Mojo – Harold Pinter Theatre – 16/12/2013

“There's nothing like someone cutting your dad in two for clearing the mind”

Ian Rickson originally brought Jez Butterworth’s play to the Royal Court stage to award winning acclaim in 1995 and he returns the directorial chair for this revival, with a cast whose ensemble and timing are as slick as the Brylcreem in the dressing room. Butterworth’s dialogue is slick too, filled with a dark brooding menace enhanced with gloomy, claustrophobic sets by Ulzt and a pounding soundtrack from Stephen Warbeck and Simon Baker.

Ezra, owner of the Atlantic Club in Soho, is an ever present but unseen character, whose efforts to prevent rival Mr Ross from poaching his star performer Silver Johnny result in his grizzly demise and he spends much of the second act represented by two dustbins downstage.

Silver Johnny himself is brought explosively to life at curtain up by a Tom Rhys Harries. Harries disappears for most of act one, having been kidnapped by the opposition, and on his reappearance in act two he has a lot of hanging around to do before he springs back into manic action in the closing scenes. Fortunately Mr Harries has youth and apparent fitness on his side and hopefully won’t have too much need of the credited company osteopath - rather him than me though.

The rest of the cast are a motley crew of club employees who are occupied through most of the play in trying to save both the club and their own necks from Joe Ross’s henchmen. Mickey, charismatically played by Brendan Coyle, is hopeful of taking over Ezra’s Atlantic but Potts (Daniel Mays) and Sweets (Rupert Grint) have a more realistic, if somewhat histrionic approach to the situation and the ensuing siege-like situation builds in ever-increasing tension leading to the final tragic conclusion. Mays is superb and special mention has to go to Rupert Grint who, in his professional stage debut here, seems to have risen spectacularly to the occasion. Some commentators have moaned of mumbling but I was seated in one of the most acoustically challenged areas of the theatre in the rear stalls and every word was delivered perfectly well for me. His character earns the nickname Sweets for providing the supply of pills that fuels the cast in their chemical highs and lows and adds other unexpected colour to their lives.

This just leaves Baby and Skinny. Skinny is not the sharpest knife in the box and played with larger than life shambling and a good deal of comic charm by Colin Morgan. He appears to have a less than welcome fixation with Baby, Ezra’s wide-boy son, who in his strangely detached way deals with the bizarre events around him and the gruesome loss of his father. It is in his incandescent performance of Baby that Ben Whishaw all but steals the stage from his fellow cast, and I suspect he could easily walk away with the whole show if he had a mind to. This is a firecracker of a part and Whishaw clearly revels in it without ever overshadowing his colleagues.

Mojo crackles with electricity throughout and its quickfire dialogue – often not for the delicate ear – rattles along relentlessly, keeping the pace moving throughout its substantial two and a half hour running time. This is a great anarchic antidote to the safe mainstream world of much of what’s on offer nearby in the West End. It should sell itself for its fine writing and gritty atmosphere as much as for the star rating of its high profile casting.

Mojo continues at the Harold Pinter Theatre Panton Street until 8th February 2014.

Jumpers for Goalposts – Bush Theatre – 14/12/2013

“It’s a pull, Luke”

Pub licensee Viv has lost her sister and is throwing all her energies into her pub five-a-side team. Well it gives her something to focus on and a way of getting her brother in law Joe to get back in circulation. OK – being the token straight in a gay football team isn’t the obvious answer to his gloom but it gets him out – even if he can’t play. With Joe’s busker housemate Beardy Geoff and Danny, who can get the local sport centre for nothing as long as he cleans up, because of his course, that makes a team, almost. Luckily along comes Luke, who has seen the poster Danny put up in the library – what can possibly go wrong?

At least the team’s name, Barely Athletic, sums up their abilities on the pitch, which lead one well-wisher to suggest that Viv might like to try badminton. They’re never going to beat Lesbian Rovers, Man City are too good for them too but surely they can beat Tranny United – especially when they play in heels...

Successive scenes see the team in the changing room after the matches, picking over the bones of what went wrong and more besides, as the background to each character is filled in for us and they aim for their own individual goals. Mention must go to James Alexander Gordon, who recorded the score announcements that introduce each scene.

Viv tries to persuade Joe to get out more, while he struggles to get her to reflect on her loss rather than pushing the memories to the back of her mind.

Beardy Geoff has dreams beyond busking in Marks and Spencer’s doorway – his sights are set on the main stage at Hull Pride and he brings out his trust guitar to try out a succession of unlikely tunes. He acknowledges that “Go West” is a classic but when Hull is east it seems a bit off message.

But why did Danny only put one poster up, and in the library at that? Could it have anything to do with the fact that he had his eye on Luke who works there and if so why doesn’t he just say something – how hard can that be? And will Luke ever manage to overcome his overwhelming shyness and admit that he fancies Danny too?

The five-strong cast are directed here in superb ensemble by James Grieve in a one-acter that is full of beautifully stylish, witty, touching and above all real dialogue by Tom Wells. Every one of them give striking performances. Vivienne Gibbs’s Viv has stubborn determination, Matt Sutton’s Joe is full of gentle charm and Andy Rush’s Geoff is both engaging and extremely funny.

Ultimately it is the dynamic between Philip Duguid-McQuillan’s Luke and Jamie Samuel’s Danny that carries the emotional heart of the whole tale. It becomes pretty clear early on what the secret is that Danny finds so hard to talk about, but the fact that we find ourselves in on it before he reveals the truth to Luke has our hearts in our mouths as he tries to say the words. We can understand Luke’s reaction, given his character, and equally feel for Danny’s desperate response, but I for one was hard pressed not to cry out from my seat to them to wait and talk it through.

Philip Duguid-McQuillan delivers Luke’s dialogue with incredible flair – the hesitations and finely measured clumsiness are played to perfection and his Luke simply cries out for a huge hug. Jamie Samuel gives a pitch-perfect portrayal of someone who is outwardly confident but has a heck of a lot of insecurities under the surface. It would be a hard hearted person who could fail to fall for Danny - or to give him a second chance.
Re-reading the text after the show, I found the tears coming again as I reached Luke’s final diary speech.

This is really beautiful writing that is able to make us laugh and tug hard on our heart strings throughout, and it had me leaving the theatre with a huge smile on my face. Had I been able to obtain a ticket I would have returned on the Monday before my long weekend in London ended, but it was deservedly a sell out once again.

Jumpers for Goalposts opened at Watford Palace in April and has toured before arriving at the Bush Theatre, where it is playing until 4th January 2014.

This is the first time I have been to the Bush Theatre since their relocation to new premises in 2011. The way they have used the space in the former Shepherds Bush Library makes for a theatre with great warmth and a really friendly bohemian charm. The flexible performance space is an idea size and the bar and lounge areas (at present infused with the smell of mulled wine) are the sort of place you could while away some very happy hours. My thanks go to the Bush team for the warm welcome and for a great evening.

 

 

 

 

Andrew Manze with the RLPO – Liverpool Philharmonic Hall – 30thNovember and 5th December 2013

As artist in residency stints go, two concerts are about as short as you can get, but Andrew Manze’s return to the Liverpool Philharmonic was both widely anticipated and worth waiting for. When Manze last appeared with the orchestra it was clear that the performers enjoyed working with him and the results were equally well appreciated by the audience. The rapport was still very much in evidence in both this weeks concerts, and although audiences were disappointing in numbers the response was very enthusiastic.

After the previous week’s Phil concerts celebrating Britten’s own music, Manze had chosen to construct his two programmes around music from some of those whose work had inspired Britten - Purcell, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler and Mozart.

On Saturday, Swedish soprano Lisa Larsson joined the orchestra in a performance of Britten’s Les Illuminations, which was framed by Schumann’s Faust Overture (small but perfectly formed here) and Mahler’s 4th Symphony.

The Britten Song Cycle after Rimbaud is set for “high voice” and is more well known sung by a tenor (most famously of course by Peter Pears) but Larsson made the songs very much her own. With tremendous stage presence she inhabited the strange and shifting emotional world of the poems beautifully and made the very best of the sometimes skittish, often sumptuous settings to connect with the audience in a way that made it feel she was singing to us individually. I don’t remember feeling this well communicated to by a singer since Felicity Palmer peformed Ravel’s Scheherezade. The orchestra supported her with great poise and delicious textures.

Mahler 4 has a curious structure for its scale and needs a conductor who can give it some shape, and Andrew Manze had a very clear vision for it. It had all the dramatic sweep it needed without any of the histrionics it sometimes falls foul of and the Ruhevoll third movement was ravishing. Larsson had of course returned for the Des Knaben Wunderhorn text of the final movement and was able here to show yet another style of delivery in her coquettish portrayal of a child with more than a little wonder in its eyes.

Such a shame that a rare false alarm from the hall’s fire system, barely a couple of seconds after the final notes died away, deprived the performers of their applause.

Thursday saw Andrew Manze back with a programme of Schubert, Schumann and Mozart, with two tiny Purcell arrangements thrown in for good measure. This concert will receive a repeat performance the following evening.

Manze once again displayed his ability to beguile an audience with a fresh take on the familiar. Schubert’s early symphony No 3 was given tremendously elegant treatment here. Tremendously stylish playing too from a pared down orchestra that still gave a rich sonority. The centre movements can all too often end up sounding like something played by a musical clock, but here we were transported to a fashionable Austrian ballroom. A rare treat.

Similarly affecting and unaffected was Ronald Brautigam’s rendering of Schumann’s Piano Concerto with a matching understated accompaniment from the orchestra. No bravura or overt romanticism in this performance, but just a lot of really smooth and measured playing from both orchestra and soloist. Many pianists will milk this concerto for drama and pound out the tunes, but Brautigam found limpid delicacy in it and the notes flowed from the keys in liquid fashion.

In a reference to Britten’s love of Purcell the interval was followed by two miniatures - Andrew Manze’s own highly original arrangement of the Funeral Music for Queen Mary and Britten’s orchestration of the Chacony in G Minor – but they hid themselves almost like a pair of painted miniatures tucked between some full scale canvases in a gallery.

I had not exactly been enthusiastic to hear Mozart’s 40th Symphony (it’s not one of my favourite things) but Manze’s magic worked on this too and it presented itself to me in a new light. Again there was real style in the phrasing and some rhythms that could almost have got my two left feet dancing. The hall may not have been full (it’s that word “Britten” in the concert title that unaccountably puts people off I fear) but the crowd made some noise at the end and were joined by the Orchestra in applauding Andrew Manze, who I think we all hope to see again. Last time he was here floods from a burst water main had blown the power to Hope Street and with our rogue fire alarm this week he may be feeling cursed, but hopefully the response to this performance will convince him that we’re not trying to scare him away...

Britten Centenary Concerts – Liverpool Philharmonic Hall – 21st and 24th November 2013

With the hundredth anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth this year, fans both old and new have been treated to a lot of the composer’s work of late and especially this weekend, with the actual anniversary falling on November 22nd.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are featuring Britten’s music throughout the current season but compiled a full concert of five of his works on the eve of the centenary on Thursday evening, repeating two of them in a mixed programme on Sunday afternoon.

Britten’s birthday fell on St Cecilia’s day and so the concert opener was appropriately the Hymn to St Cecilia – a setting of three poems by W H Auden for unaccompanied choir, which found Vasily Petrenko going back to his Capella School roots of choral conducting. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir made a fine sound featuring some good individual performances by soloists from the choir. The work itself remains something of an oddity, with text that sits awkwardly with the setting at times but it provided a fitting opportunity for the choir to take part in the tribute.

With the orchestra installed on the platform, the concert moved into more familiar territory with one of Britten’s most enduringly popular concert works, the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. Although Billy Budd just tips the balance for me, Peter Grimes is widely regarded as the best of his operas. The four orchestral passages that Britten arranged into a suite manage to capture the range of atmospheres in this turbulent and troubled tale, and Petrenko held the RLPO taut and controlled throughout, with wonderful tension in Dawn and Moonlight while Sunday Morning was as crisply played as I’ve heard it and the closing Storm stunning. Henry Baldwin’s climb to the gallows of the tubular bell added a note of visual drama and the stillness in the wordless “What harbour shelters peace?” before the whirlwind ending was beautifully measured.

Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, making her Phil debut, then joined the orchestra for the Violin Concerto. Infrequently played, this is a beautiful piece that deserves more exposure. From the lyricism of the opening through its central frenzied scherzo to the enigmatic almost wistful close, Frang gave a fresh and deeply committed performance. The rawness of some of her eerie harmonics eschewed beauty in favour of atmosphere and sent shivers down the spine. With dazzling accompaniment from the RLPO and Petrenko, it was a disappointment that this was not one of the works to be repeated on Sunday.

Next up was another piece that was sadly not repeated on Sunday – the Sinfonia da Requiem. Its shattering opening had the lady two seats away from me jump out of her seat. This work for me was the emotional heart of the concert. In between the terrifying outbursts of grief and anger in the lacrymosa and Dies Irae the taut, slow-marching rhythms kept the audience on the edge of the seat until the gradual, slow release at the close of the Requiem aeternam. This was stirring and memorable stuff with some notably wonderful playing from some of the winds and timpani and the strings and brass drawing out passages of garment-rending anguish at times.

No concert celebrating Britten in Liverpool would be complete without the Young Person’s Guide to the orchestra, as Malcolm Sargent gave the work its first public performance in Philharmonic Hall in 1946 shortly prior to the first screening of the film for which it was written, so this orchestra can reasonably claim it as its own.

The work is popular for good reason and makes a triumphant close to any concert, as it did on this occasion. Providing an opportunity for every section of the RLPO to shine as the orchestra is gradually dismantled, the extended fugue in which it is reassembled began at greater speed than I can recall hearing and reached a thrilling climax, bringing to an end one of the most memorable evenings at the Phil in the season so far.

On Sunday the orchestra repeated the Four Sea Interludes and a quite possibly more exuberant Young Person’s Guide after the interval. On this occasion the first half of the concert contained two contrasting works by Mahler and Korngold.

Totenfeier was the name Mahler gave to the first movement of his second symphony. In the long creative period for the full symphony, Mahler suggested that his early version of the movement could stand alone as a sort of tone poem. It is a little strange to hear the familiar music diverge occasionally into unfamiliar territory, but it is for the most part the same. Where it differs most in this version is in its ability to be played with more speed and drive, as it no longer has to serve as the solid foundation of a huge symphonic structure. Petrenko and the Phil demonstrated once again the mastery of Mahler’s music that we have come to expect and even the quite young children sitting nearby me were riveted to it throughout.

Vilde Frang then returned to the stage, this time to play the lush and opulent concerto by Korngold. Another piece that doesn’t often get an outing, it has echoes of a Rachmaninov of the American years, and betrays Korngold’s skill with music for the screen. The addition of a vibraphone to the score gives an extra glow to the texture and the whole concerto is as indulgent as a box of truffles, but it manages not to wallow, and the dance-like final movement has a real spring in its step. In this concerto, offering Frang an opportunity to show more of her colour palette, there was beautiful playing both from soloist and orchestra.

Playing the same Norwegian folk tune arrangement as an encore that we heard on Thursday, she added an inadvertent twist when a broken string caused her to do a rapid and seamless swap, handing her 1709 Strad to orchestra leader Jim Clark while she finished the piece on his instrument. Needless to say the audience gave her an even more enthusiastic response than the first time round.

It remains a mystery to me why British audiences seem to shy away from Britten’s music and hopefully this year of showcasing it so prominently might re-ignite interest.

Last Tango at St Leonard’s / Pipe Dreams – Lantern Theatre Liverpool – 19/11/2013

Another evening of fresh, new theatre in the friendly buzz of the Lantern, with this double bill.

Last Tango at St Leonard’s first hit the boards in September as part of the Write Now festival at Unity Theatre, where it enjoyed two performances and collected three performance awards.

If you put John Cleese and John le Mesurier into a cocktail shaker you might well pour out something like Thomas Casson in his portrayal of the hyperventilating hospital administrator Eddie, for which he was named best actor. He is a tall actor and the tiny stage of the lantern makes him appear even more so, exaggerating the larger than life style in which the character is drawn. In his increasingly desperate efforts to save the hospital from threatened closure he embodies so many middle aged middle managers that we have probably all met. Imagine if you can a blend of Basil Fawlty and Sergeant Wilson and you’ve got something like Eddie.

Natalie Kennedy is a delight to watch and is a perfect foil to Eddie in the part of Elaine, as she follows him faithful as a puppy about the set with eyes like soup-plates. She is besotted, but Eddie is so wrapped up in the daily grind it takes him almost the full hour of the one-acter to realise it. Kennedy took runner up best actress at Write Now for this role.

Alongside this comic pairing was the hyper-efficient Cheryl, with Josie Sedwick Davies stepping ably into the part at short notice. She is all flapping hands and short of patience for Eddie and Elaine but not quite on the ball enough to notice the scam pulled off by the rehabilitated convict-come- IT man - Darren Pritchard (runner up best actor). Pritchard plays this very straight, as does Philip Barwood-Scott as Malcolm, grounding the play and setting the parts for Casson and Kennedy into sharp relief.

Last Tango at St Leonard’s was written by Mari Lloyd and directed by Lydia Searle, and it manages to extract a good deal of humour from some of the serious issues of hapless management in the NHS. I’d like to say that at some of the situations were a little far-fetched, but sadly I actually do remember an incident some years ago when a manager in my own workplace held the door for someone stealing a computer...

After an interval came the second play of the evening, Pipe Dreams, written and directed by Sarah Van Parys. Pipe Dreams was originally presented as part of the Luxembourg ten minute theatre festival last year and Van Parys has now fleshed it out into a full one act play, lasting approximately an hour. The promo material tells us it now makes less sense than before.

Despite programme references to absurdists Pirandello and Ionesco, most of us would probably be rather more likely to recognise Beckett in this play, which is certainly absurd and often surreal - increasingly so as it progresses.

A besuited neighbour played by Robert Moore comes and goes and tries to make some sense of things. The cast heet describes him as Narrator but perching Puck-like on a window ledge to observe the action he acts rather more in the role of chorus.

In their sitting room a mildly clumsy, tea slurping John (James Price) and his partner (Shawney Ross) appear to re-live the same sequence of events over and over again, becoming ever more frustrated by the crazed interjections from Lee Burnitt and Claire Bryan’s Nigel and Wife. Most bizarre of all though, are the repeated appearances of Jack Spencer as a debt collector – at first seemingly ordinary, if a little off balance, but with each entrance becoming odder and odder in both manner and attire.

All six of the cast gave engaging performances, but it is the extremes of John and the Debt Collector that defined this piece for me. James Price balanced his delivery so as to make John appear ordinary despite the situation, while Jack Spencer’s obvious delight in layering the madness on the Debt Collector was mesmerising.

Despite the deepening mayhem that surrounds them, our hapless couple seem to end the play on the way to some sort of resolution or at least resignation.

This double bill played two nights at the Lantern Theatre Liverpool on 18th and 19th November. Keep an eye on their website, as shows mostly have short runs and seats sell out quickly.

The Grand Gesture – Liverpool Playhouse – 12/11/2013

Aladdin may have only just started rehearsals but you could be forgiven for thinking that the Panto season has already arrived at the Playhouse this week with the arrival of Northern Broadsides and their latest touring production... until the interval.

In its opening musical number, Deborah McAndrew’s freely adapted version of Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide manages to find an original rhyme with its lead protagonist’s name, Simeon Duff. It has been re-set in “a port in the north west of England” and this opener might draw us to the city it is playing in this week. By the time we have met all the other characters however, we could be anywhere between Heysham and Grimsby!

Simeon Duff is fed up. He is doomed to staying at home while his wife Mary goes out to work and it’s denting his pride. When some confusion over a sausage leads people to think he’s ready to end it all, he begins to think that might be for the best. Unfortunately this seems to offer endless possibilities for various townsfolk to have someone make a Grand Gesture in the name of their personal cause.

His landlord has taken fees from them all and arranged the event before Simeon’s feet start to get as cold as his sausage.

There is a serious point underlying all this, and in these times of austerity some of it could become a bit too close for comfort in a more serious reading, but McAndrew’s earthy, comic script and Conrad Nelson’s uproarious direction ensure that it keeps the laughometer needle well up the scale.

As we have come to expect from Northern Broadsides, there are a great many larger than life characterisations, none more so than Alan Chadwick’s Al Bush, Robert Pickavance's outrageous Victor Stark and Alan McMahon's Father McCloud. But the show is stolen by two strikingly sympathetic performances by Mike Hugo and Samantha Robinson as Simeon and Mary, and by Angie Bain’s teacup and egg-nog wielding Sadie, who seems to make more than a gentle nod toward Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle.

All the music in the show is performed live on stage by the actors and while this is a little incongruous in some places it provides a lot more opportunities for humour and shamelessly dreadful rhymes, and later adds weight to the drama.

The set by production designer Dawn Alsop is imaginative and about as off kilter and distressed as the lives of its inhabitants and Mark Howland has lit the piece imaginatively too, although I could have done with slightly less of it in near total darkness in the early scenes.

Russian literature and drama is very much in evidence on the stage at present and I have seen at least five examples this year, from Gorky to Gogol and Dostoevsky to Bulgakov and ranging from the surreal and absurd to social realism. This re-imagining of The Suicide aims straight for the absurd and gets there with a lot of humour. We’re told that Stanislavski fell off his chair laughing when he first read the original, and it seems that this irreverent romp of an evening has set out to do the same to its audiences, but with the traditional twist in the tale.

Set your minds in Panto mode for the first act folks, but be prepared for an emotional shift in act two, when the play really reveals its heart on its sleeve.

The Grand Gesture is at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 16th November 2013. It then continues its tour at the Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough and the Viaduct Theatre Halifax until 30th November.

1984 – Liverpool Playhouse – 29/10/2013

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.”

It is some years, no - sorry - make that some decades, since I read Orwell’s 1984, but it is hard to forget the key elements of what might now be seen almost as prophetic rather than the dystopian vision it has long been sold as.

In this new stage adaptation created for Headlong and Nottingham Playhouse by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan our memories of the story, whether real or borrowed, can only serve to heighten the sense of tension and suspense that gradually builds in the theatre.

The curtain rises on Chloe Lamford’s set, which gives the feel of some shabby civic office or institutional space from somewhere in the last century - the kind of place we might find in the neglected recesses of a solid old town hall. The tiled suspended ceiling has been folded up at a steep angle to create a surface that doubles as a screen onto which live images are projected simultaneously with the action onstage, beginning with a picture of Winston Smith’s hand as he begins to write a journal.

Most of the cast are wired for sound so that their voices can at times be projected at us through speakers along with these images, underlining the idea that everything is being watched via the telescreens. Unreality looms heavy as we are pulled back and forth from scene to scene by this audio-visual device as well as a dynamic lighting and sound plot by Natasha Chivers and Tom Gibbons. There are blinding lights and washes of ominous electronic and percussive sound that sweep over us in scene transitions.

We are meant to feel unsettled, as most of the characters certainly appear to be, going about their repetitive day-to-day and occasionally repeating the same lines and actions too. A trolley of Victory Gin wheeled increasingly mechanically round the stage as others polish imagined furniture among the dusty shelves and numbered doors.

A large and meticulously rehearsed cast create far more characters than seems possible, but this too adds to the general sense of unease as the plot creeps gradually upon us through the performance’s unbroken 100 minute span.

Tim Dutton as O’Brien and Hara Yannas as Julia give strong pivotal performances here. Dutton oozes urbanity in his earlier appearances but becomes increasingly sinister as time passes, eventually becoming a figure of menace. Yannas, conversely, begins as a mysterious figure who we are reluctant to trust but gradually draws us in.

Mark Arends in the central role of Winston Smith, however, surely has the heaviest weight to carry. An interesting casting choice here. Orwell used terms like “fattish” and “devoted drudge” to describe Smith, while Arends is sharp-eyed and very slight in build. He gives a tremendous portrayal of pent-up nervous energy and certainly embodies the idea of an internal tension that becomes visible. He plays the part as an intellectual determined to fight against any kind of oppression. His persistent resolve to hold on to his knowledge and beliefs becomes unbearable.

The transformation scenes that lead to our eventual arrival in Room 101 are truly terrifying pieces of staging, made all the more visceral by the long, gradual build-up of tension and suspense and the fact that the piece is played through without an interval ensures we are never let off the hook. One great theatrical moment is the reveal in which we finally see that Winston and Julia’s secret meeting place is far from private.

Many scenes are played out almost in the manner of some of the great stage illusionists, and there are moments where we are left wondering whether we actually saw what we believe we have seen.

Robert Icke’s last appearance at the Playhouse was in the in-house production of the Alchemist, and those who saw that piece will recognise the ability to convey claustrophobic settings and desolate space, both in his direction and in the staging concept.

I still have an indelible image of Mark Arends atop a staircase as Malcolm, as the lights cut to black on the closing night of Macbeth at the old Everyman – then he played a dignified and statesmanlike role. I suspect I may struggle to erase the memory of him as Winston too, but for different reasons. Here he carries the emotional weight of a highly concentrated adaptation of this disturbing tale and does so with a fearless passion.

Brace yourself and hold on to your seats – this is powerful stuff.

1984 runs at the Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 2nd November 2013, and there are very few seats remaining, so hurry if you want to catch it here.

The production continues its tour at the Sherman Theatre Cymru from 5th to 9th November and West Yorkshire Playhouse from 12th to 16th November. It will transfer to the Almeida Theatre Islington from 8th February to 29th March 2014

Verdi, Rachmaninov & Prokofiev – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic –24/10/2013

Two RLPO debut artists featured in this concert, performed on two consecutive nights at Philharmonic Hall and including music that is all very familiar here from past seasons.

Lise de la Salle joined the Liverpool orchestra for her first time to perform Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto. This is a youthful and passionate work but not played as often as its siblings, although it has all the charm and romantic sweep of the later concertos if not quite the same epic scale. Cherbourg born De la Salle brought a typically French flair to her reading, which made the most of its drama and excitement in the two outer movements and had plenty of warm-hearted elegance in the andante. She has remarkable power in her delicate frame and never allowed the orchestral forces to overwhelm the piano.

Accompanying her, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic were conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, also making his Liverpool debut in these two concerts. Although still only 26 he has held a post as an assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic since May 2011 and has worked with an impressive list of orchestras. In the Rachmaninov he brought plenty of fire from the players whilst, as mentioned above, never swamping his soloist.

Weilerstein’s concert opener was a grand statement of intent for the evening to come. The overture to Verdi’s Nabucco was delivered in a turbo-charged account with blazing brass. Normally rather more understated, the overture would have set a waiting cast of singers into a panic in the opera house at this breakneck pace, but as a concert overture it was just what was needed to convince us of the rapport he had built with the orchestra.

The conductor had chosen to assemble his own suite of 11 extracts from Prokofiev’s ballet score for Romeo and Juliet in such a way as to form a pleasing span that filled the second half of the programme. It was good to hear a balanced mix of popular numbers interspersed with some more often only heard from the theatre pit.

This performance brought an almost cinematic feel to Prokofiev’s music. There were clear and well-articulated rhythms and the orchestral balance was well judged so that we could hear the detail even in some of the most heavily scored passages. It was also noticeable that Weilerstein was making the most of the hall’s acoustic, allowing space and resonance. It would be unfair to single out individual instrumental performances with such fine playing from all departments, and the conductor took care to acknowledge each section during the enthusiastic applause.

Joshua Weilerstein and the members of the Orchestra appeared to have enjoyed working together and it would be good to see the pairing again in future seasons.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic recorded a disc of over 20 extracts from Romeo and Juliet with Libor Pešek some 20 years ago and this remains available to buy online in both CD format and as a digital download.

On the One Hand – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 16/10/2013

“Inside I am who I’ve always been, but then I look in the mirror and...”

Celebrating ten years as a company, The Paper Birds’ current production evolved out of two projects, one working with a group of over 55 year olds in Leeds and the other a commission from Northern Stage.

This compact but concentrated 75 minute play focuses around two main threads, the process of ageing and the ways in which people are compartmentalised, stereotyped and squeezed into boxes – often the wrong shape for them – as a result of the expectations of others.

This latter concept becomes clear from the outset. The set looks more than usually like a designer’s model-box, with various rooms and environments awkwardly squashed and suspended within a rectangular box. We are admitted only 5 minutes before the start, and it soon becomes clear why, as the actors too are squashed awkwardly into the set, emerging as if from the womb as the play begins.

On stage we see only 4 of the cast of 5 actors with the fifth, Sarah Berger, playing her part entirely as a voice-over. She plays an actress of 50 who has reached an age where she is considered to have the perfect face for radio, and now plays the nurse rather than Juliet.

The remaining cast begin with Hannah Lambsdown, a teen preparing for university, by turns sassy and insecure. Kylie Walsh also gives us a balanced view of confidence and doubt as Thirty, leaving her job to travel the world as a response to losing a close friend.

Tracy-Anne Liles is Forty. Of all the cast she is manipulated the most by the world around her. The way in which she is cajoled into playing other parts that nobody else is prepared to accept mirrors her character’s difficulties. There is humour here in the absurdity of her own somewhat banal product that she finds herself promoting on QVC to her acute embarrassment. In the end, though, it is her repeated submission to being whatever those around dictate to her that is most telling.

Whilst the very juxtaposition of all the characters is redolent of the process of ageing, it is Illona Linthwaite in the dual roles of Sixty and Elderly who portrays this aspect of the play most directly. Sixty is struggling to keep all the plates spinning with the opposing demands of work, money, arthritic hands and an elderly mother developing dementia and preparing to move to a care home.

There is a sort of inevitability that she will also play Elderly, the mother, but despite this the transformation is spectacular. On one occasion Sixty stands speaking to an empty chair – her mother – and then sits down. In this very movement, within inches of the audience, she ages 20 years and becomes the mother. Elderly, despite her mental and physical challenges, becomes the most free of all the women as she recalls the past and rejoices in the memories she has left, ultimately showing us a moment of simple delight.

It is a piece with women depicting women and this is reflected in the audience demographic, but this is a play about people and perceptions and has something to say to all of us, whatever our gender or age.

Watching On the One Hand I caught glimpses of my mother and grandmother, my brother, my father and, most of all, myself – over and over again. It is poignant, funny, heartbreaking and surreal and demanding of houses filled with a capacity audience - of all ages and both sexes.

Following hard on the heels of Monkey Bars that played this space a couple of weeks ago, this is the second piece to use verbatim material in its text. The former was entirely made from the words of children, the current simply includes passages or fragments observed, overheard or transcribed, but in both cases it brings a realism and immediacy to the finished result. As a pair they could hardly have been better chosen to follow one another, as they both have a clever way of reflecting back at us some of our deepest loves, fears, motivators and prejudices.

On the One Hand ends its run at Liverpool Playhouse Studio with two more performances today and then, after a break, will appear at WestYorkshire Playhouse from 21st to 23rd November 2013 and at Live TheatreNewcastle from 4th to 6th December.

 

Monkey Bars – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 02/10/2013

One of the things I think about is, like, what is up with our generation?

Record the conversations of children then put their words into the mouths of adult actors and what do you get? Monkey Bars.

Karl James, director of The Dialogue Project, recorded and transcribed candid conversations between groups of children aged seven to ten years. Chris Goode then assembled a team of six actors and worked with these transcripts to turn them into a 75 minute piece of theatre.

The conversations and occasional short monologues use the children’s words verbatim, but the situations they represent have been mapped onto parallel adult encounters to produce something that it by turns funny, moving and sometimes just a little disturbing.

Philip Bosworth, Angela Clerkin, Christian Roe, Gwyneth Strong, Cathy Tyson and Gordon Warnecke make a great team and have carefully studied the manner of performing the text in all its word-for-word glory in a very adult way, whilst allowing us to see the children that live inside them to shine out through their eyes.

Two colleagues relaxing over a drink after work but unable to stop the one-upmanship, a woman in a high pressure job interview, two chaps mulling over the ills of today’s society – these are just a few of the situations played out but scripted with children’s dialogue. We begin (after a warm-up of a boy singing to a plate of jelly) with some musings about how lovely it is to live near a nice quiet park and end wondering what it feels like to be an adult, while in between we marvel at the things that go through the minds of early 21st century children.

I grew up in a world where childhood meant innocence, with three channels of television (that closed down at night) and a transistor radio. In the new millennium children are bombarded from all sides in a world that is a multimedia experience – nothing is hidden from them and they seem to have knowledge of subjects that me and my contemporaries would never have dreamed nor had nightmares about. There’s something rather unsettling about the words of a young boy who makes a point of watching all the news reports about war because he feels he has a duty to know about it.

There’s a point where Christian Roe stands on a box and describes some of the things that make him scared. As he squeezes his eyelids shut and searches for a happy thought to hold back the tears, I defy anyone not to be touched by it.

The stage set by Naomi Dawson is elegant simplicity – just some illuminated cubes that can be reconfigured about the performance space to create the various situations. Chris Goode’s neatly assembled soundtrack along with deft lighting by Colin Grenfell provides some additional signposting to help set each scene.

It fitted beautifully into the Liverpool Playhouse Studio (the longest stop on the tour, with a week of performances) and proximity to the stage makes the most of seeing the actors’ facial expressions in detail. Don’t be shy – there’s no audience participation!

This is an hour and a quarter that will fly past joyously, send you home with a smile on your face and keep you thinking afterwards. Beg, borrow or do something desperate to get a ticket.

Monkey Bars is currently midway through a national tour and future dates are at Sheffield Theatres Studio – 14th & 15th October 2013, The Theatre, Chipping Norton – 17th October, mac, Birmingham – 23rd October, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff – 24th & 25th October, Theatre Royal Margate – 29th October, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh – 31st October to 2nd November, The Arches, Glasgow – 5th & 6th November, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre – 7th November and ArtsDepot, North Finchley – 12th November 2013

Pictured below: Philip Bosworth, Christian Roe & Angela Clerkin - Picture © Richard Davenport

The Master and Margarita – Unity Theatre Liverpool – 4th October 2013

Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel nearly never saw the light of day. He famously burned the original manuscript and then his second manuscript remained unpublished until 26 years after his death, even then in a heavily cut and censored version.

Since then, it has refused to remain hidden, having not only become extremely highly regarded as a novel but having also been adapted many hundreds of times for the stage and screen.

More than a hundred characters and numerous interlocking lines of plot present seemingly endless challenges and opportunities to theatre companies to find ways of staging it. Contemplating doing so in the intimate 150 seat Unity Theatre, though, where the lighting grid is barely 15 feet above the stage could be thought of as either very brave or slightly mad.

All the more reason to rate the result as a tremendous triumph for the Liverpool based Lodestar Theatre Company.

This production is an experience akin to stepping through the canvas of a Magritte painting and finding the cast of Monty Python living there.

A cast of eight actors are assisted in playing their multiple roles with some ingenious and creative use of video projections of themselves (with some parts pre-recorded on a blue-screen and overlaid on the set) and by some imaginative and occasionally hilarious costume changes.

Joseph England, Simon Hedger, Jack Quarton and Hannah Gover (as the feline Behemoth in full-face prosthetic makeup) gave particularly fine performances. I would like to single out others too, but the programme design uses such a stylised typeface that in some cases makes deciphering the cast names a challenge at best, but suffice to say that they all deserve plaudits.

The staging is a masterclass in making the best use of space. How do you create multiple settings on an enclosed stage with no fly-loft without clunky, time consuming shifting of lots of scenery? Digital Artist Adam York Gregory and animator Colin Eccleston have worked with Video Mapping artist Gray Hughes to create a virtual set, which transforms itself elegantly from scene to scene.

How many of the cast or crew would be old enough to remember him I don’t know, but I was oddly reminded of the remarkable Robert Harbin who I recall from the TV in my childhood. Harbin was famous for two things – as a creator and performer of stage illusions (the David Copperfield of his day) and for popularising the art of Origami to the masses.

On the stage was a structure looking as though it may have been an origami exercise; a collection of irregular geometric shapes incorporating a series of entrances and exits and finished entirely in white. It was onto these surfaces that the video-mapped set designs and animations were projected, creating a world that melted and coalesced as we globetrotted through the story. In front of this backdrop the cast performed a similar series of visual tricks and sleights of hand that added to the illusory nature of the tale.

The finishing layer of gloss on this production is a sweeping musical score created by Composer David Ben Shannon and Musical Director Jack Quarton, the latter appearing in character at one point playing an accordion. An early tweet from the company during rehearsals said that the theatre sounded as though they had hired the Phil from round the corner, and I can see what they mean. Adding to this the well-chosen pieces of Shostakovich that are used for the pre and post-show music and I think Vasily Petrenko would feel quite at home in the Unity this week.

The play was adapted and directed here by Max Rubin, who clearly loves the book and has gone all out to capitalise on the surreal and comedic aspects of it, while never losing sight of its satirical bite.

The second of two ambitious adaptations of classic Russian novels to hit our Liverpool stages this month, The Master and Margarita plays at Unity One until Saturday 12th October. Performances are selling out fast, so grab a ticket while you can.

Contact www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk or call 0844 873 2888 or 0151 709 4988 for details and ticket sales.

Crime and Punishment – Liverpool Playhouse – 01/10/2013

Let’s have some toast and talk about murder.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is not a man to mess with - he has an axe and some challenging views on morality.

Chris Hannan’s new adaptation distils the well over 500 pages of Dostoyevsky’s novel into just shy of 100 pages of play-text. I say distils rather than condenses, as what he has set out to capture here is what he believes to be the essence of the book. Members of the cast I have spoken to all seem to hold Chris in high reverence for the words he has given them. In his interview for the programme notes he describes the book as spiritual more than political, and the play certainly offers us a series of deeply philosophical arguments.

We became suddenly acquainted with the rear wall of the Playhouse stage a year ago, in the closing scene of Colin Richmond’s designs for the Alchemist. For Crime and Punishment, Richmond has taken this wall as the canvas for his backdrop, in front of which he has created a stark, distressed, atmospheric space for the performance, with scene changes able to take place fluidly, keeping the action moving at a pace.

A ten-strong cast not only play multiple roles but also create the soundscape that underpins the drama. A variety of instruments and sound-effects, from drums, pianos and bass through to rattling buckets, are ranged about the rear of the stage, where the cast remain throughout when they are not in a speaking role, forming a chorus, who watch and interact with the spectacle before them.

Try to congratulate Adam Best on his performance and he will shrug and try to deflect your attention to his colleagues, but his portrayal of Raskolnikov is genuinely mesmerising and I find myself at a loss for superlatives. This is a very complex character who, having decided that murder is his right and of benefit to all, spends the next two hours fighting with himself. You can see the inner punches as he reels and twitches about the stage and there is something terribly disturbing in his eyes.

He is right, though, in pointing to his fellow actors. It is very much an ensemble piece and there are many tremendous gems in this jewel box of characters. Cate Hamer is not only the drooling, ill-fated pawnbroker Alyona but among her other roles is the splendidly wrought Katerina Marmeladova, whose reaction to the accidental death of her husband is truly astonishing. George Costigan treads a fine line in balancing the comedy of Marmeladov whilst John Paul Hurley brings menace to his Ilya Petrovich. Obioma Ugoala gives a quiet solidity to Raskolnikov’s loyal friend Razumichin, and his considerable stature comes in useful in scenes where Adam Best becomes almost a rag doll in his hands.

Mabel Clements, Amiera Darwish, Chris Donald, Jessica Hardwick and Jack Lord complete the cast, and I could go on, but the list of their parts is seemingly endless. Suffice to say that the entire ensemble work together generously whilst producing a series of richly drawn characters.

I have already mentioned the sound design, in which Nikola Kodjabashia uses the cast members to perform his score, which is a sonic landscape that blends with Colin Richmond’s designs and Chris Davey’s lighting to create an atmosphere maintaining the tension and the ebb and flow of the narrative. Dominic Hill’s direction brings remarkable lucidity and an overarching architecture to the piece, and we do feel that we have travelled the troubled journey with the cast, rather than just sitting watching them play it out.

This is a hugely successful adaptation that very much achieves the sense of a piece written directly for the theatre.

As a postscript I can now add that I have become something of a glutton for this form of punishment, having returned to see it again a number of times since writing this blog posting, and it simply gets better with repeat viewings.

Crime and Punishment was co-produced by Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.

It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 19th October 2013 after which it transfers to Edinburgh from 22nd October to 9th November.

See the trailer here and visit www.everymanplayhouse.com for further details and ticket sales for Liverpool.

See www.lyceum.org.uk for ticket sales for Edinburgh.

Adam Best – Picture © Tim Morozzo

 

A Day of Pleasure – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 27/09/2013

We have to believe in free will – we have no choice.

The 1960s was a good decade, it seems, as in the ’60s Stuart Richman was a founder member of the Liverpool Everyman and Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote his novel A Day of Pleasure. When Richman stumbled across a copy of the book in a Hoylake saleroom he fell in love with the stories it contained and has been crusading to bring them to life for new audiences.

He didn’t originally want to make a play out of it, and so it is with the very minimum of dramaturgy that the book found its way onto the stage of the Playhouse studio, with Stuart Richman portraying the author.

We meet Singer in his New York apartment in 1978. He is packing his bag and getting changed as he waits for a taxi for the airport en-route to Stockholm to collect the Nobel Prize for Literature. He muses that here he is, an old Yiddish writer - tomorrow he will be a Nobel Prizewinner and the day after that he will just be an old Yiddish writer again. His mind travels back to his childhood and for the next 90 minutes he relates reminiscences of growing up in Warsaw and memories of his neighbours on Krochmalna Street.

The tales he tells serve as modern parables and, like the very best theatre and storytelling, reflect on some of the great truths of life. “Life is God’s novel - let him write it” says Singer, but he provides all the illustrations in this kaleidoscope of a work. Sometimes moving, sometimes wryly humorous, but always compelling – Richman holds the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. I had an uncle who could tell a good tale, in which the line between fact and fiction became distinctly blurred, and there was much of the sense of sitting round the fire sharing tales from the past about this work that took me back to my own childhood.

In one story, a man carrying a wardrobe on his back was told that “…come the revolution you won’t be carrying that”. The man’s reply was to wonder whether, after the revolution, the closet would carry itself. I was immediately put in mind of a line being spoken downstairs in the main house in another play, running concurrently, (see “Melody Loses her Mojo”) in which a character says “We can’t all live the dream or there’ll be no-one left to empty the bins”. This serves to highlight for me the many ways in which theatre can continue to find new and different ways of underlining the realities of life.

This consummate demonstration of great, old-fashioned storytelling, directed by Neil Sissons, was played out in front of a beautifully detailed set designed by Anna Gooch and it ran in the Playhouse Theatre Studio for four performances only, from 26th to 28th September 2013. Useful Donkey Theatre Company, who produced it, hope to be touring the production in the spring of 2014, so watch out for further opportunities to see it near you.

Melody Loses her Mojo – Liverpool Playhouse – 21/09/2013

“Some things are more important than getting off your tits”

(Note: may contain spoilers)

Melody and her younger sister Harmony used to live with foster parents in the lake district, but Melody was too much of a handful and is back in Dumpton Lodge in the city, over a hundred miles away. Her family is now an ad-hoc affair mainly comprising social worker Jackie and Wet Jeff, a residential worker at the lodge. She has adopted herself a brother, Rizla, but he has left the care system now and is trying to make his own way. It isn’t as easy as he thought and he has to resort to ways of making money that he didn’t have in mind.

When Blessing arrives in the lodge, recently sent from Nigeria and yearning to return to her Auntie, the status quo is unbalanced by the friction between her and Melody, made worse by the fact that Rizla fancies his chances with Blessing.

Wet Jeff can’t cope, and plans to take Melody on a trip to Harmony’s birthday party fall apart, leaving Melody more disillusioned than ever with the system. The final straw is the revelation that Harmony is to be adopted by her foster parents. Melody steals the keys to a van and the three set off on a seemingly random journey of escape to the country. What the other two don’t know is that Melody has a plan, and they find themselves complicit in abducting Harmony.

Joining them on the journey is Mojo. Mojo is a rucksack shaped like a monster, given to Melody by Harmony. Mojo is Melody’s good luck charm, companion and confidant. From the outset Mojo takes on a personality of his own, animated by puppeteers who double as Jackie and Wet Jeff, and rather surprisingly lifelike. During the play, Mojo takes on a number of different guises and provides both a mirror to reflect Melody’s emotional states and a means for her to discuss her inner thoughts with the audience.

Melody does lose her Mojo, but it is far more than Mojo that the three of them find along this journey of self discovery.

The story is played out on an ever-moving set made up of gaudily coloured street art and furniture, the fantastical designs and saturated colours sometimes adding to the psychedelic feel of some of the scenes in which the characters seek refuge in drugs and alcohol.

Also portrayed through puppetry is Harmony, and I would defy anyone not to see past the puppeteers and believe that she is very much alive.

“Everybody gets shit dumped on them; not just us” says Rizla. The three central performances of Remmie Milner, Darren Kuppan and Simone James as Melody, Rizla and Blessing are tremendously strong and make a very balanced trio. This is a long and potentially very wordy piece and they achieve a perfect pacing throughout. There are some heavily emotion laden silences in the second act especially which are beautifully timed and in which the very enthusiastic audience held a mesmerised stillness. Keith Saha’s script allows us to see with astonishing clarity the problems that they face and their strategies for coping, but at no point does the play ever reduce itself to becoming preachy or overtly political. What is more important is the opportunity to throw a window open into the minds of young people in care and allow us to think about the added pressures, disappointments and tragedies they face on top of the usual pains of growing up in a harsh world.

Zoe Hunter and Samuel Dutton complete the acting cast with their dual roles as Jackie and Jeff and as physical artists who animate the non-human performances. Their parts are subtly written and blend into the background, but this enables their specialised form of stagecraft to work seamlessly.

The tone is set from the outset by a soundtrack largely performed live on stage by champion beat boxer, Hobbit, accompanied by cellist Hannah Marshall. The pace eases off substantially in the second act, allowing more space for the development of the individual characters’ stories, and for us to fully appreciate just how moving and lyrical the text is.

Here are roundly drawn characters who we cannot help caring about, despite their frailties, failings and outbursts of rage. This is uncompromising writing performed with tremendous energy and conviction and the story it sets before us needs to be told.

The audience at the first performance I attended was balanced heavily toward young people, but the writing and performances should have a very broad appeal. It is a style of work bound to engage with younger audiences, but all theatre lovers should enjoy this piece for its energy, honesty and optimism.

I now add that I have seen this production again two days later and was even more captivated by its magic. Some originally slightly clunky scene changing had been ironed out and was much more fluid, while the pacing was honed even more closely to keep the narrative flowing smoothly. This is a firecracker of a play that deserves to fill houses and ought to be one of the season's hot tickets.

Melody Loses her Mojo is co-produced by 20 Stories High, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and Curve Theatre Leicester.

It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Friday 27th September, after which it tours to Contact Manchester, Curve Leicester, Lawrence Batley Huddersfield and The Key Peterborough.

See www.everymanplayhouse.com and www.20storieshigh.org.uk for details and tour dates.

Billy Budd – Captured live at Glyndebourne 2010 – seen at FACT Liverpool August 2013

Lost on the Infinite Sea...

This is a monumental production that richly deserved re-screening in this Britten Centenary year, when it is also enjoying a revival on the Glyndebourne stage. This is the first appearance of Britten’s 1951 masterpiece at Glyndebourne. As is usual it uses his condensed 1960 two-act version, which lasts for approximately three hours.

In describing something that seems to achieve perfection in just about every way, it is hard to know where to begin, but the beginning seems appropriate.

Out of the darkness we meet John-Mark Ainsley’s dignified and elegantly voiced Captain Vere, alone and disconsolate, a broken man musing on the failings of his past that still haunt him. As his prologue draws to an end we are transported back to the H.M.S. Indomitable of 1797, as Christopher Oram’s magnificent and monolithic set draws into view.

No painted cloths or flats here, in a colossal structure that looks every bit as solid and seaworthy as the British Navy Man O’ War that it represents. Three tiers of galleried timbers sit atop a sweep of planks and the simply masterful stage lighting from Paule Constable enables us to read this as above and below deck as well as in the brig or the Captain’s cabin as required by the narrative. There is no rigging and no sea but we can see the sails and feel the spray in our imagination as the sailors haul on the ropes – but I am ahead of myself...

By the time the boarding party have arrived with their three pressed men, we are already immersed in the atmosphere of a ship heading into conflict, eager to make amends after two degrading mutinies in the wars with the French. Now the trio of Lieutenant Ratcliffe, Sailing Master Flint and First Lieutenant Redburn are assembled. Darren Jeffrey, Matthew Rose and Iain Paterson work together here in splendid voice as they do throughout.

Billy Budd, beautifully characterised by Jacques Imbrailo, meets his nemesis Claggart, Master at Arms, and we immediately begin to see the tension of what is to become a fateful and fatal relationship between flawed good and perfect evil.

The move to Vere’s cabin is achieved simply by dropping a wall from the flytower to close the set in further and create the intimate space. It is in the next scene change that the full force of the London Philharmonic is really apparent, under the masterful direction of Sir Mark Elder. Elder is here in his 100th opera, and only such an experienced hand could draw the kind of sonic immediacy and power from the pit. The interlude, incorporating the gentlemen of the Glyndebourne chorus, accompanies one of the masterstrokes of the setting, as Oram’s “roof” of beams descends as if to crush the cast below, and Constable’s lighting script consigns us to the claustrophobic depths below decks.

It is in this third scene that we really sense the self-loathing in Phillip Ens’s Claggart. His almost drooling obsession with Budd and his piercing, hollow gaze are genuinely terrifying and we see layers of hatred and longing in his descent into some sociopathic madness as he determines himself to destroy this “handsomeness and beauty”. Almost more terrifying is Billy’s unerring faith in his superiors, even when urged to caution by Jeremy White’s compelling Dansker. The first act ends with the spectral figure of Claggart, revealed by the flying of the roof, as Budd reaffirms his confidence in “Jemmy Legs”.

Act two begins as Claggart tries to convince Vere of Budd’s mutinous intentions. He is stopped in his tracks by news that an enemy ship has been sighted. The ensuing call to action is a coup de theatre, with onstage drummers on every level of the set pounding out their martial rhythm, reinforcing the already urgent sounds of the orchestra and chorus. The excitement is palpable as the sailors smell the enemy and rejoice in the prospect of a battle. They fire a round of cannon but the weather defeats them, as the wind drops and the mists rise, depriving them of a full engagement.

Claggart takes the opportunity to entreaty the Captain again, and although Vere disbelieves the accusations against his favourite he calls Billy to his cabin, where Claggart finally confronts him with his lies. Here Jacques Imbrailo affects the most violent of nervous stammers and is unable to defend himself with anything but the doubly fatal blow. The trio of Lieutenants and Sailing Master return to form the drumhead court and the inevitable verdict is delivered out of vision by Vere, in an orchestral interlude of shattering power, after which we find ourselves incarcerated with Billy as he contemplates his inevitable fate.

The execution scene is masterfully treated, with Billy’s friends tying the knot and taking the strain as he is led offstage to his end. This is yet another musical and dramatic triumph, and it leads to the final epilogue in which, in a nod to the close of act one, we see a spectral Vere looking over his older self as he begins his closing monologue.

This was the operatic debut for stage director Michael Grandage, and it is impossible to point to a flaw in his concept, which is to present Britten’s vision as truthfully and as simply as possible. Tom Roden’s movement direction gives an authenticity to the ensemble scenes on this stunningly lit set.

The cast of men and boys are joined by an all male Glyndebourne Chorus, all of whom not only sing as though their lives depended on it but can actually act as well – A master class in choral acting.

The London Philharmonic are at the very top of their game under the direction of Mark Elder, whose vision of this music is astounding. This score can barely ever have sounded so immediate. From the sparse beauty of the contemplative passages to the shattering weight of the drama, surely you would need to go a long way to convince anyone better of the genius of Britten’s work here.

The production has received a revival at this year’s Glyndebourne festival, where Imbrailo is joined by a new cast and the orchestra is conducted by Andrew Davis. It also plays in a semi-staged version at the BBC Proms on 27th August.

The 2010 cast can also be seen in the same live capture, committed to DVD and BluRay, available on the Opus Arte label.

Treat yourself to something very special.

 

 

John Robins & James Acaster – Unity Theatre – 24/07/2013

Like many of their colleagues on the comedy circuit at this time of year, John Robins and James Acaster are warming up and putting the final polish on their routines, preparing for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival and giving preview performances at venues like the Unity.
 
Up for the first of the two hours was John Robins, who beguiled the audience with his laid back delivery before beginning to create some bizarre mind pictures using ingenious word-play. Taking us on a journey from a fraught adolescence past the point of hitting 30, he circles around a particular day in his 20s which he identifies as the happiest day of his life.

Robins’ comedy is rather like one of those skeleton clocks in that he displays the mechanics of the process as part of the performance, making additional humour out of this being a preview show. His self-deprecating style is engaging and has the sort of charm that carries his audience with him.

There is something very satisfying about watching someone juggle with language the way John Robins does. It is the sort of humour that has more of a slow-burn than an explosive effect and that more often gets groans and chuckles rather than full on laughter, which must make it hard to judge. It is, we are told, topical in a way that should not be taken internally, but it nonetheless ends up under the skin. Don’t expect to be rolling in the aisles, but be prepared for an aching jaw from a lot of ridiculous grinning.

James Acaster who followed after an interval is in some ways similar, in that he uses very visual language, but he has a more edgy delivery. He also uses some visual gags and a couple of physical props.

The basis on which this routine is constructed is a supposed obsession with clearing the name of Yoko Ono for the breakup of the Beatles. Comparisons with the band on the Titanic, who probably didn’t like the direction their act was taking but carried on playing together anyway, were the stuff of comedy genius. Here is someone who really gets hold of an idea and runs with it, and once off the ground it did fly like a kite, bobbing about around the audience’s heads and keeping us wondering what direction it might take next.

We might suspect something a little disingenuous about his sudden realisation that he was delivering this material in the Beatles’ home city, but who could blame him for claiming a few more comedy miles from the irony of doing it here.

James Acaster has the kind of surreal view of the world that makes for an unpredictable but mesmerising performance and it certainly hit the mark pretty frequently during the hour long set, getting a good reaction from what seemed a slightly dry crowd.

John Robins and James Acaster are both appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe (Pleasance Courtyard) on most evenings from 31st July to 25th August 2013

Bump by Laura-Kate Barrow, Jollyboat and Pornovision by John Maguire – The Shiny New Festival at the Lantern Theatre Liverpool – 17th July 2013

“If you listen carefully you can hear the rafters breathe...”

Following hard on the heels of Trolley Shaped Bruise (Unity Theatre, May 2013) Laura-Kate Barrow’s “Bump” opens this Friday at Manchester’s 24:7 festival. I got to see it in the second of three preview performances playing at Liverpool’s Lantern Theatre as part of the current Shiny New Festival, whose director Peter Mitchelson has brought it from the page to the stage.

Like its companion piece, the play centres on a chance meeting between two seemingly different characters whose histories unfold and who ultimately find common ground, but the author has treated this premise very differently here.

Opening with Louise, sitting still and quiet in an empty church, we begin to wonder what has brought her here and what contemplations are in her mind. The arrival of Matt, who turns out to have known Louise at school, gives us the opportunity to find out – eventually.

Sarah Keating brings a quiet dignity to the role of Louise, who is at first reluctant to speak at all and slow to trust the questions. Matt is on edge, wired, all fingernail chewing and pacing about. Played by Thomas Casson, almost too tall for the tiny performance space, Matt fills the silence of the church with his constant need to say something, but there are still some wonderful pauses – laden with unspoken dialogue.

 

When direct questioning doesn’t draw Louise out then a word game begins, and the barriers are replaced with a slow-growing trust. A pivotal point is a scene in the church confessional. After this, stories of the past that the two remember from school lead to revelations about what has happened to them in the few years since and the scars that they privately bear. We finally discover the personal crises that have brought them to the place. The resolution, whilst happening a little suddenly, is satisfyingly out of the blue but believable. Two fine performances from Keating and Casson keep us hanging on their every word.

 

Laura-Kate Barrow has an obvious skill for creating very rounded characters and natural dialogue, and the script offers plenty of opportunity for the performers to play with time and pacing to hold the audience. Hers is an emerging voice to watch out for in theatre.

 

Bump runs at the Three Minute Theatre, Afflecks Arcade, Oldham St Manchester from 19th to 26th July 2013, and Trolley Shaped Bruise has a script reading at The Lass O’Gowrie at 9:00pm on 23rd July as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival.

Sarah Keating and Thomas Casson

Bump was the first of three events I attended yesterday at The Lantern. The Shiny New Festival, which was about half-way through its ten days, presenting three or four items every evening, with special rate multipass tickets on sale each day. Twenty minutes later, Liverpool writer/actor John Maguire presented his new play “Pornovision” which enjoys 4 performances this week.

 

It is unfortunate that none of the online or printed publicity material identifies Maguire’s two co-stars, as they give the best performances in this somewhat schizophrenic work. The title and likely the play itself are probably intended to be provocative, but it didn’t entirely hit its target – maybe because it didn’t have one.

 

Beginning with a doctor telling us we were to see a study of what was going on in the mind of our protagonist, Bartholemew Younghusband (Maguire), what followed was a series of disparate scenes played out between him and his uncredited lodger. Peering through a pair of rather problematic wire rimmed spectacles, we gather that Younghusband has an addiction to pornography. Judging by the laughter, there were still some members of the audience who have not previously heard the joke about gay burglars leaving quiche in the oven. For me this was just one example too many of the gloomy attempts the script makes to define the character as a grimly grimy bigoted heterosexual.

 

The young lady who performed the doctor also appeared in other guises, variously resembling an armour plated Madonna and what looked like a feline pole-dancer, drinking milk from a cat’s bowl. The best humorous passages came from the lodger with genuine stage presence and engineering some great recoveries for Maguire, whose own script tripped him up a few times in this first performance. His ad-lib about the ill fitting glasses raised quite a titter, as did his unexplained but witty near full-frontal nude appearance as a postman. He also managed to improvise his way around some glitches with the props.

 

If there’s an hour of your life you don’t need to keep hold of, Pornovision runs to 20th July.

 

Happily, my evening ended with an hour of musical lunacy from Jollyboat –brothers, Ed and Tommy in a Two-Men-and-a-Guitar revue and describing themselves as Comedy Rockstars.

No strangers to the Lantern’s performance space, Jollyboat have added new material to their act and we were getting a taster of it as it heads toward the Edinburgh Festival. Their very individual re-workings of a variety of familiar songs tread a splendidly balanced tightrope between satire and sheer madness and they never fall off. It is pointless to try and describe any of the material, but safe to say that it would be someone with a very rickety sense of humour who could fail to get a jolly good laugh from this hugely engaging and very funny double-act.

 

You can climb aboard Jollyboat one more time in Liverpool on Saturday 20th July at 9:00pm before they set sail for Edinburgh, where they will be playing at the Base Nightclub, 69 Cowgate from 3rd to 24th August.



Jollyboat

There is a real buzz in the sultry summer air at the Lantern Theatre, where the Shiny New Festival continues to Sunday 21st July. Support this event and let’s hope it returns next year.
 

The Lantern Theatre on Blundell Street in the Baltic Triangle might be off the beaten track, but it is well worth keeping on the radar, as it provides a vibrant, intimate and affordable space for small-scale performance and has a great atmosphere.