Sex and the Three Day Week – Liverpool Playhouse – 08/12/2014

When we were young and in love I thought the sun shone out of one end and butter wouldn’t melt in the other. Fifteen years of captivity later I admit it – I was wrong! 

Purists may question the necessity of creating a new version of a piece by Feydeau, but Stephen Sharkey describes his re-working of L’Hôtel du Libre Échange as “lovingly ripped off”, which says it all. Sex and the Three Day Week is a light-hearted comedy that doffs its cap to one of the great masters of 19th century theatrical farce, while resetting the action some 80 years forward to the miner’s strike and power cuts of the 1970s.

The marriages of two neighbouring couples have fallen into a rut. Philip is hen-pecked by his “little kommandant” Angela, while Catherine is frustrated because her husband Robert admits he only married her so he didn’t have to waste time on “all that”. Cue plans for a dirty weekend for Philip and Catherine. What they don’t bargain for is the appearance at the Paradise Hotel of not only Robert, but his nephew Ben, their own French maid Fanny and an elderly friend Mrs Mayhew with her menagerie à trois*.

Throw in a resident sex worker with a striking resemblance to Angela, a black market coalman and a visit from the vice squad and there’s little chance left for the night of passion Philip had planned.

Stephen Sharkey has not only mapped all the original Feydeau characters onto his own suburban cast, but has also wittily mirrored key comedy plot points, such as finding an alternative to sticking Philip’s head in the fireplace to get him covered in soot, and here it’s thunder rather than rain that triggers Mrs Mayhew’s unfortunate speech impediment.

Whilst Sharkey’s text follows Feydeau in a three act format, director Serdar Bilis has wisely placed his single interval a short way into act 2, using two short entr’actes played out on the apron to cover the scene changes. The slow burning first act sets everything up before the farce really kicks in, and we get a taster of what’s to come later between the scene change and the interval. The second part is longer but moves a lot faster and contains the majority of the traditional farcical devices.

Both Edward Harrison as Philip and David Birrell as Robert give tremendous physical performances, while Natalie Casey’s Angela and Holly are splendidly characterised, and she too hurls herself about the stage with fearless abandon. The last time I saw Casey on stage was in Abigail’s Party a couple of years ago, and here she demonstrates again her huge talent for larger than life comic performance.

The keystone in the piece has to be the conniving but hapless hotelier Sebastian, for whom Javier Marzan is a brilliant piece of casting. While Sharkey has shamelessly (and intentionally) fused together some of his favourite comedy creations from the 1970s for this role, Marzan makes it his own, and he holds the stage and plays the audience with tremendous panache.

There are returns to the Everyman & Playhouse ensemble from recent regulars Eileen O’Brien and Robin Morrissey. Morrisey’s long-limbed frame and his flair for playing awkwardness work well for the gawky Ben, pursued by Lucy Phelps’ wickedly seductive Fanny (sorry). Meanwhile Eileen O’Brien has spiced up some of Sharkey’s writing, and some of her malapropisms as Miss Mayhew, while a little bizarre, sound all the funnier for falling from her lips. If Sebastian has a slice of Fawlty Towers’ Manuel in him, then there is more than a little of Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby in O’Brien’s Miss Mayhew.

Catrin Allen is a suitably quailing Catherine, sapped of all self esteem by her inattentive husband and hiding behind frumpy hair and glasses, but we suspect a passion beats within if Philip can only rekindle it.  Graeme Rooney ably fills a series of smaller roles, defined by a range of accents and costumes and a wig that makes a bid for freedom. Ken Dodd voices Miss Mayhew’s Mynah and I love the nifty way that he manages to get a curtain call along with the rest of the cast.

Clever settings by Hannah Clark enable us to see into the rooms of the seedy Paradise Hotel and even zoom in on the action when needed. Look out for some lovely business with a broken chair, which laughs at the suspension of belief the set requires.

Sex and the Three Day Week keeps audiences laughing pretty much from the start and is just the thing for a cold winter evening when you feel like a laugh but need an alternative from wall-to-wall panto. It continues at Liverpool Playhouse until 10th January 2015.

* Yes – I really do mean menagerie...

Half Baked – Young Theatre Makers at Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 31/10/2014

You somehow feel that none of the young staff of Renée’s bakery are going to be winning the Great British Bake-off anytime soon with their hapless efforts, but Alex Joynes new piece certainly rises to the occasion and there is no soggy bottom in this warm-hearted play about teenagers coming to terms with the struggles and disappointments that life throws at them.

The struggling high street independent is under a hostile takeover from Cotstabucks and while some of the employees consider applying for jobs with the company they are all looking to make the enforced change into an opportunity to spread their wings.

There are tales of rejection on both romantic and career paths woven into this gently witty piece, along with portraits of young people discovering who they are and coming to terms with each other’s different views of the world.

The six-strong cast are Josie Sedgewick Davies, Emily Woosey, Lucy Harris, Tom Harrington, Nick Crosbie and Jamie Brownson. All are locally based and four have previously been seen in Young Everyman Playhouse productions, including The Grid, which was co-written by Alex Joynes.

Set design is by Adele Hayter, who is a graduate of LIPA and won this year’s design prize from the Everyman & Playhouse. Half Baked is directed by Chris Tomlinson and Natasia Bullock and the remaining production team are all members of YEP.

Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and YEP are promoting the Young Theatre Makers project along with Birmingham Rep and New Wolsey Ipswich.  Half Baked, co-produced by YEP as part of this programme, will be playing in various northern venues in November prior to a national tour next spring. 

Animal Farm – Tell Tale Theatre – Arts Club Liverpool – 30/10/2014

Laurence Wilson, familiar to Liverpool audiences as writer for 20 Stories High and a former Writer in Residence at the Everyman, has made this new adaptation of Orwell’s classic allegorical novel for Liverpool based community theatre company Tell Tale Theatre. It enjoyed four evenings at the Arts Club in Seel Street prior to playing in a shortened version to a number of local schools, thanks to support from the BBC Performing Arts Fund.

Impressively detailed designs by Alice Smith and Jasmine Swan fill the square thrust of the Arts Club spill straw over the barbed wire into the audience, and place the characters in farmer’s garb. There is (thankfully) no attempt make the actors up as the various animals, leaving them to make us believe the transformation through their movement and vocalisations.

The dialogue is delivered without any animalism, but the grunts, squeals, yelps and clucking emitted in between the lines does the trick, along with a good deal of rolling around in the straw. There was one point when the broody clucking and cooing of a flock of hens had me expecting a few dozen eggs to materialise.

Like its source material, this adaptation has a beguiling ability to creep up on its audience unawares. To begin with it’s almost as though we’re watching a group of children playing at being animals and the whole thing is full of good natured humour, but this is cunningly luring us into a false sense of security, as the piece becomes gradually more dark and sinister.

There are some fine performances, with one or two of the actors changing roles across performances.

On the evening I saw the play Bradley Thompson was a cold and focused Old Major, and Jack Spencer and Shaun Roberts were, respectively, Snowball and Squealer. Of particular note were Lee Burnitt’s strong depiction of the world-weary Boxer and Rob Kavanagh’s seriously frightening Napoleon. Donna Coleman transformed from a dog to a chicken with apparent ease and vocal agility and Thom Nevitt’s Moses, appearing over the top of the set with strange flapping gestures, had an oddly other-worldly feel.

This is an imaginative telling of the tale that finds some imaginative theatrical devices under Emma Whitley’s direction to solve many of the problems of putting it on stage. It is also a very physical piece with huge energy from all the actors, who have pathways through the audience to make many of their entrances and exits, and has the room shaking.

Music by Dave Owen is largely performed on solo guitar, and is supplemented with sound design that heightens the atmosphere at all the right moments.

It’s good to see theatrical work in this space, generally more used to seeing musical performance. With its prominent thrust stage, supporting pillars and terraced seating it strangely takes on a look of Shakespeare’s Globe when set for a play.

Bradley Thompson (Old Major) and the cast of Animal Farm

Photo ©James Newmarch

John - DV8 Physical Theatre - Liverpool Playhouse - 23/10/2014

Lloyd Newson’s company DV8 premiered his piece “John” in Vienna in August and since then it has appeared in Lyon, Budapest and Athens before arriving at the Liverpool Playhouse for its UK premiere, ahead of a major run at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton in London.

As with some of their previous works, John uses verbatim dialogue, in this case the result of interviews with 50 men, one of whom was John, the focus of this piece, and whose story is told here with a form of directness that only this sort of physical theatre could achieve.

We follow John from a disturbed domestic background through scenes of crime and alcohol and drug abuse, to a period when he finds a way of being close to people without having to commit or become too involved. Further description of the narrative would detract from the work’s unfolding drama – this is not a tale that needs spoilers.

The performance style enables us to confront otherwise uncomfortable scenes both head on and obliquely at the same time, through the use of powerful movement and dialogue. Hannes Langolf plays John heading a nine-strong cast and delivering a remarkable performance, on stage for more or less the entire work. Lloyd Newson’s choreography is fluid and informs the action with dreamlike and occasionally nightmarish expression.

John is presented on a stage that revolves almost constantly throughout, with a complex set by Anna Fleischle that changes shape and configuration with each revolution. To accommodate the performance the steep Playhouse stage was fitted with an anti-rake, which necessitated the removal of the first few rows of seats in the stalls to avoid obstruction of sight-lines by the raised forestage. With this adjustment the view was good from all levels, including the gallery.

It is an uncompromising story told with uncompromising honesty and contains graphic scenes, but every moment of it has been carefully assembled to give clarity and weight to the piece. The movement becomes more and more stylised as the work progresses and this has the effect of simultaneously distancing us from and bringing us closer to the reality of the characters.

John is a remarkably hypnotic work that has the capacity to enthral an audience from first to last.

Following its two performances at Liverpool Playhouse this week, John continues in repertory at the NT Lyttelton until January 13th  and then proceeds to Brighton, Barcelona and Salford, with further 2015 tour dates to be announced.

Cartoonopolis - Lewis Bray - Liverpool Playhouse Studio - 22/10/2014

Lewis Bray presented us with a short extract of Cartoonopolis earlier in the year and since then I have been looking forward to the appearance of the longer work…  I was not disappointed.

Lewis has a teenage brother Jack, who has autism and although like the rest of his family he is from the Wirral, Jack speaks with an American accent learned through his love of cartoons. He has built his own world inhabited with these characters, some familiar to us and some created through his own rich imagination.

In Cartoonopolis Jack is Mayor Bray, and he calls the tune. The central section of the play sees a battle between the forces of good and evil in his realm. Surrounding this we see the back story, experiencing Jack’s world through the experience of Lewis and the rest of the family.

What Lewis does is give his brother a voice and has us understand him the way his family do. In doing so he has created a work filled with astonishing frankness and tremendously affectionate humour. He manages to expose many of their difficulties and frustrations, often caused by the misunderstanding of others or lack of cooperation or support, but he never allows it to become protest or posturing.

We are left wanting to cross the border into Cartoonopolis with Jack, and to experience his world the way that Lewis seems to be able to do.

Lewis Bray is a tremendously talented improviser with a terrific ability to flip back and forth between numerous characters, both real and imaginary. Early on, as he first depicts his mother, he throws us an aside to the effect that she’ll kill him when she sees this, but I strongly suspect that she will find the characterisation as affectionately humorous as we do.

Cartoonopolis is written and performed by Lewis Bray, directed by Matt Rutter and Chris Tomlinson and was lit by Christina Eddowes. If, as Matt Rutter tells us, this was a scratch performance then audiences are really in for a treat when it returns in February.

Not About Heroes – Unity Theatre – 14/10/2014

“…Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

With the WWI centenary commemorations this year and Remembrance Day fast approaching, what better time to revive Stephen MacDonald’s 1982 drama, based on the poems, letters and other writings of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen?

The story is set almost exclusively in 1917 at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon and Owen met and became friends before Owen returned to the front, only to be killed in action almost exactly a week before the signing of the armistice. Sassoon is at first scathing about Owen’s poetry but rapidly becomes deeply affected by the younger man’s skill, and champions his work. It is an awkward friendship that balances itself between Owen’s idolatry of his mentor and Sassoon’s aloof correctness. Sassoon’s violent opposition to Owen’s return to action in France and Owen’s stubborn resolve are both telling and painful.

The formula could easily have become contrived, but the skilful writing draws the extracts together into a cohesive and deeply moving story. Director Caroline Clegg and her two actors pace the piece beautifully. Alasdair Craig is the starched and somewhat stuffy Siegfried Sassoon, in whose performance we catch glimpses of him melting to Owen’s charm. Wilfred Owen is played with affecting candour by Simon Jenkins, who captures the young poet’s insecurity, his bearing and his debilitating stammer in a way that makes the part mesmerising to watch.

A simple set by Lara Booth is surrounded by a semicircle of flats, ominously mirroring overgrown headstones from a war cemetery. Dressed with vintage furniture, sandbags and books, it has all it needs to cocoon the play and never distracts from the hypnotic action. An equally spare score from Ailis Ni Riain underpins the text wth the melancholy strains of a lone cello.

This is a superbly crafted production of a beautiful piece of writing that is both a moving tribute to Sassoon and Owen and a fitting memorial to all those whose lives have been lost or permanently altered by conflict.

Highly recommended.

The current tour from Feelgood Theatre  takes in 17 venues and began at Craiglockhart. Liverpool Unity is its 13th stop where it plays until Saturday 18th October.

It continues to Derby, the Wilfred Owen Memorial at Ors (France) and then Shrewsbury and ends with a four week run at the Trafalgar Studios London.

Further details can be found at:http://www.notaboutheroes.co.uk/

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall,
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Eric and Little Ern – Epstein Theatre Liverpool – 10/10/2014

He’s not going to sell much ice cream going at that speed is he?

1999, the Nuffield Hospital, Wexham – Ernie Wise is in his hospital bed following heart bypass surgery, shortly before his death. The doctor looks very familiar and turns out to be his 15 years dead comedy partner Eric Morecambe.

Has he come to take Ernie with him or is it all Ernie’s memories? It doesn’t really matter, but in either case the scenario offers an opportunity for the pair to re-enact a sequence of scenes taken from their television shows.

Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel (as Eric and Ern respectively) first impersonated the duo for their own amusement but over time the idea formed for a full length show, which they have devised together, and the result is directed here by Owen Lewis. They certainly manage to look the part, and they get the vocal and physical characterisations and mannerisms spot on. Only the tiniest occasional slip of an accent reminds you once or twice that you aren’t actually watching Morecambe and Wise on the stage.

Simply staged, with the hospital bed to one side and a sofa and sideboard to the other, all is set for reliving many of the texts from the original shows, both in the living room and in some of the famous bedroom scenes. “Are you going to read your paper or are you going to annoy me?” asks Ern. “I can do both!” comes the perky reply and the banter goes on almost seamlessly, with the links between sketches smoothing over the edits and making it seem more like a long reminiscence than a series of extracts from the TV scripts. It’s safe to say that you really can’t see the join.

Toward the close of the first act, the famous red velvet tabs come down and they prepare to go back out on stage one more time before heading off to a great variety theatre in the sky.

Act two is entirely on the forestage in front of the curtain, and it is easy to believe that we are in the theatre for a genuine Morecambe and Wise show. More of their vintage humour follows with Eric disappearing behind the billowing velvet now and then - as he did - and at the end they skip off the stage to the familiar strains of “Bring Me Sunshine”.

The show did indeed bring me sunshine, along with a few fluffy clouds of faint sadness for a brand of sharp, yet gentle humour that seems to have been almost lost from our stages and screens. It was great to see a surprising number of young people in the house, clearly enjoying the material along with those of us old enough to have seen it in its first incarnation.

Fans old and new of Morecambe and Wise will love this affectionate tribute, which plays one more evening at the Epstein before continuing its tour in Bromley and Ipswich next, followed by dates in over 30 more venues. For further details, visit http://www.ericandlittleern.com

Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel - Photo (c) Steve Ullathorne