Category Archives: Venues

‘Aladdin’ (King’s: 29 Nov’ 14 – 18 Jan.’15)

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

Aladdin 1

“I’m a Believer“

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

Actually, literally, which is tricky during a panto, I prefer ‘Al – la – din’. That has distance and colourful resonance. Losing that second ‘d’ does away with the Highland laddie and puts our local hero Southside, somewhere between and above the Mosque Kitchen and the Nile Valley Café . Only momentarily though, for the gong gongs and we’re away to Peking of old. ‘Somewhere in Egypt’ is scene 12 of 16.

The King’s 2014  ‘Al – la – din’ is no call to prayer, although it does co-opt I’m a Believer as its signature belter. No, this is a serious magical treat, remarkably served after only ten days of full rehearsal. The reach and back-up power of producers Qdos Entertainment beggars the imagination, which is also what young Aladdin is about. He is poor but bold, his Mum runs the steamie off the street of 1,000 chopsticks, and he’s going to marry the most beautiful and loaded girl in the land, sorry, Empire. Yes he is and you should not doubt it. For a start Greg Barrowman as Aladdin has One Direction quality and the spangled charms of the Slave of the Ring to help him, in an appealing and graceful performance by Lisa Lynch. Kohl eyed Princess Jasmine (Miriam Elwell-Sutton), all brocade and style, just clocks him the once and she immediately wants “to talk to that boy – alone”. Lucky lad.

So dump the suspense and bring on the dancers, young and old, and give in to the moment, to the scene painting, to the costumes and to the out and out marvellous: the Vanishing Princess, Escape from the Table of Death, and an absolutely wicked, jaw dropping, example of Defying Gravity. Then enter, upstage and tall, the Mighty Nasty Cobra and the Giant Genie (a very droll, almost child-friendly Malcom Tucker). Take hold, my son, of the The Lamp of Amazing Power. Capital!Aladdin 2

Actually, again, there are three presiding comic genies of panto at the King’s. Three denizens of this Christmas cave of wonders: Allan Stewart as Widow Twankey, Andy Gray as Wishee Washee, and Grant Stott as Abanazar the bad, bad, Wizard. Rub that lamp for all it’s worth and you could not wish for more fun than these three familiars provide. “Oh, the acting!”, despairs Washee, as in “Our acting’s pants”, but what’s not to enjoy in amongst the topical gags (listen out for the 45/55 result), shuttling tongue-twisters, celebrity laundry, and hilarious routines? Their final skit of ‘If I Were Not Upon the Stage’, when they are joined by James Paterson (prev. the Emperor of China), is pure wallaping music hall.

This ‘Aladdin’ is an extravaganza, up there with flying carpets, and is tip-top admirable. My one queasy, senior, misgiving – because I’m not good off the ground – is that if there is a command message, it’s not ‘Open Sesame’ but ‘Get rich, and the girl’s yours’.

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 4 December)

Visit ‘Aladdin’ at the King’s here

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Home for Christmas’ (The Studio: 3 December 2014)

Posted in 3*, Events, Festival Theatre, Music, Rated: Unrated by

  carol-ann-duffy

little machine

“some shakin’ metaphysics to die for”

Editorial Rating:  3 Stars

As Homecoming Scotland 2014 approaches its close we enter The Home Straits, a programme of poetry and music on the theme of … home. This show, first of three, finished with the sweet tones and bitter air of Byron’s We’ll Go No More A-Roving that deserved louder applause (& participation) than our few and faint hearts allowed.

Home for Christmas is Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s idea. She is up front for the first half, reading her poems, alongside musician and Edinburgh friend John Sampson, but after the interval she sits out and Little Machine, is on stage. The band sing their settings of six of Duffy’s Christmas poems and then eight further poems, from the 16th Century ballad Western Wind to Liz Lochhead’s fervid My Way. Mood and style vary from piece to piece, from loose and cool J.J Cale to a Rocksteady lilt for Advent and there’s some shakin’ metaphysics to die for in Thomas Carew’s Mediocritie. The music making is very good – I like distinct guitar work – and the high regard for the poetry is evident in the diction.

However, it is sombre and plaintive to start with. “It’ll be over soon; home by Christmas” was the fond, forsaken hope. John Sampson’s trumpet opens with the Last Post, and then there’s Duffy’s own poem Last Post, where ‘If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would …. And all those thousands dead … Are queuing up for home … Freshly alive.’ Christmas Truce follows, when ‘beneath the yawn of history’ a miraculous peace broke out. The subsequent pairing of Wilfred Owen’s The Send-off with her response, An Unseen, is dreadfully poignant.

Just as sharp is the keen, deadpan, humour of three monologues from the celebrated The World’s Wife: Mrs Midas, Mrs Tiresias, and (Duffy’s favourite) Faust; and then four later poems of percipient, careful intent: Mrs Schofield’s GCSE, The Counties, The Human Bee, and Liverpool. They are all in the public domain – and not just on The Guardian’s pages – so go find them, realise their quality and why Duffy wrote them.

Little Machine had been on Radio Scotland’s ‘Culture Studio’ with Janice Forsyth that same afternoon. The trio anticipated an evening of banter and wit. Well, not really. I enjoyed their music, admired John Sampson’s playing the two halves of the recorder at the same time (do not try this at home, he cautioned) and heard really good poems, tellingly read by the poet herself, but it proved a subdued occasion, with little ‘give’ from our side of the stage. That’s what happens when the Last Post sounds. It all goes still and not in a stille nacht, glad tidings, kind of way.

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 3 December)

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‘The BFG’ (Royal Lyceum Theatre: 28 November ’14 – 3 January ’15)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Outstanding, The Lyceum, Theatre by
Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

“This is where dreams is beginning…”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

This is the Lyceum’s Christmassy adaptation of Roald Dahl’s ginormous classic. Its message is of humility and caution, all intertwined, and it’s very enjoyable. I loved Dahl’s children stories and still do. It was therefore a delight to hear David Wood’s success in retaining the whimsical language for this play within a play and to see director Andrew Panton realise it all on stage.

What better to represent the many rooms of childhood imaginings than a doll’s house? That’s designer Becky Minto’s large doll’s house across the breadth of the Lyceum’s stage and there’s a 00-Super gauge train track going around it, just as would be expected of any child’s play room. However, arguably the most enchanting aspect of the set is the BFG’s cave and specifically the hanging shelves that are lowered into view, adorned with jars of multi-coloured dreams. Simple but so effective. And there are the bright and innovative costumes to match. In and out of onesies, dresses and tops; on and off with hats and shoes; all changed at a quick pace – a pace wholly in keeping with the never-ending imaginations of children. One of the most impressive costumes in the wardrobe is the Queen’s – a majestic Claire Knight – whose wellie boots are topped with fur and whose royal emblem is emblazoned on a red gilet.

An integral part of this production is its combination of live music and pre-recorded sound effects. The cast’s rounded musical performances only serve to further enchant a spell-bound audience. The hard work of Claire McKenzie – musical director and composer– is evident in polished but yet playful performances. Her marriage of jaunty Scottish rhythms, fiddles and drums with children’s nursery rhymes and kazoos is expertly balanced.

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Any decent toy box has its puppets and they are brought out to play big time in this production. The medium provides much comic input as well as creating numerous characters in the hands of a small cast. The puppetry is an original and attractive feature and gives literal form to the make-believe on stage. Robyn Milne’s infectious giggle and expressive performance brings the Sophie doll vibrantly to life whilst Lewis Howden’s mysterious and magnificent BFG is not so much scaled down – except for those ears! – as uplifted. Clumsy on his feet and tripping over his gobblefunk speech this BFG warms the hearts of the audience.
Children and adults alike respond happily to the energy and enjoyment of the performances and repeated ‘whizzpopping’ had the children – and many adults – giggling with glee. This is, after all, a treasured story that seems to have lived a lot longer than its thirty-two years might suggest. There is wonderful fancy evoked here, escapism and delightful nostalgia.

“Human beans is not thinking giants exist.” Well, after this great big and magic production this human bean thinks otherwise.

outstanding

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Reviewer: Amy King (Seen 3 December)

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THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Chess: The Musical’ (Pleasance Theatre: 18 – 22 November ’14)

Posted in 4*, Dance, Music, Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
Photo: Oliver Buchanan

Photo: Oliver Buchanan

“Without Clark’s poise on which to pivot, the story might have given up and defected to the bar.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

Priests, poets and psychiatrists all agree that the border between pure genius and melancholy madness is chequered with 64 black and white squares (with a white one always on the right). Next time you encounter that tramp in Potterrow Port, the one who’s convinced he’s Marcel Duchamp, ask him whether mad people gravitate to chess, or if chess makes them so. Chances are he’ll mutter darkly about the Lasker-Reichhelm position, but he might respond that the dedicated player lives “a monk-like existence and know[s] more rejection than any artist.”

The real Duchamp, the one who’d never been seen dead with a trolley from Aldi, directed those words to American prodigy Bobby Fischer, upon whose bizarre biography, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (loosely) based a musical.

Inspired by the 1972 match between Fischer and Boris Spassky, the ABBA alumni spun a yarn interweaving two grandmasters’ competition in the arena, over a lady, and among the ideological roadblocks of Cold War politics. Truthfully, Gilbert and Sullivan Chess is not. The undeniable success of this production says more about EUSOG’s commitment to sampling work pas a la D’Oyly Carte than it does about Andersson & Ulvaeus’ capacity for profound historical commentary post-1815.

We enter to find the orchestra have escaped from their pit, and are lording it above the action. Production Manager Tom Turner has crammed more steeldeck into the set than went into South Park’s Ladder to Heaven. Visually the effect is elegant, the band’s movements in stylish harmony with Sam Burkett’s clever choreography. However x4 keys, drums, bass guitar, x3 violins, x2 cellos, flute, x2 clarinet, x3 trumpets, trombone, bassoon, oboe, french horn as well as percussion will tend to make a fair bit of noise and some dampening field needed to be generated for the sake of the singers down below.

Douglas Clark shone as Anatoly, making the script & song his own so as to cover the extensive narrative arc laid out for him. Without Clark’s poise on which to pivot, the story might have given up and defected to the bar. Tadgh Cullen (as Freddie) nailed Fischer’s astonishing angst. It was easy to see why Lydia Carrington (as Florence, the lady interest) would love him, and even easier to see why she left. I thought having Cullen sing his big number an octave higher than his vocal range was a brilliant piece of 4th wall smashing artistry, subtly underlining Freddie’s inner turmoil. My companion, smarter than your average bear, though it was a Boo-Boo. Cullen’s commitment held out. Our cheering was long, loud and genuine.

Giselle Yonace (as the tournament arbiter), Caroline Hickling (as Anatoly’s Russian wife), Peter Green (as the US manager), and Steven Segaud (as the mendacious USSR fixer) found the space to establish bold performances, spotlighting and supporting the main cast’s quirks and qualities. When Segaud tapped the vein of comic villainy in his character, I wasn’t the only one LMAO.

Ethan Baird’s direction emphasised the characters and the story they had to tell. But rather like flat pack furniture after the third house move, Chess is starting to show both its age and essential flimsiness. The producers are a bit young (and far too stylish) to embrace an ‘80s nostalgic short hand, but would one double-breasted suit have killed them? Would a visual of tactical nuclear warheads rolling through Red Square been so amiss? Several pieces were missing from this puzzling-out of a not so retro script.

If a musical about chess, written by the blokes from ABBA, set in the Evil Empire’s dreary dying days isn’t enough to float your Typhoon-Class, then here’s the only reason you’ll ever need to get out and kill, maim or mutilate whatever man or beast stands between you and the front row seats: Lydia Carrington.

She’s amazing. Her gorgeous voice battles down the band like Eva Green casually knocking down Greeks in the latest 300 movie. Carrington’s give and take with the male leads is as beguiling as Keira Knightley, as sexy as Elisha Cuthbert, and as anticipateringly exciting as when Elizabeth Warren made a cameo opposite John Goodman in Alpha House.

If you don’t see Carrington now, you’ll only have to pretend you did later. Unlike my VHS of Learn Chess with Nigel Short (ft. Carol Vorderman) this is one to watch.

outstanding

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 19 November)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

editor@edinburgh49.com

‘Seven Dwarves’ (The Vault: 12 – 16 November ’14)

Posted in 2*, Other, Theatre by

Seven-Dwarves-Photo-Charlotte-Productiosn-538x302

“Glimpses of Laura Witz’s peculiar genius for distant intimacy shoot from the confusion of Seven Dwarves, and are as welcome as will be the snowdrops when winter’s worst is done.”

Editorial Rating: 2 Stars

When the director is also the writer, and is also on stage in a main role, it would be reasonable to suppose that a production will pivot towards a particular personality. In the topsy-turvy creative world of Laura Witz however, more is less. Too little in fact.

I number myself among Charlotte Productions (& Witz in particular)’s biggest fans. Glimpses of her peculiar genius for distant intimacy shoot from the confusion of Seven Dwarves, and are as welcome as the snowdrops will be when winter’s worst is done. Had Witz not been so much below decks, on stage and in the engine room, she might have been able to steer a clearer course.*

We enter to find the titular small people prepping a theatrical production of the fairy tale. (I think, like I say, one definite casualty of the confusion was the narrative arc.) Doc, Sleazy, Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, Jumpy and Dopey are waiting on confirmation that they are to perform before the Queen and her beautiful daughter.

Samuel Pashby is Prince Edward, the Princess’ nice but dim fiancé. He’s on hand to deliver, or rescind, the command for performance, depending on the royal whim of his future mother-in-law. Thus, the stage is set for a discourse on Disney-esque notions of female perfection versus the experience of most women (I think).

As the only guy on stage, Pashby is more Chris Noth than Ron Livingston, or heaven forbid Mikhail Baryshnikov. Yet his pinpoint maneuvering fails to find a plug. In this he is not alone, the bonny bubbliness of Erin Elkin (as Jumpy) is never given an opportunity to contrast fully with the brooding bristles of Blanca Siljedahl (as Grumpy). Trapped on stage, Sarah Calmus has to be constantly Happy, Daphne-fying her onstage presence into a towering laurel tree in whose shadow other performances sometimes struggle to show. In fact, Calmus dressed up as a tree at one point. (I’m not entirely sure why.)

However, Miriam Wright (as Sleazy) nails the part. What’s more, she possesses the reactive powers to suit her gear to the road ahead. It is hard to be off stage while on it, and not all the cast succeeded in this essential talent as well as Wright. As the only character with a unique storyline, Sara Shaarawi (as Doc) needed (and deserved) the space to establish the conflict between her romance and reality. Krisztina Szemerey (as Dopey) provided much needed physicality with a comic twist. She was also responsible for the Lotte Reiniger-style shadow puppetry.

Now, it’s fair to say I have a mixed history with puppets. I’ve been escorted from a super-tedious Vietnamese Water puppet show after trying to drown the dragon. I’ve been in a fist fight with Terry Eurovision. In the case of Seven Dwarves however, I’m going to take their side. Szemerey et al delivered a stylish, useful piece of staging which could have been extended to cover the spaces filled with jarring slides of perfect princelings from the Disney magic factory.

In the blocking, Witz was attempting to resolve the clutter and confusion of the stage, and she was not Bashful in taking an unmistakably directorial position. She stands out, but was not far enough back to take control. For her fans, boosters, and supporters, Seven Dwarves is a magic eye example of Laura Witz’s style – you need to be looking at it from a very particular position if it is to make any sense.

*Witz was a stand-in for Bridgette Richards, who was originally cast in the role of Bashful.

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 12 November)

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THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Flying with Swans’ (Traverse: 4 – 8 November ’14)

Posted in 4*, Theatre, Traverse by
Photo: Leslie Black

Photo: Leslie Black

“Well-met, if slightly over the guard rail”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

Last in the autumn season of A Play, A Pie and a Pint.

Three elderly women embark upon on a “Great Day Out” to Arran, and indeed it kind of turns out that way. The weather is mild, the ice cream is good, and they stay on deck for the entire crossing. Brodick is dead ahead, but this is forty-five minutes of diverting, mischievous dialogue from Glasgow writer Jack Dickson. Its most acute moments are pin-sharp sad, but the piece is funny and kind-hearted too. Sage, no’ Saga.

As over seventy fives, Dolly, Jean, and Mona go back years, and there is some fond reminiscing, which is where the whooper swans fly in. However, the old girls talk as much of the present as of the past. For a start, there’s Mona’s ‘borrowed’ and bashed car that retired and repressed solicitor-advocate Dolly feels obliged to report to the police. Meanwhile, Jean is escaping an anxious daughter who is taking her duty of care to neurotic heights.

The play is, naturally, a tale of age and loss but not in any mawkish fashion. No one’s sick on this CalMac service. However, the passage of time has probably hurt Dolly (Anne Kidd) the most. Her schnauzers are gone, and she may appear trim and resolute and but her friends know the truth, and offer her the love and support that she needs – and finally accepts. For carefree, absconding Mona (Karen Ramsay), it’s different, which you can see from her nightie and Nessie hoodie! Vague, intuitive Jean (Kay Gallie), with her bag full of blue and red pills, probably has the most telling line. “I miss me,” she says.

The casting is excellent and the three performances are well-met, if slightly over the guard rail, for Dickson is writing incautiously and with affection. His programme credit reads that Flying with Swans is offered as ‘a tribute to the women who feature in all our lives’. I’m on board with him.

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 4 November)

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THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Bondagers’ (Lyceum: 22 October – 15 November ’14)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Unrated, The Lyceum, Theatre by
Bondagers 1

Photos: Drew Farrell

“a fertile, sure-yield production “

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

First performed by the Traverse Theatre Company at the Tramway, Glasgow, and then the Traverse, Edinburgh, in May 1991. Listed by the National Library of Scotland as one of the 12 key Scottish plays of the past forty years.

There is the straight open road and there is the wide open field. We are likely, through pig-ignorance, to love the first and disregard the second. However, Sue Glover’s Bondagers will change your mind, and if it doesn’t, you’re past saving. For this bonneted, bonny, holy play almost makes the invisible visible. Almost, for there are small molehills of socio-economics and human geography to flatten first.

In his peerless survey of theatrical landscapes, Peter Brook ends chapter 2 of The Empty Space with this question: ‘Where should we look for [holy theatre]? In the clouds or on the ground?’ You can smell the answer in Lu Kemp’s fertile, sure-yield production. An earthy top dressing covers the Lyceum stage, and when it’s hoed, watered or shovelled, you could be in the fields alongside the A697, just past Greenlaw. In Bondagers, which is part keepsake, part platform, this Berwickshire acreage matters hugely.

For most of us, farmland is now remote, somehow indistinguishable territory. Once upon a time, really not so long ago, over the Lammermuir hills a married ploughman (a hind) was bound to provide a woman (a bondager) to also work on the farm. She might be his wife, but not when there were infant children to raise. By the 1890’s, a good master would have paid his bondager ten pence a day. Women’s work for women’s pay was still holding firm.

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You’d have to split the Lyceum to set Bondagers in the round, but the creative team gets close to the vision thing, whose horizon(s) stretch way beyond the box beds in the cottage row, not that you see them anyway. There are no doors, no flats, and no fly-on-the-wall positions, as the scenery is a wide semi-circle of tan planking, thin and loosely joined, with the mist floating beneath it. The sights and sounds of this piece are filmic but solidity is vested in the spirits of six women. When fifteen year old Tottie calls out to her father in Saskatchewan the Canadian prairie seems as close as the Cheviots. Sara, the sturdy elder, leaves no room for doubt or longing, and Ellen, once bound over but now the tenant farmer’s young wife, is still bold and outspoken. Meanwhile, plainly and keenly, there are the folk songs: by turns affecting, burdened or bawdy, they keep time and period in step. Those warm, singing hearts lie under bulky wraps that are a triumph of research and costuming by the Wardrobe department. Additionally, the movement director, Ian Spink, deserves applause in his own right. From hiring to flitting the year round weather seems autumnal and chill. When the light does come, right at the end, the advancing glaring beams are of a different nature altogether.

In this rare atmosphere and with their own language a’ aboot them, the six bondagers share their lives. Sara (a fabulous Wendy Seagar) is the embodiment of moral dignity; good wife Maggie (Pauline Lockhart) scuttles undiminished from bairn to crib to table; Liza (Jayd Johnson) and Jenny (Charlene Boyd) chop neeps by day and gaze for lovers in their broken mirror by night. Innocent, wilder, emblematic Tottie (Cath Whitefield) strays outside the fold and suffers grievous harm. Mistress Ellen (Nora Waddell) brings knowledge of farm economy and crop rotation alongside her desire for a baby.

This is substantial and enthralling theatre by director Kemp and designer Jamie Vartan and yet its make-believe is vulnerable. I’d call Bondagers rhapsodic but there’s dissonance. A working girl can still be seduced into marriage by the promise of a clock, a dresser and a bed. Worse, there are bogeymen around: a sheriff who orders an arrest and a marquess who raises the rent. That brief combination is enough to silence the women well before the badass harvester turns off into the fields.

Still, the road’s clear to Coldstream and you can see for miles. Enjoy the view and love Bondagers.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

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Reviewer: Alan Brown  (Seen 28 October)

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THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

Crash (Traverse: 28 Oct – 1 Nov ’14)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by
Photo. Leslie Black

Photo. Leslie Black

“More slo-mo skid and shunt than full-on collision, more  crunch than splat”

Editorial Rating:  4 Stars: Nae Bad

In the Autumn line-up of A Play, A Pie and a A Pint.

A whacked City trader speaks. He’s Scottish but it’s a quids in, pound sterling monologue, unassuming and on the level; a penny plain real deal, in fact, provided you accept that asset management is an emotional as well as a financial business. Finally, even naturally, the ‘game’ wastes you. There’s a wreck at the end of the tunnel.

Writer Andy Duffy’s single character has no name. He is a man alone in a sober suit and tie on a shiny office chair in a smooth glossy space. He could be in Aberdeen or across the way in Standard Life House, but still I incline to the Square Mile. His story begins on the night of 23 August 2007. (For the record Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on 15 November 2008.) He is precise like that; where he can he will enumerate, when he can’t he’ll simply point out that you don’t make money by being careful. And, instinctively, he has made and is still making lots of it.

Man (Jamie Michie) reads a piece in the ‘Financial Times’. His new girlfriend, Kate, prefers novels, which he considers to be self-indulgent pap. Man had a wife once but Alison died, which he’s sorry about, but shit happens when you lose control at the wheel, or when your investments go south. That’s ‘unprecedented volatility’ for you, which is where I’d bring in Russell Brand, who had lunch with the FT just last week. Brand finds the pink pages ‘hard to understand’ and opposes his ardent belief in spiritual ideologies to the FT’s economic one(s). So too even our trader, bruised and shaken by his wife’s death, attends meditation classes where in mid-mantra he finds consolation in … Kate’s long blond hair and tight figure. Nothing too revolutionary there to upset the capital markets .

Crash is more slo-mo skid and shunt than full-on collision, more crunch than splat, and so more revealing. There is the head-rest proposition that ‘money equals power and freedom’ but how is that supportable? Every now and again something is going to pile in from behind and the result will be bloody. You can hear it happening. There is a thrum of white noise – not Traverse 2’s air con – and the lighting gets colder. I was reminded of a Tube train coming into Bank. Man rises from his chair and/or collapses on a park bench and you wonder, not for the first time since the last financial horror show, if getting minted is worth it.

A driven, strong play that is expertly directed by Emma Callander and impressively performed by Jamie Michie.

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 28 October)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

‘The Last Straw’ (Bedlam: 21 – 25 October ’14)

Posted in 3*, Bedlam, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
The Last Straw 1

Photos: Ummatiddle

“…  impro cuts loose, and cries of ‘F –ing awesome’ applaud play and cast.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Outstanding

A tale of two exclamations from ole stage coach territory. There’s “Whoa!” (Slow down) or “Wow!” (Stop right there. That’s too much). Either way, forget it. The foot brake’s worn, the wheel brake’s a joke, and you’re gonna get hurt, lady, if you stay up top. Best ride is in here, in Bedlam, with us. It’s a long journey of near on two and a half hours but it’s fun.

Director and writer Eric Geistfeld is from somewhere in Minnesota. Home is unlikely to be Bemidji but what the heck, The Last Straw is tv’s Fargo in a gothic farce. It’s intrepid. No quavering, gathered strings here; no hole in the ice but a useful trapdoor. There is breakneck writing, lunatic action, a menagerie of oddball characters, a yellow sex doll, and a lot of laughs.

Upright, young Edward, true-buttoned Brit and in financial services, is just married to Judy, all-American sweetheart, ‘pajamaed’ and with her teddy. They are to live with Violet, Judy’s mother, in Terror Towers. It might as well be Marine Corps ville. Ronald Reagan is venerated and there is a dead butler, resident throughout the first half, who wears aviators and is fed cake, but it’s gum-chewing, pistol packing Violet (Isobel Moulder) who calls the shots, literally. There will be no kids until she’s ashes and she’d be much obliged if her son in law would smoke them after she’s gone. Not that she plans to let him live long. Edward (Macleod Stephen) is a good sort, articulates so well, but realises that his body bag is being prepared. Ma has to go so he puts out a contract on her life, as she has on his.

The Last Straw 2

There is live keyboard but you hang onto the soundtrack. The Magnificent Seven sets us off and then it’s a trip through The First Cut is the Deepest, Our House, The House of the Rising Sun and, of course, Sweet Dreams are Made of This. By this point Edward has taken a slice of sponged cocaine cake and is away, tally-ho, with his toilet plunger and the weird fairies from the basement. The fourth wall crumbled a while back, impro cuts loose,  and cries of ‘F –ing awesome’ applaud play and cast.

The Last Straw goes out to glad-hand its audience. Is it like the Lothian state fair on the Meadows? Kind of. Scenes are gaudy, wisecracking sideshows, neatly divided by a door on wheels. They put their trust in ‘Together we’ll go far’, which just happens to be the slogan of the Wells Fargo bank. Especially successful are ‘The Murderelli Brothers’, possibly from Brooklyn, whose take on Alan Rickman is actually to die for; ‘The Existential Hecklers’ from outta Sartre and ‘The Sad Killer’. What of the main act in amongst these diversions? Beyond the closing cheer of ‘Happy Families’, there needn’t be one. For the best of reasons The Last Straw is a fearless, crowded, tiring, play.

And so to our adventurous rating and ranking of 3* OUTSTANDING. Three stars (safe) because you won’t be disappointed by such a full-on, have-a go, production. Colour coded red – Outstanding – because The Last Straw is remarkable rather than unbearable. I thought so, anyway.

outstanding

StarStarStar

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 22 October)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Top Hat’ (Festival Theatre: 7 – 18 October ’14)

Posted in 5*, Dance, Festival Theatre, Music, Theatre by

“Hayward is Wodehousian perfection – the only actor who might do justice as Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars: Nae Bad

Michael Clarke Duncan, as death row inmate John Coffey in The Green Mile (1999), got it about right. The night before he becomes a dead man walking, Coffey is granted a clandestine glimpse of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing cheek to cheek in Irving Berlin’s Hollywood classic Top Hat (1935). “They’s just like angels” he declares, utterly awestruck.

Expectations couldn’t be higher as we take our seats for the stage adaptation. “I wish Monty was here!” laments Companion A to Companion B, “he loves Strictly.” Monty-The-Dog’s inclusion in the lasses’ Saturday night ritual might suggest he’s more Withnail and I than WWII general. But like millions of contemporary Brits, Monty is a sucker for a sequin dress spinning at a bajillion miles an hour. If he were here, he’d be wanting dance, laughs, toe-tappin’, and above all, glamour… with a capital BLING! He would not be disappointed.

The plot is as subtle as a Shakespeare comedy, mistaken identity taking true love on a harebrained, helter-skelter ride. Boy annoys girl by dancing night and day in the hotel room above hers at an hour when even the coal porter is asleep. When she complains, he falls in love. She doesn’t and, much to the vexation of the theatrical producer of the West End show this boy is meant to be focused on, boy pursues girl from Hyde Park to Lido di Venezia.

Hildegard Bechtler’s set is a triumph, it’s how you want the 1930s to look. Art Deco, modernist, functional, and not a hint of a black shirt sneaking across il Ponte della Libertà. It’s not flawless – how come the parkscape scenery doesn’t move when the carriage does, and why is there a gap above the dressing table? But if you measure a set by how much you want to sit down in it- maybe sipping a Jack Rose while watching Katherine Hepburn mud wrestle Lucy Mercer – then Bechtler’s done alright.

The chemistry between Alan Burkitt (Jerry Travers) and Charlotte Gooch (Dale Tremont), never entirely ignites. Burkitt, former All England Tap Dancer of the Year and a Strictly Come Dancing favourite is superb, interstellar even. Gooch is both sultry and supercharged, staying cheek to cheek and toe to toe with Burkitt. They’re individually strong performances, worth the entry price alone, however they don’t seem to mesh. The double-edged lyrics of Wild About You fall disappointingly flat, while the inclusion of Rogers’ oft-quoted trusim, “I did everything he did, backwards … and in high heels,” is delivered more like a professional rebuke than a playful remark.

In contrast, the magnetic attraction of Clive Hayward (as producer Horace Hardwick) and Rebecca Thornhill (Madge, his socialite spouse) provides a true dose of human interest and drama. Hayward is Wodehousian perfection. He’s so good in fact that he may be the only actor who could do justice as Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.

Sebastien Torkia, as Tremont’s flamboyant BFF, and John Conroy, as Hardwick’s laconic gentleman’s personal gentleman, tap out Top Hat’s theatrical high notes. Torkia takes it to the edge and over, defying gravity to reach a level of lunacy that must be seen to be believed. Conroy is no less ambitious and equally brilliant, delivering each put down, as well as the story’s clever resolution, with a knowing confidence that never slips into arrogance.

Accompanying vignettes by the cast add to the seamless sparkle. I especially like the interplay between Lucy Ashenden and Edinburgh’s own John McManus in the hotel scenes which add depth and contrast. The great success of this great production is that amid all the careful choreography is a joyous piece of live theatre that will score with huffy hubby as assuredly as any bevy of sassy Strictly seekers.

Come for the dancing but stay for the theatricals. Bravo!

nae bad_blue

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 9 October)

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THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED