(reviewed at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich on 29 November)
Trust Peter Rowe and the New Wolsey Theatre to come up with a variation on the traditional pantomime. Sinbad is a story which has somehow slipped from the 21st century repertoire, though it was popular in the 19th. Here Rowe has given it his theatre's regular rock'n'roll treatment – with some unusual twists.
As one expects nowadays, the heroine is no languishing miss; Pricess Pearl (Daniella Piper) knows exactly what (and who) she wants – and that certainly doesn't include her father the Caliph (Daniel Carter Hope)'s selection of wealthy magician Sinistro (Dan de Cruz) as her husband. Her put-upon handmaiden Jade (Lucy Wells) is also a lass with a mind of her own.
The trouble for both girls is that sailors are slippery creatures, none more so than Sinbad himself (Steve Rushton) and his bosun (Adam Langstaff). Running away to sea might have seemed an easy option on dry land, but once sails are set… Also on board are Sinbad's mother Donna Souvlakia (Graham Hent) – no prizes for guessing just which foodstuffs this raucous Dame purveys!
Particularly interesting is the second comic role – Tinbad the Tailor, an erudite nod by Rowe and the excellent Rob Falconer in the direction of James Joyce. He comes close to stealing the whole show with his sly wooing of think-I-can-do-better Donna. Our story-teller is, of course, Scheherezade (Elizabeth Rowe), an engaging dea ex machina.
All three girls sing well, as does Rushton and (when he is finally allowed to let rip) de Cruz. Darragh O'leary's choreography is of the step, shuffle, turn school, though the eyelash-fluttering dromendary (well, it makes a change from a cow) manages some nifty footwork. Puppets, as New Wolsey audiences now expect, pop up from grave-traps and gaps in the flats; the designer is Barney George.
Sinbad runs at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich until 28 January. Check the website wolseytheatre.co.uk for performance date and time details.
Filed under Pantomimes & other seasonal shows, Reviews 2016
Tagged as Adam Langstaff, Barney George, Dan de Cruz, Daniel Carter-Hope, Daniella Piper, Darragh O'Leary, Elizabeth Rowe, Graham Hent, Ipswich New Wolsey Theatre, Lucy Wells, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, pantomime, Pantos, Peter Rowe, Rob Falconer, Sinbad, Steve Rushton
(reviewed at the Theatre Royal, Norwich on 23 November)
Once you've seen Annilese Maskimmon's production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, specially created for the Glyndebourne Tour 2016, you're likely to find the more usual, traditional stagings lacking. Not that this one is flawless – dropping the main curtain, rather than a gauze, to cover the scene change between the two parts of the second act just doesn't work.
At the end of the "humming chorus", the stage darkens leaving the upright back-turned figures of Cio Cio-San (Karah Son) and her son silhouetted as they wait for dawn and Pinkerton (Matteo Lippi). It's a memorable and heart-breaking image (for we know what will happen next morning) that is completely negated by that curtain. Not to mention that the intermezzo bridging the two scenes is then smothered by excited audience applause followed by chatter.
Son sings with passion and lyrical fluidity; she also acts superbly as the teenager trying so uselessly to make herself into an acceptable American wife. The director and her designer Nicky Shaw have updated the action to the 1950s, and set the first act in Goro (Alun Rhys-Jenkins)'s office where we experience his production line of short-term Japanese brides for US officers in full swing. The little house above Nagasaki is a neat model for display purposes – no more real than all those brisk ceremonies we witness.
Whatever the production, it's hard to muster much sympathy for Pinkerton, though Lippi characterises his immature personality well, epitomised by his toast to his future American wife clashing with his Japanese bride's lyrical arrival, complete with a coterie of relations. There's an excellently sung and acted Sharpless from Francesco Verna and an equally fine portrait of Susuki by Claudia Huckle, pragmatism always warring with sympathetic understanding.
Conductor Gareth Hancock allows the score to breathe, though never to wallow. The arrival of the Bonze (Michael Druiett) and his curse on his apostate neice is a blood-chilling moment, one which hovers in the air throughout the love duet. Seeing the uneasy hybrid which is an ancient culture fitting itself into another, more modern and brash one is the dominant theme of this production. Cio Cio-San's adoption of western dress (she wears a kimino only for her first and last appearances) and Goro's cynical counting the day's takings as the last ecstatic phrases of "Vieni! vieni!" fade into the night underlines the point.
Madama Butterfly is also at the Theatre Royal, Norwich on 26 November.
Filed under Music & music theatre, Opera, Reviews 2016
Tagged as Alun Rhys-Jenkins, Annilese Miskimmon, Claudia Huckle, Francesco Verna, Gareth Hancock, Giacomo Puccini, Glyndebourne Tour 2016, Karah Son, Madama Butterfly, madama butterfly glyndebourne, Matteo Lippi, Michael Druiett, Nicky Shaw, Norwich Theatre Royal, opera, Theatre Royal Norwich
(reviewed at the Theatre Royal Norwich on 22 November)
This production for Glyndebourne's 2016 tour uses the 1788 Vienna version of the score. That means, among other things, that Don Ottavio is shorn of "Il mio tesero" in the second act – a pity on many ways, as Anthony Gregory both sings and acts what is arguably the most frustrating part in the opera impeccably, giving a strong as well as lyrical account of "Dalla suo pace" in the first act.
What we do hear is the duet for Zerlina (Louise Alder) and the trussed-up Leporello (Brandon Cedei) just before the graceyard scene. Alder has a Marilyn Munro air of knowing innocence which serves her better as a Sweeney Todd in the making than it did at her slightly underpowered first entrance. Her Masetto is Bozidar Smiljanic who endows the part with the right aura of buccolic bullheadedness.
Ana Maria Labin's Donna Anna carries off her complex arias superbly, investing them with great musicianship as well as the full force of Anna's mental torment. That is true also of Magdalena Molendowska's Donna Elvira; her own torment runs parallel to Anna's but is subtly differentiated. Revival director Lloyd Wood and designer Paul Brown keep the contrast between the two women clear.
Their one meeting point, of course, is Don giovanni himself. This dras a bravura performance from Duncan Rock – "Finch'han dal vino" in particular fizzes along – but the sheer nastiness of the character's attitude to women, those who cross him and his servant is underpinned by the suggestion of equal pleasure being taken in violence.
When Andrii Goniukov's stentorian Commendatore arrives to exact his just vengeance, it is not just Brown's decontructed set which makes Giovanni lose control. We are throughout in a vaguely pre-and post-Second World War Seville. Costumes, like most of the triangular set, are mainly grey and black; the exceptions are occasional accents of blood-red and the more pastel-clad wedding party.
At the beginning we see a baroque painting of Mary Magdalene, luxuriant tresses, swelling draperies and look of extasy at odds with the skull she clutches. Otherwise there are only tall, dark buildings fronting slightly sinister streets and surmounted by a moon which might have drifted in from a Lorca play or poem. If you are intrigued by how a production such as this is realised, then take yourself to Don Giovanni: Behind the Curtain which explores this in depth, focussing on the Act Two finale.
Don Giovanni can be seen at the Theatre Royal, Norwich on 25 November. Don Giovanni: Behind the Curtain is at the Theatre Royal on 24 November.
Tagged as Ana Maria Labin, Andrii Goniukov, Anthony Gregory, Bozidar Smiljanic, Brandon Cedel, don giovanni, Don Giovanni: Behind the Curtain, Duncan Rock, Glyndbourne Tour 2016, Lloyd Wood, Louise Alder, Magdalena Modendowska, Mozart, Norwich Theatre Royal, Paul Brown, Theatre Royal Norwich
Forget the sanitised 1961 film with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi – this Richard Greenberg stage adaptation sticks far more closely to the nucleus of Truman Capote's novel. It's briskly directed by Nicolai Foster with a clever set by Matthew Wright, whose costumes allow for a number of rapid changes.
Matt Barber as struggling writer Fred, perched in an attic bedsitter carved out of a decaying brownstone mansion, gives a fine performance of a young man finding his feet in the Big City while discovering that actual jobs as well as literary patronage come with a price tag. Holly is Georgia May Foote, hurling through her lines with the same speed as the girl she portrays whisks from one potential (and wealthy) suitor to another. She singings "Moon River" charmingly.
It's a production well endowed with character studies, sketched in with a lightning and blistering pen. Robert Calvert's Doc, who comes to New York to retrieve his long-vanished bride, Melanie La Barrie and Katy Allen as a brace of fading poseuses, Andrew Joshi as Yunioshi and Charlie de Melo as Brazialian playboy with presidential aspirations are are excellent.
Put a live animal in any live show – play, musical, opera or ballet – and a British audience can be guaanteed to focus attention on it. Here we have the most laid-back of white longhaired cats, Bob, who takes it all in his stide or, more accurately, eye-commanding meander acoss the stage. He really should have taken a curtain-call.
Breakfast at Tiffany's runs as the Theatre Royal, Norwich until 19 Devember with matinées on 16 and 19 November.
Tagged as Andrew Joshi, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charlie de Melo, Georgia May Foote, Kay Allen, Matt Barber, Matthew Wright, Melanie La Barrie, Nicolai Foster, Norwich Thetre Royal, Richard Greenberg, Robert Calvert, Theatre Royal Norwich, Truman Capote
(reviewed at the Theatre Royal, Norwich on 7 November)
It is not just the rooms which have views in the Simon Reade stage adaptation of EM Forster's novel: the characters all hold views on a variety of social personal and political issues. Some of these change; others are too deeply enbedded.
Young Lucy Honeychurch has the longest psychological journey to make. It is also arguably the most difficult. Lauren Coe makes her at the same time thoroughly plausible and just a touch irritating as she runs rings around most of her elders, their strictures and restrictions – not to mention their expectations.
Another excellent character study is Jeff Rawle as Mr Emerson, the self-made man wih a genuine taste for art who is more at ease with himself than the self-consciously middle-class people with whom he comes into contact. Simon Jones as Mr Beebe and David Killick as the Surrey vicar Eager also make their pompous marks.
For me, the great disappointment was Felicity Kendal as Charlotte Brtlett, Lucy's over-fussy chaperone, so desperately determined to let down neither Lucy, her home-abiding mother (Abigail McKern) nor her own somewhat fragile social placement. Kendal goes all out to win the audience's sympathy and is altogether too soft-spoken.
If Lucy is drawn to the slightly farouche and wild-child George Emerson, to whom Tom Morley gives the right air of unpredictablity, her socially-acceptable choice for mate is the buttoned-up Cecil Vyse; Charlie Anson decorates him with great assurance. Jack Loxton's Freddy Honeychurch is another good portrait.
Director Adrian Noble takes us from springtime Florence to summer in Surrey at a good pace, assisted by Paul Wills' minimally furnished set with projections to emhasise changes in location and time, dominated by flexible shuttered walls. Tim Mitchell's lighting aids the contrast between Mediterranean sun and English dappled shade.
A Room With A View runs as the Theatre Royal, Norwich until 12 November with matinées on 9 and 12 November. It can also be seen at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge between 14 and 19 November.
Tagged as A Room With A View, Abigail McKern, Adrian Noble, Arts Theatre Cambridge, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Charlie Anson, David Killick, EM Forster, Felicity Kendal, Jack Loxton, Jeff Rawle, Lauren Coe, Norwich Theatre Royal, Paul Wills, Simon Jones, Simon Reade, Theatre Royal Norwich, Tim Mitchell, Tom Morley
(reviewed at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich on 1 November)
It's the most popular of all Jane Austen's novels, and this is the second staging to find its way into East Anglia this atumn. Two Bits Classics is a touring company which does just what its title suggests – two actors taking on all the rôles in a dramatisation of a well-established novel.
Joannah Tincy has made the adaptation and also plays most of the women's roles as well as Mr Bingley. She is partnered by Nick Underwood, who also presents a ferociously imperious Lady Catherine, giggle-prone Kitty and gently languishing Jane. Dora Schweitzer's outline set – suggestions of chandelier-lit rooms, skewed fireplace and windows, flower-wreathed pergola – is echoed in the pale grey costumes, where a greatcoat fastened becomes a woman's dress and the side-whisk of a petticoat revals a man's breeches and boots.
Abigail Anderson is a director with the skills to make the nuances of early 19th century society as natural as those of our own times. I remeber with pleasure her productions of Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing and The Merchant of Venice at the Theatre Royal, Bry St Edmunds. This staging builds on that legacy with respect for the text combined with the ability to hold the audience's attention for the better part of three hours.
Her two actors rise to the challenge, with Tincey switching from Elizabeth to ever-complaining Mrs Bennet with a flutter of a handkerchief, to pliable Bingley and his manipulating sister with a flutter of a fan, from man-hunting Lydia twisting and mouthing a lock of hair to no-nonsense Mrs Gardiner by the addition of an elegant stole. Underwood gives us Mr Bennet with his book and pipe, the unctuous Mr Collins with a biretta, practical Mr Gardiner by the addition of a cravat and, of course, proud and prejudiced Mr Darcy.
Pride & Prejudice runs at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich until 2 November with a matinée on 2 November. It can also be seen at thr Marina Theatre, Lowestoft between 3 and 5 November and at the Spa Pavilion, Felixstowe on 11 November.
Tagged as Abigail Anderson, Dora Schweitzer, Felixstowe Spa Pavilion, Ipswich, Ipswich New Wolsey Theatre, Jane Austen, Joannah Tincey, Lowestoft Marina Theatre, Marina Theatre Lowestoft, New Wolsey Theatre, Nick Underwood, Pride & Prejudice, Spa Pavilion Felixstowe, Two Bitt Classics
(reviewed at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch on 31 October)
The autumn season of in-house and shared productions at the Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch ends with a real corker of a show, as its hero Tommy Beresford might have said. It's a co-production with Eleanor Lloyd in association with the Watermill Theatre and is a thoroughly gorgeous piece of stage-craft and ensemble work.
Designer Tom Rogers, choreographer Nancy Kettle, consultant magician John Bulleid, lighting designer Howard Hudson and sound designer Adrienne Quartly must take proper credit. And that's as well as director John Nicholson and writers Sarah Punshon and Johann Hari, who have made a fine piece of Twenties pastiche from Agatha Christie's original 1922 story The Secret Adversary.
Those glitzy Hollywood films of the period between the two world wars with their wisecracking sophisticated heroines and dashing heroes are cleverly referenced in the crisp dialogue as demobbed soldier Tommy (Richard Holt) meets former Army nurse and vicar's daughter Prudence Cowley, known as Tuppence (Naomi Sheldon), and renews their pre-war friendship.
Both are financially broke and not helped by the economic depression which will culminate in the 1926 General Strike. Revolutions in Europe, especially the Bolshevik one in Russia, led to a degree of paranoia in countries otherwise stable through military victory in 1918 – the 19th century perceived threat of anarchists lurking with bombs and fell intents was fast developing into a Reds under the bed syndrome.
This is the background as Tommy and Tuppence find themselves in a spy drama of global importance. What they, their helpers and their opponents say is what most people of this social class would have thought and said at the time – no false anachronisms here. The night-club setting with its ruched curtain which reveals a rather sinister grey-walled structure pierced by more doors than in the average French farce is a delight.
Musical director Inga Davis-Rutter sets the mood at the keyboard with the remaining members of the multi-rôle cast – Rebecca Bainbridge, Isla Carter, Philip Battley, Nigel Lister and Morgan Philpott – joining her to provide the music for the song and dance scenes. Bainbridge and Carter make the most of their contrasted female characters and come close to rivalling Sheldon in the audience's affections.
I won't spoil your pleasure by unmasking the villain before Tuppence and Tommy do; suffice it to say that you can choose between Lister's Sir James, Philpott's Mr Whittington and Battley's Julius – and you'll probably choose wrong. First night applause can be misleading, even artificial, but this was an audience which was enjoying itself and delighted to show its appreciation.
Partners in Crime runs at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch until 19 November with matinées on 3 and 12 November.
Tagged as Adrienne Quartly, Agatha Christie, Eleanor Lloyd, Hornchurch Queen's Theatre, Howard Hudson, Inga Davis-Rutter, Isla Carter, Johann Hari, John Bulleid, John Nicholson, Morgan Philpott, Nancy Kettle, Naomi Sheldon, Newbury Watermill Theatre, Nigel Lister, parners in crime, Partners in Crime, Philip Battley, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, Rebecca Bainbridge, Richard Holt, Sarah Punshon, The Secret Adversary, Tom Rogers, Watermill Theatre Newbury