Hamlet - Northern Ballet Theatre @ Sadler's Wells, Friday 25th April 2008

Synopsis (no, its not what you think - read it as otherwise my review will make no sense!):

Wartime occupied France. Hamlet, in mourning for his dead father, appears through the steam from a train. People pass him by as he stands lost in thought. He has a vision of a dark alley, a scuffle, a beating. He remembers a Parisian restaurant in 1939 - a farewell dinner for Hamlet, Laertes and Horatio who are joining the army to fight the Germans and his mother and father as they dance together [this is what the programme said; I'm assuming that the army arent fighting the Germans and Hamlet's mother and father]. The station is chaotic and frightening. People are being humiliated, arrested and beaten. Hamlet looks for his mother who was to meet him. Polonius, now working with the Germans, speaks to the Nazi officers. He whisks Hamlet away to the officical residence of the Head of Police, Hamlet's home before the war.

Gertrude and Claudius are hosting a party. Hamlet watches Ophelia talking to the Germans and the affection between Claudius and his mother. He leaves, distressed by the collaboration with the Germans and his mother's new marriage. In his bedroom, he senses his father's presence but the image is broken as Horatio and Ophelia come to find him. Laertes interrupts Hamlet's reunion with Ophelia but Hamlet sends him away. Laertes returns with Polonius who pulls the couple apart. When he sees Ophelia is wearing a new necklace, he demands she removes it and presents her with a swastika.

New images of the day return to haunt Hamlet. His vision of the beating in the alley returns - as the man raises his head, Hamlet realises it is his father. He sees his father's office, a Nazi officer places a swastika on the desk. When he refuses this, Hamlet realises that Claudius signed his death warrant.

Hamlet spies on his mother and her new husband making love. He considers suicide.

Horatio seeks out Hamlet to heal the rift between Ophelia and his friend. Hamlet confronts Ophelia and before a resolution can be found, Laertes escorts Hamlet to his uncle's office, where Polonius, Claudius and the SS are interrogating a member of the Resistance. Hamlet is shown what could happen to him if he doesnt comply. As he leaves, he turns back to the chair and realises that his father sat in that chair having been beaten and tortured. Hamlet and Horatio break into the desk and steal Hamlet's father's death warrent.

Hamlet arrives for dinner, wearing his father's coat. He indicates that he knows Claudius killed his father and that he has evidence. Claudius leaves Gertrude to discipline her son, leaving Polonius as a hidden spy. As Hamlet is about to show her the death warrant, Polonius tries to snatch it. Hamlet stabs him, thinking he is Claudius. Claudius returns and reaslises that Hamlet has committed murder. Laertes and Ophelia return to find their dead father and, on seeing the knife in Claudius's own hand, attack him as the murderer. Claudius denies that he is the killer and implicates Hamlet. Claudius signs a death warrant - Hamlet's. He goes on the run.

Gertrude and Claudius attend a ball at the German embassy. Ophelia arrives with a posy of small swastikas, which she hands out . She leaves the ball and loses her mind [as you do]. She is followed and assaulted by Nazi soldiers. Laertes arrives and sees his sister with Hamlet, and they fight. Claudius arrives with the SS and Hamlet's death warrant. Hamlet is shot dead.

A crowd celebrates the liberation of the city and we see the fates of Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes. Horatio is left alone to mourn Hamlet's death.

Well, I hope you followed that. Because basically - I didn't. I think you would have to be far more familiar with the tale of Shakespeare's Danish prince than I am to have been able to relate this to what was actually happening on stage. As far as I could see, the only correlation was a moody suicidal with a mad girlfriend and a couple of dodgy mates. No battlements, no gravediggers, no windy courtyards, no "play within a play" no Fortinbras sub-pot, no dewey eyed, lanky blond bloke with a pudding basin haircut, black tabard and an inability to make up his bleeding mind..... Ah yes, said Him Indoors, but you see the characters in the ballet share the names of the characters in the play. But, I replied, you could call them Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb, and unless they are rescuing one of Mrs. Honeyman's Pekingese dogs from a puddle in the park, assisting Doctor Mopp with the six-monthly "drop and cough" on the boys at Pippin Fort or rehearsing that tune that they played on the town bandstand week after week after week, you ain't watching Trumpton, love. Ah yes, said Him Indoors, but you see the themes are the same. But, I replied, where is Windy Miller in all this?

As you might have gathered from this, and the synopsis, I thought the connection between the source material and this ballet was tenuous, to say the least, and probably only Hamletophiles would have been able to see the join. In fact, so confused did I become that I stopped engaging with what was happening on the stage and just stared blankly, hoping that I might spot some point of reference - a skull, perhaps, or Ken Dodd dressed as Yorick. But no. I did kind of see a parallel during Ophelia's mad scene (although forget "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance, there's pansies, thats for thoughts......" - what we got was "ear y'ar love, have a swasticka-on-a-stick, but 'urry up cos I'm due to go off me 'ead very soon") but quite honestly by this point I was well overdue a mad scene of my own.

Whatever inspired NBT's Artistic Director to come out with this load of tosh (other than his own deluded sense of self-importance, of course) is beyond me, and it seemed that the Good People of London Town agreed with me - at this performance there were only about 40 people in the Circle, and I gather that so few were in the Circle on Saturday evening that they closed it completely and moved people down to the stalls. Another "artistic triumph but financial disaster" for NBT. The man needs a good kick up the arras if you ask me.

What made this all doubly obscure (literally) was that all the second half was played out behind a scrim (a very thin curtain rendered see-through by lighting the stage behind it). This is usually a conceit employed in ballet during dream or fantasy sequences - were we to infer that Act 2 was all the product of Hamlet's deluded mind? Dunno, basically.

Another problem which interfered with the story was the dreadfully boring scenery. Now, Im all for doing this on the cheap if you can get away with it and there is some relevance to it, but what we got was basically two huge rotating boxes, the front parts of which were built out as flights of stairs. The sections at the back did treble duty for bathrooms (you could tell it was a bathroom because there was a little mirror hanging over the sink), dining rooms, bedrooms, offices, streets... in fact, anything that wasnt a staircase. This would have been all very well had not most of the action taken place in, on, around and under staircases. It felt like:

Act 1, sc 1: an alleyway between two staircases

Act 1, sc 2: a staircase

Act 1, sc 3: a grand staircase (both staircases having been joined together)

Act 1, sc 4: a bathroom

Act 1, sc 5: a different staircase

Act 1, sc 6: another part of the staircase

Act 1, sc 7: a ball (taking place in front of a staircase), and so on, ad nauseum, until I longed to shout "bring on a bloody sofa, for chrissakes!"

According to the blurb in the programme (and the total lack of punctuation is completely Sadlers Wells's): "Hamlet is of course one of the best examples of the power of the written word but dance has often been able to express those emotions that are difficult to express in other ways". So you will excuse me for having stood in the foyer on the way out expressing "What the fuck was all that about?" through the medium of dance.

What the critics thought:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/dance/reviews/story/0,,2260389,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/22/bthamlet122.xml

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/show-23381923-details/Northern+Ballet+Theatre:+Hamlet/showReview.do?reviewId=23479915

Titanic! - Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts @ the Shaw Theatre, Friday 11th April 2008

Synopsis:

TITANIC! begins as Thomas Andrews, the architect of the great ship, pores over the blueprints of his design. The curtain then rises to reveal the Ocean Dock in Southampton, where people are gathering to wonder at and to board the ship on sailing day: first a stoker, then additional crewmen, officers and stevedores, the owner, the architect and the captain, the Third and Second Class passengers, and finally the First Class Passengers. Now, fully boarded, the ship pulls out as the company sings a prayerful farewell.

One by one, the dreams and aspiration of key characters are presented: Barrett, the stoker who wanted to get away from the coal mines; Murdoch, the ship's officer contemplating the responsibility of command; Kate McGowan and the Third Class passengers who yearn for a better life in America; Chief Steward Etches and the millionaires he serves who exult in the wonders of their world.

Barrett finds his way to the Telegraph Room where he dictates a proposal of marriage to his sweetheart back home in a telegram transmitted by Harold Bride, a young telegraph operator smitten with the possibilities of the new radio technology.

The next day, 14th 14, after Sunday morning church service, the First Class attends the shipboard band's spirited out-of-doors concert - an exclusive event crashed by Second Class passenger Alice Beane, a hardware store owner's wife who wants more out of life. That evening, as Fleet the lookout scans the horizon and bandsman Hartley regales the First Class Smoking Room with a new song, the ship sails inexorably towards her collision, which ends Act One.

Act Two opens as the suddenly awakened First and Second Class passengers are assembled in the Grand Salon for life-belt instruction by Chief Steward Etches, before being sent up to the Boat Deck to board the lifeboats. In the Telegraph Room, Captain Smith, Mr. Andrews and Mr. Ismay, the owner, argue over who is responsible for the disaster while Mr. Bride tirelessly sends out the S.O.S. Up on the Boat Deck, the male passengers are separated from their families, and all express hopes of being reunited as the final boat is lowered. Isidor Strauss (the owner of Macy's) and his wife Ida remain behind together, as she refuses to leave his side after 40 years of marriage and Mr. Etches utters a prayer. In the abandoned Smoking Room, Thomas Andrews desperately redesigns his ship to correct its fatal flaws, until the futility of his actions leads him to predict, in horrifying detail, the end of Titanic as she begins her now-inevitable descent.

In an Epilogue, the survivors picked up by the Carpathia numbly retell what had once been Mr. Andrews' dream. The living are joined by their lost loved-ones in a tableau recapturing the optimistic spirit of the Ocean Dock on sailing day.

Readers are directed back to my review of WWOS's production of this here: http://russells-theatre-reviews.blogspot.com/2006/11/titanic-west-wickham-operatic-society.html as I will be drawing several comparisons.

This show illustrates my point made about Gone with the Wind - that for an epic story you need an epic score. Four days later and I'm still humming many of the tunes that I heard on Friday evening, whereas not a note from GWTW stays with me.

This was a smaller production than that I saw back in 2006, on a smaller stage and with a smaller company. This inevitably draws comparisons - although the story is unaffected, the smaller cast required some "doubling up" of roles, which led to some confusion. For instance, the First Class Steward was doubled by the chap playing the Third Class Steward,Mr. Guggenheim also appeared as Harold Bride the radio operator, and the Bandmaster also appeared as an engineer. In such a tightly constructed piece, you really had to keep a firm grasp on the plot because of this.

Musical quality was excellent, singing was of very high standard and diction good throughout. Cue pick-up was excellent, making this a much tighter production than the WWOS version (although WWOS Titanic had about four times as many passengers as Mountview's, which made all the "getting on and off again" much lengthier). Also, there was only one, fixed set this time round, saving time on scene changes (although this didn't tilt at all for act 2, making it somewhat less effective). However, I did find the lighting singularly lacking on occasion - in particular right at the end of Act 1. In the WWOS version, the final chord of the collision was accompanied by a complete blackout on stage, with "headlights" coming up in the auditorium to suggest beams of light coming through portholes and the tracking lights on the lifeboats. In the Mountview version, the curtain just closed on a fully lit stage. Also, in the WWOS version, the "ticker tape" lighting effect giving the date, time, longitude and latitude of the ship, as well as the location of the scene about to be played, were projected in large letters on the back screen, whereas in the Mountview production, the words appeared in quite small type in the top left hand corner of the backdrop - if you weren't looking for them, they really escaped your notice. What I did like about this version was that the final scenes were played out in murky blue and green light, making it appear as if the ship was floating down through the ocean, and that the iceberg actually made an appearance in the form of a white gauze curtain being slowly pulled across the stage. Simple, but effective.

I also pick up my prior criticism about costumes; day wear was more or less correct, although the male passengers were wearing suits of modern, rather than Edwardian cut. There were at least two evening dresses of calf-length; all ladies' wear at the time fell to the shoes if not the floor. The sight of bare calves and ankles would have been considered scandalous. Very few of the men had bothered to research period hairstyles, and the First Class Steward would certainly not have had his hair falling over his collar. In act 2, once again, nightwear was almost completely incorrect - no lady worth the name would be wearing pyjamas in 1912. In fact, I think the chorus number "Wearing your pajamas in the Grand Salon" is incorrect - etiquette at the time prevailed that, even during an emergency (and remember, the passengers at this point didn't know it was an emergency) only one's most intimate acquaintances would have seen you in your nightwear. Some effort would have been made to dress. Most of the female passengers who drowned did so because their corsets prevented them from breathing properly in the icy water - and they wouldn't have been wearing corsets under their nightgowns! And, once again, there was a prevalence of 1950s and 60s suitcases going aboard.

The young age of the performers did cause some problems - Alan Pearson as Captain Smith looked more like Captain Birdseye and his make-up "wrinkles" were somewhat less than subtle. His posture was bad throughout (shoulders back, that man!) and he lacked the authority that the role needs. Danny Flitney as Murdoch seemed to have flown in from the naff TV series "The High Life", so twee and forced was his scottish accent. Hartley Wallace was excellent as the Bandmaster, singing very well, dancing even better and even playing his own violin, damn his talent! (Note for the choreographer - the Charleston was yet to be invented in 1912 - the steps should have been Ragtime Jazz). Scott Armstrong, though well voiced for the part of the Stoker, was physically too small to be convincing. Adam Welsh as Bruce Ismay was so small that his role could have been doubled by Jeanette Krankie and looked like a petulant schoolboy dressed in his father's suit. Scott Armstrong and Victoria Basten as the Strausses seemed to have retained their Cherman Eccents even after living in America for over 40 years, and I think that some of their lines had been cut, as had some other small sections - for instance, nobody missed the boat in this production. Natalie Tulloch seemed to be playing Charlotte Cardoza as some kind of cross between Gypsy Rose Lee and Rose de Witt Burkator (as played by Kate Winslet), as evidenced by the untidy titian curls and the 3/4 length burgundy dress trimmed with black bugle beads. Whether this was a deliberate "nod" to the film I couldn't work out.

Down in Second Class, Jenny Perry was First Class as Alice Beane - diction and characterisation were perfect throughout and in her incredibly difficult "Embarkation" number, her dress, shoes, hair, hat and makeup were all spot on. She's obviously been doing her research. Tom Idelson was nicely diffident and embarrassed by turns as her long-suffering husband. In Steerage, the name to watch out for in future is Lucy-Jane Quinlan, who played Kate McGowan with an incredible range of utterly believable emotion from optimism to lonely despair. The scene in which she confesses to Jim Farrell that she is pregnant was heartrendingly underplayed - I certainly don't remember this scene from the WWOS version. Katie Vincent should have been forcibly restrained from going on as Kate Murphy wearing a tartan tam'o'shanter and short yellow pigtails, which made her look like Pippi Longstocking.

Spooky footnote: Mountview did 13 performances of this show, the last of which took place 96 years to the day that RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton. The tighter running time of 2 hours, 5 minutes, echoes exactly the time between the collision with the iceberg and the final disappearance of the great ship beneath the waves. I'm writing this review 96 years to the day that the collision occurred, at 2340hrs, the time that Him Indoors and I reached home after seeing the show....... I hope, and indeed expect, to be reviewing another production of this show in four years time, when the 100th Anniversary of the sinking is marked. Until then, in the words of the finale: "Sail on, saaaail on, great shiiiiiip, Titan...iiiic...."

Gone With The Wind - New London Theatre, Saturday 4th April

Synopsis:

Oh come on! If you don't have even the vaguest idea, you must have been living under a stone for the last 75 years!

Tension was running high in the auditorium- I think Danni was on the point of hyperventilation and I was desperate for a "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" mug. Him Indoors had dropped his opera glasses down the back of the seat and the party in front were in the wrong row. And then a chap strode onto the stage with a clipboard to make an announcement. A shiver of fear went through me - was Darius off? Thankfully not, but this was the first preview performance and "the show is currently running at about 3 and 3/4 hours, so please bear with us". Hold on to your bladder and ring the babysitter in the interval, basically - to paraphrase Bette Davis - "Tighten your seatbelts because its gonna be a looooooong night" The show eventually finished 4 hours and 5 minutes afterwards! The problem was that this is an adaptation of the book, rather than the film, and what can one possibly leave out without leaving a huge hole in the plot, or the production degenerating into what appears to be a stage version of the film? Essentially, the answer was "nothing" - and they even added a couple of extra bits too. Just like the book, the plot becomes rather laboured in the second half, and its here that I suspect the required cuts will have to be made in order to bring the running time down to an acceptable level. Certainly the scissors could justifiably be taken to the new scene in which Prissy expresses her hopes for the future through literature, also the new scene where the former house-slaves celebrate their new-found (if perplexing) freedom - although this would mean the cutting of what is probably the best, and certainly most memorable, song from the entire score - and possibly Mammy's scene and solo after the death of Bonnie (although again it would mean cutting an excellently written and performed solo).

Whatever possessed Trevor Nunn to direct a musical version of this well-loved book/film is beyond me - by doing this, you are asking for trouble. The last try crashed and burned in the 1970s as spectacularly as Atlanta. Even if you've never read the book, chances are that you will have seen at least some of the 1939 film, be vaguely familiar with it. and feel slightly resentful as a result. Its an epic on the scale of Ben Hur, and 8 times as popular. Many people can quote the film ad nauseam (name no names!) and odd is the Easter Bank Holiday when its not on TV. Its a classic, and you tamper with it at your own risk. Brave is the woman who goes three rounds with the shade of Vivien Leigh, who made the role of Scarlett O'Hara completely her own.

Well, in this bout, Jill Paice carried the awful burden of trying and, even though she may not have won outright, forced a one-all draw. Looking incredibly (and sometimes spookily) like a young VL, Paice appeared spot on in terms of age (SO'H starts the book aged 17) and her first-generation Irish/American accent triumphed over Leigh's pukka, cultured tones. Some of her dialogue inflections and emphases, however, showed clear traces of having been based on those of Leigh. Still, it would have been a very brave actress who gave a "new" SO'H and no doubt there was a large element of giving the audience what they wanted to see. And why not? If it aint broke..... She portrayed SO'H well in all her facets from spoilt child to war-shocked refugee unable to comprehend the destruction of the society of which she was a part to the tired and weary woman. At all times there was a certain "glitter" behind her performance as the remnants of the girl shone through the chinks in the woman's facade.

What I suspect a majority of the audience DID want to see (at least, the large part of the audience composed of females and red-blooded homos) was Darius Danesh as Rhett Butler. He wasnt quite as successful in taking on the ghost of Clark Gable but I was far too busy dribbling to care. The trouble was, I think, that Gable was well into his 40s when the film was released, and Darius is in, I think, his late 20s or early 30s. The Southern American drawl, cultured but lazy, is a particularly difficult accent to maintain, and DD managed this perfectly and with great style. He created a slightly diffident Rhett, and seemed (surprisingly) a little unsure with his vocals on occasion, but scored highly in terms of looks, height and the ability to carry his clothes impeccably. The fact that he spent most of the performance in tight, highwaisted trousers, makings his backside look like a ripe Georgia peach wrapped in a handkerchief only added to his manifold attractions.

Beside two such engaging villains, the roles of Melanie and Ashley become mere puppets and even De Haviland and Howard failed to make much headway with them (although I would opine that De Haviland did at least succeed in fleshing out her role into a reasonably fully-rounded character, which Howard failed to do). Madeleine Worrall seemed to be playing Melanie as a pale version of Little Nell and, as the evening finally started drawing to a close, found myself glancing at my watch and thinking "Oh for crissakes just die, will you?". However, in mitigation, "good" is always difficult to portray on stage, often coming across as "dull". What Worrall failed to do was give us flashes of the steel that Melanie possesses deep within her. Edward Baker-Duly portrayed Ashley as such a morally upright prig that it became difficult to see what Scarlett ever saw in him, and with a posture that often suggested he had a pole up his rectum. The famous "Orchard" scene in which Ashley confesses the destruction of his dreams is integral to the understanding of the character, and Baker-Duly simply threw it away, in my opinion. Not quite so much "Duly" as merely "dully".

Natasha Yvette-Williams had probably been instructed not to play Mammy in the style of the great Hattie McDaniels, and this was a major disappointment. Rather than a comic (yet profoundly touching and lovable) character, this Mammy was rather straight-laced and dignified. OK, the film version is a stereotype, and the current cult of PC would probably disapprove violently with a recreation of this, but the role was written this way for a reason, and provides a much needed counterpoint of earthy realism and (low) comedy to the sometimes strained posturing and agonising of "De Whate Folkses". But Lawdy, Mizz Scarlett, this Mammy could sing. Apparently she has just arrived in the UK from playing the Oprah Winfrey role in The Colour Purple on Broadway, which thought made me yearn to have seen the production.

Prissy too (Jina Burrows) owed far more to RADA than to Georgia, played not as a half-brained moppet (Yeas, Mizz Scarlett, Ah 'speckt ah surely will") but as a reserved and withdrawn young woman, thirsty for the benefits of education. Jacqueline Boatswain as her mother, Dilcey, however, fulfilled all the criteria for the role as it appears in the book, resigned to her role but full of proud dignity.

Of the other minor roles, all Julian Forsyth was missing from his portrayal of Gerald O'Hara was a four-leaved clover and a pot of leprachaun's gold, and such was his dee-diddley-didely Orish Begods and Begorrah missie accent that I half expected him to be accompanied by a troupe of dancers from Riverdance. His wig, resembling a dead lamb, made him look less like a successful plantation owner than a bad Willie Wonka wannabe. As Aunt Pittypat, Susan Turner failed to tick any boxes, coming across as a withered, caustic and half-crazed old spinster rather than a lovable (if infuriating) twittering grown up child. The small but important role of Belle Watling seemed to have been jettisoned from the script - a surprising ommission given its function in the story, and even more surprising when several characters who appear in the book as mere background padding (such as Rene Picard, Fanny Elsing, Honey Wilkes and Dimity Munroe) all made an appearance on stage. Susannah Fellowes portrayed Mrs. O'Hara as a kindly, all forgiving character rather than the proud, humourless woman in the original story (a characterisation largely lost in the film).

With my GWTW anorak on, I have to take exception to Emmie Slatterly's costume. If you read the relevant passage in the book, you will see that there is a very good reason that she is wearing clothes of a very recently introduced fashion when she makes her appearance on the porch at Tara as Mrs. Wilkerson. She should have been wearing a bustled skirt and a "pancake" hat rather than a full crinoline and a leghorn bonnet. Sack the costume designer!

And now we come to the reason why I think this production will get eggs thrown at it by the critics. The music. Apart from one or two snatches, all of this was instantly and utterly forgettable. There were far too many superfluous reprises of naff songs (please, someone, axe "Once Upon a Time"), far too many pointless chorus numbers (such as the Reconstruction Ball), far too many songs in the second half (as opposed to very few in the first), and far too many songs which replaced perfectly acceptable (and, indeed great) dialogue. What was also missing was one single, unifying theme along the lines of Dah daaah da daaaaaah, dah daaaaaah da daaah, da DAAAAAAAA da daaaa daaaaa to cement the whole thing together, variations of which punctuate the entire film and echo through your head every time you read the book. Underscore Scarlett's famous "As God is my witness" or "Tomorrow is another day" speeches with this and you grab the audience by the balls and heartstrings and bring them cheering to their feet. Lose it, replace it with a forgettable and trite song and you blow the emotional content completely. All epic stories need an epic score, and this wasnt one. How Margaret Martin thought she was capable of this (its her first score) beggars belief. One just wonders who she slept with. Its like going to a couple of Creative Writing lessons and believing you can re-write the Bible (or, indeed, Gone with the Wind). Amazing.

It sounds as if I really loathed this show. I didn't, and neither did I set out willing it to fail - in fact, quite the reverse. The first half passed in a flash, and neither Danni nor I could believe that over 1 1/2 hours had already gone by the interval. But the second half just felt as leaden and flat as a flan in a cupboard, and not even the sight of Darius performing to a dummy Bonnie Blue Butler (stage timing regulations having meant that the child actor had long gone home) could lessen the pain. For that, it would have had to have been Darius taking his ruffled front shirt off and smearing baby oil all over his torso.

Essentially, therefore, the evening turned out to be "an experience" rather than wholly enjoyable. Perhaps perfection should never be tampered with. But in Mr. Danesh's case, I might just make an exception.

What the critics thought:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/reviews/story/0,,2275487,00.html

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3805219.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/first-night-gone-with-the-wind-new-london-theatre-london-814045.html

http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/gonewiththewind0008.htm

The Baker's Wife - TEPOS @ The Bob Hope Theatre, Saturday 15th March 2008

Synopsis:

The café of a small Provençal town in the mid-1930s. . Denise, the wife of the proprietor, sees the same faces every day, but sometimes, things can happen that change you, making life different and new. Bits of conversation are heard from the customers - complaints from a gardener who's neighbor's tree is shading his spinach, an argument between the local priest and the school teacher who has been teaching that Joan of Arc "thought" she heard voices. Those bickering tell each other that their lives would be that much better "If It Wasn't for You". Through it all is the anticipation of the arrival of the baker: the village has been without bread since the last baker died and tensions have run higher than normal.

The Marquis enters with his three "nieces" and welcomes the new baker, Aimable Castagnet. Accurately named, he is a jolly, middle-aged fellow. With him is Geneviève, young and beautiful, whom the Marquis mistakes for his daughter. The error quickly addressed, it is not met without comment from the townspeople. With Pompom, the cat, the couple make for their new home, with the customers exchanging comments about the baker robbing the cradle .The villagers are pleased with the return of bread to the small town. They argue about their place in line in the small shop, eager to sample the wares of the new baker. Others, gossip about the Marquis and his nieces, and one of the villagers asks Aimable how an old man like him was able to snare the beautiful Geneviève, who sings of her past affair with Paul, a married man, and her love for Amiable. Closing the door on her past, she resolves to be a good wife to the baker.

While picking up the Marquis' pastry order, his driver, Dominique, eyes Geneviève, mistaking her for the baker's daughter. She corrects him, but he insists on addressing her as Mademoiselle. Amiable returns after trying to find Pompom and reports that the cat has run off.

The villagers gather again outside the café, engaged in their typical squabbles. The baker and his wife arrive and sit near Antoine who continues to tease them about the difference in their ages. Geneviève exits in a huff, leaving the men to tell each other to "Look For the Woman" when they start fighting. The baker and his wife gett ready for bed. Dominique and his guitar-toting friend Philippe plot to serenade her in the street. Geneviève castigates Dominique, but he is undeterred. Though she protests, she is unable to resist Dominique, and they decide to run off together.

The neighbors are awakened to a fire in the bakery's oven where the baker finds charred loaves. Usually Geneviève is the early riser of the household, and he begins to search for her, believing that she has gone in search of Pompom. A crowd begins to gather: they know Aimable's search will yield neither cat nor wife.

The Marquis arrives and takes the baker aside, telling him that Geneviève had run off with Dominque.. Philippe arrives and confirms the story, but Aimable chooses to believe that Geneviève has gone off to visit her mother. As the gossip continues, the Marquis threatens going to the police to report his stolen car, and the two lovers would be arrested. The gossipers decide that the situation is the "best thing to happen in this town in all my life!"

The teacher and the priest argue again: the priest accusing the villagers of contaminating Geneviève with their immoral conduct, the teacher championing free will. The typically sober baker orders a cognac, and another, and sings to the cafe that Geneviève has just gone to visit her mother. In an attempt to sober him up, they follow him into the bakery, only to find it in a sad state. Aimable collapses amongst the spilled flour, dough hanging from the ceiling, and burnt loaves of bread.

The villagers come to the decision that the town is cursed and they blame the baker's wife for the burdenThe Marquis enters, telling Aimable that he needs some "Feminine Companionship" and offers to loan his nieces. The girls surround the baker, flirting with him. The priest enters and, shocked, begins feuding with the Marquis. The villagers join in the fray, and the baker throws them all out.

At a town meeting Aimable admits that he knows that Geneviève has run off. He leaves the church, and the villagers vow to find his wife. Antoine enters claiming that he has found the young couple at a hotel in a nearby town. They agree to form a search party, and the Marquis, the priest, and the teacher go after the outcasts to persuade the baker's wife to return home. Left behind, the women of the town comment bitterly.

Geneviève and Dominique are together, but all is not well. She admits her passion for the young man, but gathers her things and leaves him asleep. The villagers encounter Geneviève and they eventually convince her to return. She finds Aimable and attempts to tell him the truth, but he chooses to believe that she has returned from visiting her mother and offers her dinner. Pompom arrives at the window, and Aimable bitterly harangues the cat for running after "some tom that looked good in the moonlight." He unleashes all of his pent-up anger toward Geneviève on the small cat, and offers it a saucer of milk. He has faithfully refilled the milk each day, and, when Aimable charges that the cat will run off yet again, Geneviève assures him that she will not. Reconciled, the two begin to prepare the bread for the next day. Their feuds ended, the villagers resume their everyday lives.

Set in a small French village during the 1930’s, somewhere between the locations of Chocolat (the plot of this and The Baker’s Wife share a lot of similarities, and I must check to see which was written first!) and Allo Allo, this show was, on the face of it, an unusual choice for an amateur company. It doesn’t have a very high recognition factor and is therefore not really a “bums on seats” show like, say, My Fair Lady is. But I hope the company were mollified by the audience appreciation of their efforts rather than disappointed at the lack of tickets sold. It’s a simple show, about relationships and their effects, and indeed the village itself becomes a strong character, rather in the same way that Anatevka is in Fiddler on the Roof. It was a bit of a shock to see so few people on stage – times were (not that long ago) when I appeared with the company and there were at least double the number in the cast; in fact, I think for Pirates of Penzance we had about sixty people on stage. However, the show works very well in a small venue with a relatively small cast, and adds to the feeling of intimacy.

The one set was quite simple but nonetheless effective, in warm colours appropriate for the location, although I did think that the railings of the balcony were set too low for comfort, as both the baker and his wife had to lean forward quite a way several times in order to put their hands on the rail. I have to take issue also with the use of a stuffed toy cat (and not a particularly realistic one at that – it looked like it was hiding a loo roll under its fur). Surely a real one in a cat basket would have been more effective? The cat isn’t on stage for long, and I’m sure that, with a dose of Mogadon (Moggiedon?), a sufficiently docile and amiable one could have been held by the cast members when necessary for the plot.

The orchestra was nicely handled by Alan “Smashie” Thompson in the pit, and was unobtrusive when necessary, something other MD’s of amateur companies (and some professional ones) would do well to emulate.

Sue Wooton was fab as Denise, the rather faded wife of the café owner, and her warm toned singing voice fitted the role perfectly. The stalwart Marion Terry, always a safe pair of hands, was wonderfully starchy as Therese the village spinster, and Bud Abbott hilarious as Domergue (in fact, all that was missing in his dialogue was either “It is I, Le Clerk” or “Non, non, non, non, non, non….er..oui” and he could have stepped out of Allo Allo or La Curee de Dibley, at which point the audience would probably have collectively wet themselves with hysterics). Rose Walker gave an empassioned performance as Hortense, the butcher’s wife who decides to take control of a life ruined by domestic violence, bringing to mind one of the sub-plots of Chocolat.

Sorry, everyone else, but Chris Betterton as the Village Priest deserves (and therefore gets) an entire paragraph of praise all to himself. He was perfectly cast (I did hear a rumour that he only got the part because he already had the costume in his wardrobe but I don’t believe it for a minute) and was a complete joy to watch as he wobbled between unctuous complacency and fury, with every nuance of his emotions caught perfectly on his face. I think Derek Nimmo would be proud! It used to be said of some performers that they had “comedy feet” – well, Chris has comedy hands, and I would quite happily have sat through his performance again.

Richard Cooper was very good as Dominique and his voice was excellent – a pure ringing tenor that will stand him in good stead should he decide to hit the Gilbert and Sullivan circuit in years to come, although his somewhat awkward body posture does need work, and it will be a while yet before he has the acting maturity to play roles like Colonel Fairfax in Yeoman or Tololler in Iolanthe.

Both on top form were Chris Arden as the Baker and Nicola Henderson as the eponymous wife. Chris was perfectly cast for the role, with his warm personality shining through, although he seemed a little unsure at times exactly how to pronounce the name of his wife. Being a Frenchman, it should have been Szhon-Vee-Ef rather than the English Jennie-Veeve which slipped out a couple of times, as did a rather strange hybrid version pronounced Jen-Vee-Ef. Nicola Henderson blew me (and Him Indoors) away with her vocal ability . At times she seemed a little “absent” but it is a difficult part to play – it’s a “cypher role” – things happen to her and around her rather than through her influence on the plot.

All in all, a really good night out watching people I know entertain people they know in a production as warm and comforting as bread fresh from the oven.

Into the Hoods - Novello Theatre, Friday 14th March 2008

Synopsis:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, two children ran away in search of freedom,but found themselves lost....in the hood. Welcome to the Ruff Endz Estate, the home of the vinyl spinning DJ Spinderella, who is dating the uber confident lady magnet Prince who, being a "true playa" is two timing her with the vivacious rapper MC Rap-on-Zel. She lives on the 10th floor of the tower block, letting down her long hair extenshuns from her window so that Prince can pay her secret visits. Then there is Lil Red, a singer who has just signed a deal with Wolf, the manager of Big TeefRecords. She secretly has feelings for music producer Jakk (who lives in the basement) who is struggling with debt, is late on the rent and facing eviction. A desperate Jakk enters into some dodgy dealings with Giant, the resident drug-dealing pimp, who lives in the penthouse. The children meet The Landlord, who sends them out to work for him with the task of finding gifts for his daughter Rap-On-Zel's birthday. In return, he promises to see them out of the Hood and safely home. They have only four days to find: an ipod as white as milk, a hoodie as red as blood, a weave as yellow as corn and trainers as pure as gold...

Those of you who are familiar with Stephen Sondheim might well recognise the above synopsis as being pretty damned similar to his work "Into the Woods" which I have reviewed elsewhere. As there was no mention of this in the programme, Im not sure whether to label this production as an affectionate tribute or a complete rip-off. Whichever it is, only those familiar with the source would really have appreciated how clever/how much of a rip-off this is. Unfortunately,unless "Into the Woods" has been performed at Belmarsh Prison or the local Young Offender's Correction Facilty recently, I very much doubt that many of the bruvvas and sistas in the audience would have realised this - it was very much aimed at the "Yeah but no but yeah but no" demographic. A comment I overheard (well, it didnt take much overhearing as it was bellowed in a voice that would have put the Beachy Head foghorn to shame) showed that most of the audience had only ever been in the kind of theatre that deals with bones broken after falling into the gutta on a night out on the razz in some of the seedier parts of London: "Taneesha, it's massif in 'ere girl!". A few rows behind me were a middle-aged couple looking like they had just stepped off the train from Tunbridge Wells, obviously hanging onto their valuables for dear life and on the sharp look out for knives being waved.

Having been told that curtain-up was at 7.30, it was irritating to sit there for a further 20 minutes surrounded by bus-loads of badly dressed and bling-laden hyenas to the accompaniment of hiphop music so loud that flakes of plaster were falling from the ceiling. It was doubly annoying to find that the first "half" of the evening consisted of what I am reliably informed was a "set" by "poet and comeeeeedien rappa "Mr. Gee" - who stood lamely before the curtain telling unfunny jokes and reciting poems that didnt rhyme and didnt scan about hoodies. The hyenas, of course, lapped all this up and howled their Nikes off (the sista next to me said to her posse member "Jeeeesus man, I is gonna bust somefin if I don't get me sum res-pite soon!"). There was no reaction from anybody in my row and a stony silence from Mr. and Mrs. Tunbridge Wells - probably because we only understood about one word in 10. After 25 minutes of this, an interval was announced. The lights went up and the music recommenced, and us regular theatre-goers sat there blinking in the light and wondering "Is that it?". The hyenas, of course, used the time to drink the bar dry of vodka and Red Bull, send text messages or use their mobiles to take pictures of each other "at the feeertre cos no-one ain't gonna beleeeeve it man".

The curtain finally went up again at 9pm, and for the first 15 minutes I resented like hell what was going on on stage - a street dance version of Into the Woods. No dialogue, only narration by a disembodied voice. No Sondheim tunes - hip hop, rap etc. My bristles went up and I sat there determined not to enjoy it. But then something caught my attention - I think it was the back projection of the estate newsagents, with a board outside "See it now in your magic Mirror"- and I began to think "Hey bro, this is well wicked". The energy pouring across the footlights was astonishing - like The Magic Flute at the Young Vic, the sheer pleasure of performing came across in buckets. I think it was when Lil Red, dreaming of winning her own Grammy (geddit?) had to cross the park to reach the Old Folk's home before sunset in order to visit Granny, that I finally started to really appreciate the thought that had gone into the production.

Of the cast, particularly good were Rhimes Lecointe as a sad (in the modern sense), spoilt and rather tubby Rap-On-Zel forever redoing her cornrows and Rowen Hawkins as a particularly spunky skater-boy Jakk - I could quite happily mount his mighty stalk any time. The highlight though must have been the visit of Fairy Gee - a body-popping six year old black girl in a gold tracksuit (with tutu) and trainers, wearing her hair in enormous bunches, giving it her all and completely upstaging every adult on stage. The audience (apart from the Tunbridge Wells's) went totally beserk at this point.

Costumes were simple, cleverly designed and appropriate for the principals, allowing them to fade back into the ensemble when necessary by donning a different colour hoodie. A major problem, however, was the rounding off of the story during the bows - most of the narration simply couldnt be heard over the screaming and so I missed out on how some of the stories ended. Jakk, it appears, ends up in bed with Lil Red - the bitch.

It was loud, it was raucous, it was completely unexpected, it was fun (once I had got over my disapproval) - but a bit cheeky in terms of it really only lasting an hour and being padded out by the "comedy" turn at the beginning. Mr. and Mrs. Tunbridge Wells staggered off into the night, ashen-faced, partly deafened and probably in search of a couple of very stiff gin and tonics.

What the critics thought:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/into-the-hoods-novello-theatre-london-801641.html

http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/into-the-hoods_0308.htm

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/show-23351521-details/ZooNation:+Into+The+Hoods/showReview.do?reviewId=23465932

Thespis - Normansfield Theatre, Sunday 9th March 2008

Synopsis:

Scene: A Ruined Temple on the Summit of Mount Olympus
On Mount Olympus, the aged deities lament their waning influence. Mercury complains that the gods are lazy and leave all their duties to him. Jupiter says that matters have reached a crisis, but he is unsure what can be done about it. The gods see a group of mortals ascending the mountain, and withdraw to observe them from a distance.

Thespis's acting company enters for a picnic celebrating the marriage of two of its members, Sparkeion and Nicemis. Daphne, Sparkeion's former fiancée, annoys Nicemis by flirting with him. In retaliation, Nicemis flirts with Thespis.

Jupiter, Mars, and Apollo enter. All of the actors flee in terror, except for Thespis. Jupiter asks Thespis whether he is impressed with the father of the gods. Thespis replies that the gods are unimpressive, and suggests that they go down to earth in disguise to judge for themselves why people do not take them seriously. They agree that Thespis and his acting company will keep things running on Mount Olympus during the gods' absence. Each actor takes the place of one of the gods, with Thespis himself replacing Jupiter. Mercury stays behind to offer any advice the actors may need.

Act II
Under Thespis's direction, Olympus has been restored to its former splendour. However, Mercury says that the substitute gods are incompetent, and their experiments have wreaked havoc in the world below. For instance, the replacement for Mars is a pacifist, the replacement for Hymen refuses to marry anyone, and the substitute Bacchus is a teetotaller. The ersatz Apollo the god of day, goes out at night to protect Diana, the goddess of night, from coming to harm, and the substitute Venus decrees that babies are to be born full-grown. The actors also find that the romantic entanglements of the gods they've replaced conflict with their attachments in real life. Venus, played by Pretteia, is supposed to be married to Mars, but the actor playing Mars is her father. A possible solution is discovered in Venus having actually married Vulcan but Vulcan is her grandfather. Daphne has become the muse Calliope and claims, based on a bowdlerised edition of the Greek myths that Calliope was married to Apollo. However, Sparkeion, who took on the role of Apollo, is already married to Nicemis. Thespis is asked to rule on these issues, and, while he puts off judging Pretteia's case, he decides that Sparkeion is married to Daphne while they are gods, but his marriage to Nicemis will resume when they are mortals once again.

When the gods return they are furious at the disarray that Thespis's company have created. They watch incognito as Mercury presents to Thespis all of the complaints from earth that have accumulated while the gods have been gone. After listening to a long list of grievances, the gods shed their disguises and banish the actors from Olympus. As punishment for their folly, Jupiter sends them back to earth as "eminent tragedians whom no one ever goes to see."

Firstly, if you ever get the opportunity to see a show at this theatre (hidden away in the wilds of west London), go see - if only to see the theatre itself, which a perfect jewel, like something you would find inside a Faberge Easter egg. Decorated in High Pre-Raphaelite style, shimmering with darkly patinated gold leaf and decked with Rapturous Maidens (shades of Patience) and the kind of plant portraits that Rosetti would have had orgasms over, its an experience in itself. The sumptuous curtain (the old Music Hall "straight up and down" style rather than traditional velvet ones) is an added bonus. The relatively dim lighting only adds to its charm.

As predicted, the place was heaving with G&S Anoraks, flocking to see this lost G&S operetta, even on a dreary, wet Sunday afternoon in March. When I walked in the door, the average age of the audience fell by about 25%, I think. There were a fair amount of elderly women with sensible shoes who might well come out with "Stuff and nonsense", and lots of similarly-aged men with hairy ears, all wearing their M&S "Old Geezer" best - brown or grey slacks, comfy cardigans and matching kagoules. I dare say that many of them had bought a flask of tea along.

Quite what I was expecting I don't know. Its a very odd piece, owing a lot to the Edwardian love of "burlesque" and panto, the original script is not the least bit funny, and all the music save two pieces have been lost to posterity, one of which only survives because it found its way (in an emergency) into The Pirates of Penzance. Perhaps I should have read the programme properly, for on the cover it was stated "Music from Arthur Sullivan and Offenbach", which might have alerted me to the fact that I wasnt going to hear a complete, newly-composed score as I was, I think, expecting. Now, don't get me wrong - the score was perfectly adequate, well peformed by the orchestra and exuberantly conducted by Tim Henty (note: never sit right behind him, he's well over six foot and when there is no orchestra pit and he's giving it some welly, this means that a lot of the stage is obscured by what could easily double for the windmill in Don Quixote), but it did rather degenerate into a game of "spot the tune" - we got stuff from The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Gondoliers, and several other G&S's, as well as from Orpheus in the Underworld. Sullivan geeks like me picked up tunes from The Rose of Persia, and there was even some cod Don Giovanni. If you are familiar with the tunes, there is always an awful 20 seconds or so during which your brain stops paying attention to the stage and attempts to identfy them. Only when you've done this successfully do you switch back into proper listening mode. If you don't achieve recognition, you then sit there agonising for the remainder of the number (well, I do, anyway). But it did seem an awful cop-out to use tunes written a good many years later by the same composer. There may have been a number of "Henty originals" (I'm sure the overture was one, and the opening chorus another one) but more than these two I couldnt vouch for personally. A programme note about the transfer of music to Pirates said "No composer ignores good material" and perhaps there was a hint of self-justification about this. Still, kudos to Tim for managing to fit Gilbert's horrendously complicated lyrics to existing bits of Sullivan's music - particularly the fiendish patter songs - which can't have been anything like easy. The boy did good.

There was no chorus in this production, and several of the smaller roles had been incorporated into larger ones. There were also uneven numbers of gods and mortals - which showed up in the second act when the latter become the former, as not all the roles mentioned were covered. There should, for example, have been a "Venus" among the gods for her role to be taken over by a mortal, even though it would have been a super-numerary part. It also pointed up another difficulty of casting this show - all the gods must be cast from the more, shall we say, senior members of the company, and all the actors from the younger ones. I have to say that I didn't think much of the idea of portraying the actors as Edwardians rather than Greeks. Yes, I know that the sub-title of the piece is The Gods Grown Old, but the Edwardians were fervent Christians and didn't pay homage to the gods of the Greek pantheon. OK, call me a purist then.

Of the gods, Jill Pert was an excellent Diana - but then Jill Pert is an excellent anything. I long to see her Katisha, and I hear that she can even make the non-character of Little Buttercup into a fully-rounded person. She has a dry, knowing wit and sense of fun that drives across the footlights. Truly an ornament to the stage. Ian Belsey was fun as Apollo but, from the amount of eye shadow and lipstick he was sporting, would possibly have looked more at home with a dish of Trill, a cuttlefish and a little metal bell, or maybe as Louis XV (an interesting thought, as that gentleman styled himself as The Sun King and his gardens at Versailles are loaded with references to Apollo). Rebecca Seale as Mercury was not quite the glamourpuss that we are lead to believe the originator of the role, Nellie Farren, was and, at times, bore a remarkable resemblance both physically and vocally to a very young Barbara Windsor. She also had an irritating habit when front of stage of fixing her gaze on a point of the auditorium ceiling and singing to it, rather than making any kind of eye contact with the audience. Still, it has to be said that her diction during the horrendously fast patter songs was excellent.

On the mortal side, Richard Suart played Thespis as a larger-than-life version of Richard Suart, and on occasion completely overdid the melodrama to the point of ludicrousness. Him Indoors said that "You have to rise above the material, dahling" but my opinion veers towards "Less is Definitely More". It was an interesting idea to have the role of Sparkieon played as a "Trouser Role" (i.e. by a woman dressed up as a man) and Miranda Westcott did literally sparkle vocally. Martin Lamb made a fine and portly Tipseion, but, as the great Victoria Wood herself once wrote in a sketch, "Drop the Geordie, dear - its not coming across". David Menezes, as the Company Manager Timidon, was very good, seemingly characterising his role on the impressionist Alastair McGowan (currently to be found boring theatregoers -or at least those four I heard on the train recently - with his awful Mikado). Rachel Harland spoke and sung prettily but with perhaps a little over-enunciation, and I think that Sian Jones was rather wasted in the largely speaking role of Pretteia (portrayed as a slightly lunatic ballerina) if her solo during the opening chorus was anything to go by.

An interesting afternoon's entertainment, although I think it does show that what is lost sometimes deserves to remain lost. Gilbert certainly wasn't on top form when he wrote the libretto (proved by the fact that the script seemed to have been largely re-written for this production). Whether Sullivan was on top form we shall, unfortunately, never know. But if his performance that afternoon was anything to judge by, Mr. Henty is certainly a man to be watched - but not from the back.

Major Barbara - National Theatre, Wednesday 27th February 2008

Synopsis:

LadyUndershaft is discussing with her son, Stephen, some permanent source of income for her grown daughters - Sarah, who is engaged to Charles Lomax, and Barbara (a Major in the Salvation Army), who is engaged to Adolphus Cusins. She comes to the conclusion that the only solution to the problem is to take monetary help from her estranged husband, Andrew Undershaft, who has made millions of pounds from his munitions factory. According to tradition, the heir to the Undershaft fortune must be an orphan who can be groomed to run the factory. Undershaft himself had been a poor young man; he improved himself by working hard, and wants to give another young man the same kind of opportunity. Lady Undershaft has managed to raise the children by herself. Stephen, Sarah, and Barbara are reintroduced to their father.

A deal is made between Barbara and Undershaft to visit each other's place of work. He meets Barbara at her shelter the following morning, and is impressed with her abilities as she handles various people with patience, firmness, and sincerity. Undershaft decides that if anyone in his family is capable of managing his business, it is his idealistic and committed daughter.

Undershaft brings Barbara back to reality by revealing the darker side of The Salvation Army when he gives a sizable donation, which she wants to refuse because the source was weaponry; however, it is eagerly accepted by the officer in charge of the shelter. Disillusioned, Major Barbara leaves the shelter in tears. She visits the factory with her fiancé, Adolphus Cusins, also a member of The Salvation Army and a
professor of Greek, who joined The Salvation Army only because he was in love with Barbara. He is soon made the heir and head of the Undershaft Munitions Foundry, because he is - technically - a foundling; his father having married his dead wife's sister (which is not recognised legally as a marriage).

Barbara intends to resign from the Salvation Army having seen what she views as their hypocrisy but changes her mind and tells Cusins that she will die a salvationist After she marries him, she plans for them to live in the countryside near the munitions factory, where she will continue her work and bring her message of salvation to the factory workers instead of just to people who are poor and starving.

Simon Russell Beale, Simon Russell Beale..... all I ever see these days at the theatre is Simon Russell Bloody Beale...

By Gum, Shaw was a provocative little bugger, canny old Socialist that he was. This play is basically on the theme that "good things can come from Capitalism" and that "tainted money is as good as pure when you really need it" and, surprisingly, having seen this play, I find myself in agreement with him - especially after thinking it would end with Barbara's complete disillusionment with her beloved cause and her beloved fiance, only to find that it actually ends with her realisation that she can use both fiance and the "dirty money" in pursuance of her own ideals.

This was a reasonably "trad" production, with the Undershaft family home nicely contrasting with the run-down grubbiness of the Salvation Army centre. There was, however, to my mind just that little bit too much Edwardian clutter on stage in the first scene, and some of the plants were very badly placed, almost crowding out the Grandfather clock. The centre, conversely, was extremely grim, although the many hanging lampshades did look rather too modern for the period. Perhaps the National were reusing some of them from the awful "Women of Troy" from last year. The Munitions Factory was stark and sleek, although I wasnt really that keen on the rows and rows and rows of bombs everywhere, all being polished by silent, careworn factory workers - their presence really rather distracted from the main action.

There is just that little bit too much of coincidence towards the end to make a really satisfactory conclusion to the story - the realisation that Cusins is technically an orphan and therefore able to inherit the factory from Undershaft is just that little bit too neat. And, while I think about it, being a child of parents whose marriage is not recognised by law does not make you an orphan, it makes you a bastard. I can't quite remember if Cusins reports that his parents are actually dead - perhaps he's an orphaned bastard? Anyway, it does still rather smack of Shaw having written himself into a slightly tight corner and using coincidence to get out of it, and its soooooo obvious at one point that this is how the plot is going to be unravelled that even I spotted it coming a long while off. The end, where Barbara decides to take her message to well fed, happy well-housed and employed factory workers rather than to the underclasses of society struggling to make ends meet (and who are therefore presumably considerably more in need of the few comforts that religon and a hot meal can bring) leaves a slightly bitter taste which seems to debase Shaw's socialist tenets.

Performances were, on the whole, very good and assured (though this was only a preview performance) - even from the despised Mr. Russell Beale, who seems to have managed to reign in his propensity to spit all over people whilst speaking. There was considerably less of the slightly hysterical flapping about that he is prone to as well. Hayley Attwell made a fine Barbara, although seemed somehow more convincing in her uniform than her civvies. "Clothes makest man" says the Bible (or was it Shakespeare?) and she was all blood and fire in the former, and rather like a damp marshmallow in the latter. It must be a difficult part to play. Him Indoors raved about Clare Higgins (Lady Undershaft) but I personally found a lot of her dialogue very difficult to hear unless she was actually facing in my direction, as opposed to SRB who could probably have been heard in the wings, the flies and the street outside. Jessica Gunning was strangely cast as Sarah Undershaft, looking rather like one of her father's airships(bustles and ruffles do not sit well on the short and, let us be frank, dumpy). In fact, because of this, it was a) hard to see her as part of the family, who were for the most part tall and elegantly spare and b) even harder to see why Tom Anderson's Charles Lomax was so desperately in love with her. Lomax is a standard "Silly Upper Class Ass" part and Anderson did all that was necessary for the role rather than all that was possible.

Of the smaller roles, Maggie McCarthy was a wonderful Mrs. Baines - all doughy faced but fervant and muscular Christianity, and Ian Burfield was delectably rough and ready as Bill Walker.

All in all an interesting, thought provoking production, raising all sorts of questions about sponsorship and donations, both to the Salvation Army and to "the arts" themselves. The place was packed out even though this was a preview showing, as CBB said at one point, that there is obviously a very large audience for "classic" plays which endure in their relevance and appeal over emphemerally fashionable "here today and gone tomorrow" new works. After a good evening out like this, I am inclined to agree.