The Thirty Nine Steps - Last entry in the Rep 2011/12 Film Season Theatre Stakes.(Opens 13th July)

I love theatre but I love horseracing more. So a bit of promised nonsense to rise to the challenge of the Rep's film season. When you have a blog you can post any old rubbish. Roy Hall.

THE DUNSTABLE REP HANDICAP THEATRE STAKES (GRADE ONE)    For theatre productions taking place at the Little Theatre, Dunstable during the 2011/2012 season. Minimum rating 150.  (Ratings based on expectations, play-writer-director-cast, prior to production.)

1.      STILL LIFE  (180) Noel Coward (ACT Theatre Company)

Classy pedigree.  Sire Alan Clarke; Dam Megan Clarke. Late supplementary entry due to fine form shown on the gallops. Faultless jumper which stays well. Has been clocking very good times on the tracks.

                                   

2.      PLAZA SUITE (175) Neil Simon (Dunstable Rep – Sept)   

Prone to make the odd mistake but finishes its races well. American pedigree and a bit fragile. Acts on any going except heavy and runs in snatches.

3.      A CHRISTMAS CAROL (180) Charles Dickens (Dunstable Rep – Nov)            

Trainer Alistair Brown has a great record in these races and his flamboyant style is reflected in his horses. This one jumps impeccably but with a tendency to move off a straight course. Flashy performer at best but prone to throw in the odd wobbly. Very good in a finish.

4.  CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (170) Tennessee Williams (Dunstable Rep – Jan)                  

     Another American import which has improved under trainer Chris Lavin’s care. Inexperienced main pilot in this class but gallop reports suggest this won’t be a problem. Prone to sweating.

5.  A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (175) Stephen Sondheim (Luton Light)

     A few setbacks in training but trainer Mathew Orr is determined to get this one ready for its late supplementary entry. Indifferent starter but improves the further he goes. Can cope with all goings and has won on heavy snow in the past.

6.  BLITHE SPIRIT (185) Noel Coward (Dunstable Rep – Mar)           

      Another classy entry with enormous potential to cut it in this grade. Has shown a lot of spirit in training and Joe Butcher reckons it will make all the others go. Subject of heavy gambles as stable staff frantically peddle their bikes to the local Ladbrokes.

7. THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY (175) Patricia Highsmith (Dunstable Rep – May)

      Murderously talented but prone to tail flash when under pressure. Second entry for trainer Alan Clarke and has a lot of class. Not the safest jumper and blinkers applied to sharpen her up. Gets the usual filly allowance and it might make the difference.

8. THE THIRTY NINE STEPS (170) John Buchan (Dunstable Rep – July)

     Yet to have a run but Bekka Prideaux is very keen on this one. Strong and experienced jockey and subject of some shrewd bets in a very open market.

     Betting forecast. 7-2 Blithe Spirit. 4-1 A Christmas Carol. 4-1 Still Life. 5-1 The Talented Mr Ripley. 7-1 A little Night Music. 8-1 Plaza Suite. 10-1 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 12-1 The Thirty Nine Steps.

    Spotlight view: A tricky race made even more complicated by the supplementary entries of Still Life and A Little Night Music. The original film season six all have their merits even if The Thirty Nine Steps has yet to show its promise on the track. Off time is 7.45pm on Friday 13^th July and whichever wins it should be an absorbing race. Full race analysis will be recorded here when the final saddles are off and deserved rub downs have taken place. And, boy, do I like rub downs. Roy Hall

The Thirty Nine Steps – Adapted by Patrick Barlow from the book by John Buchan.

The Little Theatre, High Street South, Dunstable. 7.45pm

13^th – 21^st July 2012.

Tickets £12 (Members guests £10)

Box Office 07940 105864    dunstablerepboxoffice@gmail.com

St Andrews Players -The Drowsy Chaperone (Full Review)

St Andrews 60^th Anniversary production, The Drowsy Chaperone, is my sort of musical. Roughly translated that means it ain’t one. None of your Rodgers and Hammerstein thigh slapping cowboys here. It is more a play with an imagined musical, a pretty naff one, seen through the eyes of one of life’s natural losers. He sits in his chair, boils his kettles, shouts at phones he refuses to answer, and plays his records. He drinks small brandies from half bottles, such folk do, and constantly pops pills. Didn’t see him doing the latter, but such dysfunctional nerds have them in their cardigan somewhere. Trust me, I am an expert on neurotics. And the record he plays for us is a recording of his mother’s favourite. The fictional 1928 Broadway musical, The Drowsy Chaperone. Never heard of it? Well neither have I or anyone else. But the Man in Chair (a beautifully crafted portrayal from Steve Peters) and his performers brought it all to highly comic and inventive life. In other words its creators, headed by Canadian actor Bob Martin, had conceived an absolute gem of a theatrical experience. It was full of more surprises than you usually get in half a dozen shows. You gasped and giggled in equal proportions. If you missed out, it was your loss.

That’s not to say I was completely bowled over by the production. A greater contrast between the isolated refuge of our storyteller and his whiz-bang performers’ platform would have been more pleasing. This set had marginally too much of a stage musical look to it and reality and imagination were only partially defined. But I am picky, you all know that. Explains why I also sniffed at obvious stage markings, not a good idea in a raked theatre, and the occasional dodgy mike. But, unsurprisingly, it all mattered hardly a jot. Our Man in Chair wheeled out those performers and fleshed them out. You learnt about the weird musical characters, the Broadway acting set and their bizarre friends and enemies, and you learnt about the fictional actors playing them. This anorak in the chair knew everything about them. You know the saying ‘he should get out more’, well they coined it for him.

He played the record and the actors twirled and sang in a glitzy  wedding plot I have no intention of outlining. You wouldn’t believe it anyway. The musical wasn’t important, only the magnificent way it was performed. If the record stuck and repeated, the actors stuck and repeated. If he stopped the record he stopped the actors, there were some superb freezes, and in a hilarious opening to act two we got the wrong musical. Something about the Great Wall of China. I kid you not. I have never heard an audience laugh so much. And that included this cynic. They topped it all with a wedding in the sky that was rich in theatrical imagination. I mean, two ironing boards and an electric fan? I told you that you should have seen it. In a large cast Joanna Yirrell stood out for a portrayal redolent of Hollywood Queen Ann Sheridan, lovely acting and singing and super hair, and Sarah Albert for the dizziest blonde I have ever seen on the local stage. Her Kitty was an absolute joy. Not often I get a chance to say things like that in a review.

Shan’t single out the others, this was very much a team piece, other than to say that Richard Cowling was a brave and beautifully over the top Aldolpho, and Andy Whalley a spiky, cigar chewing, Feldzieg. Beth Thomas conducted a lively unseen band, Jo Harris made them all dance their socks off, and Frances Hall directed. Hey ain’t I married to her? Makes not a jot of difference other than, unlike other directors, she gets the chance to kick this self opinionated old bastard out of bed.

But what about the Drowsy Chaperone? Isn’t she what the show is all about? Actually she isn’t and although Sharon Robinson played her alcoholic lines with pithy aplomb she is a bit of a marginal comic character. If I had the title role in this I would have thrown at least three strops. It’s really ‘The Man in Chair Musical’ but that’s even less catchy than the one chosen. The Chaperone, drowsy and red, was just one of the crazy team he conjured up. And from that first dangerous moment, a long and clever speech delivered in the dark, you just knew you were going to enjoy it. Not all the performances were top notch, I’m not blind even if I don’t want to be kicked out of bed, but they blended with style in a show which deserves every award those astute Americans gave it.

St Andrews Players did it justice and that, on your 60^th Anniversary, can’t be bad.

Roy Hall

The Drowsy Chaperone (St Andrews Players)

The Drowsy Chaperone is my sort of musical. Probably because it isn’t one. It’s more a play about a nerdish and lonely man bringing a pretty naff one to life. It’s awfulness makes it almost wonderful. At least to him. Stand outs amongst the cast conjured for our entertainment were Joanna Yirrell as a Hollywood queen, Sarah Albert as the obligatory vacuous blonde and Steve Peters as the beautifully crafted Man in Chair. Not everything worked but overall I loved it. If you didn’t go because you had never heard of it then you missed a treat. Roy Hall

Full review to follow

A P McCoy, Sweet Prince, and Me

I never was one for name dropping. Oh all right, I once spent a week swimming in the nude with a very famous actor. Ain’t saying who, but perfectly true, as dropping names along with trunks might land me in the law courts. But I am gonna drop one name. Tony McCoy. A P McCoy as he is known in the horseracing game. Superstar, legend, fifteen times NH Champion, and runaway winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the year. Can’t remember when but it must have been after he won the Grand National at his fifteenth attempt (Don’t Push It) as jockeys rarely get the recognition they deserve. Met him last Friday, chatted, had a photo with him, and left thinking what a nice chap he is. Hope he thought the same of me. I mean, let’s face it, I may not be a legend but I know at least three folks who reckon I am only nine pence short of a shilling.

I met the nice and helpful Mr McCoy because he rode a friend’s horse in a race at Towcester last Friday. It wasn’t Cheltenham or Aintree and the race (a NH bumper) won’t register on the great scheme of horseracing things. But A P McCoy, racing legend in case you have forgotten, gave our party the lowdown both before and after the race. So pleasant and informative you would have thought he was riding the favourite in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The horse, Sweet Prince, finished third and we were all delighted. Will never be an Alberta’s Run (see blog profile) but will give its delightful owner a lot of fun when it enters the world of handicapping hurdling. Being trained by Jonjo O’Neill (another racing legend) there was always the possibility that AP (don’t take me long to get familiar) would one day ride him. But in his second race? In a bumper? At Towcester? That’s a bit like Colin Firth turning up for a cameo at Harpenden Hall or Wayne Rooney having a fling with Luton Town FC. As I told one of our non horseracing party, we were in the presence of an icon. She’s a bit deaf and I think she thought I said iron which may explain why she kept admiring my shirt. Light blue and white, colours of the Greek flag and Sweet Prince. I know how to impress racehorse owners. Greece might go belly up but I reckon our five year old, a real trier based on his first two runs, may make his mark. The McCoy factor meant he went off favourite at Towcester (11/4) but he never threatened to win. We didn’t mind. A hot evening, nobody took their clothes off, and we cheered like mad when he plugged on for third. Bit frisky in the winners enclosure for the first three. Reckon he tried to kick me as they showered him with well deserved water. Many would say that our Sweet Prince has taste.

Epsom this week – Derby and Oaks – and then Royal Ascot. Vow and The Fugue should go well for the fillies and fancy a punt on O’Brien’s Astrology in the Derby. My sort of price (20/1) even though Camelot and/or Bonfire both look the real deal. Won’t see Sweet Prince there. Putting his feet up after Huntingdon and Towcester. Much more important. Mr McCoy, legend, superstar, would agree. Roy Hall

Losing Louis (Wheathampstead DS)

***

Simon Mendes da Costa’s Losing Louis is a funny old play. It’s funny in the sense that it has some searing and vulgar lines, generally well delivered, but also in the sense that it crams in more emotional and historical baggage than is good for it. Sons and wives attending dad’s funeral enter the marital bedroom set with much more than an overnight bag and toothbrush. And that dad, the concupiscent Louis, interleaves the here and now with distant depictions of his inconsiderate bonking and its consequences. It was almost two plays. In fact it was. In the yesterday of the 1950’s our Louis and his wife and mistress serve up a bleak picture of death and possession. Louis spawns children from both but only the mistress’s survives. Fast forward and the question is raised, at least in the audience’s mind, as to whether the symbolic baby in the cot is the younger son. I can’t be bothered to answer the question because it would be both obvious and tedious. And that is the weakness of a play which, literally, dramatises that emotional baggage. The present was much more fun. The past bogged it down. Bit like life really.

But on the basis that you can’t blame the jockey for the horse, and I should know, it is only fair to judge Wheathampstead’s latest production on how they served it all up. And here I divide in to two camps. In acting terms it was pretty good. The company are blessed in having a number of fine actresses and Sarah Brindley and Irene Morris are two of the best of them. Ms Brindley was the tartish Sheila with a bizarre interest in astronomy and Einstein, and Ms Morris the more upmarket Elizabeth with a penchant for the bizarre placing of wedding rings. In dress and manner they combined and clashed beautifully. With husbands Tony (Robin Langer) and Reggie (Steve Leadbetter) constantly warring, usually over flashy or frumpy cars, we were firmly in Ayckbourn country. Not that dear old Alan ever did circumcision, as far as I know. The quartet gelled to great effect in the opening to act two, the rainy recriminations of a disastrous funeral, and this vicious joke filled scene was the theatrical cream of the evening. Mr Langer’s dig at his lawyer brother was so splendidly misdirected it was almost worth the entrance money on its own. We got two laughs for the price of one. Given the play’s strong Jewish theme, it seems appropriate.

But as I said earlier, you are allowed to repeat yourself on a blog, we also got two plays and the eternal triangle from the past constantly slowed the action. The younger acting set did a fair job, Ryan Goodland was a pleasing Louis and Julie O’Shea a promising mistress, but it was all a bit bleak. And much as I admire Sara Payne (an excellent Maureen in Time of my Life) her disturbed and complex wife marginally suffered from a comic voice in a serious portrayal. None of this should have mattered because, overall, it was a pretty strong septet of actors. But director Joe Maher didn’t move them with imagination, even the best looked statically awkward at times, and repetitive scene changers tested the most patient watcher. Mr da Costa’s play is not easy to serve up as a coherent whole and this production did not seriously try. I blame the 1950’s radio. It made more exits and entrances than any actor in a bedroom farce. Searing jokes, snappily delivered, can’t compete with that. Roy Hall

The Talented Mr Ripley - Dunstable Rep (Full Review)

****

It may come as a bit of a surprise to those who think I am a nervy and neurotic limp lettuce, but I know my murderers. George Joseph Smith (Brides in the Bath) and choirboy John George Haigh (Acid Bath) are old friends. As are H.H.Holmes, Peter Kurten, and Graham Young. Google them, all nice chaps. Read lots about all of them and with one, Mr Young the 1970’s Bovingdon poisoner, was in the court when he was in the witness box facing the attorney general. They killed for a variety of reasons, usually money or sex or a combination of the two, but all were driven by arrogance and a belief in their own personal power. Comes over in old books with Haigh and some others and, especially, in that St Albans court with Graham Young. For the only time in my life I was within twenty feet of a killer and it chilled the heart. Normal rules do not apply to such men. The talented Tom Ripley is very much of that ilk. He uses and discards people much as we ordinary folk would utilise our household objects. He lacks any empathy, whether for a hapless tax fraud victim or the concerned relatives of a friend he has killed. Cold eyed and callous, he sails through life haunted only by his dreams not by his deeds.

Give me an actor who can’t cut this particular mustard and you have a production that, whatever its strengths and weaknesses, ultimately fails. Phyllis Nagy’s The Talented Mr Ripley, an adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel, stands or falls by its lead. You can have a good set. This one, multileveled and open with rolling backdrop clouds, fulfilled most requirements. You can have good and evocative sound. This had lapping waves and haunting music. And you can wrap the supporting players, two excellent, with moody lighting effects which stun. But you need your Mr Ripley. You need your convincing, charismatic, killer. Without him all else goes for naught. With him you have a play which draws and grips. This one had Justin Doherty and, for me, he never put a foot wrong. Cold eyed, quietly spoken, and with a stillness that unnerved he created a psychopathic realism rarely seen on the local stage. For over two and a half hours you genuinely felt you were in the presence of a killer. And I know, I have been.

None of this makes me blind to any faults in Alan Clarke’s production. I am a bit too long in the tooth to be totally seduced by one performance, however good it may be. Mr Clarke was up against it. His Still Life last year is the nearest thing to theatrical perfection this blog has seen. They didn’t bat as long in Ripley, stage lit interiors were less realistic than exteriors, and the second murder was bereft of dramatic tension and clumsy in its aftermath. We will all shuffle off this mortal coil but here a bloodstained actor (Marc Rolfe) gave it a quick and literal interpretation. And, final nitpick, a play rich in narrative mood and atmosphere veered perilously close to under pacing at times. It’s a clever play with lots of overlapping dialogue and scenes and, generally, Mr Clarke staged it well. But actors are buggers for picking up the rhythms and levels of others. And, theory here, that other was the mesmerising and bespectacled Ripley.

But enough of that. Actors don’t want to read this rubbish. They only want to know what you thought of them. Quite right too. Well Jenna Ryder-Oliver was excellent, I think I have said that somewhere, both as the dying mother of the first victim and the dotty aunt of his killer. She acts with verve and style and every inch of her variety of personalities, the mother had at least five, was laced with astute human observations. Super. As Herbert Greenleaf, father of the first victim, Malcolm Farrar has a much more restrained characterisation. It totally convinced throughout, particularly so in his moving final speech telling of his wife’s ultimate demise. This was done with an admirable economy of acting skills proving the old theatrical adage that less is often more. He couldn’t resist slightly showing off in his more flamboyant second portrayal, an Italian Colombo like detective, but even here he created a pleasing tension. You got the distinct feeling that his Lt Roverini, fingering a damning cigarette case, knew he was facing a killer but lacked the desire or energy to pursue it. La Dolce Vita has a lot to answer for. The other performances couldn’t match the three singled out but Miranda Larson looked every inch the scrumptious girlfriend Marge and, for good measure, also threw in a sultry prostitute. Luke Howard was engaging as the nervy cartoonist handing over cheques and James Trapp a nice clean cut victim. I reckon I would need to see this again to get a real handle on Mr Trapp’s characterisation of the doomed Richard Greenleaf as on this showing he seemed a little bland. Perhaps most murder victims are.

But, on balance, I found the production hugely entertaining. I like believable murderers and in Justin Doherty’s compelling portrayal we got it in spades. We also got oodles of filmic atmosphere thanks to a clever set, generally well used, and classy lighting (David Houghton) and even classier sound (Graham Elliott). All merged beautifully at the end when the still and menacing Tom Ripley listened to Aunt Dottie’s reprise of his personal nightmare. At that moment you saw the divide between those who kill and the rest of us ordinary folk. This production had both dramatic highs and lows but Mr Clarke must have been well pleased with that final picture. When the mood takes, Tom Ripley will kill again. Roy Hall

The Talented Mr Ripley (Dunstable Rep)

Justin Doherty turns in a mesmerising tour de force in the Rep’s atmospheric production of The Talented Mr Ripley. As the clouds roll and the music haunts, his cold eyed and callous killer totally convinces. Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel is short on pace but long on mood and Mr Doherty gets splendid support from Jenna Ryder-Oliver and Malcolm Farrar as his victim’s gullible parents. Some of the supporting cast need to up their game for the second week but, overall, Alan Clarke’s faithful presentation held a pretty tight grip. Roy Hall

Full review to follow

Runs to Saturday 19^th May (7.45pm) – Little Theatre, High Street, Dunstable.