Arnold Ridley’s The Ghost Train – Royal Exchange Manchester – 16th May2015

Theatrical wizardry meets slapstick humour when Arnold Ridley’s 1923 comedy thriller receives the Told by an Idiot treatment.

Told by an Idiot have chosen to celebrate their 25th anniversary with what must be the best known of Arnold Ridley’s substantial output for the stage. Ridley himself is best remembered for his role of Godfrey in TV’s Dad’s Army, and many devotees of the series might be surprised to find he was also an accomplished and popular playwright.

Since first appearing in 1923, The Ghost Train has been played for melodrama and it’s been played for laughs (notably in Walter Forde’s 1941 film, which was a vehicle for Arthur Askey and “Stinker” Murdoch) but Paul Hunter’s new staging for the Royal Exchange treads a line between, with laughs and surprises and even a witty nod, early in the first act, to its adaptations for Radio.

Playing the piece in the round in this very exposed and intimate performance space is a bold move that suits Told by an Idiot’s off the wall style perfectly, and affords boundless opportunities for tremendously theatrical moments, near slapstick scenes and witty asides to the audience.

The ensemble cast, some of whom are doubling roles, work with impeccable timing and, while all are excellent, there are some conspicuously memorable individual performances. Javier Marzan brings his inimitable physical style to the gloriously dotty Miss Bourne, the clown in him coming out in particular after she downs a bottle of brandy. Calum Finlay is the annoying but lovable Teddie, whose hat gets the party of travellers marooned at the ghostly station. Exchange audiences may remember him from Too Clever by Half, and here he’s a perfect fit in the plus-fours and flat cap. Marzan is not the only role reversal, with Amanda Hadingue donning a Captain Birdseye beard as the mysterious stationmaster Saul Hodgkin, while Joanna Holden takes a crowd-pleasing flight of fancy in one of her doubling roles.

The ingenuity with which trains come and go at the beginning and end are genuine theatrical magic, matched by some brilliant set pieces. The telling of the ghostly tale of the train crash is enacted with a madcap mixture of dramatic staging and humour, and the passing through of the eponymous apparition is brilliantly done.

The ghost train will make you laugh out loud and hold you on the edge of your seats, waiting not just for the inevitable twist in the tale but also to see what parlour trick they’ll pull out of their hats next.

The Ghost Train plays at Manchester’s Royal Exchange until 20th June 2015. Follow this link for details and tickets:

http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/whats-on-and-tickets/the-ghost-train

The Ghost Train - photo (c) Jonathan Keenan

King Lear – Northern Broadsides – Liverpool Playhouse 01/05/2015

Jonathan Miller finds an introspective and understated Lear in Barrie Rutter.

Both Northern Broadsides and their Artistic Director Barrie Rutter have played against type to great effect in this new touring production. Broadsides often fill their stage with a riot of detailed sets and movement but for their new Lear, designer Isabella Bywater has pared everything back to a square raised acting area on an empty black stage, throwing the performers into sharp relief.

Not only does this have the effect of deepening the darkness of what must be one of Shakespeare’s most doom-laden tragedies, but it also heightens the senses of the audience to the action.

Here is a very strong cast. Helen Sheals and Nicola Sanderson’s Goneril and Regan have their scheming thinly veiled, while Catherine Kinsella’s Cordelia finds a balance that leaves us unsure how far we can trust her. Al Bollands has side-stepped into the role of Edmund part way through the tour but his command of the Machiavellian bastard son is truly disturbing. Jack Wilkinson is a sympathetic Edgar, and his loinclothed, mud-daubed transformation to Poor Tom is delicately done. Andrew Vincent and John Branwell are also well cast as Kent and Gloucester, and Vincent effects his disguise as Caius convincingly.

The true revelation of the production, though, is Barrie Rutter’s Lear. Not noted for underplaying roles (remember Rutherford and Son, also under Miller’s direction) here he is astonishing in his restraint. There is all the necessary bluster in the early scenes, but as Lear descends into madness, Rutter appears to shrink back within himself and the effect is both painful and deeply moving. The storm scene too, whilst suitably terrifying, is staged for drama rather than, as is often the case, for histrionic effect, and the blinding of Gloucester is discreetly dealt with in a shroud of mist.

Both Fine Time Fontayne’s shabby Pierrot of a Fool and Jos Vantyler’s scheming, foppish Oswald manage to get the laughs whilst never losing the darkness of their characters.

There are good supporting performances from the remaining cast, notably Ben Burman who has stepped in to play France, a Knight and a Soldier, parts previously occupied by Al Bollands before his mid-tour role change.

Northern Broadsides can always be relied upon to fill houses, but they also have the capacity to surprise, and this production stands out as a prime example of their versatility as a company.

King Lear continues its tour via The Lowry Salford, York University, Rose Theatre Kingston and Newcastle New Vic until 13th June.

Barrie Rutter as King Lear - Photo (c) Nobby Clark

Birdsong (on tour) – Liverpool Playhouse – 14&17/4/2015

A show that left me somewhat shell-shocked but strangely unmoved.

Here is a powerful story with elegant staging and some fine performances that somehow felt like less than the sum of its parts.

Based on the hugely popular novel by Sebastian Faulks, Rachel Wagstaffe’s stage adaptation was originally presented in London by Trevor Nunn in 2010/11. This revival is directed by Alastair Whatley and Liverpool was the 9th stop on a 17 venue tour, which ends in Richmond on 4th July.

Adapting a 500+ page novel for the stage is never going to be an easy task, and Wagstaffe has made a good fist of it, but the requirement to depict scenes across a very wide timespan does lead to frequent and often disconcerting leaps back and forth. You’d think that this would keep us on our toes, but for some reason the 1hr and 40 minutes of the first act seemed to drag its heels terribly, and even the much shorter second act felt as though it needed much more pace.

Victoria Spearing has created a spectacular single set that with clever shifts of lighting from Alex Wardle moves us from the barracks to the trenches and into the claustrophobic subterranean tunnels of the Somme with considerable élan. It’s when we need to find the more genteel surroundings of the Azaire family household that the relentless toing and froing of furniture on and off the stage becomes wearing.

What does work is the sense of impending horror in the scenes at the front and while some of the sudden explosions in Dominic Bilkey’s soundtrack seem an almost gratuitous shock-tactic (one woman in a seat near me nearly died of fright) the atmosphere is captured well.

There are committed and powerful central performances from Edmund Wiseman as Stephen Wraysford and Peter Duncan as Jack Firebrace, but the accents of the French characters were dodgy and uneven and I somehow felt unable to believe any of the amorous liaisons in the story.

I was so utterly surprised at how disappointing I found the play on Tuesday that I returned to see it again on Friday, this time after a relaxed day off work, but even in my more refreshed frame of mind and with a determined attitude I still couldn’t bring myself to care enough about the fate of the characters.

Nonetheless, the play had sold out every house for the entire week and the best part of half the capacity Friday audience were on their feet at the end.

Birdsong continues to tour until July 4th.

50 reaches 100

This posting is the hundredth since I began this blog just over 2 years ago, and it seems an opportunity to reflect back on what I’ve written about and why I do it.

I have had a few comments from friends and from people I have met in theatres (audience, cast, creative and theatre staff) remarking that I do seem to like everything, because almost all the reviews I write have a positive stance. One theatre marketing manager did actually suggest that I should write about stuff that I didn’t like too.

The fact is, I write here for the pleasure of sharing my enthusiasm for performances I have enjoyed watching. For the most part I go to the theatre on my own – it’s usually easy to get great seats at short notice when you’re only looking for one, and I often go on a sudden whim. I used to enthuse with friends about things I’d seen and try to persuade them to go, and someone once suggested that I should be writing about it. Out of that conversation came the idea for this blog.

I’m passionate about performance (including theatre, music, opera, ballet and film) and occasionally get frustrated that some outstanding shows are playing to houses that have lots of empty space. If I love something then I like the idea that by effusing about it in a public way I might encourage others to go and fill those empty seats.

I also recognise that if I don’t like a performance it is probably not an indication that there's something bad about it - it’s more likely that it simply wasn’t to my taste, or I was in the wrong frame of mind at the time. I don’t see why I need to be publicly dismissive about a play or a concert just because it didn’t work for me. It's not the purpose of this blog to discourage people from seeing things.

A few months ago, I went to a play on a Tuesday and really didn’t enjoy it. However, I’d been tired at the time and found I could get a good seat for the Friday and see it again, so I did, and the second time I really enjoyed it. This said, I went through a similar scenario last week and sadly disliked the play even more the second time around. Now if someone actually asks me whether I liked it I will be honest with them (and I have) but is it really fair of me to shout it from the rooftops? However, my next review is to be about that very piece that I really disliked, by way of experiment. I still hope I'll be able to reach a balanced view.

My purpose in writing this blog is to enthuse, and in this context I can indulge myself in mostly writing about things I've loved watching.

I realise there’s a danger in saying this: If I now don’t write about something I have seen then this could be taken to imply that I didn’t enjoy it. This isn’t necessarily true. What with working full time and spending so many nights in the theatre or concert hall I don’t always get round to writing about everything I’d like to, and sometimes I end up adding reviews retrospectively. So, if there is anyone out there following this endless rambling, please don’t feel offended if I haven’t written about something that you were involved with or loved seeing, it’s highly likely I spent so many nights seeing it again that I ended up with no time left to review it!

My biggest hope is that, somewhere along the line, a few people may have been to see performances that they might otherwise have missed, because what I have said has caught their interest.

Thank you to everyone who has read, remarked, retweeted or favourited, and please do keep on reading and spreading the word, because word of mouth is one of the best ways to get venues putting out the “HOUSE FULL” signs.

Plastic Figurines – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 08/04/2015

I’m going to stick my neck out here and suggest that Ella Carmen Greenhill’s new play, which premiered in Liverpool last night, is not a play about autism – it’s a play about people. More specifically it’s about that way that a brother and sister, each facing their own individual challenges, deal with the impact of the loss of their mother. It’s a play about grief and bereavement; love, pain and hope.

And it is beautiful.

We keep fixing back on a thoughtful Rose in “the present” in the inauspicious surroundings of a hospital waiting area, and her memories trigger successive scenes in flashback. We are then introduced to her brother Mikey on his 18th birthday. I’m not going to destroy anyone’s enjoyment by telling you too much detail, but it’s important to note that the narrative pulls back and forth through time.

The evolution of the work from a 15 minute short to this full length one-act play, commissioned by Box of Tricks Theatre, has clearly involved a tremendous amount of research and character development, as well as the construction of the fractured timeline.

The result is a pair of finely drawn characters who have been brought vividly to life in two astonishing performances from Remmie Milner and Jamie Samuel.

Mikey has autism but, refreshingly, this is played as one (albeit very significant) aspect of his personality, and it is his personality that is key. Great care has been taken to ensure that what we see on stage is a young man, not a condition. It’s clear that in his background work Jamie Samuel has assembled a host of possible mannerisms and has then thrown most of them away, so that he uses the subtlest ways of delivering Mikey’s difficulties. This subtlety enables the more emotionally charged scenes to become all the more impactful. A good example is where what begins as a very funny scene with a chocolate bar quickly evolves into something of terrifying power.

Jamie Samuels’ performance is so mesmerising that you do sometimes have to make a conscious effort to turn attention to Remmie Milner’s Rose, the level headed and mature big sister who has given up her new life to look after her little brother. This too is a beautifully crafted performance, and again the gentle delivery of most of her part throws some of the pivotal moments into sharp contrast.

As the piece reaches its dramatic climax we are left with an open ended future for Mikey and Rose. Writer, director and cast remain tight-lipped over their personal ideas of their ultimate fate, but I left the theatre with a tentative optimism. More importantly, they are characters that I found myself really caring about.

Ella Greenhill’s moving text feels completely natural and the flow of the narrative, while fragmented, is clear and concise and Adam Quayle’s direction has a wonderful lightness of touch. The set by Katie Scott has an elegant simplicity that enables it to carry us back and forth in time and place with the aid of clever lighting from Richard Owen, while Chris James’ splendidly subtle sound design  provides clarity to the settings.

I last saw Remmie Milner in the main house here in Melody Loses Her Mojo and Jamie Samuel in Jumpers for Goalposts at the Bush (see my earlier postings) and I have also seen some of Ella Greenhill’s previous writing, so I had high expectations for this piece. So much so that I bought seats for two consecutive performances and am returning again this evening. I wasn’t disappointed and may well need to buy another …

Adam Quayle told me that half a director’s job is done if they can find a great writer and great actors, and based on this principle he was on to a winner with this. The writing is insightful, delicate and real, and Remmie Milner and Jamie Samuel give flawless performances that are impossible not to be drawn into.

And the Plastic Figurines? – Buy a ticket and find out…

Plastic Figurines plays at the Playhouse Studio until Saturday, after which it embarks on a national tour visiting 14 additional venues until 16th May, and if there’s justice in the world it will have a life beyond this. For venues and dates, see Box of Tricks’ website:

http://boxoftrickstheatre.co.uk/production/plastic-figurines/

View the rehearsal video diary on YouTube Here

Remmie Milner and Jamie Samuel "It'd be like I was flying".

Remmie Milner and Jamie Samuel in rehearsal - Photo (c) Lucas Smith

The Absence of War – Liverpool Playhouse – 24/03/2015

"We need not waste time on the design of the envelope, so long as we trust the document inside"

Politicians thrive on conflict, and there’s nothing like a threat to national security to get them mounting their high horses but, in the absence of war, what is there to galvanise them to a cause and show their mettle?

Recent controversy over the relative willingness of various political leaders to take part in televised debate has once again made me despair that the people I want running the country are the ones with sound policies and the ability to carry them through, not those who polish up best and make good television personalities. I frankly couldn’t care less if an MP or a Prime Minister looks smart and has slick answers for Jeremy Paxman, and I suspect that George Jones would agree with me.

George who? I hear you ask...

David Hare’s play is over 22 years old, but sadly the issues it raises seem almost more relevant today than when it first appeared shortly after the failure of Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party to win the 1992 election. Hare was keen at the time to state that his play was not a portrait of that election, albeit based on research he did during the campaign. It is nonetheless very hard not to see it that way in retrospect.

Moreover today’s audience would be forgiven for seeing more than a few parallels between George Jones and certain other people who are struggling with their public image as they try to focus on the politics rather than the packaging.

George Jones is the leader of the opposition in David Hare’s Labour party, and he is up against Charles Kendrick, Prime Minister, who calls an election with no notice, throwing Jones’s campaign office into a panic. “You lot, you’re the maids” he says to his team “And as in Moliere you’re all of a tizz in order that I may be calm”. The role of the theatre loving party leader was played in its original incarnation by John Thaw, who famously made his professional debut on the boards of the Liverpool Playhouse. Reece Dinsdale, who played Thaw’s on-screen son in Home to Roost, now recreates the part for this touring revival.

I recall seeing a somewhat younger Mr Dinsdale 32 years ago in a play with Peter Ustinov, and have been interested to see his face appear fairly regularly in various guises over the years. He was a jolly good sparkling wine back then. Nowadays he’s an altogether more full bodied red, and shows himself as a fine character actor here. George Jones’s heart is in the right place and he believes passionately in his party’s policies. Problem is that, by the time he has been through the PR polishing process in which every member of the team is trained in what to say and how to say it, he seems unable to remember what those policies are and ends up saying almost nothing.

There is a splendid scene in which he is interviewed by veteran broadcaster Linus Frank on his election special and crumbles horribly before our eyes. Linus Frank is played with wonderful gravitas by Don Galloway, who also fascinatingly doubles as Charles Kendrick, the statesmanlike but overbearing Prime Minister.

There is an excellent ensemble cast under the breakneck direction of Jeremy Herrin, and of particular note are very strong performances from Cyril Nri as political advisor Oliver Dix, Charlotte Lucas as Lindsay Fontaine, the PR adviser, Maggie McCarthy, George’s diary secretary Gwenda and James Harkness, his minder Andrew.

As we’d expect from Headlong, who have co-produced this production with Sheffield Theatres Crucible and Rose Theatre Kingston, there is very slick use of physical staging, light and sound. Translucent rectilinear screens and projections rise and fall in Mike Britton’s set and there’s a proliferation of 1990’s style TV monitors that provide alternative views of the action as would be seen by a TV audience. Tom Gibbons’ sound design incorporates some rousing music, including that specified in the text for the Cenotaph ceremonies, but also some rather chilling allusions to Götterdämmerung.

David Hare’s writing shows once more its enduring currency and genius and this is a revival that is as finely crafted as it is timely.

In the current tour The Absence of War has already played in Sheffield, Norwich, Watford, Bristol, and Cheltenham. It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 28th March, after which it will continue as follows:

Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow - Tue 31 March – Sat 4 April 

Oxford Playhouse - Wed 8 – Sat 11 April 

Rose Theatre, Kingston - Tue 14 – Sat 25 April 

Cambridge Arts Theatre - Tue 28 April – Sat 2 May 

Theatre Royal Bath - Tue 5th – Sat 9th May

Don Gallagher and Reece Dinsdale - Photo (c) Mark Douet

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Liverpool Everyman - 21/03/2015

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;

Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.

When the Everyman does Shakespeare we expect it to have an edge, especially when the play is one with a supernatural element to it. In his new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Director Nick Bagnall casts a dark spell over his characters and audience alike and, along with the mischievous humour, he excavates some of the shadowy imaginings that haunt our dream time.

For his first production in his new role as Associate Director at the Everyman and Playhouse, Nick Bagnall has chosen to work with a former collaborator, designer Ashley Martin-Davis. They shared a vision of Shakespeare’s Dream in which there would be none of the obvious visual cues such as trees, moon and fairy wings, preferring to work in a more abstract setting whereby the audience could invoke their own imaginings.

The Athenian court of the opening is alluded to by the plinths of columns with the rest of the stage relatively unadorned. Peter Mumford’s lighting sets the tone for the production, and while the colours of light and costume shift dramatically from scene to scene, it remains in a variety of striking monochromes until a blaze of colour announces the final act.

I would hesitate to say that this is a ‘modern dress’ rendering, as many of the costumes are evocative of other times and places, but the school uniforms of the young lovers in the early scenes contribute strongly to our belief in them as teenagers. The mechanicals too, in their hi-vis work gear, bring us firmly down to familiar earth. It is the trip to fairy-land that flies into fancy, even without its fairy wings, with a dramatic and transformative scene change that takes us into a bewildering wasteland and seems to double the size of the Everyman’s open stage. From this point the action shifts a gear and the entrances and exits become even more imaginative.

Garry Cooper and Sharon Duncan-Brewster are our Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania, while Puck has shifted gender and is played by a spritely Cynthia Erivo, who floats about the stage wielding her cane like some spectral ringmaster. The former pair have great poise as the Athenian Duke and his mistress. Cooper presents a malevolent form when he reappears as a troubled King of the Fairies and Duncan-Brewster’s Fairy Queen shimmers with light and passion.

Andrew Schofield appears as a spry site foreman as Peter Quince, assembling his motley crew of overalled players to rehearse their theatricals. Michael Hawkins is a sharp Robin Starveling /Moonshine, who seems a little confused by his dog, and Ozzie Yue plays Snug, his Lion putting me in mind of Bert Lahr’s creation in the Wizard of Oz. Alan Stocks (also a suitably enraged Egeus) is Tom Snout, who bears a witty wall. Lewis Bray (late of Cartoonopolis) is Flute, the bellows mender, whose turn as Thisbe is a sight to behold. And of he who plays Pyramus? Let’s just say that Dean Nolan’s Bottom has to be seen to be believed. It is a larger than life rendering in which there are moments when he could almost be channelling Brian Blessed.

Hermia and Helena are played by Charlotte Hope and Emma Curtis. They bring a naivety and schoolgirlish coyness to the parts but are equally able to find real venom when roused. Matt Whitchurch and Tom Varey are their confused lovers Demetrius and Lysander, and both have great charm and energy in their performances. The speed of delivery in the exchanges of this quartet is breathless in places, but even from the back row of the stalls I didn’t miss a syllable.

James Fortune’s music is a mixture of recorded sound and onstage performance, including recording work from Members of the Young Everyman Playhouse, and as well as creating the soundscape for the play the music occasionally finds humour of its own.

I have remarked in an earlier posting that I saw performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the old Everyman in January 1983, which broke the mould of theatre for me and made me fall in love with the Everyman space. This play is as open to reinvention as the theatre itself and invites directors to do something bold and new with it.

Nick Bagnall’s production finds aspects of light and shade that bring the work to the stage with renewed freshness and excitement. As well as exploring dusty corners of the text he also reaches out into the new Everyman space making maximum use of its openness, and we see more of the building’s capacity to surprise.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream lasts for approximately 3 hours, including one interval set between acts 3 and 4. It runs at Liverpool Everyman until Saturday 18th April. There is an age recommendation of 14+ due to one very brief scene with sexual innuendo and partial nudity.

Production photography (c) Gary Carlton:

 

Tom Varey and Charlotte Hope in rehearsal - image (c) Brian Roberts