Summer of 78 (Forthcoming Production)

Avid readers of this blog, I have ‘em you know, are aware that the general theme is sticking my oar into primed and polished productions strutting their individual stuff on some sundry stage. Audience opinion distilled into one shaft of highly personal piece of coruscating wisdom or woefully crass comment. Take your pick. But like it or lump it, folks come for a look. Nearly 20,000 hits and rising. I reckon it is because recorded comment, anywhere, is all theatre folk have when the greasepaint comes off and the costumes stacked away. Books, films, paintings, records, all are there forever. Live theatre remains only in the memory. So words, any words, give a life beyond the production. That is my excuse.

So what, you may ask, is my excuse for shamelessly promoting a production yet to take place? It aint my style. I am the maverick outsider confirming or denying the plaudits eagerly gathered in that culminating week of theatrical energy. All shows sweat for weeks and months, trials and traumas abound, before setting their fare before a paying public which either sings in praise or spits in disapproval. Such is theatre, a fickle beast. No, it aint my style but, in life, there are always exceptions to the general rule. In my Luton News reviewing days a constant joy was penning a piece on the Colin Smith Youth Theatre Productions. I always had a spring in my step when I went along to Stuart Farrar’s shows. Even the ones I didn’t particularly like as shows. That spring came because I knew I was in for an evening of inventive energy and incredible youthful talent. I loved their West Side Story, one of those shows I do not particularly care for, was bowled over by Les Miserables, and enjoyed a stunning Chorus Line so much I went back to see it again. Paper reviewers, even humble local ones, do not do that. And around about the time I put down my Luton News pen, Stuart Farrar and the CSYTP did the same. Called it a day, that is. In the history of local theatre in Luton it should be recorded, quite rightly, that they were much more missed than me.

But now they are back. It may only be a one off given precarious finances but Stuart Farrar is reviving the group for a summer special at the Library Theatre. It is called Summer of 78 and, given the synopsis, looks very much like Back to the Future with music. Some pretty awesome young talent went through the company’s hands in the earlier days, three members have performed in the west end and others have appeared on television. The new group is made up of aspiring 13-18 year olds being given a chance to perform on stage. You can guarantee that amongst them there will be two or three of exceptional talent. Mr Farrar has a nose for quality performers. Like Terry Mills with his St Andrews Stage One performers, Stuart Farrar is doing his community bit for tomorrow’s theatre performers. And like the estimable Mr Mills he is doing it without any funding, as far as I know, from those local great or good who run the town of Luton. Theatre folk come pretty low in the general pecking order of financial support. It was ever thus.

The trustees of the defunct Wheatsheaf Players are going to do their bit with a slice of sponsorship to help them on their way. You can do yours by turning up in droves in the second week in May. ‘Blame it on the Boogie’, ‘Fantasy’, ‘When I Need You’, and many more. I reckon it will be good. It will certainly be welcome. Roy Hall

 

Summer of 78

Luton Library Theatre

Thurs 8^th to Saturday 10^th May  (7.30pm – Saturday matinee 2.30pm)

Tickets £9 (adult) £7 (child) £28 (family)

Theatre Box Office 01582 878100

Ticket Hotline (24hour) 07825 569105

Avenue Q (DAOS)

*****

Lots of my theatrical friends, I have one or two, say I do not like musicals. It ain’t never, ever, been true. I love a good one as much as anyone. My problem, particularly on the amateur stage, was that many were devoid of imagination in choice or presentation. Or, even worse, both. If you are regurgitating an Annie or Oliver for the umpteenth time you need to put a special twist on it to grab me by the fundamentals. But old or new, spin it with verve and creativity and I can be as hooked as the biggest musical fan. My favourite musical evenings have ranged from Stephen Sondheim to Lionel Bart, from The Drowsy Chaperone to Chorus Line, from Carousel to Chess. All different, but all with the commonality of gobsmacking style. Took one in this week. An everyday story of young folks searching for that elusive American dream in a downmarket New York City borough. The human condition writ small and detailed. Absolutely loved the whole evening and, disturbingly, went home thinking deeply about their emotional frailties and traumas. So what, you may say, good theatre does that. But this was a group of woolly puppets, a bit of colourful cloth with hands up their imaginary backsides, for God’s sake. Avenue Q, the smash hit puppet musical and its richly rounded and flawed characters surprisingly touched me as deeply as any in a well crafted drama. I really should get out more. Or maybe less. Am seeing my shrink tomorrow. In saying this I am applauding the actors who were on stage with them. They were the ones saying the lines and singing the songs, but it was the colourful puppets you concentrated on. Those actors would not have had it any other way. You felt for Kate Monster (Lucy O’Hare) as she desperately and willingly threw herself at the man of her dreams, the likeable and troubled Princeton (Ashley Mead). He searched frantically for his purpose in life and, along the way, had the most amazing on stage bonk with his Kate. You could only do it with puppets. My favourite character Rod (Simon Rollings) was so uptight about his obvious homosexuality that his pitiful self denial led to him throwing his flat mate Nicky (James Halling/Helen Maile) on to the streets. You have made that nice boy homeless, you bastard, I felt like shouting. And homelessness, like racism, homophobia, internet porn and money were key features of this Sesame Street for adults. Even Schadenfraude, look it up, got a mention. It pleases me immensely not to tell you what that means, unhelpful soul that I am. But I will tell you that as well as the main puppet characters we got a wonderfully gross and foul mouthed Trekkie (Joshua Thompson/Anna Woods), the neighbour from hell, and a feisty Scottish schoolteacher with the super name of Mrs Thistletwat (Alana McKenna). Billed as Mrs T in the programme but I am sure I heard this right. I sincerely hope so. I wasn’t a big fan of Blue and Yellow Bear (Kim Albone/Katy Elliott). Nothing to do with those ladies, both fine actresses, but their screechy bad idea consciences for Princeton interfered with an absorbing story of street folk. Just my opinion but I reckon those characters would appeal more to kids and a kids show Avenue Q is not. You wouldn’t get Lucy the Slut (Jenna Ryder-Oliver) at any kiddie’s party. This diva flaunted sex as a weapon of choice and necessity. And she flounced offstage in beautiful symmetry with her shadowy puppeteer. Two flounces for the price of one cannot be bad. Perhaps, on second thoughts, modern, computer savvy, five year olds would like that. They flounce around a lot in Waitrose. In a show rich in ethnicity it is hardly surprising that we also had humans in a variety of shades. Only three, but they mingled well with those of the puppet races. Oh that real life could be like that, he says wistfully. Paul Rogers was a little too underpowered as the well meaning but pretty useless comedian Brian but Susan Young made for an interesting slant as a Japanese Christmas Eve and Damien Winchester was an engaging Gary. Childhood success followed by dismal adult failure was the downward theme of Gary’s troubled life and in a show with many subtle and not so subtle messages this young man’s was one. Mr Winchester sang brightly and acted sprightly. His is a local name to watch. Remember you heard it here first. I shan’t list all the songs. Too many, and if none are hit parade material all were relevant and jolly and all sung with style and energy. I particularly liked ‘If You Were Gay’ (Nicky and Rod), ‘The Internet is for Porn’ (Trekkie Monster), ‘There’s a Fine, Fine Line’ (Kate) and ‘The Money Song’ but none jarred and the lyrics were clever. Click, click, hold your dick, won’t win any literary prizes but it appealed to my dirty mind. Overall director Chris Young and Choreographer Lynette Driver did a super job with a show which must have been fraught with technical and presentational difficulties. They had the essential tool in Paul Jomain’s quintessential puppets but, helped by a clever technical team, they had to sell it to an audience in which disbelief has to be suspended and a special narrative embraced. That they succeeded owes much to their precision, let down only briefly in act two scene changes, and the commitment and talent of the actors controlling the puppets. After the first few minutes on stage I was not conscious that they were there. I was in thrall to the joys and frustrations, the pleasures and the pain, of the lives of Kate Monster and Princeton, of Nicky and Rod. That is the heart of the success of Avenue Q. Do it right, and DAOS did, and we believe in and love those bits of cloth. I am telling my psychiatrist tomorrow. I think she will change my tablets. Roy Hall

Wendy Says - ' I just loved the Trekkie Monster, so wonderfully foulmouthed.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of Order (Dunstable Rep)

****

I have been doing a lot of thinking this week. I often do a lot of thinking. Usually along the lines of ‘Where have I put my bloody car keys?’ or ‘Why has that stone cold certainty at Haydock Park come stone cold last, gasping for breath?’ Doesn’t do to be too cerebrally demanding at my age. But, as I say, I have been thinking. Mainly about farce. Seems appropriate in budget week even if, for a change, that annual event was less farcical than usual. Except for the spat surrounding a beer and bingo poster. That was fun. But I digress, as they say in the best circles. No, the farce I have been thinking about is those of a theatrical variety which seems appropriate seeing as this is a theatre blog. Notwithstanding those occasional intrusions about horses gasping for breath. Oh do get on with it for God’s sake; her indoors is losing the will to live.

Get on with it I will. Farce, of the theatrical variety, is bloody difficult. Do an Ibsen or a Chekhov or a Rattigan and there are various degrees of satisfaction. Outright misery at an excruciating turkey to unbounded joy at a masterpiece of presentation. And in between, subtle levels of appreciation. It ain’t like that with farce. It either works or it doesn’t. You either fly or fall straight off the cliff. Hit the heights or sink without trace. Choose your own metaphor. Just my opinion of course but I have been certified. This one, Dunstable Rep’s Out of Order, for those of you who have lost the thread, worked beautifully because it had leads who were completely believable, support that worked as a team, and a director who knitted them all together with first class pace and verve. Rarely were we allowed to think over the couple of hours of nonsense fun. That was vital. If the laughter stops and the audience grey cells start working, a die of doom can be cast. Have seen it many times in theatres up and down the land. They think farce is easy. It might seem so but it’s not, and that is why I take my hat off to director Roger Scales and his team. Good job really. It’s a pretty battered, unflattering, black one. My hat that is.  And it clashed dreadfully with Mr Scales’ colourful shirt in the foyer.

Hang on? Is that it? Aren’t you going to say anything about the plot? About the actors? About that team who toiled so hard and well? About the set? Well yes if I must but it is all so glowing I might get a bit boring. We like blood on this blog, if only of the theatrical kind. No bloodshed here. Joe Butcher was absolutely superb as Richard Willey MP, junior government minister bent on a clandestine hotel tryst. I cannot think of a local actor better suited to such a fruity part. He does harassed comic blustering with effortless aplomb and yet, crucially, always works as part of a coherent team. And that was a must in Ray Cooney’s frenetic piece on thwarted sexual coupling. His Willey, if you will pardon the phrase, was well matched by Anthony Bird’s cleverly observed portrayal of the hapless assistant, George Pigden. His was the sort of part you could imagine Claude Hulbert or Jonathan Cecil, you won’t have a clue who they are, lapping up. Well meaning and useless. If I would have liked a little more panic to be flashed in Mr Bird’s eyes at times that was my only nitpick. He was a simple and floundering foil for an increasingly stressed political master and together he and Mr Butcher spun the farcical script with style. And he jumped into sundry welcoming arms with gusto.

I shan’t regale you with the plot. Suffice to say, on an Alan Goss realistic and pleasing hotel suite set, a supposedly dead body and an over active sash window put paid to any prospects of horizontal activities. Hayley Vaughan impressed as the object of a politicians very non PC desires, Richard Garrett for an elderly waiter making unseemly fortunes at every opportunity, and Dave Hillman for a harassed hotel manager gleaming with liberal tins of Westminster polish. But with practically every daft entrance and exit from a variety of characters, including the delightful flashing of naked bottoms, there was not a serious weak link in a well drilled cast that fired with energy and pace. Alex Brewer, as the dead body, had neither naked bottom nor energetic pace but he made for a richly convincing corpse. It was all a load of rubbish of course, but if the play ran slightly out of steam at the end the playing never did. Nonsense of the highest order and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is nice, occasionally, not to have to think. Roy Hall

Out of Order (Preview) - Dunstable Rep

The Rep’s latest production is a joyously funny romp from beginning to end. An inconvenient body thwarts promised sexual couplings in Ray Cooney’s classic farce. Joe Butcher superbly leads as a harassed and philandering politician and Anthony Bird makes for a splendidly fey and hapless assistant. Richard Garrett, Hayley Vaughan and Dave Hillman add fun to an accomplished supporting team which effortlessly serve up the mayhem. Knitted almost to perfection by director Roger Scales, this nonsense of the highest order was an absolute tonic. Grab a ticket if you can. Roy Hall

Runs to Saturday 22nd March (7.45pm - High Street, Dunstable)

The Bridge and The Killing (BBC4)

I have never been a great subscriber to populism. Prefer to do my own thing rather than follow the latest trend. If I had been born a greyhound I would have been so slow out of the traps I reckon the hare would have lapped me before I got going. Take your time I says, assess the situation, gather the facts. Form your own opinion. Stunningly astute or plain bloody lazy? Take your pick. I have no idea but it has saved me wasting a lot of precious time on things that, when you sweep away the hype, are patently abysmal. Following this sensible maxim has saved me from the worst excesses of Fifty Shades of Grey, The Da Vinci Code, Britain’s Got Talent, Downtown Abbey, The Daily Mail, November Moustaches, and Nick Clegg. To name but a few. Equally I have no desire to bungee jump for charity, wear a badge proclaiming my beliefs, or do anything on television. If it’s the fashion, the perceived wisdom, or the popular view I tend to veer the other way. Sheer bloody mindedness and a strong desire not to be controlled. Probably explains why I loathe practically all government initiatives. Especially the ones telling us what to do or think.

Does have its downside, of course. Except for Nick Clegg. Being so stubborn in my refusal to join in with fashionable hype or hysteria I have missed out on a few things. Took me years to discover the joys of an iPod, Calvin Klein underpants, and Robert Goddard’s cerebral mysteries. But I soon catch up. Eventually. Bt Infinity, Stieg Larsson, and Quantitative Easing are a cinch at my dinner table discussions. I particularly like Stieg Larsson. The success of his Millennium Trilogy obliquely launched numerous Scandinavian dramas and, belatedly, the TV executive suits woke up to a blindingly obvious fact. A lot of us can actually cope with subtitles. Suddenly BBC4 was awash with cerebral crime dramas which a few years ago would have not got a look in. Took me a while to find them but Arne Dahl and The Bridge on Saturday nights soon became a must see in our house. Belatedly I have been splashing out on sundry Nordic Noir DVD’s and it will surprise few who lap up this genre that I am completely hooked.

The Bridge (Series One and Two) still ranks as my favourite in spite of over stretched plots. The chemistry between the autistic Swedish detective (Sofia Helin) and her philandering Danish counterpart (Kim Bodnia) is quality acting of the highest order. In narrative that grips throughout, detailed police procedure interspersed with pleasingly complex storylines, attention is permanently held in a way that British TV crime drama rarely does. The Killing (Series One and Two) matches, and probably exceeds, The Bridge for in depth relationship and convinces me that my first taste of this latest fashion was no happy accident. These Scandinavians know how to craft and develop gripping stories that require a heavy dollop of attention span and trust they have an audience capable of applying it. Sofie Grabol as Sarah Lund, famed now for her unprepossessing jumpers, gives a performance that deserves every award thrown at her. Her dysfunctional detective is surrounded by quality actors, Morten Surballe is superb as her boss Lennart Brix, and in series one Ann Eleonora Jorgensen gives a riveting performance as the murder victim’s mother. If you see no other modern Scandinavian crime drama you could do worse than try series one of The Killing as a taster. It is long, twenty episodes covering twenty days, but its mix of police procedure, political intrigue, and domestic grief and recriminations gains a hold on your attention that never lets go. Or it did for me.

So I am now following a fashionable trend, even if a bit late in the day. Have just bought The Killing (Series Three) and Those Who Kill from the same director. So I have a lot to look forward to in the evenings when dreary British TV schedules offer up the same load of rubbish that they have been churning out for years. There are exceptions (37 Days on BBC2 was riveting World War One factual political drama) but they are like hen’s teeth. I generally prefer the radio. But I like, no love, these Nordic crime dramas. They tick all my appreciation boxes.  And, actually, I quite like Nick Clegg. Just being provocative. It’s Paddy Ashdown I can’t stand. Roy Hall

Old Times (Wheathampstead DS)

***

It is not easy getting your head around Pinter. Old Harold was not renowned for plot at the best of times. The Birthday Party is rich in menace and The Lover littered with eroticism, but most of his work relies on both actors and audience mining the subtext for meaning. Wheathampstead  have form when it comes to stretching their punters and Old Times is, arguably, the least accessible of plays from a master of elusive prose and elegant pauses. On and off stage, all need to work hard to get anything out of it. Take that plot for starters. It is complicated so you need to concentrate. Deeley is married to Kate and they live in a farmhouse near the sea. Kate’s friend from twenty years ago, Anna, pays them a visit. Have you got that? Good, because that folks is all there is. On the surface. No spoon feeding here. Told you it was difficult.
The three meet in a living room and a bedroom and exchange memories of a youthful past. Or do they? I have no idea. Memory plays tricks on us all and who saw who in bed and who looked up whose skirt is never made clear. Deeley may be the man and Anna may be the woman. I have a theory, you need them with Pinter, that Anna and Kate are actually two aspects of the same woman. One sensuous and slightly tartish, the other enigmatic and repressed. It’s a popular theory and it would certainly make sense if the husband was littered with disparate memories of a dead wife. But that’s the trouble with Pinter. You enjoy the richness of his poetic prose, here delivered with excellent precision from all three actors, but spend half your time trying to make sense of it all. Old Times is not so much a play as an examination on the mysteries of humanity.
To ensure that paying punters, brains heavily taxed, do not feel short changed you need to serve up all the rhythmically pointed conversations with an excess of Pinter style. The actors did pretty well, Sara Payne was especially impressive as the languid and enigmatic Kate, but they were not helped by Len Skilton’s unimaginative set. It was bog standard natural and I reckon the production would have benefited from a touch of ethereal presentation to signpost the complexities of piece and character. And, boy, were those characters complex. Irene Morris gave us an Anna who delivered speech with automotive rhythm both disconcerting and fascinating, and Robert Naylor-Stables drove the limited narrative with short, staccato, questioning stabs. Watched by the still presence of the troubled Kate it was all very Pinteresque and accurately paced. Director Robin Langer must have been well pleased with that impression even if, like me, he may have thought that the rendering of the old fifties songs only hinted at eroticism. Personally I would have preferred Deeley and Anna to have given us lashings of hidden lust in their incongruous collective crooning. But I am very demanding.
As the saying goes, things improved when we got to the bedroom. Deeley and Anna seemed obsessed by the bathroom habits of the offstage Kate and erotic pictures of towelling and powdering were expertly conjured. This heavily charged scene was underpinned by the return of the freshly bathed wife and even if we did not know what was going on, I for one was enjoying it. I know a sex scene when I see it. Even a subtle one. If that comment even half convinces only one of you that I know what I am talking about then this blog has miserably failed. Like most of Beckett and much of Bond, Pinter at his most inscrutable is maddeningly demanding. This one impeccably delivered the poetry and left us to work out the rest. Karen Prior mixed the sounds and Bob Parry served up some impressive lighting. Especially the sudden introduction of Anna. We know not where she came from and why. And that he says, desperately searching for a sign off line, was probably the point. It’s all in the memory.
Roy Hall

 

 

The Lion in Winter (Full Review) - Dunstable Rep

****

I knows my history I does. Dates anyway. Used to show off when at junior school, insufferable beast that I was. Henry II? Easy. 1154-1189. Sandwiched between King Stephen, whoever he was, and his sons Richard and John. Richard was the crusader, not half as nice as folks think he was, and devious John was famed for Runnymede and the Magna Carta. Rich period in history and the launch of the Plantagenet dynasty which lasted for at least 250 years. Given the squabbling family, father and mother and sons constantly at each other’s throats, it is a wonder they lasted more than five minutes. Put them on stage in some fictional gathering, here it is a Christmas get together, and the emotional and historical baggage hardly leaves you room to swing a cat.

The first thing that strikes you about Annalise Carter-Brown’s laudable production of The Lion in Winter is that it came in some classy packaging. Beautifully constructed with realistic stonework on a simple revolving set, and cloaked in atmospheric music and stunningly minimal lighting. This was a staging that constantly pleased the eye and pointed the action. If it did not totally please the ear, tone and delivery did not always match the presentational promise, you couldn’t fault the way these 12^th century characters were dressed. Oh all right, the juvenile French king did look a bit like an overgrown chorister but that is nitpicking. All visuals generally combined to easily hold your interest in James Goldman’s dramatic slice of distilled Plantagenet history.

Trouble is there is a lot of that history by the time we get to 1183. Old Enery has been strutting his stuff for thirty years, and you need to lock into that complex baggage. We needed almost as much stamina as the actors, even those of us who snobbily swatted up in junior school. Best really to gloss over the enormous gaps in your knowledge and just enjoy a family at domestic war over who reigns when the old king has gone. And that small question had a multiplicity of solutions, amplified with touches of modernity and comic knowing. That was best illustrated by matriarch Eleanor of Aquitaine, a super Rona Cracknell, when sundry daggers were inconveniently drawn. It is 1183, she said, and we are barbarians. You couldn’t make it up, except of course, the playwright did. I liked such touches.

Other than the splendid Miss Cracknell, imposingly regal and ultra sharp, the actors who impressed most were Stephanie Overington’s crystal clear Alais and Anthony Bird’s petulant John. Miss Overington looked and sounded magnificent and Mr Bird engagingly invested the youngest spoilt son with a richness of variety and tone. Costume and hair, one flowing and the other full, added to the feeling that this young sprog should be given a good smacking and sent to bed. Alan Goss’s Henry, beautifully attired in simple rough clothes, brought admirable emotional depth to a man conscious of his turbulent past and uncertain future but needed greater vocal assurance to totally convince. The same was probably true of Joshua Thompson’s Geoffrey, but I liked him anyway. Especially his stillness. He had that air of menace and authority that pinpoints the marginalised. Nobody had a good word to say for him which is probably why, of the three remaining sons, history records he went off and died first. Probably a smart move, given the circumstances.

But all in all it was a pretty absorbing evening for anyone who likes their history. Okay some voices were a bit light in delivery for my tastes, I am an expert on how people spoke in 1183 he says, but all were sincere. They needed to be as narrative effortlessly eclipsed action in this family gathering. It generally worked because of Annalise Carter-Brown’s meticulous attention to her detailed presentation, served up with Alistair Brown and Jacob Shooter’s superb lighting and Graham Elliott’s evocative sounds. Alex Brewer (Richard) and Joe Hawkins (Philip of France) completed a cast always kept on song by Rep staging firmly out of the top drawer. Roy Hall