes, Mrs Henderson’s appearances are few and far between), and Williams steps into the role of leading lady with great dignity.

Though the show certainly leaves you smiling, with infectious tunes by George Fenton and Simon Chamberlain and dazzling choreography from Andrew Wright, it’s not all ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. Though we see little of the war itself (and a few of the characters have a worryingly relaxed attitude about sitting on the roof at the height of the Blitz), there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a horrible thing, and fortunately the show doesn’t try to. There’s a particularly moving moment when Dutchman Vivian Van Damm, after hearing that his country’s been invaded, sings Living in a Dream World, a song that could just as easily be about our attitude to events happening in the world right now. But through it all, our spirits are bolstered by comedian Jamie Foreman’s terrible (and terribly un-PC) jokes and the general air of defiance; it’s only when this dips briefly in act 2 that the energy of the show does likewise.

Mrs Henderson Presents has a lot more to recommend it than just naked ladies, as attractive as those ladies undoubtedly are. It sums up the Blitz spirit in one glorious image – Maureen, completely naked, giving Hitler the finger and telling him to go back where he came from. It’s a touching love story (featuring possibly the world’s greatest chat-up line) – but not quite the one we might expect. And, most importantly, it’s a lot of fun, and leaves you feeling uplifted and patriotic. You can’t ask for more than that.

Big thanks to LondonTheatre1.com for the opportunity to review the show!

Review: The Memory Show at Drayton Arms Theatre

Published on February 17, 2016January 6, 2018 by Liz1 Comment

The Memory Show began life in 2008 as a thesis project for Sara Cooper and Zach Redler, both of whom had their own memories of seeing a loved one go through Alzheimer’s. And that may well be why watching this heartbreaking musical feels uncomfortably like intruding on a very private and intimate moment, between a mother diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and her daughter who reluctantly returns home to care for her. As their already tense relationship is put under ever greater strain, we’re presented with an unflinchingly honest view of the emotional and practical repercussions of caring for someone with this devastating condition, along with an exploration of the unpredictable nature of memory itself.

And so there’s a song about cleaning the toilet, and another listing all the things that need to be done before the mother passes away. The daughter, forced to be endlessly patient with a parent who’s more like a child, doesn’t hold back about her complicated mix of emotions; she loves her mother, and despises her at the same time for all she’s had to give up. She wants it all to be over, but wishes that it could be possible afterwards to call her mother for a chat. Often speaking directly out to the audience as her only other human contact in an increasingly claustrophobic situation, she explains about difficulties with doctors, and confesses her fears about whether she’s doing the right thing.

But as hard as this blunt honesty is to watch, there are also some lovely, tender moments – as they sit together on the sofa looking at potential matches on a dating website, they could be any mother and daughter, rather than a patient and her carer. And the final scene is bittersweet, because we know that whether or not the two can mend their relationship, it’s still going to be too late.

The relationship between Ruth Redman and Carolyn Maitland as the nameless mother and daughter is utterly convincing – the ups and downs, the bickering, the reminiscing – and both show flashes of the same feistiness. As they reflect on their difficult history together, one topic keeps recurring: Ira, late husband and father, who seems to be remembered very differently by the two women. One of them is remembering him wrong… but not necessarily the one we might expect – and the continued references to a ‘secret’ hold us in suspense until the truth is finally revealed.

The simply staged production, directed by Alex Howarth, finds the characters and audience confined within the pair’s living room, with a string of lights above their heads that illuminate during the mother’s brief, and increasingly rare, moments of clarity. Behind them, meanwhile, a white sheet provides a backdrop for flickering images from home movies, a haunting reminder of the life and happiness that’s slowly fading away.

The Memory Show paints a brutal picture of the horror that is Alzheimer’s, but it also leaves a powerful impression for those without direct experience of the disease. It’s a story of two people who learn how to love each other only when it’s too late, and encourages us to reflect on our own relationships, and the power of memory to make or break them. A heartbreaking show to watch, true, but still one that should be seen.

Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉

Review: Dress Rehearsal at OSO Arts Centre

Published on February 12, 2016January 6, 2018 by LizLeave a comment

It’s an intriguing premise – a ‘play with opera’, following a group of performers both on and offstage, and giving us a glimpse at what goes on behind the scenes. And for the Overtones, it’s not a pretty sight; the air in their dressing room is heavy with bitterness, resentment and sadness over opportunities lost. As diva Bella (Amanda Wagg) and young newcomer Kit (Luke Farrugia) vie for the limelight, Steph (Alexandra Cowell) and Lionel (Tony Baker) are left to reflect on what might have been, and the group’s enthusiastic and talented pianist Phyllis (Karen Newby) – who’s secretly a bit of a rockstar – is completely overlooked by everyone.

Meanwhile, in the foreground, another story is unfolding – the story of a younger Steph (Chiara Vinci) and her romance with Micky (James Richards), a stand-up comedian on the verge of fame and fortune. As the truth about her past is gradually revealed, we begin to understand how Steph’s ended up as Bella’s backing singer, when she could have been so much more.

There’s a lot to like about the play, which is directed by Paola Cuffolo – not least the idea itself, which is original and full of comic potential. There are some lovely moments when, just like in an opera, the actors express a world of emotion without saying (or singing) a word, and it’s a nice touch to have AJ MacGillivray, who plays agent Zeno (agent as in talent, not secret, just to be clear), sitting in the audience to enjoy the show before suddenly making himself known to the performers.

Though the story is touching, and the characters are entertaining to watch, there are some frustrating plot holes which meant I found myself on the train home repeatedly thinking, ‘But what about…?’ There’s an allusion to a scandalous secret involving Kit’s mother, but we never get any further details; the same goes for Bella’s broken marriage, and Lionel’s story is summed up in just a couple of lines. Likewise we never really know what made young Steph decide to run out on her wedding, or how Micky declined in the intervening years to the shambling, broken figure we see in the second act (or even how many years it’s supposed to be). And then the play ends, with every character deep in thought but very little resolved.

Of course it’s not always necessary to wrap everything up, and the writer herself freely admits that it’s her goal to leave the audience with questions, but personally I would have enjoyed a little bit more background to help me really get invested in the characters, so I could share their triumphs and disappointments.

The cast are talented and enthusiastic, especially in the musical numbers; Luke Farrugia is particularly memorable as the young, arrogant Kit, who likes to show off by spontaneously updating the lyrics to some of the most popular opera classics, and Chiara Vinci balances her primarily speaking role with two show-stopping performances of songs by Gilbert and Sullivan. When it comes to silent acting, though, it’s Alexandra Cowell who stands out as Steph; in one scene, she watches her younger self performing with an expression of such longing that it’s genuinely quite heartbreaking.

Dress Rehearsal is a clever and original concept, with some strong vocal performances and an enjoyable repertoire of opera favourites. With a bit more character and plot development, it has the potential to be something special.

Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉

Interview: Toby Peach, The Eulogy of Toby Peach

Published on February 8, 2016 by LizLeave a comment

Toby Peach has fought cancer twice – once at age 19 and again at 21. Now he’s taking his one-man show, The Eulogy of Toby Peach, on a UK tour, starting at London’s VAULT Festival and running from 17th-21st February.

The show, which won the IdeasTap Underbelly Award in 2015 and proved a five-star hit in Edinburgh, is a brave and humorous exploration of what cancer’s all about, through Toby’s own story. It’s also a really important show, given that 1 in 2 of us will experience cancer in our lifetime, and I’m grateful to Toby for taking the time to tell me a little more about it.

What prompted you to share your story?

I developed a short story for BAC’s London Stories back at the end of 2013, it dipped into my journey with cancer and it was the first time I had decided to speak about it. The response was fantastic and I decided I wanted to delve deeper into that world, as I realised I had no idea what had happened. I’d been through this life-changing event and I had no idea what had happened – it was all a blur. I realised that I didn’t know what cancer was. This thing that nearly took my life and I had no idea.

If, hauntingly, it is now 1 in 2 of us who will experience what cancer is, shouldn’t we know what it is? As it became apparent that cancer was just me, then how am I still here? This question prompted a deeper exploration and with it came a discovery that I wanted to share.

How long has the show taken to develop?

After BAC and with the help of Old Vic New Voices I developed the show so I could scratch it and then the unbelievable happened and I won the IdeasTap Underbelly Award. I was blown away as it meant I had to make the whole bloody show!

After assembling a cracking team I headed out to Plymouth Fringe Festival to scratch the show further and experience solo performance – I had never performed a solo show before so it was very daunting. Then came Edinburgh; we had a fantastic month getting it out there for the first time and were overwhelmed by the positive feedback to the show from audiences, press and industry alike, as well as being inspired by the learnings and ideas taken away from the experience.

So after all of that we come to VAULT festival, and as we’ve just received Arts Council, National Lottery and Wellcome Trust funding, we can’t wait to get started and develop this show further to reach more audiences in the future.

Has it taken any unexpected directions?

This has been my first experience of writing, and also solo work, so the whole experience has been quite unexpected. I have strange moments when I’m performing when I realise ‘Oh yer, this happened!’ or a version of it. I mean I never did have an affair with an IV Stand but that relationship was present – so sometimes I’ll be dancing away with IVY (my IV Stand girlfriend) and then it’ll hit me again. It’s an odd experience.

What’s been the highlight so far?

Since Edinburgh I’ve been off to perform the show a number of times and had the honour of taking it to Teenage Cancer Trust’s conference, Find Your Sense of Tumour, for 300 young people who have or have had cancer and their support teams; this was an incredible experience and extremely rewarding.

I was very nervous about performing for them, as I knew they related so much with the subject matter, but they were laughing at lines that people don’t normally get and they loved it. People expect you can’t laugh at cancer but especially when you’re young and you’ve been through it, they understand there are things that if you look at it again are fairly amusing. I spoke to so many afterwards about what it meant to them and that meant the world to me.

Can you sum up the show in one sentence?

From diagnosis to remission, relapse and treatment, experience a young man’s journey with cancer in this honest, fascinating and inspiring exploration of modern science and the wonders of the human body.

What are you hoping audiences will take away from it?

I hope they take away the hardest word to say with cancer… Hope. The show doesn’t say we’ve been lucky and we should be thankful for that, it says we are here because of certain reasons and we have a hell of a way to go – but we are trying. Chemotherapy was only trialled 69 years ago… look how far we’ve come.

Finally, what would be your advice to someone currently living with cancer?

That is a very tricky question to answer, as everyone has his or her own unique experience with cancer. I can’t say there is a right way or wrong way to live with cancer. For me, it took a long time but I wanted to explore what had happened so I didn’t hide from it. I have scars, everyone gets them throughout life, but I realised it isn’t about how we get our scars; for me it’s about how we wear them in the here and now that matters.

See The Eulogy of Toby Peach from 17th-21st February at the VAULT Festival, London.

Toby will also be running a free workshop called Creativity Saving Lives, exploring the background to the show, on 21st February at 2pm.

Review: Red Velvet at the Garrick

Published on February 7, 2016January 6, 2018 by LizLeave a comment

The latest offering from Kenneth Branagh’s season at the Garrick is Tricycle Theatre’s award-winning production of Red Velvet, starring Adrian Lester as renowned Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge – and it’s safe to say Sir Ken has another hit on his hands.

Written by Lolita Chakrabarti, the play imagines the events of 1833, as Aldridge is brought in to replace Edmund Kean, who’s collapsed on stage whilst playing Othello. The young actor brings with him an unorthodox acting style, which goes for realism as opposed to the posturing ‘teapot school of acting’ – but what bothers his fellow cast members – and the critics – even more is the idea of a black actor playing (gasp) a black character.

The play may be set 200 years ago, and of course nobody bats an eye any more at the thought of a black man playing Othello (in fact, it would probably be much weirder if they didn’t). But that doesn’t mean the issues at the heart of Red Velvet have gone away, and all too often the colour of an actor’s skin is still of more interest than whether they’re any good at their job – as we saw only too clearly in the recent reaction to Noma Dumezweni’s casting in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. And so, while we might have moved on from the days of actors ‘blacking up’, not to mention the kind of casual racism that draws audible gasps from the audience at the Garrick, this is still an incredibly relevant piece of work.

Adrian Lester gives a spell-binding performance as both the young and old Ira Aldridge, ageing 30 years in an instant, into a sad, sick old man. He’s not always entirely likeable – there are hints about his various extramarital dalliances, one of them possibly with Ellen Tree (Charlotte Lucas), who plays Desdemona in the production. And alongside his appealing passion for his art is the arrogant belief that the experienced cast must do things his way, whether they like it or not. But these flaws only make the man more real, and the fact that he can still break our hearts as he begs his friend Pierre Laporte (Emun Elliott) to save his reputation, is testament to Lester’s layered and compelling performance.

Despite the heavy subject matter, the play is also surprisingly funny, with many of the laughs supplied by Simon Chandler as nonplussed actor Bernard Warde, and Alexander Cobb as the idealistic Henry Forrester. Mark Edel-Hunt indulges in a fabulously childish tantrum (giving a couple of audience members a bit of a start), but becomes an altogether more serious figure the following morning, when he takes a little too much pleasure in reading aloud the negative reviews. And Charlotte Lucas shines as Ellen Tree; she has her own battles to fight as a woman in the arts, and does so with great spirit and humour.

Indhu Rubasingham’s direction sees the cast rarely leaving the stage, instead quietly observing and reacting to scenes in which they don’t appear from the wings, and the set changes are beautifully choreographed by Imogen Knight, so the action flows seamlessly. Act 1 takes a little while to hit its stride, with a conversation between the elderly actor and a Polish journalist leading into a lengthy acting lesson from the younger Aldridge. But it ends on a high with Lester/Aldridge’s intense performance as Othello, carrying us through into the passionate and gripping scenes of Act 2.

Red Velvet is a fascinating insight into the life of a man whose name and achievements have faded into relative obscurity. But it’s also highlighting an issue that should have faded with him – or rather, instead of him. The powerful final scene, in which a frail and elderly Aldridge prepares to play King Lear, is shocking but perfect, summing up the heart of the story in a single, haunting image. I’ve no idea how historically accurate the play is, but it certainly makes its point.

Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉