Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Tuesday 14th January 2014

Synopsis:

A poor but virtuous boy, Charlie lives in a tiny house with his parents and all four of his grandparents. His grandparents share the only bed in the house, located in the only bedroom. Once a year, on his birthday, Charlie gets one bar of Wonka chocolate, which he savours over many months.

Mr. Willy Wonka, the eccentric owner of the greatest chocolate factory in the world, has decided to open the doors of his factory to five lucky children and their parents. In order to choose who will enter the factory, Mr. Wonka devises a plan to hide five golden tickets beneath the wrappers of his famous chocolate bars. The search for the five golden tickets is fast and furious. Augustus Gloop, a whose only hobby is eating, unwraps the first ticket, for which his town throws him a parade. Veruca Salt, an insufferable brat, receives the next ticket from her father, who had employed his entire factory of peanut shellers to unwrap chocolate bars until they found a ticket. Violet Beauregarde discovers the third ticket while taking a break from setting a world record in gum chewing. The fourth ticket goes to Mike Teavee, who  cares only about television.

A tremendous stroke of luck befalls Charlie when he spots a coin buried in the snow. He decides to use a little of the money to buy himself some chocolate before turning the rest over to his mother. After eating his first bar of chocolate, Charlie decides to buy just one more and within the wrapping finds the fifth golden ticket. He is not a moment too soon: the next day is the date Mr. Wonka has set for his guests to enter the factory.

Charlie’s oldest and most beloved grandparent, Grandpa Joe, springs out of bed for the first time in decades and the pair go off to the factory.

 Augustus Gloop falls into the hot chocolate river while attempting to drink it and is sucked up by one of the many pipes. Violet Beauregarde steals  a stick of experimental chewing gum and turns into a giant blueberry.  Veruca Salt demands one of Mr Wonka’s nut sorting squirrels to take home but is attacked by them and thrown down a rubbish chute.   Mike Teevea disobeys instructions and is miniaturised. Only Charlie remains and Willy Wonka congratulates him for winning. The entire day has been another contest, the prize for which is the entire chocolate factory, which Charlie has just won.

Cast:

Willy Wonka – Douglas Hodge

Charlie (at this performance) – Troy Tipple

Grandpa Joe – Nigel Planer

Grandma Josephine – Roni Page

Grandpa George – Billy Boyle

Grandma Georgina – Myra Sands

Mr. Bucket – Jack Shalloo

Mrs. Bucket – Alex Clathworthy

Mrs Gloop – Jasna Iver

Mr Salt – Clive Carter

Mr. Beauregarde – Paul Medford

Mrs. Teavee – Iris Roberts

Creative Team:

Director – Sam Mendes

Choreographer – Peter Darling

Sets and Costumes – Mark Thompson

Music and Lyrics – Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman

Script - David Greig

THANK YOU TO REBECCA FELGATE AT  www.officialtheatre.com FOR PROVIDING THE TICKETS

Imagine – an expensive, beautifully wrapped chocolate bar.  The packaging oozes quality and hints at the delights beneath.  This is none of your Dairy Milk rubbish, struggling to reach 10% cocoa solids and laden with sugar.  This is Drury Lane, the latest invention from the Wonka Chocolate Factory.  It subtly promises to make you happy, to entertain you royally (for this is, indeed, a singing and dancing chocolate bar). Expensive, but oh – so worth it.   It whispers that it is a talisman against the cold, the dark and the rain, as well as that miserable feeling of emptiness that has been nagging you.  Come, it says, peel away the wrapper and run your hands over the foil, which clings seductively to the delights beneath, hinting at the solidity of the pleasures to come, the lingering sweetness melting across the surface of your tongue, come and taste.  You know that not only chocolate lies beneath the foil, for this is indeed a very special bar of Drury Lane.  Hidden under that crinkly, crackly foil there is a sheet of pure gold , hammered as thin as the promise on a politician’s lips.  A sheet of pure gold that provides the means of entrance to a world of enchantment.  A Golden Ticket.  Slowly you pull aside the foil……

 and what lies beneath is merely a bar of workaday chocolate.  There is no golden ticket.  No treasure.  No prize.  Nothing.  And, now you look at it, even the chocolate seems less rich and dark than you expected.  Its pale, almost sweaty in consistency, and there is no comforting snap as it breaks, merely a slightly flabby dampness.  You’ve been (as they say in the trade) well and truly had.  Welcome, my friend, welcome to Drury Lane. 

Just like the chocolate bar, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory promises a lot on the wrapper.  There is a list of quality ingredients – Douglas Hodge as Willy Wonka, Nigel Planer as Grandpa Joe.  Sam Mendez (one of the big shots) is directing.  There will be technology and theatrical magic blended with a story written by one of the most beloved and enduring of children’s authors.  A chance to watch the images that were once inside your head pass before your very eyes.  A chance to relive your childhood. A chance to share that childhood with your children.  “Act One” might almost be printed on the wrapper, and it’s a pleasurable enough experience taking the wrapper off.  At the finale when that wrapper is gone, the foil underneath is printed with the words “Act Two” and promises even more – the interval comes right at the most exciting moment possible as the doors to Willy Wonka’s wonderful factory swing open and we are invited inside by the trickster, the charlatan, the madman, the inventor – Mr. Willy Wonka himself, decked out in clothes with the colour and shine of Quality Street wrappers (the pale green triangular one and the big purple one shaped like a brazil nut, in case you ask). The curtain falls and we are left literally on the edge of our seats – hurrah, after the interval we are going inside!  The magic is about to begin! We start to peel off the foil that is Act Two – and find just an ordinary chocolate bar underneath.  The anticipated magic isn’t there.  Its just a chocolate bar – and not a very good chocolate bar either.  And there’s no Golden Ticket either.  All the money seems to have been spent on the outer wrapper and the list of ingredients.  All the excitement and promise that built up during Act One and the interval goes ppppppppppppppttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… and you come back to earth with the kind of bump experienced after drinking Fizzy Lifting Lemonade. 

Largely this disappointment is due to the paucity of the musical numbers.  There is nothing remarkable, nothing really memorable, nothing you can leave the theatre humming – except, of course, one musical number patched into the recipe right at the last minute.  In a dazzling show of laziness, Shaiman and Whittmany throw “Pure Imagination” at you – the song sung in the 1971 film by Gene Wilder as WW.  Its almost as if the writers have either been too lazy to come up with something decent or have tacitly admitted defeat at the final fence -  given the lack of a good tune to send you out humming, they’ve thought “Everyone knows and loves this song – lets give them that”.  Particularly poor are the numbers which open Act One (“Almost Nearly Perfect” – is this a nod to “Practically Perfect in Every Way” from Mary Poppins?) and Act Two (the instantly forgettable “Simply Second Nature”).  The other musical numbers are wildly diverse in style to the point of incomprehensibility – from the rap of “The Double Bubble Duchess” via the yearning ballad of “If Your Mother Were Here” to  the techno of “Vidiots”.  All the big ensemble numbers are clicktracked – recorded beforehand and mimed to.  This is a real rip-off when this happens – its just a way of fooling the punters.  Nobody on stage is actually singing.  What is truly amazing is that Really Useful Group have actuall had the audacity to release a YouTube video (see below) showing the recording sessions actually in progress.  “Hey look everyone!  We’re fooling you and are arrogant enough to show you how you’re being fooled!”.  The libretto isn’t that great either – there is little of Dahl’s witty wordplay, and what does exist is gabbled or muttered in a way that suggests the cast (particularly Hodge) are embarrassed at how bad it is. 

And what makes it all the more frustrating is that the first half is really good, full of slightly hokey charm, nicely paced and with the promise of even better things ahead.  The roles of Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina and Grandma Josephine are expanded so that each develops their own personality (one thing you don’t actually get in the book, where Grandpa Joe is the only one of the four to take on a real character).  Mrs. Bucket – Alex Clatworthy; last seen in the notorious Kiss Me, Kate at the Guildhall School – is turned into a living, breathing person and is well supported by the role of Mr. Bucket (another almost invisible role in the book).  There are some genuinely funny moments (most of which involve Augustus Gloop) and some genuinely moving ones (both me and Him Indoors thought, during the interval, that these were leading to handkerchiefs being required at the end of Act Two – but the emotional twist we both anticipated never came).  The story is updated gently and appropriately (in the book, Charlie is able to buy two chocolate bars with 50p he finds in the snow and the family read of the discovery of the Golden Tickets in old newspapers; here Charlie finds a discarded £1 note and they watch the announcements on television) to make it more “relevant” to today’s children and this is done sympathetically to retain the tales’ original charm  (although this is inconsistently done; Violet Beauregarde is a mini-rapper, Mike Teavee an Atari addict.  There is a strange attempt at making it “transatlantic” – both TV anchors are unmistakably working for an American news channel.  Are the producers looking for a Broadway transfer?).  There is so much promise in that first act – its not perfect, but with a bit of tweaking and some better musical numbers, it could be really good – but all that promise simply fades away in the second half.    The costumes are inventive, the Oompah Loompahs are portrayed in a variety of clever ways, the sets are impressive – but the music is dire, the dialogue thin, and the emotional promise of Act One is never realised.  The flight of the Great Glass Elevator, which could be a great coup de theatre in the manner of Mary Poppins sailing up through the auditorium, is a bit of a damp squib.  I expected the Elevator to go sailing up and out across the audience (how fantastic would that be?), but it simply rises up about 8 feet, moves about the stage a bit and then plonks back down, while we are treated to the song made famous by Gene Wilder. 

There are a couple of notable performances.  Troy Tipple (great name that!) was perfect as Charlie, even though he has an Oop North Accent while his stage parents remain resolutely Home Counties.  I’m no great fan of Nigel Planer but he was an excellent Grandpa Joe.  Iris Roberts gives a pitch-perfect performance of the manic Mrs. Teavee, and Jasna Iver as Mrs. Gloop just takes over the entire stage whenever she appears. Jenson Steele is a perfect Augustus Gloop, and Alex Clatworthy a warm and believable Mrs. Bucket.  Douglas Hodge’s performance as Willy Wonka does leave rather a lot to be desired – he mutters a lot, gabbles a lot, elides over the occasional word and often appears physically uncomfortable when dealing with his badly written dialogue.  Give the man a better script and better music and he would probably bring the house down. There is a strange “framing device” where Wonka appears at beginning and end as a tramp, and I could see little point for this.  It adds nothing to the story and is just superfluous and odd.   Neither of the children playing Violet Beauregarde or Mike Teavee (I couldn’t work out from the programme exactly which child sharing the roles were playing this performance) had intelligible diction, but granted that neither were helped by the speed of their musical numbers.  The dialogue written for the role of Mike Teavee is dire, and that for Violet Beauregarde not much better.  Tia Noakes played Veruca Salt with a seemingly permanent gurn that simply made me want to slap the child, and in a fashion that recalled the puppet version of Fergie in Spitting Image. 

I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so let down by a theatrical performance.  It promised so much, looked initially as if it were going to hit every single one of its marks and then singularly failed to deliver.  It is, after all, just an ordinary bar of chocolate in very fancy and expensive wrapping.  

What the critics thought:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/jul/01/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-review

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10141934/Charlie-and-the-Chocolate-Factory-Theatre-Royal-review.html

http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/charliechocolatefactorymusical13.htm

 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/theatre-review-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory--never-judge-a-sweetie-by-its-wrapper-8679742.html

Le Corsair - English National Ballet @ The Coliseum, Saturday 11th January 2014

Synopsis:

A pirate shipsails across the high seas, captained by Conrad and his faithful pirate crew as they navigate towards the Ottoman Empire. They are on a mission to rescue Medora, Conrad’s love, from the hands of the slave trader Lankendem. Conrad and the other pirates enter the bazaar where Lankendem is selling his slave girls. Conrad is looking for Medora and sees her peering from a balcony. She throws him a rose as proof of her love. 

The Pasha arrives and Lankendem presents three young women he wants to sell to him. When all are rejected, he presents the young slave girl Gulnare and the Pasha buys her immediately. Medora is freed by Ali, Conrad’s slave and tries to escape but is prevented by the Pasha, who faints at the sight of her beauty and insists she must dance for him - , unable to resist such beauty, he buys her as well. Conrad instructs Ali to steal Medora from the Pasha, and also kidnaps Lankendem. 

Conrad shows his hideout to Medora, and promises her all his treasures and possessions. Birbanto, his lieutenant  objects and tells Conrad that the riches are not his to give.  

Conrad summons the pirates to bring their stolen bounty into the cave including the slave girls and the kidnapped Lankendem. Medora pleads with Conrad to free all the slave girls. Conrad agrees but Birbanto rebels and persuades the pirates to mutiny, but Conrad quells them.   

Birbanto devises another plan. Spraying a rose with a sleeping potion he forces Lankendem to help him give the flower to Medora, who unaware of the poison, hands the rose to Conrad.  He smells the flower and falls into a drugged sleep. The pirates return to the cave, see Conrad unconscious and decide to kidnap Medora. In the struggle  she cuts Birbanto’s arm.  Lankendem steals Medora back and escapes. Birbanto is about to kill the comatose Conrad when Ali interrupts him. Conrad awakes to discover his beloved Medora is missing once again, the evil Birbanto feigns ignorance and swears his loyalty to Conrad.  

Gulnare is entertaining the Pasha by dancing and teasing the Vizier, but they are interrupted by Lankendem bringing back Medora. The Pasha is delighted Medora has been recaptured and declares he will make her his most treasured wife. Conrad, Birbanto and the pirates arrive disguised as merchants. Conrad and Birbanto distract the Pasha as the pirates kill his guards. They reveal their true identities and chaos erupts within the palace. Birbanto chases Gulnare and  they collide with Conrad and Medora. Medora exposes Birbanto as a traitor and Conrad shoots him. Ali helps Medora, Gulnare and Conrad escape and they flee to the ship chased by Lankendem. They set sail but suddenly a fierce storm breaks and the ship sinks.  Ali and Gulnare are drowned.  Conrad and Medora, having survived the shipwreck, desperately cling onto a rock. Conrad pulls out the symbolic rose that Medora gave him when they first met and hands it to her declaring his undying love. As she takes the flower into her hands Conrad collapses and dies. 

Cast:

Cast:

Medora – Tamara Rojo

Conrad – Matthew Golding

Gulnare – Lauretta Summerscales

Ali – Vadim Muntagirov

Birbanto – Fabian Reimair

Pasha – Michael Coleman

Pasha’s Assistant – Juan Rodriguez

Creative Team:

Choreography – Anna-Marie Holmes (after Marius Petipa)

Music: Adolphe Adam, Cesare Pugni, Leo Delibes, Ricardo Drigo, Pyoty van Oldenbourg, Ludwig Minkus, Yuly Gerber, Boris Fitinhof-Schnell, Albert Zabel and Uncle Tom Cobley and all!

Sets and Costumes – Bob Ringwood

Lighting – Neil Austin

Well, I hope you’re still all with me after reading the synopsis (believe me, I edited it down by at least half and its still bewildering unless you concentrate).  There isn’t really any real necessity for it to be so bloody complicated – once you boil it down to the essentials, its fairly straightforward.  What makes it complicated is the constant repetition of people’s names.  And actually, once the ballet is in progress, it all seems so much easier.  You can just sit there and let it wash over you, to a large extent.  There is so much padding of the story that if you miss anything, you can work it out for yourself in the next bit of padding. There are a few little bits where you have to be looking out for details like a bit of mime (the poisoning of the rose, for example) and if you miss those you are slightly sunk.  But on the whole, as someone once said to me “With Corsair you don’t need to bother about the plot – you can just sit there and enjoy the dancing”.  And by and large I did.  I was aided in this by the quality of the dancing itself – Tamara Rojo has recently taken as Artistic Director and seems to be pulling it up by its collective jockstraps.  Standards have been pretty ropy the last couple of times I’ve seen ENB (although appeared to be rising with their new production of Nutcracker a year or so ago), and now that Alina Cojocaru is now a member of the company as well, things seem to be looking up quite a bit.  The fact that ENB have now invested in a new production of Corsair (a surprising choice, given that its quite an obscure ballet – although perhaps that is why they have done so, because practically nobody else has got a decent production of it in their repertoire) is a good indication that things are on the up.  Perhaps they are about to invest in a new production of something else soon – perhaps a new Bayadere?  That would be interesting to see – anything would be better than the Royal Ballet’s tired old production.  But please – no more Swan Lakes!

Visually the production is stunning.  Bucketloads of lovely new sets and some stunning costumes – some so covered in glittery bits that they could almost walk around the stage themselves.  I expect shareholders in Swarovski are rubbing their wrinkly old hands in glee.  The Pasha, for instance, was so lit up that at times I had difficulty actually seeing his face through the glare.  And that was just his first costume – his second one probably needs a pair of big stagehands to lift it out of the cupboard and I doubt very much that it will have been hanging in that cupboard on one of those bendy wire coathangers.   I have a mental image of the Head of Wardrobe looking sadly at a pile of mangled metal and shouting over her shoulder “Doreen!  The Pasha’s costume’s eaten another coathanger!” Meanwhile, a pile of bejewelled fabric slips round the corner and cackles quietly, burps and settles down for a nap.

Lovely too are the sets – the whole production looks like a pantechnicon full of backcloths for Aladdin has mated with one full of scenery for La Bayadere, with a touch of The Mikado for good measure.  The first act cloth showing the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul wouldn’t disgrace the world’s most expensive box of Turkish Delight. The Pirate Cave is a bit worrying – there seem to be strange bits of Moorish architecture sticking up all over the place which are so large and loud that under no circumstances could the cave be described as a “hideaway” – you could give directions to it by saying “Sail Southwest for 20 minutes until you see the big yellow and red horseshoe arch sticking out of the rocks”.  Even more worrying (but still very pretty) is the set for the enchanted garden – from Istanbul we seem to have arrived in Agra because there is a dead ringer for the Taj Mahal in the background.  I know the Pasha is meant to be under the influence of his hubbly-bubbly pipe when he sees the flowers dancing in the garden  - but India??  It is, however, in its cool mint green a refreshing contrast to the strong reds and oranges of the other sets and nicely wispy (as if seen through a slight mist) for a dream scene.  The palace set is your standard pillar box red/emerald green/fretwork fencing jobbie. 

Dance-wise (because this is, of course, what we have come for), Rojo seemed on top form as Medora, nicely contrasting with Lauretta Somerscales in the smaller (but just as technically difficult) role of Gulnare.  Matthew Golding seems a bit anodyne to be playing the dashing pirate captain, Conrad – the role is very much a “penny plain, tuppence coloured” one and we seemed to be getting the “penny plain” version here.  A certain lack of bravura, perhaps?  Or just uninspiring choreography?  Fabian Reimar seemed to be giving rather more oomph to the “bad guy” role of Birbanto.  The part of the slave – here called Ali – is a showpiece role for your company Nureyev as it needs a jumper and spinner of considerable technical skill and this is demonstrated in buckets.  It’s a shame that it’s such a weak part – for the most, you run around in a pair of silky pyjama bottoms (sometimes you get a feather to wear on your head) doing vaguely Middle Eastern salaams all over the place, then you do your big set piece in the Pirate Cave and everyone goes bananas, then you spend the rest of the show more or less running about the stage chasing people until you fall overboard in the closing minutes and drown.  What a thankless life. 

Anyhoo, ENB’s new Corsair is a joyful, colourful romp and makes for a good, undemanding night out (unless you read the synopsis in the programme, in which case you may have to sit there with your head wrapped in wet towels for a couple of hours until the pain stops). 

What the critics said:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/87ac9e92-79e1-11e3-8211-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2qafaEUN2

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/18/english-national-ballet-le-corsaire-review

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/english-national-ballet-le-corsaire-coliseum--dance-review-9051160.html

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/453103/Swashbuckling-pirate-piece-Le-Corsaire-by-the-English-National-Ballet-review

 

The Duck House – Vaudeville Theatre, Monday 23rd December 2013

Synopsis:

The play is set in May 2009, one year before the General Election, Gordon Brown's Labour government is unpopular. Robert Houston is a Labour backbencher seeking to defect to the Conservatives to keep his seat, when the expenses scandal hits the papers the day before his interview with Sir Norman Cavendish to complete the switch. Houston, having claimed practically everything on expenses (including hanging baskets, massage chair, elephant lamps, sparkly toilet seat and duck house) is in trouble and so are his family and staff, and somehow Seb's girlfriend Holly is involved with Sir Norman….

Cast:

Robert Houston, MP – Ben Miller

Felicity, his wife – Nancy Carroll

Ludmilla, his maid – Debbie Chazen

Seb, his son – James Musgrave

Sir Norman Cavendish, MP – Simon Shepherd

Holly, Seb’s girlfriend – Diana Vickers

Creative Team:

Written by: Dan Patterson and Colin Swash

Director: Terry Johnson

Set and costume design: Lez Brotherston

Lighting: Mark Henderson

Well, last night I was entertained and entranced by a superb production of Candide, which was worth every penny of the ticket price.  Today I have been blown away in a different sense, by the appalling and excruciating idiocy of one of the worst things I have seen as a paying customer at the theatre in a very long time.  Now, if you are a regular reader you will know that I have very little time for farce; I rate it only slightly higher as an art form than Last of the Summer Wine (something I would willingly undergo a haemorrhoidectomy with blunt spoons and no anaesthetic to avoid).  I vaguely expressed an interest in seeing this because of its subject matter; like you, I lapped up every column inch of the expenses scandal and chuntered away into my coffee (which I paid for myself).  The fact that it was written by the stalwart scripters of Mock the Week and HIGNFY only increased my interest. Slightly.  Well readers, as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it”.  We got dirt-cheap tickets (always a sign that the box office is falling off) and I have to say it was worth exactly what we paid for it.

The early part of the first half is not without promise – there are lots of funny throwaway lines in the vein of HIGNFY; comments that are funny with the benefit of hindsight about how our elected representatives stole huge sums of money from the electorate in the name of “expenses”.  There are also digs at Peter Mandelson, how well Chris Huhne drives and how devoted he is to his wife, “Teflon Tony”, Andrew Mitchell (“nice chap, rides a bike”) and so on and so forth, and they come thick and fast.  But then the elements of farce start to creep in alongside an improbable story about how Houston has “flipped” his centrally located flat in order to furnish his constituency home and vice versa.  Doors start to bang, trousers are dropped, things fall out of cupboards and a ridiculous subplot based around cock-fighting debts emerges, and its at this point that things start to get a lot less funny. The farcical element starts to feel as if it has been rammed head on with political satire in a desperate attempt to get them to meld together and the result is a complete and utter chimera; identifiably neither one thing nor the other.  Eggs are secreted in pockets (and you just know that, in a couple of minutes, someone is going to slap those pockets by mistake) and then a bowl of custard is hidden on the seat of the massage chair (and you just know that, in a couple of minutes, someone is going to sit on the chair by mistake) and so on and so forth.  There is a lot of running around hiding things in cupboards (and you just know that, in a couple of minutes, they are going to fall out of the cupboard at compromising moments…….).  Its all utterly, utterly predictable. 

An element of farce even crept into the interval.  I went to the toilet and found that the floor was an inch deep in water. Bear in mind that The Vaudeville Theatre is owned and operated by Nimax Theatres, the same group who own the Apollo Theatre (where the ceiling fell in recently).  I searched around to try and find a member of front of house staff to report this to and the only person I could find was selling ice cream.  Someone was despatched with a mop and bucket.  At this point, Him Indoors decided that he too needed a piddle and headed for the same toilets. A flunky monkey in a badly fitting suit was on guard duty outside the door and announced that the toilets were now closed due to flooding, so Him Indoors was directed upstairs to another toilet, outside of which there was now a long queue of gentlemen wishing to relieve themselves.  When, I ask you, did you ever see a queue outside the Gents?  There were so many in the queue that Him Indoors was forced to choose between going to the toilet and getting back to his seat for the second half.  He should have chosen the former….

The second half died on its feet.  Died a horrible, lingering death. Slowly.  The story ran completely out of any kind of creative steam and descended into hiding in wardrobes, low rent prostitutes, MPs dressing up in nappies and being spanked with a copy of the Lisbon Treaty, some ‘Allo ‘Allo caricatures of various European heads of state, stolen trousers, people smearing themselves with cheese, a can of aerosol glue, lots more slamming doors and a panda costume. Yes, it sounds ghastly and believe me, it was.  The laughter from the auditorium ebbed quickly away and turned into the kind of embarrassed, uncomfortable silence that greets a resounding fart at a formal dinner party.  Him Indoors sat there with a busting bladder and I got more and more uncomfortable that I had actually expressed an interest in the show and dragged him to it.  Never have I felt so guilty.  The “jokes” were puerile, the plot as thin as an MPs excuse, the frenetic activity on stage only serving to highlight the paucity of the writing.  How this drivel ever made it to the stage I will never know.

Actually, I do know.  Someone somewhere sensed a bandwagon stashed high with money and jumped on it as it rattled past.  This is the kind of show you get when the £ signs pop up in the eyes of someone high up in Nimax Theatres and they think “Fuck art, this is going to make me so much money that it will make the claim for moat cleaning look like peanuts”.  What makes it worse is that some slimy apologist for MPs has actually contributed an article to the programme about how what good value for money our elected representatives are, how hard they work and how much more we should be paying them so that they aren’t tempted to commit fraud.  In a display of chutzpah so blatantly misplaced that it makes Margaret Moran’s claim that she was “too depressed” to stand trial look like a scene from Oliver Twist, the company that makes the duck house that Sir Peter Viggers “bought” with our money has actually taken an advert in the programme.  Is there no beginning to these peoples’ shame?

Nancy Carroll, a stunning Viola a couple of years ago in Twelfth Night, demeans her craft by appearing in such drivel. And what bright spark cast Diana Vickers, X-Factor reject and all round talentless slapper, in this?  Did they think she could act?  Well, they will be disabused of this opinion should they care to witness her witless attempts at performance. 

Really, take some advice.  Stay at home.  Save your money. Use your own toilet.  This duck’s goose is well and truly cooked.  Painfully unfunny. 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8e0b2642-624d-11e3-bba500144feabdc0.html#axzz2pNXDwgT9

http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/reviews/12-2013/the-duck-house_32927.html

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/dec/15/the-duck-house-review

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/dec/12/the-duck-house-theatre-review

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/the-duck-house-vaudeville--theatre-review-8997122.html

Candide - Menier Chocolate Factory, Sunday 22nd December 2013

Synopsis:

Candide, the illegitimate nephew of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronck, is bullied by the Baroness and her son Maximillian.  Candide is in love with Cunegonde, the Baroness' daughter. Along with Cunegonde's maid, Paquette, they  discover that Dr. Pangloss, a man thought to be the world's greatest philosopher, has taught them happiness.  Candide and Cunegonde dream of what married life would be like with wildly differing views. The Baron is angered at what Candide has done to Cunegonde, as he is a social inferior. Candide is promptly exiled and is recruited by the Bulgar Army, who plots to liberate Schloss Thunder-ten-Tronck. His attempt to escape the army is foiled, and both armies attack the castle.  All the principal characters are killed.  Candide returns to the castle's ruins and searches for Cunegonde.  Hebecomes a beggar and gives  the last of his coins to a syphilitic man who turns out to be Dr.Pangloss, who reveals that he was revived by an anatomist's scalpel.  Apparently he contracted his syphilis from Pacquette.  A merchant offers the two employment and they sail to Lisbon. As they arrive, a volcano erupts and the ensuing earthquake results in the death of 30,000 people. Pangloss and Candide are blamed, arrested as heretics and publicly tortured to face the Grand Inquisitor. Pangloss is hanged and Candide is flogged.  Candide eventually ends up in Paris, where a mysterious but beautiful woman is shared sexually by a rich Jew and the city's Cardinal Archbishop.  Cunegonde (for it is she, miraculously alive) contemplates her fall from purity in exchange for wealth. Candide is reunited with her and forgives her. Her companion, an old lady, forewarns Cunegonde and Candide that Cunegonde's lovers are about to call. Candide inadvertently kills both. The three flee to Cadiz with Cunegonde's jewels, where the Old Lady reveals her colourful past.. The jewels are stolen and the Old Lady offers to sing for Candide's dinner.  The French police arrive and attempt to apprehend Candide for murdering the Jew and the Archbishop. Candide befriends Cacambo, a Brazillian, and accepts him as his valet. Accepting an offer to fight the Jesuits in South America against the Spanish government, Candide takes his friends to the New World, and they sail away, hoping to find peace and happiness.

In Montevideo,  the four are reunited with Maximillian and Paquette who have escaped from Europe dressed as slave girls. The governor of the city falls in love with Maximilian, but quickly realizes his mistake and falls in love with Cunegonde. The Old Lady convinces Cunegonde that her marriage to the governor will support her financially and she reluctantly submits. Candide and Cacambo stumble upon a Jesuit camp and discovers that the Mother Superior is actually Paquette and the Father Superior is Maximilian. When Candide tells Maximilian that he will marry Cunegonde, Maximilian challenges him to a fight. Maximilian is once again inadvertently stabbed to death by Candide, who flees into the jungle with Cacambo.

Three years later, Cunegonde and the Old Lady are bored with life in Montevideo Meanwhile, Candide and Cacambo are starving and lost in the jungles. Finding an abandoned boat  they float downriver until they finally reach Eldorado, the fabled city of gold. Finding peace for a while, they stay, but eventually Candide begins to pine for Cunegonde and are given blessing to leave and take several solid gold sheep with them.  Durign the journey, the sheep die or are lost until only two remain. Unwilling to go back to Montevideo, Candide gives Cacambo one of the sheep to ransom Cunegonde, telling them that they will meet again in Venice

Arriving at Suriname,  Candide meets Martin, a local pessimist.  Vanderdendur, a Dutch villain, offers his ship, the Santa Rosalia, bound for Venice, in exchange for the golden sheep. The ship sinks and Martin and Vandendur drown.  Candide drifts ashore with the last remaining sheep, and travels to Venice where the Carnival festival is taking place. Candide searches for Cunegonde and meets Maximilian, who is revived once again and now is the corrupt Prefect of Police. Paquette is now one of the town's most successful prostitutes. Cunegonde and the Old Lady are employed to encourage the gamblers.  Pangloss wins a game of Roulette, but fritters his money away.  Candide discovers that Cunegonde is leading a dissolute life and is appalled.  Between them, the characters scrape together enough money to buy a small farm. Candide and Cunegonde are reconciled and they all settle down to a simple but happy life together.

Cast:

Dr. Pangloss/Cacambo/Martin: James Dreyfus

Candide: Fra Fee

Paquette: Cassidy Janson

Maximillian: David Thaxton

Cunegonde: Scarlett Strallen

Baron: Michael Cahill

Governor/Vanderdendur: Ben Lewis

Old Lady: Jackie Cline

Creative Team:

Music: Leonard Bernstein

Adaptation: Hugh Wheeler

Lyrics: Richard Wilbur

Additional Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Lilian Helman, Dororthy Parker

Director: Matthew White

Choreography: Adam Cooper

Set and Costumes: Paul Farnsworth

Lighting: Paul Anderson

Well, if you have to sell your house in order to get a ticket for this, do it. You won't regret it.  I have to admit that I was slightly concerned that Him Indoors had paid well over the odds for our tickets (they were relatively expensive: we usually sit in the cheap seats and lump it) but I would gladly have paid double to see this. There is energy, enthusiasm, creativity, great direction, humour in buckets, a fantastic cast who work their collective backsides off and, most importantly, heart.  Candide is a work that needs heart, or it will fail miserably.  If you saw the National Theatre production of this yonks and yonks ago, you will know what I mean.  The production didn't have any heart. 

This production, however, has more heart than should be allowed. The entire place brims over with it.  Every single person on that stage works like a trouper.  There is not a single person who is being "carried" and there is not a single weak link in the chain.  They earn their money.  And more.
 

Yes, the show is flawed.  Its waaaaay too long (this is the "opera house" version not the pallid 1956 one), wildly uneven and can be very dark. There are places where it drags terribly and the story runs out of steam several times.  As a response, several songs (notably "Dear Boy", "We are Women" and "Quiet") and a few minor scenes  have been cut and  it still drags in a few places (by halfway throught the second half, both the cast and the audience are knackered; this, however, may well have been a lot do with the intense heat in the auditorium.  Such a small space heats up very quickly).  But by the time you get to the rousing finale, nobody cares.  Everyone has had a good time.  Everyone has gone on the journey, undergone its various triumphs and calamaties with the characters and come out the other side relatively unscathed, a lot wiser and hopefully a lot happier.  We've loved, laughed, suffered, cried, been shipwrecked on the barren coasts of loss and celebrated at the festival of life. 

There is a clever and simple framing device to the story.  The audience enter the auditorium through tented entrances, displaying a small playbill.  Apparently a peformance of Candide is going to be given.  We sit around the fringes of a  small, Mittel-European town square, bedecked with shutters and balconies and a troupe of slightly ragged travelling players tumble into the square and start unpacking.  Costumes are pulled from chests and donned and the show begins.  So we're not just watching a show, we are watching a performance of a show.  Clever.  This gets round the problematic size of the cast of characters, as most of  the troupe double-, triple- or even quadruple-up their parts.  The need for multiple locations is got around by using simple props to evoke a place, just as it would be in a "strolling player" production.  Look closely and you will see that the costumes bear the traces of long use, of being sweated into and hauled about from place to place stuffed into trunks and in bags.  They are frayed around the edges, down at the hems and going bald in places.  Umbrellas and parasols have spokes missing, wigs are moulting.  Just as it should be. 

Plaudits and hurrahs in bucketsful to Scarlett Strallen.  Her performance is a masterclass of how to play Cunegonde, and as for her rendition of "Glitter and be gay" - well, its totes amaze, as I believe they say.  It is fiendishly difficult anyway and yet she throws herself around the floor and drapes herself over a chaise longue and then puts a rope of diamonds (stolen, wittily, from a chandelier) around her neck and proceeeds to hula hoop them around her throat.  My dear, that is technique.   She is well and ably supported by James Dreyfus as Pangloss, Cacambo and Martin (if I were to make a cut, I would cut the character of Martin and his one song - "Words, words, words, words" -  as neither make any notable contribution to the plot), even though he is quite obviously outclassed by other performers more vocally gifted).  It is nice to see him not have to camp it up for once.  Jackie Clune's Old Lady is perhaps a trifle underpowered - sure, she does everythign that is necessary for the role but she is no exponent of comic timing, a vital attribute for the role, and a lot of the character's funniest lines go for nothing (ff you have the luck to see a recording of Ann Howard in the Scottish Opera version at the Old Vic, note her coming timing as well as her obvious operatic skills).   If there was one disappointing Principal then it was the oddly-monikered Fra Fee, who has not got the requisite top notes to sing the role of Candide as written in the score and who does not seem to have mastered the art of stage make-up yet either, looking like some kind of Westphalian Goth. 

Of the minor principals (I say "minor", but in this cast, nobody rests; when you are not playing a named part you are slogging your guts out in the chorus) then Ben Lewis is notable for his portrayal of the Governor of Buenos Aires and Vanderdendur.  Mr. Lewis has the kind of pure, clear, strong tenor voice that Mr. Fee can only dream of, and hits some amazing, completely unforced top B flats that ring out like cathedral bells.  Well, he did play the Phantom in Love Never Dies, so what do you expect?  Well done, that man. 

Take a bottle of water into the auditorium. Go to the toilet beforehand.  Try and avoid the front row if you are shy because you may find yourself roped unwillingly into the action at several points.  Check your cynicism at the cloakroom (you will find plenty more inside).  And have a bloody good night out in the company of people who know what they are doing and how to entertain.  And act, and sing, and dance, often all at the same time.  Sell your grandmother for a ticket if necessary.  If there is any justice in the world (and Candide teaches us that there is, indeed, no justice in this world,despite all our efforts to believe so) then this show will transfer to the West End and run and run and run and be showered with awards.   But, unfortunately, as the characters find out eventually and to their great cost, this is not the best of all possible worlds.  So catch this if and while you can.  The world will be a duller place without it.

What the critics thought:

http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-candide-menier-chocolate-factory/

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10492055/Candide-Menier-Chocolate-Factory-review.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/candide-menier-chocolate-factory--theatre-review-8979774.html

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/candide-menier-chocolate-factory

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/dec/03/candide-menier-review

We interrupt this broadcast....

Not that I have been broadcasting much over the last couple of months (for which my continued apologies - unfortunately life sometimes just gets in the way)....

Readers may have already heard about this evening's horrific events at the Apollo Theatre.  During a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a section of the main auditorium ceiling gave way.  A lighting rig came down and fell onto a section of the Upper Circle, part of which then also collapsed.  There are many reported injured, 8 seriously, and our thoughts are with those people and their families after what must have been a terrible, terrible event.  Thankfully there are no reported fatalities. 

However, this incident does prompt serious questions.  The first is that the Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed building.  How then has the building been allowed to fall into what seems like such serious disrepair that such an incident can happen?  Surely English Heritage demand that such buildings are regularly inspected?  

The second is that Nimax Theatres, who own this and several other theatres, charge a compulsory "Restoration Levy" on each ticket sold. That's £1 on each and every ticket sold (theatre capacity is 775 seats). Over the years this must have netted the owners a considerable amount of £. This money is supposed to be spent on restoration and maintenance, which means that we, theatregoers, are putting our hands in our pockets and paying for maintenance ourselves, which is surely the responsibility of the owners?   Why has this money apparently not been spent on restoration and maintenance and, more importantly, where has it gone?  Into the pockets of Nimax and their shareholders??  

yeah yeah I know

I haven't posted anything for a while.  There is a review of Don Quixote hanging around that I keep meaning to write.  Soon. OK?  Not much money in the bank for theatre tickets at the moment.  Hence lack of reviews.  However, Him Indoors will be coming into some money shortly so expect that quite a lot of it will be going on theatre tickets. Hurrah.  Because I am getting bored with TV.

Dracula - Wilton's Music Hall, Tuesday 29th October 2013

Cast:

Dracula – Jonathan Goddard

Mina Harker – Eleanor Duval

Jonathan Harker – Christopher Tandy

Lucy Westenra – Kristin McGuire

Doctor – Wayne Parsons

Priest – Jordi Calpe Serrats

Lord – Alan Vincent

Vampire Brides – Cree Williams, Nichole Guarino, Hannah Kidd

Creative Team

Choreographed and directed by Mark Bruce

Set: Phil Eddols

Lighting: Guy Hoare

Costumes: Dorothee Brodruck

Holy Mary, mother of God this is scary.  And even more so when watched in the atmospheric, creepy Wilton’s Music Hall.  Had there been room, I would probably have peed myself on at least two occasions – but you have to be thin to sit comfortably at Wiltons, because the seats are all closely lashed together with absolutely no room between them, so I spent most of the first half sitting on one buttock and the second half bolt upright with my shoulders well forward so that the people sitting next to me could sit with their backs against the chair backs, so that the people sitting next to them could sit bolt upright with their shoulders well forward, and so on and so on down the row.  This is not the level of buttock and shoulder room I expect when the seat price is enough to feed me for a week.  Because of the lack of room between seats, each person in the row was overflowing onto their neighbour’s seat by about 5cm, causing serious problems towards the end of each row for anyone with broad shoulders or a large bottom or both.  This was the theatrical equivalent of economy class on EasyJet.  Not that most of Wilton’s patrons will know what EasyJet is – there is a seeming creeping Hoxtonisation going on, rather like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  You know the sort – achingly trendy types with iPads, designer spectacle frames and nebulous jobs in the meeja.  The type who can’t go anywhere without a drink first and another drink in the interval and a polystyrene carton of something ethnic to munch on during the second half, like the impossibly pompous “student of Brecht” sitting right behind me whose knowledge of Brecht was so paper-thin that I heard a lot of talk about a play called “The irresistible rise of ……someone or other” which is apparently “like, you know, about, like, Hitler, I think”. 

Anyway, I digress.  As I said, Holy Mary mother of God this is scary.  Simply and economically told, pared down to the essence of the story (gone are the Van Helsing and Renfield sub-plots) and, to use a much over-used adjective, gothic.  Its also very smoky, so take some cough sweets.  And a bucket to pee into.  There are some flashes of humour – the courtship of Lucy Westenra by the doctor, the priest and a lord (a wonderfully rambunctious and randy characterisation by Alan Vincent, which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the music hall stage), for instance – but mostly its full on scary, and at times damned frightening; the carriage ride to Castle Dracula will stay with me for a long time, as will the rising of Lucy from her tomb.  There’s just one slightly odd note – before the interval, Count Dracula goes into a slightly grotesque version of a music hall number with top hat and cane, which I didn’t understand at all and which didn’t fit with the rest of the production in any way, seemingly – it looked like Baron Samedi doing a bit of soft-shoe.  The idea of having the three Vampire Brides act almost as a chorus, always observing, always present, is clever.  There are some very “filmic” moments – the scene in the tavern, the carriage ride, Dracula slithering down the castle wall, the final chase through the snow –some incredibly well-designed lighting and enough genuinely scary moments to haunt the dreams of anyone with an over-active imagination for a good long time. Atmosphere is provided in buckets by a wild smorgasbord of music from Mozart to music hall (for me, hearing a recording of the original version of “Down at the old Bull and Bush” echoing through a place where that original version is highly likely to have been sung night after night was really scary). Me, I’m keeping a light on and some garlic handy, just in case. 

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/17/mark-bruce-company-dracula-review

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/436026/Dracula-dance-tour-at-Wilton-s-Music-Hall-review

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/sep/29/dracula-mark-bruce-company-review

http://londondance.com/articles/reviews/mark-bruce-company-dracula-wiltons/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/10355795/Dracula-at-Tobacco-Factory-Bristol-review.html