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Mules

Mules

Winsome Pinnock’s powerful play about drug trafficking (premiered at The Royal Court Upstairs in 1996) hasn’t dated at all. Its issues are still alarmingly pertinent and, of course, it’s good to see an all female play, featuring lots of actors of colour, with meaty parts for eight women, several of whom do some neat doubling.

Bridie (Trudi Dane) is running an international drug trafficking business. She’s glamorous, beautifully dressed and charismatically convincing so, of course, young women fall into her hands whether they’re fed up in Jamaica, lost in London or anywhere else. Dane brings an interesting combination of cheerful ruthlessness and, at base, vulnerability to the role. I had, however, difficulty hearing some of her lines at the beginning.

There is some intelligent acting in this production – skilfully exploited by director, Lande Belo. Tyan Jones stands out as the ebullient Lou, full of joie de vivre and carefully delivered Jamaican accent. But she wants more and a trip to London might just provide it although her sister Lyla (Oyinka Yusuff – good) takes a bit of persuading.

I also liked Vanessa Tedi Wilson’s Allie, the young shop assistant who has run away from her home in the West Midlands (judging by her accent) because, we eventually learn, she feels let down by her mother and the latter’s abusive boyfriend. She has a little money and no street wisdom. The rather predictable scene in which she is mugged/drugged and robbed in the park put me in mind of the cat and the fox in Pinocchio. Tedi Wilson seems wooden in her opening scenes (first night nerves?) but eventually brings real depth to the role as she begins to work for Bridie and then, when she has to, finds ways of working though the inevitable consequences.

This play made me think about a lot of things which are outside my everyday experience. There are some very smooth, predatory operators out there ready to take on the vulnerable and delude them into feeling secure and cared for – the Fagin type. And it’s even more chilling, somehow when it’s women exploiting women. Moreover, there are practical issues: I had never stopped to think how desperately uncomfortable it must be to carry a packet inside your body. “You just need more lubricant” purrs Trudi Gane’s character at one point. Ughh. Never let it me said that theatre doesn’t educate you.

Private Lives

Private Lives

Private Lives by Noel Coward, set in the 1930s. It revolves around the relationship and history of a divorced couple who go on honeymoon with their recently new partners and realise they are staying in the same hotel as each other. Even though the divorcees were previously not compatible they have an insatiable desire to rekindle the romance and decide they will take the risk at all costs.

Entering the elegant Abbey Theatre in St Albans, I feel welcomed. It is a permanent performance space for Company of Ten, a well-established group, originally formed in 1934.
The stage is on view as we take our seats and I’m in awe of the set. The design, construction and painting team, Lesley Ivinson, John McClenahan, Angela Stone and team’s have created the perfect environment for this tale to be told. Each detail is taken into careful consideration, creating beautiful surroundings.

Wardrobe, Lesley Ivinson, Laurie Ling and Anne Walkington have clearly put in a great deal of effort on the costumes. Every piece is ideal and accurate of the time period, I have an aesthetic appreciation for every outfit.

The script is witty and sophisticated. It seems to be making fun at marriage as a whole at times. We are witness to three relationships and all have faults and uncanny similarities. The constant back-and-forth between the two couple’s works well and creates a quick paced plot. This also allows the characters to be established almost instantaneously.

In places during the performance I feel myself urging things to move on, it seems slow or drawn out somewhat. A scene change in complete darkness for quite a long time, the entrances and exits could possibly be slightly smoother as well. Some dialogue has more pausing than necessary. However this doesn’t take away the fact that this is a thoroughly entertaining performance.

With a cast of only five and a script so bold there is no place to hide for the actor’s. Each role is performed confidently and to a good standard. Elyot Chase – Mark Waghorn has an abundance of stage presence and his comic timing is spot on, especially with the vast amount of comedy being dry humour. The chemistry between the cast is natural and should be as I believe the two leads are married in real life. This allows for a very realness to flow through the relationship being portrayed. An enjoyable play with more than a few laughs to be heard.

Our House

Our House

Our House is strange beast. It’s full of good tunes and ska vibrance but, as a jukebox musical the plot is weak – despite the valiant efforts of writer, Tim Firth. And in this production the complicated, rather clumsy double narrative plot is far from clear. It doesn’t help that – obviously in a youth company – there’s no range of ages to distinguish character.  And the setting is odd. It’s meant to be around 1980 and yet characters are using mobiles. I’ve seen other versions of this show with stronger story telling.

There is, however a lot to admire here. Toby Owers shines brightly as Joe Casey, the young man who takes his girlfriend trespassing on a first date and knows that unless he’s to go the same way as his dad (Rodger Lloyd) who went to prison and who haunts his son onstage, he has to make choices. For the rest of the show we see two alternating versions of what  Bad Joe and Good Joe might have gone on to do.

Also outstanding is Alfie Peckham as the enticing Reecey who is definitely bad news for Joe. And there’s lovely work from Daisy Bates as Joe’s girl friend. She has lithe stage presence and she sings with clarity and beauty.

There were occasional problems with the sound mixing in the performance I saw. Sometimes the balance was wrong and the dialogue got lost. I was pleased, though, to see the seven-piece band clearly visible on a narrow upstage additional platform with some of the action taking place on this level too, accessed from the stage by a ladder.

So far this is three-star show. It gets its extra star for two reasons.

First, I know that every single young person in this production was working flat out with the sort of infectious enthusiasm that you rarely see on a professional stage. That’s wonderfully uplifting. They achieve a high standard.

Second, and most important of all, Chris Cuming’s direction and choreography is the real star of this show. He knows exactly how to get the very best possible work out of his big ensemble and the end product – as they twist, lean, jump, point, somersault and much more – in time and at high speed is a masterclass in how it should be done.

  • : admin
  • : 30/10/2021
12 Incompetent Jurors

12 Incompetent Jurors

Ian McWethy’s 2010 New York-set play, updated and relocated to south London, is a perfect piece for a community company returning to the stage after two arid years. It features 13 actors (a full jury and, briefly a judge) so there’s plenty of scope for lots of people and because they’re confined to a jury room you can do it in a pretty small space which is what the “hall end” of the rebuilt St George’s church, Forest Hill provides. It’s also very funny – and that’s what we all need at the moment.

A man called Donald Pleats is alleged to have stolen some cats and, indeed, has confessed to the crime. The jury’s job is to decide whether or not there is proof that he is guilty. And a great deal of hilariously spurious discussion follows as various jurors try to demonstrate that black is white and that if you’re persuasive enough you can convince anybody of anything. It’s a light hearted satire on group dynamics.

The characterisation is splendid – and very well sustained under Ben Sutherland’s skilled direction.  Justin Atherton, for example, is terrific as a slimy creep with a whining voice who never stops eating chips in a very repugnant way. And there’s a lovely performance from Mark Harrington as an aggressive National Front type who punctuates every conversation with angry, shouted bits of outrageous bigotry. In real life you’d run a mile to avoid this character. On stage we just laugh at him – a lot. He is worried, for example about terrorist organisations such as IRA, Al Queda and the National Trust.

Nick Bartlett is strong as the ever reasonable young foreman trying persistently to get a verdict and keep the peace and I enjoyed Megan O’Callaghan as the slightly more ambiguous character who simply wants to turn opinion for reasons of her own. Actually all twelve of them are very competent and they play off each other well in twos and threes.

Another thing I admired about both the play and the production is that the diversity is built in – a jury is, by definition, a disparate group and this is South London so you can have local actors from different backgrounds using their native accents which adds to the richness.

The play runs almost 90 minutes and is divided (presumably by the original playwright) into three acts which is pretty pointless. There is no point in drawing the curtains – and in this instance it really is curtains – for a few seconds and then returning to exactly the same moment in the drama. I think this play would work even better if done “straight through”.

This was the first St George’s Players production I’ve seen – somehow I missed the company before the pandemic although I’d heard of it and it’s local to me.  Quite a discovery and I’m eagerly looking forward to the next invitation.

Working

Working

All photos by Stephen Russell


Based on People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel, this 1978 musical by Stephen Schwartz is in effect a collage of monologues that look at the people behind everyday jobs, their hopes and aspirations not only for themselves, but also for their children.  A flop on Broadway it has undergone various transitions, some songs having been abandoned as being too dated and others added, including two songs by the ever-popular Lin-Manuel Miranda.  One of which A Very Good Day, where a carer and a nanny describe their day looking after the elderly and the young, both abandoned by their families, is probably the most hauntingly beautiful song of the show.

We see various themes repeated through the songs and words of the characters: the desire for respect; finding self-esteem despite the humdrum nature of your work; taking pride in the tedious tasks of ordinary life.  Terkel described it as ‘The extraordinary dreams of ordinary people’.

Sedos as ever have gathered a cast of fantastic talent. Georgia Blessitt is dynamic and punchy in her various roles, bringing a power to the stage that is electrifying.  Sanchez Collingwood-Simpson and Olga-Marie Pratt in the aforementioned A Very Good Day, Jack Brown in Fathers and Sons and Sam Sugarman in The Mason bring a sensitivity to the ballads. These numbers highlight the skill of Tess Robinson’s choreography, where she balances stillness and simplicity alongside some of the higher octane, fast-paced numbers such as Delivery, also by Lin-Manuel Miranda and It’s an Art.  Occasionally in some of these faster pieces the choreography needs to be tighter – particularly the rather simplistic moving around in circles, which feels a little repetitive and the occasional bunching together where those further back end up being masked. However, generally the dance routines fill the stage, the set pieces in factories are suitably robotic and the ballads allow the soloists their moment without distraction.

The versatile use of steps, doorways, chairs and workhorses quickly allow for scenes to move from offices to trucks, restaurants to factories.  The floor, a series of rubber mats divided by LED lighting strips proves extremely effective as we shift from one character to another, and help to create a sense of isolation, a busy road, a bustling restaurant.

The very nature of the piece does not allow for character development, and it is a great credit to the cast that with the help of some simple costume changes we slip seamlessly from one personality to another.  Aprons and waistcoats, jumpers and hats help to move the characters along and keep the audience engaged. Occasional fumbles with costumes, some lighting hiccups at the outset and the rather disconcerting sound of a truck bearing a steel frame doorway being bumped over the raised edges of the floor are slight distractions, but overall the production is pacy and entertaining.  Beautifully directed by Jacob Hajjar this is another great performance from Sedos.

  • : admin
  • : 26/10/2021
Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors

There is Something Nasty in the Florist Shop

How nice it is to see an audience enjoying being in the theatre again, abandoning themselves totally to Little Shop of Horrors performed by Leigh Operatic (LODS) at the Palace Theatre, Southend.

The rock musical, which is a gothic horror, comedy, based on a 1960 Roger Corman B-movie, is about a humble flower shop assistant who unknowingly cultivates a homicidal plant. It has been performed in the West End and locally in Southend several times since its conception off Broadway in 1982.  However, although I’m a musical theatre fan, I’ve never seen it before.  I suppose the thought of a flesh eating plant, seems a strange thing for a musical, even if it is written by the great composing team, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  As a result I was unsure what I was about to see, but I was most impressed.

The cast consisting of mainly young singers attacked their parts with a lot of verve, and energy. The show beginning with a Doo Wop trio named Crystal (Gemma Lloyd) Chiffon (Rebecca Wallace) and even a Ronnie (Declan Wright) all names relating to sixties pop groups with a touch of the Shangri Las.  They narrate the tale in song, with lots of be bopping and shoop shooping that keeps the story rolling along.

Nerdy Seymour, is played brilliantly by James Cohen, as the florist who accidentally cultivates the plant that feeds on human blood and flesh.  Although, this sounds gruesome, it provides a chance for a great, rock bluesy number when the plant , now called Audrey II after the young lady that Seymour loves, sings Feed Me (Git It).  The voice owned by Tilly Tait, who is never seen, but is hidden by a huge plant monstrosity with a gaping mouth, blasts out the song.

Also, dominating the stage is Reanne Nash as Seymour’s love interest, Audrey, who struts her stuff around.  She has a remarkable voice that can be strident as well as tender in her scenes with the adoring Seymour.  Meanwhile, she is in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist called Orin (Tom Johnson) who hams it up for all he’s worth like a demented Meatloaf.

I particularly enjoyed the pastiche numbers,  Mushnik & Son – a touch of Fiddler on the Roof here, by Peter Brown, and the patter song Now It’s Just the Gas by James Cohen and Tom Johnson.

All the music is in the style of early 1960s with many cultural references and plays on words e.g., Leader of the Plaque by the dentist.  The show includes several well-known tunes, including the title song, Skid Row (Downtown) Somewhere That’s Green, and Suddenly, Seymour.

As the plant grows, it spreads out tentacles, and branches.  The use of girls in green and purple to indicate this was very effective, although they could have moved more sinuously around the stage, to indicate the growing tendrils.

Although the musical is comedy horror and the story far-fetched, it also has tenderness and a reality about it. Its characters enter into abusive relationships because they’ve never experienced any other kind. Audrey believes that she doesn’t deserve to be loved.  By the time they find each other, Seymour has become a reluctant psychopath, chopping up bodies to feed his plant, and Audrey can’t imagine herself as anything other than a victim.

Local musicians, conductor Clare Penfold, Rachael Plunket, Ashton Moore and others, ably support the musical directed by Sallie Warrington.

The musical’s ending, which veers from comedy to tragedy doesn’t really work, but that is a fault of the writing. Everyone ends up eaten by Audrey II who aims for world domination. However, it is great fun and the singing is of a high professional standard. The audience loves every minute, cheering, and clapping with the songs. There was even a standing ovation from the packed house.

Let’s hope that the theatres are now back in business, and LODS continues the rest of the week as it began, with a successful, barnstorming show.

TAKETEN

TAKETEN

Image: Steve Clark in ‘Waiting For A Fare’. Photo: Malcolm Brown


BY DOM BRENNAN

TakeTen, Chesil Theatre’s New Playwriting Festival, finally came to the stage earlier this month and has been voted an all-round success. Winning writers with judges, directors and cast were all able to meet at performances of the sell-out shows over one weekend. Popular novelist Dom Brennan was also in the audience and writes:

“While amateur theatre may at times have an image problem, if the recent TakeTen playwriting festival organised by Winchester’s Chesil Theatre is anything to go by, it really shouldn’t have.

“Certainly, Sir Ian McKellen seems to agree, perhaps as he along with so many other well-known actors, from Michael Gambon and Sir Anthony Hopkins to Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley, all came up through the amateur theatre route.

“The Chesil’s 2014 festival of 10-minute plays drew from him this comment: ‘…the whole enterprise was startlingly good and an example of what a theatre company like the Chesil can do better than a professional one.’  And the launch of the latest festival in 2020 received similar backing from Sir Kenneth Branagh, praising its commitment to unlocking creativity and the imagination.

“These biennial events have been running since 2008 and the latest competition received over 400 entries from across the UK, submitted for judging by professionals in the dramatic arts.

“This year’s theme of The Road Not Taken might have been a hostage to fortune; possibly inviting the odd car crash of a play or ones going nowhere in particular. But scripts selected from some already prize-winning, albeit relatively unknown, writers have not surprisingly revealed some tiny gems.

“But if the brief was to stimulate creativity and imagination and develop an engaging theme inside of ten minutes how well was it met?

“Rather well, as it happens. The humorous pieces gave us a modern riff on Macbeth’s three witches unwilling to predict the outcome of an uncertain Romeo’s romantic choice in A Desert Place, the absurdist comedy of an unshakeably confident traveller convincing an initially sceptical passer-by that his non-existent bus must inevitably arrive (Along any Minute), a reworking of The Emperor’s New Clothes, about pointless systems upgrades, nicely couched in the twaddle that is modern business jargon (The Belgians), plus a satire on the perils of traversing a newly revolutionary, and newly bureaucratic European state (Pufferfish over the Carpathians), which had uncomfortable portents of our current freight delivery situation.

“In a darker vein there were moving pieces on dealing with guilt and grief via imaginary conversations with a dead parent (A Grande Day Out), sisters revealing the bitter legacy of their recently deceased brother (Careful), and a soldier’s life paused by the priming of a land-mine (Tremble). Somewhere between the two extremes we had the evolution of an unpredictably intertwined friendship (All Our Lives) and an echoing, atmospheric piece set in a tunnel (Tunnel).

“However, the standout was surely Steve Clark’s searingly convincing portrayal of a macho taxi driver coming to terms with the dawning realisation of his homosexuality, via a soliloquy of sustained virtuosity (Waiting for a Fare). He did the taut script by John-Paul Jones full credit and his ability to inhabit his character may well have convinced some audience members to seek to book him for a cab-ride home.

“As with England’s exhilarating performance this summer in the rescheduled 2020 Euros, this Covid-delayed production from the Chesil, which has been presenting around half a dozen classic and modern plays annually since being based in Chesil Street in 1966, proved well worth the wait.

“Despite the different approaches of each writer there was an impressively coherent feel to the whole endeavour, with the cast and production team amateur in name only. In fact, I’d say the only difference between this amateur production and a professional alternative was that in the latter the performers normally get paid.”


Dom Brennan was born in Essex, studied at King Edward VI Grammar School and Nottingham University before taking up a career in IT based in London. In 1993 he moved to Winchester and had a number of published works. These include The Black Diamond Stamp Club, set in the 1960s and following the meetings of a schoolboy stamp club in Essex and Out Of Anglia, a children’s story featuring an ostrich farm in Norfolk. There followed an initial series of “Art Detective” comedy novels featuring Inspector Ernest Montcrieff of the Serious Freud Office – including The Trembling Trilby and The Return of the Trilby. All are available as Kindle ebooks from Amazon.


TakeTen winners:

A Desert Place Rosemary Evans London
A Grande Day Out Ian Fraser Winchester
All Our Lives, Christina Pye Winchester
Along Any Minute William Patterson London
Careful Karla Ptacek London
Pufferfish Over the Carpathians Neil Walden Gloucester
The Belgians Ross Bateson London
Tremble Rob Johnston Manchester
Tunnel Cate Sweeney Cardiff
Waiting For a Fare John-Paul Jones Poole

judges for TakeTen:

  • Kate Spencer, stage and television actor, currently playing Grace Vickers in Coronation Street.
  • George Richmond-Scott, West End director and voice coach, presently teaching at ALRA and RADA Business.
  • Rosanne Collinson, Head of Drama, Peter Symonds College, Winchester
  • Simon Plumridge, core member of Winchester’s professional touring company Platform 4
  • Cecily O’Neill, author, Artistic Director of 2Time Theatre and a previous judge for Chesil Theatre writing festivals.

Chesil Theatre (Winchester Dramatic Society) is based in the heart of Winchester, presenting six main productions a year, ranging from comedy to classics. Chesil Theatre also runs drama workshops and readings, plus two lively youth theatre groups as well as offering stagecraft and technical training. The Company has been performing for over 150 years.

Since 1966 Chesil Theatre has been the Society’s permanent home – a former 12th century church in Chesil Street, Winchester. This medieval building provides an intimate 75-seat studio-style theatre and versatile performance space.

The Revlon Girl

The Revlon Girl

A Fitting Tribute

This play is set 8 months after the Aberfan mining disaster in which 144 people died in just a handful of minutes.  A massive mound of coal waste collapsed onto the small Welsh village below including the school in which 109 children and 5 teachers died. From the word go, we knew this was not going to be a joyful evening.

The Revlon girl is a representative of the cosmetics company booked to give un-uplifting talk to a group of bereaved mothers.  The play delves into the stories of four of the women of the village, three of them mothers and the fourth the woman who set up the demonstration.

Well – it wasn’t joyful for sure, but that is not to say there were no laughs.  It is a testament to the skills of the author, the director and the actors that the audience was successfully turned from laughs to tears in a moment on more than one occasion.

The play starts with the sound of the disaster booming through the theatre – followed by silence and blackness.  As the lights fade up, we have moved forward eight months as Sian is preparing the room for a meeting.  There are no distractions in this production.  A simple black set with a white door frame is all we get – and all we need.  Eight folding wooden chairs and one table completes the setting.  No music, no lighting changes, no shock tactics, not even an interval to break the mood.  Just the women having the opportunity to tell their story.

Essentially, it is a series of linked monologues as each women tells her story to the increasing discomfort of the (unnamed) Revlon Girl.  Although ideally the mothers were a little too “mature”, the play was exceptionally well cast, not a weak link at all, and every member of the cast was totally convincing in her role.  The accents (Welsh and Bristol) were just enough to remind us of the setting and the tensions between the characters was convincingly portrayed.  There were two or three genuine moments where tears welled up as the fate of those children were described and the anger when it was revealed how warnings were ignored.  It is, of course, a true story and the names of all the victims were printed in the programme bringing home the reality and scale of this disaster.

Very unusually, the cast took their curtain calls before the end of the performance.  At a suitably dramatic conclusion, lights went to blackout and came up again as the cast lined up and took their well-deserved applause.  And then, with a return to the humour we had at the start of the play, they, in character, cleared the stage giving us a laugh to finish that we really needed.

Well done, Bob Hope Theatre – a theatrical experience that won’t be quickly forgotten.

  • : admin
  • : 08/10/2021
Calendar Girls: The Musical

Calendar Girls: The Musical

All Photos: Anita Adams


Nestled in the beautiful and idyllic dales of North Yorkshire, Grassington Players have, at last, performed the amateur premiere of the final adaptation of one of the most extra-ordinary stories of modern times. That story is, of course of the ‘Calendar Girls’, and it tells how a group of women from Rylstone and District Women’s Institute made history when they posed (tastefully) naked in a W.I. ‘alternative’ calendar for the year 2000.

The original financial goal of £5,000 is, today, fast-approaching a whopping £6million and has been raised in memory of John Baker, an ex-member of Grassington Players who died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (or blood cancer to you and I) back in 1998.

There aren’t many people around the world who haven’t heard of the Calendar Girls story. Tim Firth wrote the original screenplay for a 2003 film starring the likes of Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. Then Firth adapted his own script for the stage, which opened in the West End in 2009. Perfect for celebrities to star as the let’s-get-naked W.I. members, the play enjoyed several runs and tours until, in 2012, when Grassington Players performed the amateur premiere of the play.

Apparently, the original ‘Miss January’, Beryl Bamforth, was also a member of the amateur theatre group so it was extremely fitting that the amateur premiere should be produced so close to the story’s spiritual ‘home’. Over the following eighteen months – in the name of charity – the amateur floodgates opened with almost 700 record-breaking productions were staged around the country. Even Tim Firth’s own mother reportedly appeared in one such production.

But the story didn’t stop there. About six or seven years ago, teenage friends, Tim Firth and Take That singer Gary Barlow, collaborated to adapt the stage play once more – this time into a musical. With one eye on performing such a show in a typical village hall – backed by a tiny band if necessary – the pair tried out their new show out in Grassington’s neighbouring Burnsall Village Hall before opening again in the West End with a star-studded cast.

Once more Samuel French (now part of the mighty Concord Theatricals) has allowed Grassington Players to produced the amateur premiere, this time of the musical, but then of course Covid got in the way. It should have happened early last year but everything was closed. So, in the true amateur theatre spirit of ‘the show must go on’, here we are. A handful of original 2012 cast members are reprising their roles which even includes Beryl Bamforth’s son, Mark, who after playing John in 2012 returns, this time, as florist Rod Harper, husband of Chris, plus Jane Ellison-Bates who returns to the role of Annie (Angela in real life, or Julie Walters on the big screen).

But you all probably know this story inside-out don’t you?… so I’ll get on with reviewing this show.

As I watched the premiere last night, alongside a group of the real Calendar Girls (including Beryl), I was struck by the importance of the occasion. Here, performing this musical, is a non-musical company. And if they can do it, so can any of the original societies who performed the play ten years ago. Tim Firth has written plenty of brilliantly dramatic and funny dialogue which is unusual for a musical, but Firth is an exceptional writer. I loved Rod’s line – delivered by Mark Bamforth – which arguably got the biggest laugh of the night. Rod is talking to his wife, Chris, about their son and, as he remembers their younger days he says that he remembered her telling him “You can’t get pregnant after a curry!” Ridiculous and brilliant all at once.

As the six all-important calendar girls, Firth’s leading pair of Chris (Penny Hart-Woods) and Annie (Jane Ellison-Bates) have developed some highly believable onstage chemistry. In fact all six girls plus the head of their W.I. group, Marie (Andrea Clay) have found their own characters brilliantly and all have that distinct individuality which is so important. They can even sing … without being professional singers which is even more perfect. These SHOULD be ordinary women… meeting up each week for plum jam, Victoria sponges, talks on broccoli, or whatever…

The only thing I ought to mention is that Ruth (played by the super-slim Rachel Warren) is supposed to be a big girl who is evidently self-conscious about her appearance. She even compares herself to the song in The Sound of Music ‘I am 16, going on 17…’ saying that with her it is ‘size’ 16, going on ‘size’ 17. In my humble opinion the line should either be changed or dropped because it just isn’t true.

Elsewhere, the cast give strong accounts all round, including school-age ‘newcomers’ played by Jack Fitzsimmons, Lottie Cuerden and Theo Francis. Director Anita Adams – who, herself, needed to take over from the previous director during lockdown – has done a fine job, as has her MD Michael Gilroy who is in charge of the six-piece band (including Gilroy himself on keyboard/piano).

The songs, courtesy of Barlow & Firth, are suitably catchy with the signature song, Yorkshire, probably being the one that most of the audience members will remember – Cora’s rousing Who Wants a Silent Night is also a real foot-tapper. Then again Kilimanjaro and Scarborough are also powerful numbers but for different reasons and delivered in a much more intimate way by Annie.

The musical needed to present another angle to the story and, to that effect, that’s exactly what Firth and Barlow have delivered. Instead of the highly anticipated nude photo scene happening at the end of the first act, to let us follow what happens to the girls afterwards, it doesn’t come along until the end of the whole play. The interim is spent with the family members and getting their reactions to the news that their wife or mother (both in some cases) is about to strip off for a photoshoot. We never usually think about how plotlines affect those people on the periphery… until now.

All we need to do now is watch and see who takes on the show… the same dramatic societies that tackled it ten years ago or the big musical groups. I know who my money’s on!

Peter Pan

Peter Pan

With the industry still a world away from being ‘back to normal’ I am absolutely thrilled to be visiting Alban Arena, to watch an OVO production, a musical version of J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan. OVO is an award-winning St Albans based theatre company. Established in 2002, it has produced more than eighty shows over the past eighteen years. With this amount of experience and with them having a reputation for producing inspiring theatre my expectations are high and I’m not disappointed. As the lights dim and the action on stage begins we are invited into the magical imagination of J.M. Barrie, I’m pleased to discover this particular production, directed by Adam Nichols, is very in keeping with the traditional story.

The set is designed for practicality, to be able to move and change easily and also the same pieces to be used for multiple purposes. Everything feels organic, natural colours, simplistic designs and shapes. The music and sounds are being provided by musicians at the side of the stage in a subtle style. Each element working together creating a very wholesome undertone.

In places it slows down for too long, I understand the reasons, changing the scene or using contemporary dance to express fight scenes in slow motion, but it happens a few too many times and loses the flow and pace of the story. By doing this it also lacks the grit you would expect or desire from the pirates and fight scenes in general.

Over the years I have seen many versions of this story and therefore many Peters and I can confidently say Felipe Pacheco gives the best version I’ve witnessed. He has the right balance of the many personality traits the character entails, his energy and animation is exemplary, I actually believe he is truly Peter Pan and not an actor at all.

Flora Squires – Wendy Darling, is quite obviously a talented actor but the highlight of the show for me is when she sings. Her vocal abilities seem effortless and I could listen to her sing all evening. She provides warmth and heart to the production, the love between Wendy and Peter is portrayed quite deeply and focussed on in such a way that I have a new understanding of the complex relationship.

Having a narrator on stage throughout and fully emerged in the scenes works extremely well. Anna Franklin – Narrator, truly commands the audience to pay attention without ever being out of place in a scene, her vocal performance is also a pleasure to the ears.

Jo Servi – Gentleman Starkey is a smaller role but stands out to me, he doesn’t break character for a single minute and his vocals fill the arena even if from the side of the stage.

The cast join in musical moments by playing instruments themselves whilst scenes are changing, a bit like a merry folk band, it’s enjoyable, show cases the clearly talented cast and again brings a natural, authentic feel to the performance.

It’s definitely Peter Pan but not how it’s usually told in a conventional way, which I enjoy very much. If I were to describe it I would say it’s a grown up version, the focus is on the relationships and feelings of the characters much more than the silliness or magic of neverland. I see the characters in a new light which is fascinating but I realise it’s quite serious and heart wrenching rather than young and humorous, not a negative though by any means, just a new way of experiencing this story for myself.

  • : admin
  • : 12/12/2020
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