Girl with a Pearl Earring - Haymarket Theatre, Friday 26th September

Synopsis:

Delft, Holland, 1665. After her father is blinded in an explosion, 17-year-old Griet must work to support her family. She becomes a maid in the home of Johannes Vermeer and gradually attracts the master painter’s attention. Though worlds apart in upbringing, education and social standing, Vermeer recognizes Griet’s intuitive understanding of color and light and slowly draws her into the mysterious world of his paintings. Vermeer is a perfectionist, often taking months to finish a painting. His shrewish mother-in-law struggles to maintain the family’s lavish lifestyle on the income from his meagre output. Seeing that Griet inspires Vermeer, she takes the dangerous decision to allow their clandestine relationship to develop.

Griet also contends with the attentions of Vermeer’s patron, the wealthy and lascivious van Ruijven, who is frustrated that his money does not buy him control over the artist. While Griet falls increasingly under Vermeer’s spell, she cannot be sure of his feelings for her. The Machiavellian van Ruijven, sensing the intimacy between master and maid, gleefully contrives a commission for Vermeer to paint Griet alone. The result will be one of the greatest paintings ever created, but at what cost?

Read the book? Yes. Seen the film? Yes. In which case, don't spend your hard-earned on a ticket for this because you won't get anything you haven't had already. This production, imported from Richmond Theatre via the Cambridge Arts Theatre, has obviously just been thrown on quickly in order to fill the gap made by the "unexpected" closure of Marguerite (although not that unexpected if you happened to see it), and basically does what it says on the tin and nothing else. Its scheduled to run only six weeks, and is obviously aimed at people who enjoyed the book/film and fancy having the story re-told to them without the effort of having to turn any pages or schlep down to the DVD rental shop. However, because the story is pared down to its barest essentials, you might come away wishing you'd gone to the effort. Gone are the background, middle distance and foreground layers, and gone are the coats of varnish that add gloss and depth. The end of the story is cut off raggedly and tacked onto the very beginning in an effort to give a vague feeling of "flashback" and the "vegetable chopping" scene is moved slightly out of its place in the book, but otherwise that's really all the adaptor has thought it worth doing. Dialogue is lifted straight from the book, although there are times when characters address the audience directly in asides when their thoughts, feelings or actions can't be rendered in actual conversation - this is a terribly lazy way of recreating a masterpiece. If this conceit were done skillfully and kept up all the way through the play, it might be a way of papering over some of the more obvious failings of the script, but it happens just enough times for you to start getting used to it and then falls by the wayside.

Kimberley Nixon makes a fair stab at Griet, the eponymous heroine, but doesn't catch the awkwardness or shyness of a young girl suddenly removed from the world she knows and transplanted into the role of a servant in the world of her social superiors. She comes across as rather lippy to the Vermeers rather than anxious to please. Adrian Dunbar is a dead loss as the enigmatic Vermeer - there is no mystery, no sex appeal, no broody, misunderstood genius. There should be deep shade and the occasional sudden ray of light to highlight the shadows - all the chiaroscuro of Vermeer's paintings themselves, in fact - but there's nothing; no detail, no middle ground. Vermeer should be a whole palette of shades, tones and hues, but is played here as the equivalent of magnolia emulsion. Note to the costume department - his shoes are obviously slightly too loose as, at the performance we saw, he sported a modern pair of short black socks over his tights. Or maybe his feet were just cold. The great Sara Kestelman was really just wasted as Maria Thins - she wasn't at all stretched by the role and was more or less reduced to the role of chorus, commenting on the action but never engaging in it directly. Lesley Vickerage did her best to flesh out the poorly written role of Catherina but never managed to rise above puppet-dom. Maggie Service as Tanneke was lucky in that her dialogue gave her the opportunity to be funny and acidic and worldly-wise.

The set was serviceable, I suppose - a small revolve showing the kitchen, the studio and the salon, but was surrounded on all sides by some weird curtaining that looked rather like camoflauge material made out of black plastic squares linked together chequerboard style. No effort whatsover seemed to be made to light the sets in the manner of Vermeer's paintings, which was a major loss to the production as a whole. The one scene where lighting was effective (three baby spots trained on lit candles) was all too brief and far too late to save an extremely dull lighting plot.

In effect, in its depth and scope, this production showed as much relationship to its origin as a painting by numbers set does to a Old Master; on the surface they may be vaguely similar, but one takes masterly skill, years of dedication and great mental and physical effort and the other is just a daub.

What the critics thought (not a lot, basically!):

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article4850312.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/sep/30/theatre2

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/girl-with-a-pearl-earring-theatre-royal-haymarket-london-947294.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/show-23577224-details/Girl+With+A+Pearl+Earring/showReview.do?reviewId=23561882

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo – Peacock Theatre, 23rd September 2008

Well, here we are again, Trocks fans. Having seen both their shows two years ago at this very same theatre, expectations were again high and again hit the spot completely. For those not familiar with the Trocks, they are an all male ballet company who specialise in dressing up in tutus and generally taking the piss out of classical ballet. As with all satire, it does help a lot if you have some knowledge of what is being sent up – but with the Trocks you can just as easily go in completely “cold” and still have a great deal of fun. Ballet, after all, lends itself spectacularly to being sent up – think of all the times you’ve seen Morecambe and Wise/The Two Ronnies/Little and Large/The Krankies et al doing The Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake.

What can possibly be missed is the fact that there is actually some incredibly skilful dancing going on underneath all the campery, over made up faces and comic moments. All are trained classical dancers. Some of these guys are strapping six-footers with shoulders (and in some instances, faces) that wouldn’t disgrace a scrum half, and yet they can all manage to dance en pointe – no mean feat for a man. Some of their star performers can cope with multiple single, double and sometimes treble fouettes, while still making it look easy. And of course, pair a big, strapping “ballerina” with a tiny male dancer, and you can make people laugh before either of you have danced a step.

What I particularly like about the Trocks is the way they show off their repertoire – there’s usually a (truncated) entire act from something, followed by a couple of shorter pieces, then a bravura “show off” piece at the end. Tonight’s performance started off with Act Two of Giselle – my favourite ballet and so ripe for sending up that it’s a complete gift. For the non-balletomanes out there, here’s a quick synopsis:

Giselle, having died of heartbreak at the end of Act One after discovering her lover, Albrect, is actually not the simple farmer she supposes but an aristocratic cad with nostalgie de la boue tendencies and an upperclass fiancée, is recruited to the ranks of the Wilis – a troupe of ghostly young women who, engaged to be married, have all died before their wedding day. At midnight, led by their Queen, Myrtha (as in Tidfil), they rise from their unquiet graves, waylay unfortunate young men who just happen to be wandering about the forest by moonlight (possibly in order to meet with other young men, who knows?) and dance their victims to death. As you do. Her ghouls having danced Hilarion (a “gamekeeper” but more likely a “poacher”, and rejected suitor of Giselle) right into the lake, Myrtha commands Giselle to dance Albrecht to his doom in punishment. Albrecht is saved by the power of love – Giselle manages to play for time until daybreak, when the first rays of the sun and the sound of a church bell send the Wilis back to their tombs.

You can’t not send that up, can you? I mean – Myrtha? (Mind you, in La Sylphide, the witch is lumbered with the name of Madge, for heaven's sake.) Robert Carter was a fab Myrtha, rising from the grave with a plastic arum lily standing up on her head, and her Wilis were like extras from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, even down to the arm gestures – no pretty pretty, carefully made up and chignoned spirits here but semi-rotted corpses dressed in tatters, which is just how they should be. Him Indoors told me about a production he had seen a while back where the Wilis actually clawed themselves out of their graves, which sounds enough to give anyone the Wilis.

This was followed by a sparkling pas de deux – Diana and Acteon – then the Vivadi Suite (in which we had the company’s tallest dancer partnered with the company’s smallest one; it was an interesting piece and, much though I profess to dislike Balanchine’s choreography, I really would quite like to see it done “straight” some time. Him Indoors got all pompous about this piece and in his best “Zippy from Rainbow” voice said “Of course, Balanchine was well known for casting enormously tall women so there’s a double layer of parody, isn’t that right, Jeffrey?”) and then the Trocks’ “signature piece” of The Dying Swan, shedding its feathers all over the stage to The Swan from Carnival of the Animals.

The company always finish with something unusual but fun, and for the finale we had “The Underwater Scene from The Little Humpbacked Horse”. No, I don’t know it either! Apparently it’s a very obscure Russian ballet based on a very obscure Russian Folktale – but it’s the type of underwater scene you get in lots of ballets and operas (and, come to think of if pantomimes) where they have a bubble-blowing machine in the wings and everyone dresses up as sea creatures. Think back to the last production of Dick Whittington you saw and you’ll know the type of thing. They followed this with a short encore of “New York, New York” and all wore Statue of Liberty headdresses – although Him Indoors thought they were meant to be starfish, Jeffery.

Great fun, as always guys.

The Trocks Website: http://www.trockadero.org/

What the critics thought: (all reviewers saw a peformance of the first programme; we saw the second)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/sep/17/ballet.dance

http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/trocks_0908.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/19/bttrocks119.xml

The Norman Conquests - The Old Vic - various dates in September 2008

Synopsis:

The Norman Conquests is an interconnecting triptych of plays - Table Manners (set in the dining room), Round and Round the Garden and Living Together (set in the living room)- which follow the same six characters - Norman, his in-laws and the local vet - over a summer weekend in an English country house. Believing it his mission in life to make women happy by showering them with love, Norman makes the most of every opportunity to seduce his sister-in-law Annie, charm his brother-in-law's wife Sarah, and woo his wife Ruth during this disastrous weekend of constant bickering, drunken bonding and illicit rendezvous. The plays all happen in "real time" - i.e all take place at the same time. As characters interact and move around the house, they move from one play to another.

I was initially quite resistant to the thought of going to see these plays - they're by Alan Ayckbourn and I tend to think of his plays as being incredibly bleak and dark about the human condition and relationships (watching Season's Greetings or Absurd Person Singular is enough to leave you fumbling in your bag for a sharp knife with which to end it all, or at least bring on an attack of the NAHB (Not a Happy Bunny) Syndrome).

I admit that my hackles rose substantially when entering the theatre - some overpaid Capitalist has paid for the stage to be ripped out (the stage! At the Old Vic! The stage of Garrick, Gielgud, Edith Evans and Mrs. Patrick Campbell!) and the auditorium remodelled to become a "theatre in the round" rather than the traditional proscenium. Barbarism! The hallowed ghosts of great actors long since dead no longer drift around the stage clad in the costumes of their most famous roles - they have to clamber around over tiers of seats going woogy woogy woogy and getting their cloaks caught in the tip-up mechanisms. Outrage! Apparently, this is in homage (dharling) to the original production of The Norman Conquests which was played "in the round", but I have a nasty feeling that Mr. Spacey will be gunning for the new layout to remain. What's even worse is that this overpaid Capitalist hasn't, naturally, thought it fit to be an anonymous philanthropist, but has insisted on plastering the name of his bloody Hedge Fund all over the refit - its now the "CQS Space", apparently. Ye gods!

What is very disconcerting about this new layout is that, instead of looking at the stage, one now finds oneself sitting "on the stage" (the proscenium arch is still actually in place above your head) looking at other people in "the auditorium" - giving the odd impression of looking in a mirror. Is this a clever directorial conceit? Are we watching a play, or are we merely watching ourselves? When the same little old lady, wearing the same red sweatshirt, is sitting in the same seat for two different performances, this only adds to the surrealism and leaves you thinking "Have I been here before?"

Ah, but here comes the clever bit. We have been here before - these three plays feature the same characters, in the same costumes, in the same story. But each play is only one third of the story - and all the three parts are running at the same time (figuratively, not literally - although there is a famous pair of plays - House and Garden - which do run literally at the same time). Its like doing 1/3 of a jigsaw puzzle, then breaking it all up and doing it again, using different pieces and getting a different 1/3 of the picture, and then doing the same thing again to see the last 1/3. Sometimes, an individual piece might be in the middle of the bit that's visible, only to reappear the next time on the edge of the image. You can see its the same piece, only the context has changed. And your knowledge of 1/3 helps you relate it to either, or both, of the other two. Clever, eh?

Yes, very clever, but its still Ayckbourn and its still pretty bleak if you dont happen to be in a jolly frame of mind. Try and go when you're in a good mood, otherwise the darkness blots out the humour - and the humour is very funny indeed. I was getting over food poisoning for Table Manners, and sat in front of a buffoon from the City haw-hawing about his share options for Living Together, both of which events affected the way I related to the plays (at time of writing, we're still trying to get tickets for Round and Round The Garden). Anyway, it all revolves perilously close to farce in places, but without the physical humour; this humour is the black humour of relationships - family, partners, lovers - and what happens when testosterone levels get waaaaay too high. Essentially, I suppose, its a 19th century drawing room comedy set in the early 1970s. Like J. M. Priestley (of An Inspector Calls, Time and The Conways and Dangerous Corner fame), Ayckbourn gets a kick out of manipulating time - and your head. Watching the second play (they dont have to be seen in any particular order), I found myself constantly trying to reference what I had seen in the first, and watching intently for cues in order to "see where the joins were"; very tiring but ultimately very satisfying. Despite my avowed loathing of Ayckbourn, I'm very much lookng forward to seeing the last play.

Of the six actors in the cast, I can't really single out any individual for brickbats or bouquets as all are uniformly excellent. Amelia Bullimore has a difficult job with Ruth, probably the most poorly written role of the lot (and certainly the least believable) and rather a thankless task as a result. I don't think Steven Mangan is quite as good as he thinks he is as Norman, but its an unsympathetic role, and gets more so as you see each play in turn and learn more about him. I'm not sure that he needs to be portrayed as quite such a hairy loon with unkempt beard and wild locks. Some of Amanda Roots' vocal inflections and facial movements remind me of a very young Julie Walters (from her Victoria Wood days) and are genuinely funny as a result (apparently Penelope Keith created the role and I can imagine her in it, but I think I prefer Roots) and Ben Miles is a wonderfully ponderous Tom.

I'm not quite sure what purpose the model village serves - on a huge metal wheel suspended about three feet above the circular stage, leading to much pre-curtain speculation from the audience as to what is actually going to happen to it - but it rises up to reveal another identical model village on the underside. Most bizarre and I can't really see the point. Some of the actual direction is slightly disappointing - theatre in the round can leave you staring at the actors' backs for a good long while if its not carefully handled, particularly when a piece of furniture such as a dining table "anchors" people in one spot - and some of the sight lines are a little dodgy. It must be a very large house if both dining room and living room have at least three doors, making the overall layout of the house rather confusing to work out mentally. But the overall shabbiness of the house is well hinted at.

I think it was in one of Maureen Lipman's books that she said something along the lines of "Once an audience has realised that something on stage has gone wrong, they like nothing more than settling back and seeing how you are going to get out of it" - and the sadist in me did enjoy the moment when Norman slammed the coffee pot down on the dining room table just that little bit too hard in Table Manners, cracking it and watching water spread in a great pool before trickling down to form an ever-spreading puddle on the rug.

What the critics thought:

http://webcowgirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/review-living-together-the-norman-conquests-the-old-vic/

The Wizard of Oz - Royal Festival Hall, Wednesday 6th August 2008

Synopsis:

See my synopsis of Gone With the Wind!

It’s a sure-fire hit, ok? Iconic characters, classic songs, a real-live dog, villains to hiss and goodies to cheer, the potential for great sets and costumes, stage magic in bucketloads and the potential for getting the audience on your side however bad the production – a guaranteed sell-out during the school holidays and every small child and gay man for many miles around clamouring for tickets, right? WRONG! Jude Kelly (director) should hang her head in shame at this leaden, dreary production which completely fails to hit even the easiest of marks. In fact, so bored was I that I whipped out a notebook and sat taking notes all the way through - I covered four pages and, looking back, I see that only 2 comments were in any way positive.

Lets start with the basics – firstly, the venue. The Royal Festival Hall auditorium is vast, bleak and firmly mired in the 1960s. It feels like a concrete aeroplane hanger, but without the charm. It’s a concert venue, with a tiny stage that has acres of width but about 3 feet of depth. In this empty, echoing shell, there can be no place for subtlety – any performance that must cross the orchestra pit and reach the back row has to be broad, brassy and over-miked – no problem if you’re the Royal Philharmonic, but a handicap for a jolly stage show. The lighting is gloomy and designed for atmospheric concerts where each member of the orchestra has their own music stand complete with lamp – not ideal for a show where many of the set pieces take place in wide-open spaces by daylight. Most of this production is mired in perpetual twilight – heads and feet disappear in the gloom unless you’re standing in the middle of one of the (few) spotlights, which are contrastingly so bright that it washes out any details.

Sian Brooke looks old enough to be Aunt Em’s middle-aged daughter and has no experience of musical theatre listed in her biog. Put simply, she cannot sing. Her rendition of everyone’s favourite torchsong - the heartbreaking “Somewhere over the rainbow” was croaky, out of tempo and her musical phrasing was all over the place, proving instantly that for this role, you need a singer who can act, not an actor who thinks she can sing. And that accent – less Dorothy Gale than Daisy Duke (this is being charitable – I could have said Daisy Duck). This was a performance of little or no charm, no sparkle and none of that heart-aching innocence that the role demands. In fact, you could have put her costume on a plank and felt more connection.

Adam Cooper played the Tin Man as Adam Cooper i.e. can’t sing, can’t act, can dance a bit (now, where did I hear that before??). A performance as dull as unpolished tin, occasionally enlivened by some completely gratuitous choreography. Hilton McCrae was, I suppose, adequate as the Scarecrow, being slightly less OTT than some interpretations I have seen. Gary Wilmott played the Cowardly Lion as a camp, effeminate type, all limp wrists and pouts – an extremely lazy interpretation of the part yet one which, surrounded as it was on all sides by cardboard, actually came across as one of the more entertaining characters. The dual, small roles of Professor Marvel and the Wizard can be difficult to establish – so Roy Hudd didn’t even try. In fact, in this production, Marvel and the Wizard are actually the same character, wearing the same costume. Dull, dull, dull. Julie Legrand, with the plum role of WWW, could have walked away with the entire show – the role is a complete gift yet so often, as here, the actress concerned delivers a performance as if made from Spotted Dick than from Pure Evil, merely going through the motions. Desperately, desperately disappointing. In fact, the most animated character of the entire production was Toto (here played by Bobby, a white Highland Terrier) and even he looked bored for most of the time, being seemingly content to doze on stage when his presence was required.

Costumes? Well, the designer apparently “wanted to keep the characters recognisable” – for which read “make slavish copies of the costumes from the film”. Yes, I know that they are iconic – but a little imagination really wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. WWW’s costume was possibly the laziest design of the lot, although this was given a run for its money by those of the Munchkins. A little bit more than brightly coloured shorts, T-shirts and the occasional baseball cap is needed, for pity’s sake. Having seen a production (amateur, I hasten to add) in which the costumes (in particular those of the talking trees and the deadly poppies) were described in the local paper review as “wonderfully extravagant and fit for a cruise liner’s cabaret”, these were truly woeful. The inhabitants of The Emerald City were kitted out as superannuated circus performers – c’mon, designer! A few pairs of green Kicker boots, stripy socks and green Tshirts do not fantasy citizens make.

Choreography? Virtually non-existent. There were some sparks – the three crows, the Tin Man’s dance break – but we got 12 bars of “The Jitterbug” and that was that. Over, finished, done with, kaput – as was the “snowstorm” and associated dance number that kills the Deadly Poppies and finishes Act One.

Stage magic? Oh, my days, was this in very short supply. This is a show that not only requires it, not only needs it, not only demands it, but gets down on its knees and effing begs for it in dumper-truckloads. Here, Glinda didn’t float on in her traditional pink champagne bubble – she just wandered in through the auditorium. Did the Flying Monkeys fly? Did they heck. The Wizard’s Throne Room was empty – just a disembodied voice. I’ve seen scarier Haunted Forests in my back garden. And the Twister? Well, this brings me onto the subject of “Visual Installation”.

With such a slender stage, some form of back projection obviously had to be used. No problem there – back projection can be used to add depth, provide a bit of stage magic and generally plaster over the cracks, if used properly. Unfortunately, WOZ director decided to use a firm called Huntley Muir, who describe themselves as “Urban Playground Studios” – having had a quick look at their website, it seems that they provide the type of “artwork” that a reasonably talented five or six year old turns out. Well, for this, the whole firm must have chopped up a couple of lines of Colombia’s finest each, put their shirts on back to front and crowded round the “creative play” table with boxes of magic markers, sheets of gummed paper and safety scissors, and then uploaded the lot onto PowerPoint. Their interpretation of the terrifying Twister was a rotating spiral rendered in chubby Magic Marker, during the Tin Man scene we were treated to a clunky axe with the words “chop, chop” squiggled in round it (in case we weren’t sure what an axe did) and the closing of Act One, where Emerald City looms on the horizon, sparkling and glittering like an enormous jewel seen through a sudden shower of rain, gave us what appeared to be the letterhead of Croydon Council drawn in acid green highlighter - although I am assured that it actually represented the skyline of the South Bank Centre. Oh, what wit! Oh, what ironic reverence to the post-modernist, 21st century zeitgeist! Oh, what a load of self-indulgent crap!

Add to this pacing of the kind best described as “funeral” (what worries me is that, during the first couple of weeks of the run, the performances lasted for almost exactly three hours, although they had shaved some 20 minutes off by yesterday, so the early performances must have progressed with the speed of continental drift) and the “sure-fire hit” that this show should be, fell dead to the ground with the kind of thump associated with giants falling from beanstalks. Do yourself a favour – don’t go and see this show. You’ll only find yourself agreeing that “There’s no place like home”.

What the critics thought:

http://webcowgirl.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/review-wizard-of-oz-royal-festival-hall-london/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/jul/30/theatre2?gusrc=rss&feed=stage

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article4426636.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/the-wizard-of-oz-royal-festival-hall-london-881291.html

Moonlight and Magnolias -Tricycle Theatre Kilburn, Monday 14th July 2008

Synopsis:

Three weeks into the filming of Gone With the Wind, producer David O. Selznick has halted production, dissatisfied with an inferior screenplay and a director whose style and pace are not in harmony with his own. Recognizing that his professional reputation, financial stability, societal status and even the fate of his family rest on the success of this enormous and risky project, Selznick summons the proven “script doctor” Ben Hecht and larger-than-life director Victor Fleming to his studio offices, determined to engage their services.

But obstacles soon arise - Hecht has not read the novel and is convinced that a Civil War picture will never make money. Fleming is in the middle of filming The Wizard of Oz and questions whether anyone — especially Hecht who is unfamiliar with the characters and the plot — is up to the monumental task of reducing a 1,030-page book into a 130-page screenplay. Enticed by the promise of a sizeable fee, Hecht reluctantly agrees to devote five days to the project; contracted under the studio system, Fleming has no other choice but to agree. With nothing but a stockpile of peanuts and bananas, Selznick locks the three men into his office and they begin the marathon creative session....

Oh the irony! I bet Trevor Nunn is spitting feathers. His multi-million pound production of Gone With The Wind closes after only 79 performances, while this tiny four-hander about the writing of the film is back at the Tricycle Theatre "by popular demand" and is playing to capacity audiences. It matters not one whit that the audience seems to be largely composed of Jewish matrons with lacquered coiffures backcombed to buggery and men wearing M&S summer jackets and toops so unconvincing that I had to be physically restrained at one point from pointing and shouting out "Wi.....ggyy, wi.....ggy!".

Given the subject matter, the popularity of the show and its source and the fact that it counterpointed the Nunn production to perfection, I thought I would love this. And I tried really hard, I really did. The evening got off to a really bad start thanks to the Tricycles policy of having all seats unreserved, making for an unholy scramble for seats, lots of saving of same with handbags, coats and programmes for latecomers and quite a lot of "Is that seat taken?" gesticulating by several mad old bags directed at people on the other side of the auditorium who weren't wearing their glasses and couldn't see that they were being gesticulated at. Him Indoors said that "People enjoy the fun of having unreserved seats - its so un-English". Well, I remain to be convinced of the "fun" of said scramble and demand the owners of the theatre damned well print numbers on their tickets. Its not as if the Tricycle is the Albert Hall, for chrissakes - it seats about 15. Or that's what it feels like. There's a small balcony (constructed of scaffolding) over which people flop like they're part of a Punch and Judy show, leading one of the more vocal idiots behind me to start a loud conversation with her friends about "ooooh, its just like being at the Globe! Have you ever been to the Globe? We have. Oh, what fun!" No, madam, its not like being at the Globe. The Globe performs Shakespeare, its not just off Kilburn High Road and its clientele dont perch their oversized bottoms on the backrest of your seat while they witter on to Judith and Manny from the Bridge Club, so sit down and belt up before I stick your umbrella where the sun dont' shine.

*Takes deep breath* OK, having got that off my chest...As I said, I really tried to like this. I was actually looking forward to it. But after 10 minutes or so, I was sitting there losing the will to live. Around me, the entire audience were practically screaming with laughter like hyaenas on LSD, fanning themselves with the programmes and gasping for breath, while I sat there increasingly bewildered, cross and completely unable to see what was so funny. OK, the script is quite amusing, that I will concede - but it was played so broad that, for me, it came perilously close to farce. There was more mugging on stage than you'd get on a Saturday night in a pub full of hoodies. Eyebrows were raised constantly (usually at the end of a line and with the dialogue given an upward inflexion) to such an extent that I thought they might fall off. The only thing that was missing was a sign saying "Funny line!" This show has a well written, intelligent and interesting script and, given the calibre of some of the performances, could be far better, wittier, cleverer and much more interesting if the performances were "pulled back" by about 75%. When you have a good script, entertaining worth listening to, dealing with a subject you know a bit about and enjoy and full of ideas, you don't need a custard pie in the face accompanied by "Wah waaah waaaaah waaaaaaaaah" from the orchestra pit (not that there was an orchestra pit, you understand - fortunately, for Him Indoors insisted on sitting in the middle of the front row so that I had to crane my neck up to see the stage and saw lots of the actors' nasal hair and not much else).

And then, of course, the three writers decide to lock themselves in the office for five days, with only huge piles of bananas and peanuts to sustain themselves. Cue dozens of rubber "banana skins" being hurled over the set during the blackout, with several bags of monkey nuts strewed about. At this point, the audience went into such paroxysms of hysteria ("Oh, Rachael, look! They're throwing banana skins about!") that I thought someone was going to do permanent damage to their colostomy bag. Thankfully, the performances became slightly more subdued and natural half way through Act 2, and the dialogue began to show itself for what it was - interesting, well written and with a lot to say about the film industry and the writing process. But, by then, I had more or less given up the will to live.

The best person on stage was Andy Nyman, playing David Selznick - but only during the moments when he wasn't gurning, flailing about, screeching or generally over-acting. I just wanted to slap Duncan Bell, guilty of all the above in spades. All that he was missing was a Whoopee Cushion and his performance would have been complete.

The title "Moonlight and Magnolias" is a quotation from the film (it doesnt appear in the book, giving the lie to the play's assertion that only Mitchell's original dialogue was used) - Rhett, having realised that Scarlett is trying to pull a fast one on him to get his money while he's in jail, says "You can drop the moonlight and magnolias, Scarlett, because it isn't working". And Moonlight and Magnolias didn't work for me either.

What the critics said:

All the critics were universally adoring (god only knows why) about this production - so much so that I really didn't see the point of putting any links. If you're that interested, go Google.

Marguerite – Theatre Royal, Haymarket, Friday 11th July 2008

Synopsis:

Marguerite is the beautiful and notorious mistress of a high ranking German officer. Armand is a young musician half her age who falls obsessively in love with her. Their dangerous love story is played out against the background ofOccupied Paris.

First there was La Dame aux Camellias (a novel). Then came La Traviata (an opera), followed by Camille (a film), followed by Marguerite and Armand (a ballet), then Moulin Rouge (a stage musical, later turned into a film). Now we have Marguerite, (billed as an “adult musical”) – the latest incarnation of a story that has been doing the rounds ever since God was a boy. Do we really need it? Do we really need another doomed romance set against the backdrop of Occupied France with a chorus of French Collaborators, Nasty Nazis and members of the Resistance? Do we really need one more version of the tragically misunderstood tart with a heart coughing her guts up in a red frock? From the sound of the rather lukewarm applause this production received, I would say that the answer is probably no. The whole exercise just seemed rather… pointless, really. There’s nothing new to be said, the story’s been told. Making Marguerite the mistress of a high-ranking Nazi and Armand the piano player in a cabaret band which consists of him, his little sister (in the Resistance) and her Jewish boyfriend is frankly trying to pad out the story with extra layers of “Who’s going to get hurt?” and playing on our Secret Army/Schindler’s List/Sophie’s Choice fetish. Not to ruin the plot, Marguerite sets up the Nasty Nazi so that the Resistance can murder him, but of course, nobody realises that she's behind it until its too late..... Its just Romeo and Juliet all over again, with a bit of Cinderella thrown in for good measure (you know, unrecognised virtue and all that). Add some wildly atonal music, pitched way too high for the leading lady and that makes everybody else sound like they are having major note-pitching problems, and you're in trouble of losing your audience.

There were some high spots – Julian Ovenden made a stunning Armand, easily hitting notes so high and sustained that several bats fell out of the roof. The producer got the whole package here – shoulders to die for, boyish good looks, a fantastic voice and acting skills too. The only problem was that I found him just a little bit too anodyne to be truly convincing – a little more fire in the belly was needed, I think – because he mainly came across more as being Michael Ball than a passionate, artistic, tortured soul. And a costume note for the Director – men with shoulders and abs like that don’t keep their vest on while shagging. Alexander Hanson was smoothly and believably evil as Otto, the Nasty Nazi, making one wonder why he couldn’t have brought more to the role of Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music a couple of years back. The rest of the cast struggled to overcome the sheer cardboardness of their roles – Plucky Bicycle Riding Jews With Pigtails, Arrogant Profiteer etc – to really make an impact, although Annalene Beechey did sing really well as Annette (the plucky bicycle riding Jew with pigtails).

And Ruthie – what of Ruthie? Well, I run into difficulty here. For me, Ruthie is usually one of the residents of the They Who Can Do No Wrong hall of fame, and it feels slightly disloyal to run her performance down. But she sounded strained, as if the role was too high for her, and seemed to be relying on gawky, slightly faded charm rather than the glamour which the role demands. I dunno – maybe this is the wrong vehicle for her, or maybe I was just so generally disenchanted with the “seen it/heard it/bought the T shirt” aspect of the evening that she failed to ignite the usual sparks of adoration.

At the end, the audience reaction was slightly too OTT to be quite credible this far into the show’s run, leading me to think that the house had been slightly “papered” (filled out with people on complementary tickets), and the game of “Boo The Nazi Baddie When He Takes His Bow At The End” a bit naff. I won’t be rushing to see this again.

What the critics thought:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/marguerite-theatre-royal-haymarket-london-832012.html

http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/marguerite_0508.htm

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/culture/article/1157151857089?packedargs=suffix%3DArticleController

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/reviews/story/0,,2281191,00.html

SIX POUNDS FOR A PROGRAMME?

SIX POUNDS? Now come on, I know that the last time I went to the Haymarket they were charging £4.00, which was bad enough (see my review for The Lady from Dubuque as I believe I may have commented there on the price of the programme) – but SIX?? I even saw an American reel back white-faced from a programme seller; he finally managed to croak “Don’t you have any cheaper ones?” As he’d paid nearly $100 for his seat, even I felt a slight sympathy for the bloke – but not that much; if you're a broke but canny theatre-goer, there are ways and means....

Honestly, without wanting to rant on about this (oh, alright then, you persuaded me), its an economic downturn, for chrissakes. If you want to pack your theatre out with punters, then its no good making a night out financially beyond Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public. Add on a couple of interval drinks and maybe an ice-cream, plus your travel costs there and back and you’re not looking at much (if any) change from £150 – and that’s before you’ve had anything to eat (mind you, this is probably why The Stockpot in Panton Street was heaving with punters; it may not be Gordon Ramsey and the waitress looked like she had just clambered out of the big wicker hamper marked “Muppet Show Rejects”, but money’s money). I remember the days when you could get a programme and an orange squash for 3d and still have change for a fish supper on the way home. Catherine Tate has recently said much the same thing – about ticket prices, not about fish suppers – and although the cynical part of me thinks that it was merely a plugging device (“Catherine Tate, star of Doctor Who, who is shortly appearing in whatever it is at the Doobry Theatre, lashed out at high ticket prices today….”), what she says is very true, and never truer when we’re all having to give up the third foreign holiday, pull the sprog out of drama school and get him a job on the Pick’n’Mix Counter at Woolworths and drink tap water in restaurants just in order to pay the friggin’ gas bill.

Oh yes, it’s a very nice programme – big, glossy, 12 pages of colour photographs, three pretentious background articles of the kind that one normally finds in programmes at the National Theatre, just the sort of souvenir that I’d be happy to have of something like The Sound of Music or Wicked – but I baulk at paying £6.00 for a “souvenir programme” of yet another rehash of La Dame aux bloody Camellias. Even the Royal Opera House doesn’t charge that much.

OK, I know putting on a show isn’t cheap, especially if there’s an orchestra in the pit to pay for as well, but come on, producers, why not pile it high and sell it cheap? Otherwise, you run the risk of half empty houses, a “papered” auditorium or a much shorter run than you would like. None of which are good for the business. Even though its recently been reported that sales of tickets for big musicals are booming (mainly thanks to I’d Do Anything to Solve a Problem Like Joseph Lloyd-Webber and all its wretched progeny), I don’t see why we punters should be bled dry just because we want something to read in the interval. Mind you, there’s an opening there for some savvy east end would-be entrepreneur – setting up shop outside renting out programmes, two pahnd a shot guvner, twenny percent discahnt if you bring it back at ‘arf time, extra fifty pee reduction if it ain’t all covered in greasy fingermarks, one for the missus as well? There’s an episode of “The Apprentice” there somewhere.