Jane Austen’s Persuasion: A New Musical Drama (Assembly Rooms, 6 Aug – 9 Aug : 21:30 : 2hr 45)

Posted in 3*, EdFestivals 2015, Other by Steve Griffin

“The cast were undeniably talented”

I’m always a bit wary of American troupes performing very British shows in Britain, as I’ve so rarely seen them pulled off well. Unfortunately this production did little to change my mind, although there were some very promising moments.

This presentation billed itself as a new musical drama adaption of one of Austen’s finest works. And while I was expecting (and honestly would have preferred) slightly more Broadway than the Gilbert and Sullivan that was presented, the main fault with this show was something of an identity crisis – trying to force twee Jane Austen into a rather melodramatic and operatic saga just didn’t quite fit.

However – the positives: this is a big budget (by Fringe standards) show with fabulous costumes and incredibly detailed projection on the backdrop to show changes in location, time and weather. The cast were undeniably talented, with some incredibly strong voices on show in both solo and group numbers, and the band were faultless.

The narrative stayed very faithful to the original book, was easy enough to follow without ever feeling clunky, and that should be a feather in the cap to adapter Barbara Landis. The script contained enough detail to properly establish each scene and character in full, even if, at just under three hours (including interval), it’s a bit of a slog.

When it came to the acting though, there was a distinct contrast in styles between some of performers, which didn’t help the sense of jarring between what I think the company were trying to achieve and what we saw. While Jeff Diebold as Captain Wentworth showed great sensitivity to the emotion and style of Jane Austen, Barbara Landis as heroine Anne Elliot and John Boss as her father were perhaps the most guilty of over-theatricalising every line. This would have been great in a full-scale opera or vaudeville, but didn’t work with what should have been a more gentle approach to a British masterpiece.

Putting that to one side, the chorus numbers (in particular Who Could Love Like an Irish Man and A Sailor’s Life) were spectacular – they were performed with vim, energy and an incredible blend of voices. Moments like these brought a sense of contrast to a show that was in many other respects distinctly lacking in light and shade due to severe overacting in the more gentle scenes, which made them all feel somewhat samey in mood.

Overall, this show has a lot of the basics to be fantastic, and while the period music and libretto were not to my personal taste, the bones of this original adaptation were sound and would probably please anyone with a preference to more traditional theatre. Although there were some wonderful moments of character and hilarity, I don’t feel the piece really hung together as an operetta, and stricter, more sensitive direction and more variation in melody and musical style of each number could have helped bring out the layers of Austen’s writing.

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 6 August)

Visit the Assembly Rooms archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

6Aug2015

Bonsoir Monsieur Nightfall (Assembly Roxy, 5 Aug – 30 Aug : 22:45 : 1hr)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, EdFestivals 2015, Music, Rated: Outstanding by Jacob Close

“A voice so deep and gloriously textured you could happily drown in it.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars Outstanding

In French (I’m told) there’s a term “à l’ouest” which, if not taken literally, means a dreamer, or someone “from another planet”. It seems only fitting then that Helenē Clark not only made the long journey west from France to Britain, but is also utterly out of this world.

Taking inspiration from her time out on the streets, Clark’s set was an audial rollercoaster, ranging from almost stingingly raw despair to jubilation and joy. Deeply varied to say the least, but it did so without ever feeling disjointed – owing in large part to Clark’s evocative and smoky singing. She has a voice so deep and gloriously textured you could happily drown in it. Up against a gauntlet of styles ranging from junk guitar to tango, Clark’s range and tone were utterly without fault.

But the mightiest mountains do not stand alone. And whilst the main event was undeniably Clark, full credit must be given to her backing instrumentalists, who all were utterly on point with their performances and energy. Andy Shuttleworth and Dick Playfair especially impressed, the former showing off a beautiful and often mesmerising skill in fingerpicking, and the latter scoring points for utterly blowing me away with the strength and energy of his punchy jazz trumpeteering.

Of course, no show is without shortcomings. Clark’s vocal tone sometimes betrayed her enunciation, meaning that her lyrical work sometimes felt wasted as certain verses were lost to a rumbling growl. And, whilst her stories between songs added substance, they sometimes bordered on good natured but stunted rambling.
But any and all faults were immediately forgiven by the closing number, referred to cheekily by Clarke as their “Calypso Carnival”. It typified what made Bonsoir Monsieur Nightfall so engrossing: never before have I seen a group of musicians so obviously having a blast with their craft, and doing so with such sustain and finesse. Sorrowful, sultry and absurdly fun all in one, ‘Bonsoir Monsieur Nightfall’ never missed a beat.

If you can sit through this show without at least once cracking a smile, I’d recommend getting your pulse checked. This is not one to be missed.

—

Reviewer: Jacob Close

Visit the Assembly Roxy archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

22Jul2015

‘The Children’ and ‘Mancub’ (Lyceum: 17 July ’15)

Posted in 3*, Rated: Unrated, The Lyceum, Theatre by Alan Brown

“Evolutionary studies”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars

A Lyceum Youth Theatre double bill.

It must be heroic happenstance that Mancub opened on the Lyceum stage on the same day, July 17, that Ant-Man came to a (film) theatre near you. The little guy wins out and gets out, but it’s tough going. As for The Children, performed by the senior class after the interval, it is kind of the same story but a whole lot nastier. The despairing cry is, “We’re not animals”. The shame is that no-one told the adults.

Mancub is Douglas Maxwell’s 2005 adaptation of John Levert’s book Flight of the Cassowary. Paul is in S4. On the good days school is an adolescent aviary; on the bad days, it’s a jungle with teachers in their lairs. A diagram of the human eye is up there on the board in Biology class but Paul only sees foxy Karen (Emma Gribbon) and gulps with nerves. That’s the goldfish in him. He gets a red card in a cup game for roaring at the referee. That’s the grizzly bear in him. He makes friends with the neighbour’s dog (cute and canny Max Hampson) and they chat together. His younger brother, Wee Luke, hates Kipling’s Jungle Book but loves the Disney version. Their Mum and Dad don’t have the imagination to enjoy either.

Xana Mawick, Director, does well to put a cast of 26 on stage all the time and to keep the many episodes distinct. There’s a camera for bonus close-ups and five narrators do a good, clear voiced, job of introducing and accompanying the action. Alexander Levi is Paul, shy but plucky, and able to survive becoming the road kill of insensitive grown-ups; although Tom Borley as football coach, Susskind, is a likeable chump. Best friend Jerry, ably played by Carson Ritchie, is the smart dude with the knockout comeback lines.

The representation and/or mention of those other species, teachers, parents, gran, and – awkwardly, Neds – is a little sketchy, even foolish, but that’s evolutionary studies for you.

There is nothing ill-defined about Edward Bond’s The Children (2000). It is determinedly and definitely in your face – and there’s a brick to hand. When a mother’s instruction, fuelled by fags and booze, is to burn down a house it is no surprise that blood splatters to an acoustic treatment of The Offspring’s The Kids Aren’t Alright.

Daughter Jo, in a firm and touching performance by Caitlin Mitchard, does what she is told and is abandoned to a bleak, murderous, environment that offers no features, no direction, no way out (although Fraserburgh is on the map!). Her several – too many? – friends don’t make it. When, at the close, we’re in a harbour with a lighthouse the quiet relief is unlooked for and rather welcome.

There are two adult roles – principally Mum (Jenny Barron) and then the male Stranger shows up. Christie O’Carroll as director must have thought about playing the Stranger himself. Certainly Bond wanted that effect: the dreadful weight and mistaken, if not extinct, certainty of the adult up against the weaker, unscripted promise of the young – and at times it told.

All credit to LYT for holiday performances of a special kind.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 17 July)

Go to LYT here.

Visit the The Lyceum archive.

21Jun2015

‘The Driver’s Seat’ (Lyceum: 13 -27 June ’15)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Nae Bad, The Lyceum, Theatre by Alan Brown

“Prime Muriel Spark”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars Nae Bad

Never mind the 4th wall, how about knocking down the back wall? Break out upstage centre from the Lyceum and you’ll be into Saltire Court on Castle Terrace. You know you’re in one of Edinburgh’s superior premises when the tenants include global accountants Deloittes and KPMG. A neat, if accidental, location then for a play whose principal character has had enough of audit, who hammers her stapler into her desk, has hysterics and takes a holiday but with absolutely no intention of coming back to the office.

Bye-bye patronizing suits, hello lemon yellow, orange, purple and blue V stripes. It’s 1970 (kind of), when you could buy novelty knives at the airside shops before boarding at Gate 14. Stressed out Lise is all decked out for the fervid south – could be Naples, might be Palermo – and with one type of man very definitely in mind.

This is prime Muriel Spark territory. She had been living in Italy since 1967 and the shocker that is The Driver’s Seat was published three years later. Here we have it adapted – call it exposed – and directed by Laurie Sansom in a one act, ninety minute, cross-over between garish psychodrama and police procedural. It is articulated, televisual theatre; think anglepoise lamp on accountant’s desk and mess with the springs.

Gabriel Quigley (on screen) and Morven Christie.
Photos: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Centre stage is the incident ‘room’. As the investigation into ‘What-Happened-to-Lise?’ is conducted, so information, photographs, etc. go up onto a transparent wipe board. You see ‘VICTIM’ in marker pen. That’s retrospective action for you, sorted, marginally distracting, smart; very unlike the downstage action, where ‘What-Is-Happening-to-Lise’ is compulsive, jumpy, and unstable.

Lise herself (in an impressively tight performance by Morven Christie) is vulnerable because she is alone and out there, fixated, conflicted. At home in her bedsit, trying to sleep, she suffers – hands over ears – the moans of her neighbours having sex. Thirty-four years old in the book, she masquerades as the lady abroad: at one point a ‘widow and an intellectual from Iowa, New Jersey’ (sic) – supposedly fluent in four languages but plainly lost when it comes to real Italian. And it is real, via potent supporting roles from Ivan Castiglione and Andrea Vopetti.

There are no hands to the big clock in the incident room, which does point to alienation theory, but up come the sound cues and they appear, chronicling Lise’s known movements from hotel lobby to department store . There’s live mapping of her taxi on the large upstage screens while handheld TV cams relay fraught close-ups. You would think that little is hidden on such a tech-savvy set but as to why Lise acts the way she does there’s not much to go on, which is probably the existential point. Are we watching an object/abject study in self-destruction or an introverted and skittering operetta, complete with CS gas? Composer and sound designer Philip Pinsky uses mild jazz in ironic counterpoint to the spiky and alarming story. Did he, I wonder, smile at the desperate lyrics of the Sniff ‘n’ The Tears’ hit single Driver’s Seat (1979), where “She had another way of looking at life”? Accept stunned recall of Elizabeth Taylor & Ian Bannen in film-of-the-book Identikit of 1974 and you can see that Spark’s work is heading straight for Thelma and Louise some twenty years down the road, except that Lise has no buddy to go over the edge with.

Take that original, startling writing of 1970 – you’ll want to read it – and lay bare its mucky gender issues. The result, from creatives and excellent cast, is hard sprung. You won’t enjoy its forlorn subject, unrelieved by some crazy Italian driving in outsize shades, but it is acute work.

A National Theatre of Scotland production.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 18 June)

Go to The Driver’s Seat and the National Theatre of Scotland here.

Visit the The Lyceum archive.

4Jun2015

‘Yer Granny’ (King’s: 2 – 6 June ’15)

Posted in 5*, King's Theatre, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by Alan Brown

Gregor Fisher as Granny.
Photography: Manuel Harlan

“A performance of grotesque delights”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars: Outstanding

This is a rollicking and roiling mix. The Russo family grew up with Fritto Misto and Potato Croquettes but it has all gone belly up since then. Their chip shop closed two months ago and perky Cammy is scraping a living out of his old burger van. There is no De’Longhi Deep Fryer on the worktop, just a hazardous barrel drum of cooking oil downstage right. Halfway to tragic maybe, but I took my seat to the whooping sound of Slade’s Mama Weer All Crazee Now, which (looking back) is one lurid invitation to excess. “Don’t stop now a c-‘mon” is what happens next and it’s flammable fun.

Writer Douglas Maxwell has lifted Roberto Cossa’s La Nona from Buenos Aires in 1977 and puts it down in Glasgow in the exact same year. Cue the glam soundtrack of the late 70s with Mrs Thatcher warming up and set that against the dismal fortunes of famiglia Russo; not that dizzy Marissa (20) knows any Italian beyond “Ciao” but at least she’s bringing home some cash. Best not ask what her boyfriend is selling to the kids in the high rise flats. Her uncle Charlie is definitely not making it as a composer, although his aunty Angela has high hopes for him. She hears his bedsprings squeaking rhythmically at night, you understand. Marie, Cammy’s wife and Marissa’s mother, is keeping the home together but is screaming inside, not least when the Bay City Rollers are playing Money Honey. And that leaves Nana, 100 years old, a metre wide, and yer granny at the maw of Hell. Against Nana, no jar of mayonnaise is safe, no food bank secure.

Gregor Fisher, as Nana, puts in a performance of grotesque delights. He growls Glaswegian gobbets, waddles athletically, and reaches for the digestives behind the clock with unflinching courage. The audience actually feels for the old glutton as she balances on the step stool. The family chippy was ‘The Minerva’ but that didn’t last. Nana is the awful immortal here. Invoke her, if you dare, by calling out “Anymare?” Ironic that the Romans got around to seeing Nemesis, aka Nana, as the maiden goddess of proportion.

Barbara Rafferty as Aunt Angela

Maureen Beattie as Marie

Considerable credit therefore to Maxwell’s adaptation and to Graham McLaren’s direction for ensuring that Nana does not swallow the whole play. Cammy (Jonathan Watson) gives us two hilarious spiels of HM the Queen in his shop – reopened for business. He’s a proud Unionist is our Cammy but still manages to tell the sovereign to bugger off. She, for good measure, calls him a fanny. By contrast, Maureen Beattie is serene and strong as Marie and would save them all if only her good sense got the respect it deserved. Unfortunately that’s unlikely to begin with and downright impossible when sensitive brother-in-law Charlie (Paul Riley) has a mad and smutty idea. Enter very slowly rival fish bar owner Donnie Francisco (Brian Pettifer) halfway through the second act who, together with Barbara Rafferty’s amphetamine addled Angela, creates category one scatological bedlam. Suddenly poor, obliging Marissa (a great turn by Louise McCarthy) has a lot on her plate too. Never, ever, will chips and cheese pass my mouth and the wonderful Singing Kettle’s You Cannae Shove Yer Granny Aff a Bus has all gone to pot.

Brian Pettifer (l) as Donnie Francisco with Jonathan Watson (r) as Cammy.

My favourite (after Susi Quatro)? Donnie’s ‘It’s no that I dinae go fur older women … Mrs Robertsons (sic)? I love a Mrs Robertson so I dae. But surely to Christ there’s an upper limit on Robertsons?’

I enjoy eating at Nonna’s Kitchen on Morningside Road but that’s nothing to what Yer Granny serves up of West Kilbride. This National Theatre of Scotland production is a feast of Scottish comedy: clever and exquisitely tasteless.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 2 June)

Go to ‘Yer Granny’ here.

Visit the King’s Theatre archive.

13May2015

‘Normal / Madness’ (Assembly Roxy: 12 – 13 May ’15)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Alan Brown

Photos: Kidder theatre

“A show that is performed with great sympathy that you will take heart from”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

You say ‘Normal’, slash, ‘Madness’; I say ‘Normal’, oblique, ‘Madness’. WTF; you’re right, ‘slash’ is sharper, more definite. But it cuts both ways. Yes, there’s separation but they’re related, surely?

And that’s the point. Look at the flyer for Kidder theatre’s Normal / Madness. Mother and daughter, backs to the camera, are walking down a railway track holding hands; each balances on one rail, each supports the other. They walk beneath a star filled sky – in golden light – and it’s a lovely, endearing picture; but were it for real we’d have an irresponsible, lunatic, piece of parenting.

Here’s the crass response: “Pull yourself together woman!” Oh, is that all you have to do? What if you can’t because you’re ill? What if your whole life can become precarious in an instant? That’d be mental, then.

Kirsty McKenzie, 30, tells it how it is and how it was. Her mother, Mary, has schizoaffective disorder and has had it for a long time. She suffers psychotic symptoms, similar to schizophrenia, and the mood symptoms of the manic depressive. We see Mary overwhelmed and scared. We see Kirsty caring, trying to help and to understand.

Writer/Actor Fiona Geddes is alone on stage. She’s Kirsty with a broad smile, a ready sense of humour and a wonderful positive manner. She’s also Mary, low, terribly anxious and scrabbling in the sand for the six pounds in coppers that she buried and now cannot find. The tide is coming in along the Moray Firth and the children’s treasure hunt has had it. As a metaphor for how mental illness wipes you out, time and again, that’s hard to beat.

Fiona Geddes as Kirsty

We get to learn a fair bit about schizoaffective disorder. Medical information is relayed in tones halfway patronising and/or foreign. I couldn’t help wishing for some projected slides with bullet points to do a professional job. More time with Mary, Kirsty, and bipolar boyfriend Patrick, would have been better, especially as mother and Patrick don’t get on. The familiar, homely, strains of ‘Coronation Street’ are almost therapeutic and are certainly ironic.

You’ll like Kirsty because of her honesty and because she is a loving person. Yes, the issue is her Mum’s condition but the story is Kirsty’s. Consider the choices she (& Patrick) have to make regarding children of their own. Genetic counselling gives you fair enough odds but ….

Geddes and director Jessica Beck brought Normal / Madness to the Fringe last year. Now, during Mental Health Awareness Week, it is back in Edinburgh and on tour. It’s on next at The Tron in Glasgow . The charity ‘Rethink Mental Illness’ supports this production, which – forgive me – is a no-brainer. It is a show that is performed with great sympathy that you will take heart from. ‘Help and Hope’ is the message.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 12 May)

Go to ‘Normal / Madness’ at Kidder here

Visit the Assembly Roxy archive.

12May2015

‘Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense’ (King’s: 11 – 16 May ’15)

Posted in 5*, King's Theatre, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by Steve Griffin

Robert Webb as Bertie Wooster and Jason Thorpe as Jeeves.
Photos: Hugo Glendinnig

“I laughed so much I was reprimanded by the woman in the seat in front for being too loud.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars: Outstanding

I’ll admit, I wasn’t a massive fan of Peep Show when it was out (is it still out?), and being of a certain age (in my twenties), I can’t say I’m particularly au fait with the works of P G Wodehouse. Therefore, my expectations in going to see a period potpourri starring Robert Webb weren’t particularly high. But what a comedy it is!

As the curtain rose to a near bare set with Webb postulating alone, it could easily have turned into a rather self-indulgent affair; but the snappy delivery of some great one-liners, commanding physicality and fine character acting from the three actors were all top notch. It is anything but a one-man show.

The script (created by the Goodale Brothers from original Wodehouse works) and the concept are charmingly British and brilliantly written for the stage. The scenes move at a cracking pace and individual moments of lyrical wit are delivered with comic perfection all the way through. While the first half is more about word play and establishing a tone, the second half raises the game – and then some – by introducing elements of farce that are so well pitched as to make them outrageous but not clichéd.

The hilarity is at its peak when the numerous ‘others’, played by Jason Thorpe and Christopher Ryan, start to overlap in the same scenes. One particular highlight is when Ryan, playing two characters at the same time (one male, one female) holds a quick-fire argument with him/herself, without slipping out of either character for a second. Fabulous! I think this was when the lady in the seat in front of me turned around to reprimand me for laughing too loudly. But I was far from alone in my gutsy chortling.

Christopher Ryan as Seppings.

The slickness of the costume changes and clever use of the impressive set made the piece feel very professional and daring (reminiscent of shows such as Noises Off at the Old Vic in 2013). The smashing of the ‘fourth wall’ gives the piece a contemporary blast, without losing anything of its finesse. It was particularly enjoyable being able to watch the cast do their own sound effects at times, with ne’er a thought for boring naturalism.

Any faults? If one were to be really picky, perhaps it was a little shouty at times, and the narrative got itself somewhat confused in all that dash and panache. But that is literally it. The whole show is a corking romp through the best of polite British comedy, superbly acted and with enough laughs to cheer even the grumpiest of young grumps.

—

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 11 May)

Go to Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense.

Visit the King’s Theatre archive.

7May2015

‘The Venetian Twins’ (Lyceum: 24 April – 16 May ’15)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Unrated, The Lyceum by Alan Brown

Angela Darcy as Columbina and Grant O’Rourke as Tonino.
Photos by Alan McCredie

“Helpless merriment awaits”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

The fun that there is to be had with twins, eh? And with the long-legged long lost sister who, naturally, is being wooed by one of the brothers, but which one? There’s a consultation on offer with Dr Freud but, nah, he stays in Vienna and it’s much more jolly here in a sun dappled piazza in rosy Verona.

Wednesday was a shocking day in Lothian and so all the more reason to enjoy one of Signor Goldoni’s cloudless comedies. It’s funny what a master drammaturgo can do with disinheritance, murder, suicide and a lovesick ginger loon in lime green.

That’s Carlo Goldoni of a Servant of Two Masters (1743) and many, many more of that ilk. Its near relation has to be I Due Gemelli Veneziani (1750), respectfully translated, because our Edinburgh is the city of La Favorita, ‘the authentic Italian experience’. And just like those jaunty yellow 500s that we see around and about so adaptor/director Tony Cownie delivers big time – in FIAT speak – ‘an emotional mixture of vintage flavours, where everything is colourful, joyful and [almost] authentic’, plus a high speed rally of Scots accents and banter. It’s also now around 1905, Italian railways are steaming in but a bag of gold and a box of jewels will still buy you a bride in an astonishing frock.

‘This place is mental, eh?, declares Twin 1, provincial Zanetto, who is a mild and endearing sort. He’s come to town from the sheep folds and pig pens of Bergamo to marry Rosaura, whom he’s never met, but who has been kept under house arrest for her (rich) Intended. Poor Rosaura! Home tuition didn’t help much and she suffers from acute malapropism, make-up dependency, and the lust of Pancrazio, the priest, who is a top graduate of the Tartuffe school of rank hypocrisy. Twin 2, is dauntless and debonair Tonino, whose tireless belief in the beauty that is Venice and in his no less beauteous self, probably led to his conflicted fiancée, Beatrice (PhD), running away to Verona where she meets …. Zanetto. Signore e signori, it’s the face-off show! Meanwhile, opposite Rosaura’s just has to be the inn of the Two Cocks where more helpless merriment awaits behind the bar.

Dani Heron as Rosaura and Steve McNicoll as Pancrazio

Twins 1 and 2 are – or is – Grant O’Rourke. It is a treat of a ‘double’ performance where panache meets dead-pan humour and survives. Dani Heron serves up Rosaura as a pink sweetie and the whole piece, actually, is offered con brio: from the bright accordion music to the swashing sword play and pink cravat of posh boy Lelio (James Anthony Pearson). Kern Falconer’s turn as barmaid Mammy Flozzie is a shameless hoot whilst Steve McNicoll as the villainous Pancrazio exists seconds away from pantomime hisses.

The audience knows just about what to expect at every madcap moment because the characters delight in telling them – especially Angela Darcy’s fly Columbina; but there are a couple of slaps in the face, as a reminder that Goldoni’s laughs can and perhaps should at times own a keener edge. You won’t miss them, though, but you might feel for good ole’ Zanetto as I did.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 5 May)

Go to ‘The Venetian Twins’ here

Visit the The Lyceum archive.

24Apr2015

‘Birdsong’ (King’s: 21 – 25 April ’15)

Posted in 4*, King's Theatre, Rated: Nae Bad by Alan Brown

Edmund Wiseman as Stephen Wraysford and Emily Bowker as Isabelle Azaire.
Photos: Jack Ladenburg

“More resonant than sword waving in front of machine guns”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars Nae Bad

If you can bear a literary introduction read Sassoon’s The Redeemer and Owen’s Strange Meeting before the show. If not, just take this from Issac Rosenberg’s Returning, we hear the Larks:

‘Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song –
But song only dropped’

Which is what you do get in this moving if fitful adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong. There is lovely singing and there are skylarks – but there is also a rat on a bayonet, blood dripping down 60 feet, and furious bombardment.

This is poignant and dramatic storytelling by the Original Theatre Company. Yes, Faulks’ book is blasted open in Rachel Wagstaff’s new version for the stage and at times the effect is not pretty, parts do fall away and some of the shoring up looks shaky but I reckon that’s inevitable. The back set is a high rampart of shattered wood and piled debris. Two large timbers make a cross that rises above the parapet in a stark reminder that Christ had one hell of a job to do on the Western Front. Men pray in this play, which is not at all what I remember from the book, and it is horribly easy to understand why. That green hill is not so far away and might well be undermined by tons of explosive that will send you to kingdom come.

What I do recall from Faulks’ pages are sex and war story content of frightful detail and claustrophobic novelty. Well, the sex is still around but the novelty has gone because even if you do not know the book there’s the two-part tv. series with Eddie Redmayne and the Australian film Beneath Hill 60. Tunnelling onto and about the stage aint the same but the sappers do a brave job of crawling by (electric) candlelight. They ‘Play Fritz’ and imagine the lives of the enemy, who may only be a few feet away, below, above, or ahead. There’s suspense to be had before an attack tunnel breaks through or a detonation shakes the walls and then there’s rushing confusion. Nevertheless, the best action stays with the characters.

Peter Duncan as Jack Firebrace and Liam McCormick as Arthur Shaw

With a name like Jack Firebrace we’re close to plain allegory. Peter Duncan plays him admirably as sturdy, loving, dauntless . The short scenes when this former London Tube tunneller and his best mate, Arthur Shaw (Liam McCormick), share letters and thoughts of home are possibly the most affecting in the play. What is more intense but – it seems – far less mature is the love affair between Stephen Wraysford, 20, (Edmund Wiseman) and Isabelle Azaire, 27 (Emily Bowker). The individual performances are easily good enough to make this believable in the moment but it is a stretch to see it played out over eight years, from 1910 to 1918. The flashbacks flare and are gone and you can almost see the narrative being shovelled in before the light vanishes. A final, near wordless, scene when the cast of Stephen’s lacerated memories people the stage is a welcome coup d’oeil upon the whole ghastly shebang.

Arguably a resurrection is being played out: of Stephen’s passionate love and of his war – that’s understood; but it is also an appeal to stand by what is now out of living memory. Hence the really telling effect in this production of folk song, hymn and psalm, beautifully sung by James Findlay ; a cut above and much more resonant than sword waving in front of machine guns, more so even than a Tommy / Hun hug of reconciliation. For what Wagstaff has crafted from Faulk’s book and what director Alastair Whatley turns out on stage is a theatrical ‘Stand to’ – to guard against what Stephen kept close in his coded notebook and is now given voice:

James Findlay as Cartwright, Singer and Musician

‘No child or future generation will ever know what this was like. They will never understand … We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no words will reach us’.

You might simply want to accept Stephen’s commanding officer’s invitation to join him for tea on the Royal Mile when ‘this’ is all over. Or you can talk about ‘Birdsong’, which would be better.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 22 April)

Go to the King’s and Festival theatres here.

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16Apr2015

‘The Steamie’ (Brunton Theatre, 27 – 28 March’15)

Posted in 4*, Other, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by Richard Stamp

Photo: Sam McNab

“Out-and-out hilarious .. a cleansing experience “

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

Many plays aspire to be immersive, but few could claim that word as literally as Scottish favourite The Steamie. Set in a Glasgow wash-house one 1950’s Hogmanay, this much-loved play is a rhapsody of basins and bubbles – following the gossipy banter of four local women as they look forward to the party to come. And in this out-and-out hilarious version of The Steamie, Lothians-based Quirky Pond faithfully recreate the unique ambiance of the communal laundry – starting with David Rowley’s set that is so realistic, I swear I even smelt the soap-suds in the air.

If the truth be told, Tony Roper’s 1987 script teeters on the borderline between the charmingly nostalgic and the wilfully old-fashioned. Very little actually happens – and while we get to know and love its cast of four indomitable women (plus one hapless man), the directions in which their characters develop are thoroughly predictable ones. So The Steamie will never make for a night of thought-provoking theatre, but it’s a carefree celebration of a simpler and friendlier age, a world which (if it ever existed) vanished down the plug-hole many years ago.

Director Andy Corelli has understood this straightforward appeal, and delivered a production that’s filled with witty detail yet feels uncomplicated too. There are plenty of crowd-pleasing set-pieces, while a constant bustle of physical activity sets the scene for a joyful gallop through Roper’s dense script. All of the cast display impeccable timing – faultlessly selling the humour Roper extracts from the unlikeliest of topics – and Sam McNab’s effective lighting creates some highly believable vignettes, bringing scenes from the characters’ imaginations right into the eponymous wash-house.

Among a uniformly strong cast, Alice T Rind deserves special note for her portrayal of Mrs Culfeathers – the steamie’s ageing matron, whose single-minded monologues underpin much of the script’s most memorable humour. But all of the characters are rounded and developed, avoiding the stereotypes which might bedevil a lesser treatment of Roper’s script. And there’s no doubting that the audience – some of whom knew the play so well they were reciting favourite lines a few seconds ahead of the cast – loved every minute of it. One of Rind’s best punchlines even triggered that ultimate accolade, a show-stopping round of spontaneous applause.

As a Steamie first-timer, though, I spotted a handful of minor issues. The opening scenes seemed a little rushed, especially as my Edinburgh-tuned ears struggled to adjust to full-throated Glaswegian. It was difficult to visualise the world outside the wash-house – they could surely have made more of their 1950’s soundtrack to help set the scene – and, churlish though it might be to comment on this, I sometimes sensed that the actors were enjoying themselves just a tiny bit more than I was. The fourth-wall-busting opening, which saw the whole audience joining in to get the party started, set an expectation of camaraderie which the rest of the play never quite managed to match.

These, though, are details. This is a laugh-aloud treatment of a laugh-aloud script, and a play which somehow contrived to make me nostalgic for a time I can’t even recall. And more than that, it’s reminded me of the importance of blether and friendship. This play about laundry is a cleansing experience for even the most jaded of souls.

Reviewer: Richard Stamp (Seen 27 March)

Visit Quirky Pond and the Brunton, Musselburgh, here.

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Category Archives: Venues

Jane Austen’s Persuasion: A New Musical Drama (Assembly Rooms, 6 Aug – 9 Aug : 21:30 : 2hr 45)

“The cast were undeniably talented”

Bonsoir Monsieur Nightfall (Assembly Roxy, 5 Aug – 30 Aug : 22:45 : 1hr)

“A voice so deep and gloriously textured you could happily drown in it.”

‘The Children’ and ‘Mancub’ (Lyceum: 17 July ’15)

“Evolutionary studies”

‘The Driver’s Seat’ (Lyceum: 13 -27 June ’15)

“Prime Muriel Spark”

‘Yer Granny’ (King’s: 2 – 6 June ’15)

“A performance of grotesque delights”

‘Normal / Madness’ (Assembly Roxy: 12 – 13 May ’15)

“A show that is performed with great sympathy that you will take heart from”

‘Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense’ (King’s: 11 – 16 May ’15)

“I laughed so much I was reprimanded by the woman in the seat in front for being too loud.”

‘The Venetian Twins’ (Lyceum: 24 April – 16 May ’15)

“Helpless merriment awaits”

‘Birdsong’ (King’s: 21 – 25 April ’15)

“More resonant than sword waving in front of machine guns”

‘The Steamie’ (Brunton Theatre, 27 – 28 March’15)

“Out-and-out hilarious .. a cleansing experience “