Theatre Review: Violet

'Kaisa Hammarlund stars in a musical by Jeanine Tesori' is one of the latest entries on my list of phrases that will definitely get me to buy theatre tickets. I mean come on guys, the last time it happened was Fun Home. And that was an absolute triumph for both of these exceptionally talented women.

Whilst Fun Home was something I'd heard of and immediately wanted to see regardless of cast, venue, ticket price or anything else, the newest collaboration between the two is something I'd not heard of at all: the musical Violet.

The plot of Violet - girl with severe facial scarring goes on a cross-USA bus trip to be healed by a TV evangelist, meets a boy and discovers that she never needing healing in the first place - is hardly going to win any awards on its own. The way that it is told in this show, however, elevates it to something really quite lovely, with huge emotional impact and a surprising timeliness. Brian Crawley's book and lyrics are sweet and tender, yes, but they're also never uncomplicated or trite. There's an unflinching honesty to them too, which allows him to capture feelings of being an outsider and being 'ugly'. The pressure of female beauty standards (regardless of any scars you may or may not have) is never far away and Crawley succeeds in both showing how ridiculous they are and how deeply felt they are too, and what the impacts of that can be. Mercifully, he also rings some darkish humour from this line of thought (I loved the line that went something like 'Ingrid Bergman has made a career out of good cheekbones').

Jeanine Tesori's music is a gorgeous hotchpotch of styles of the American south: country, bluegrass, blues, soul and gospel. The score really reflects the literal journey that Violet goes on as well as the idea that the people she meets along the way (love interests Monty and Flick, the latter being black) are introducing newness and change into Violet's life. It's a really clever and successful piece of musical storytelling.

On top of which there are some just absolutely great songs. My favourite is All to Pieces which for me represents the best example of music, lyrics and story coming together as Violet takes Flick and Monty through the individual bits of her body she'd like to change. It's funny at first, but quickly becomes more sinister. Never has the phrase 'love me to pieces' seemed so malignant.

Violet is a co-production between Charing Cross and Japan's Umeda Arts Theatre, directed by Shuntaro Fujita. Fujita has a very clear and confident idea of what this story can be in today's climate and directs with a real sense of care for both the characters and the show. For me, the most impactful artistic decision he takes here is not to show Violet's scar - there is no trick makeup or facial prosthesis to be found on his set. Although it took me a minute to adjust to this, ultimately I felt it gave the story a hundred times the resonance than it would otherwise have had. It plays up and draws out the idea of the ludicrous weight of beauty standards that the book and lyrics also examine. A simple step (and good god I hope it was intentional and not just that someone forgot to put them on the actors in the performance I saw!) but an effective one.

Morgan Large's set - and, I gather, reworking of the performance space in the theatre) is also very effective, bringing the audience in and making great use of a revolve to really show off the cast. Howard Hudson's lighting is great too, with an interestingly frequent and ballsy use of darkness as well as light. It's a good looking thing, this show.

Finally there's the cast, who are excellent to a man, woman and child. I've already mentioned that Kaisa Hammarlund having another go at Jeanine Tesori was the main reason I booked to see this show and she did not disappoint. She's perfectly cast in the titular role: brave, honest, funny and heartbreakingly vulnerable with a voice that owns every note. Easily worth the price of a ticket alone. Jay Marsh, as love interest Flick, is fantastic too. He absolutely nails the cocky swagger of a soldier and the conflict inherent in being a young black man in the American south in the late 1960s, without ever over cooking it. He also has a kickass, achingly soulful voice. In some of the smaller roles, each with a massive solo though, Anjelica Allen and Simbi Akande absolutely shine. These girls can SING. There's morally ambiguous charisma and fun from Kenneth Avery-Clark as the Preacher too (and I love that the show stops short of simplistically making him a villain or anything close to it).

For a show which I didn't know at all and had no expectations of, I was really taken with Violet. It's a sweet but uncompromising show, immaculately performed and cleverly staged, that hits you in all of the feels. It will also make you feel happy, and who  doesn't need that in January?

Violet is at the Charing Cross Theatre until 6th April.

I sat in D10 in the stalls for this show, of which I saw the penultimate preview, and paid £20 via an offer from WhatsOnStage. The seat would normally cost £35.

Theatre Review: 42nd Street

Musicals, it’s fair to say, are often not overburdened with plot.

It’s not unreasonable; after all the clue is in the name and the main point of a musical is its music. That’s why they work so well at dealing with utterly implausible topics - a roller skating musical about trains anyone? - but it can also be what kills them. The balance between using your book just to get you from song to song and actually having some kind of narrative to drive forward is a fine one to strike.

42nd Street - the most quintessential of Broadway, chorine done good, musicals - does not strike that balance. At all. It is, I think, the thinnest writing and the most non-existent characterisation available to a London audience at the moment. The plot, such as it is, exists purely to maneuver awkwardly between musical numbers (which is kind of fine though, a point I'll come back to). It is more or less impossible to explain why any of the characters do anything since there is zero character development. Some of the characters are entirely superfluous.

More of an issue for me is the way this piece treats its female characters. Charitably, you could describe this as sexist. Uncharitably, misogynistic. (Seriously, check out the lyrics to the hateful Young and Beautiful.) That this blatant sexism is played entirely straight, without even the hint of a knowing wink, is kind of gross, frankly. There's also a nasty stream of ageism - both against the old and the young female characters - in the mix too. For all the sequins, it's not a nice show.

However, there are a lot of sequins. Like, LOADS of sequins. And the glorious production of this decidedly inglorious show actually makes it worth seeing. Visually, it's stunning: the costumes, the scenery, the lighting is all beautiful, evocative and spectacular. And, for all that I’ve slagged off the writing, it does contain some absolutely belting songs. You will have the title number in your head for days, be warned. The star of the show, though, is the choreography and the dancing which is quite frankly peerless. Much of it should be physically impossible. You need to be dead inside (figuratively and possibly literally) not to be astounded by the spectacle of this show. Indeed, if spectacle rather than drama is the prism through which you judge it, it's an utter triumph.

In a show that relies so much on its dancing, it's no surprise that the human star here, in terms of performance, is the superhuman chorus. The energy they bring is astonishing in that fantastic, toothy, Broadway way. Leading lady (and, let's be clear, that is what she is despite the fact she doesn't get the last bow in the ovation, something which made me leave the theatre absolutely seething) Clare Halse is sublime. She is a proper, old fashioned triple threat who dances like a dream, sings like a dream and acts most of the cast off the stage (especially Sheena Easton who, fab voice aside, does not do herself any favours in this show). She is a superstar in the making, if there's any justice.

Overall then, this production is triumphant spectacle encasing a mediocre, at best, piece of drama. It is worth seeing on that basis and to see the divine Clare Halse do her stuff.

42nd Street is at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Review: Stephen Ward

"Car crash (noun, informal): a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a ghoulish fascination for observers." 

It's rarely a good sign when you walk into a theatre to be told that you're getting a free upgrade on your seats. It's an even less good sign when you're told that everyone sitting in the same tier of the audience is getting a similar upgrade. Even on a school night in the midst of this Game of Thrones style perma-winter, it's not encouraging that any West End show is leaving a whole tier of seats empty.

So it was, then, that we had excellent seats from which to enjoy Andrew Lloyd Weber's new musical Stephen Ward, the story of the society osteopath who was embroiled in, and ultimately destroyed by, the Profumo Affair in the 1960s. It was Ward who 'discovered' Christine Keeler and introduced her to both Minister for War John Profumo and Russian naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov. The show tells the story of how Ward was (allegedly) scapegoated in the ensuing scandal and ultimately took his own life to avoid the disgrace of being convicted and jailed for, essentially, pimping.

It's an interesting story, based on genuine (if contested) historical incidents, and a characteristically odd choice for a musical from a man whose previous work includes shows about cats and trains. And of course a cracking political musical in Evita.  

It's also the worst musical I have ever seen. 

But here's the thing - and here's why I think you should definitely get tickets to see this show before it closes (presumably quite soon) - it's so bad, so mind bendingly awful, that it makes for a very entertaining night at the theatre. 

It's unintentionally hilarious. 

It is the definition of car crash viewing: you want to stop watching, but you just can't.

Where to start on what's wrong with it? Well it's a musical so let's start with the songs. I suppose the first thing to note is how completely unmemorable they are. With one extraordinarily annoying exception (of which more later) I can't remember even a few bars of any of the music. I know that I reached the very certain conclusion that one of the songs in Act 1 - This Side of the Sky - is the worst song ALW has ever written but I can't now tell you why. 

I can make an educated guess, though, as the major problem with the songs in this show is the lyrics. When a show opens - opens - with the lyric "Stephen Ward your friendly osteopath / I can fix your lower back for you" you know you're in for a long night! And that's probably one of the better lines in this clunker of a show, to be fair.  

Not that the music or lyrics really matter, frankly, because most of the cast of this show can't sing. Harsh as this sounds, it's true. If you like shouting to (or should that be 'at'?) music, then this is the show for you! It's genuinely baffling to me that in a West End musical as high profile as this one that the cast is so poor. The most egregious offender on this front is Charlotte Spencer as Keeler who hit maybe three lines all night that didn't make me want to rip off my own ears and throw them at her. Almost all of the male cast spend most of their night shouting vague approximations of notes over music. I rather suspect that somewhere along the line in rehearsal they've been told to make their performances 'emotional' or 'raw' or something. Well it's not working guys. You sound ridiculous. 

Next on my list the characterisation which, for all but the lead characters, is just god awful. They aren't so much characters as caricatures, especially in Act 2. There's a scene where the nasty Home Secretary, with his Home Secretary voice, is discussing Ward with the nasty Police Commissioner, with his Police Commissioner voice, and the nasty guy from MI5, with his MI5 voice, that was so awful I genuinely don't know whether it was supposed to be a comedy sketch or a serious scene. The nasty policemen who put pressure on Ward's friends to compromise him appeared to be doing bad impressions of Inspector Grim from The Thin Blue Line (remember that? I loved that show!). Then there's the trial scene (with nasty Judge, with his Judge voice, and nasty lawyer, with his lawyer voice) which is so over the top, and so shouty, that I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I don't think this is the intended response to be honest.

The staging is utter pants too. For some reason, Lloyd Weber has returned to projecting backdrops onto a basically empty stage (what sets and props there are look to have been made by school children) which didn't really work in The Woman In White a few years back. Except this time the projections are on moving surfaces - curtains - which means that you can never really see what's being projected. It's a bizarre choice. 

Finally, there's the attempts at being 'edgy'. There's some utterly gratuitous and boring nudity and swearing throughout but special mention has to go to the 'orgy scene'. A lot has been made of this in the press reviews and I was kind of looking forward to finding out what an ALW orgy was going to look and sound like. The answer, to throw in my own gratuitous swear, is fucking terrifying. I don't think I've seen anything less sexy and more awkward in my entire life! There's some people in leather, some dodgy choreography which I think was supposed to look like people having sex (it didn't) and lots of men in baggy white underwear for some reason. It's about as sexy as Mr Blobby porn. (Which I really hope is a thing that doesn't exist.) This is accompanied by the only song from the show I can actually remember, the excruciatingly catchy You've Never Had It So Good. This is a song of subtlety and depth about upper class hedonism in the 1960s as evidenced by its chorus lyric "You've never had it so good / You've never had it so often". You see what they've done there, right? RIGHT? RIGHT?!?!

In the interests of balance, it seems fair to point out that Alexander Hanson's central performance as Stephen Ward is actually quite good. He has a decent voice and captures the character's loucheness and enigmatic charisma well. It's a shame he's not given a really meaty song to get stuck into but he does the best he can with the material available to him. I think it's his quality that ensures the show remains so bad it's good rather than just so bad it's bad. There's also a good performance from Joanna Riding as Valerie Hobson (Profumo's wife) who can actually sing (hurrah!) and gets a decent - if unmemorable and unnecessary in plot terms - solo to prove it. It's a shame she doesn't have a bigger role. And, if the point of this show is to make us question the official accounts of Profumo, then it has piqued my curiosity sufficiently to read up on it at some point. 

Overall, this show is a complete car crash, an utter mess. It's a hot mess though and I really urge you to see it if you want to have a bit of a giggle. Oddly enough you can get some decent deals on tickets...  

Review: Anton du Beke - Ballroom to Broadway

It's that time of year again...

For the sixth year in a row lovely Anton off of Strictly is on the road independent of the official Strictly tour, taking his brand of shtick, fleckles and excellent suits on tour. So what's new?

Well, first things, first he's on his own. Pro partner Erin Boag is, selfishly, pregnant meaning that her role in the tour is limited to some choreography and wardrobe advice (she still gets a whole page in the programme, mind). Instead, lovely Anton is joined by Summer Strallen aka current darling/superstar of the West End aka the one that Andrew Lloyd Weber inserted into a lengthy Hollyoaks storyline to publicise her run in his production of The Sound Of Music.

Is Erin missed? To be blunt, not really. See, the thing about Summer Strallen is she has an incredible voice AND is an incredible dancer. She partners lovely Anton in all of the 'Broadway' numbers in the show and does so faultlessly. She also has a couple of show stealing solo numbers, including belting out All That Jazz whilst hanging upside down in a box split suspended between the shoulders of two male backing dancers. She's magnificent and, to be honest, I'm a bit sad that she won't be on the tour next year when Erin comes back (according for the advert in the programme).

The absence of Erin also makes for a cheekier lovely Anton. As well as his usual line in Strictly anecdotes, verdicts on the other contestants ("Susanna Reid was a bit annoying") and musings on his own attractiveness ("I know, I've got a mirror") we were also treated to jokes about his sexuality, how many menopausal women were in the audience and 'shoe' size.

The quality of the dancing was no lower either. As well as the 'Broadway' routine with Summer, there were also a number of proper ballroom routines with Burn The Floor alumnus (am I the only person in the world that hasn't been in that show?!) Faye Huddlestone. A highlight of her involvement was a mind blowing quickstep with a series of frightening lifts.

Music-wise, the excellent Lance Ellington was back for another year. Criminally underused in the Strictly band, Lance was as cool and accomplished as ever; a cracking version of This Is The Moment was a definite highlight for me. He also got to dance a bit too, and did very well in a trio rendition of (the frankly not very good) Steam Heat from The Pyjama Game.

All in all a great night out, as lovely Anton tours always are. Recommended.

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2013 in review: top 10 theatre

One of the best things about living loser to London now is the opportunity to go to the theatre much more.

 

There's nothing quite like live theatre. The atmosphere, the anticipation that you're going to see something incredible and the emotional connection with the characters and the story just can't be replicated in any other form.

 

I've been incredibly lucky to see some genuinely outstanding shows this year (and also The Cripple of Innishman which was utterly dreadful). Here's my top 10...

1. Macbeth at the Manchester International Festival

Making my introduction to this post ironic, the best show I've seen this year was actually staged in a deconsecrated church in Manchester. Now, if I was making a list of best theatre I've ever seen in my life this show would still be number one. Starring Sir Kenneth Branagh (who also co-directed) and Alex Kingston - I mean I may as well end the review there, what more do you need to know?! - this raw, passionate and violent version of Shakespeare's Scottish Play is just the best thing ever. Staged on a muddy dirt track with the audience seated very close to the action in pews along the sides, the production values were sky high, the acting the best I've ever seen and the staging innovative without being pretentious. Incredible stuff and I can't wait to see the production again in New York next summer.

Top moment - the opening battle scene was exhilarating, violent and expertly staged. And because we were sat in the front row and so close to the action Ken Branagh spat on me which, frankly, was just awesome.

2. The Scottsboro Boys

Read my detailed review of this fantastic musical in my previous post.

3. Book of Mormon

A musical about Mormon missionaries in Africa by the guys who wrote South Park really should be hilarious. And so it proved. Taking aim not just at Mormonism but organised religion in general, casual racism and female genital mutilation (yes, really), Mormon combined hilariously dirty songs with big Broadway dance numbers. A fantastic ensemble cast - headed by a great performance from Gavin Creel - topped it off.

Top moment - very hard to pick, but personally I really enjoyed the two versions of opening song Hello that bookend the show. Hilarious in their own right and even more so if you've ever done any political door knocking.

4. Othello

Another fantastic Shakespeare adaptation - and of my personal favourite of his extensive back catalogue - that National's Othello was excellent. Set in the present day, the production was made by two powerhouse performances from Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear both pitch perfect as Othello and Iago respectively. A fantastic supporting cast and some clever updating of characters - I loved the idiot Roderigo updated to a 'red chinos and loafers without socks' city boy - and clever staging meant this much hyped production was every bit as good as everyone said it was.

Top moment - Iago's 'I am not what I am' soliloquy is probably my favourite bit of Shakespeare and seeing Rory Kinnear deliver it was magical.

5. Privates on Parade

This 'play with songs' was the first production in Michael Grandage's West End season at The Noël Coward theatre and also, for my money, the best. Mostly this is because of the dialled-up-to-eleven performance of Simon Russell Beale as an army drag act. A part that could have descended into awfulness very quickly in the wrong hands, SRB delivered it with warmth, humour and a knowing wink. And his drag was incredible - he has great legs!

Top moment - all of the musical numbers were top notch, I can't pick a favourite.

6. Peter and Alice

Another Grandage season show and another included on this list due to cracking central performances. This time it's Dame Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw I'm singling out for praise; both excellent as the real life figures behind Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. The play explored the nature of fame - or perhaps notoriety is more accurate - through these two quite damaged people and their life experiences and was heartbreakingly well observed. If you saw it and didn't cry then you and I can't be friends.

Top moment - the scenes exploring the relationships between the two central characters and the authors who'd made them famous we're amazingly well written and acted.

7. The Pride

A triple-hander exploring the nature of what it is to be gay - and what it is to be homophobic - set in the1950s and the present day, simply staged and impeccably acted. An uncomfortable watch this one, but all the more valuable for being so. The scenes in the 1950s where one of the characters goes to get 'cured' were amongst the hardest to watch that I've ever seen.

Top moment - the scene stealing series of cameos by Matthew Horne as a rent boy, a lads mag editor and the doctor in the 'cure' scenes were all excellent. I was expecting not to like Horne but he was exceptional.

8. Edward II

A bit Marmite this one - no one else I saw it with thought it was any good. Another National production, this modern version of Marlowe's play was fantastically well staged. I loved the innovative use of video cameras to get up close and personal with the characters at key moments and make the (very) minimal staging seem to expand to fill the story. Fantastically acted too.

Top moment - the meetings between Edward's rebellious lords, staged inside a wooden box on the stage with the action being filmed and shown on screens in the theatre. Pretentious? Yes. Effective? Yes.

9. Sweet Bird of Youth

Two words: Kim Catrall. Samantha from Sex and the City was red hot as a faded movie star having a breakdown in the sultry south. Exploring many of Tennessee Williams' favourite themes, this excellent Old Vic production is also notable for introducing a London audience to Seth Numrich who was fantastic as Cattrall's young saviour/sponge/whothehellknowswhat. Watch out for more of him I'm sure.

Top moment - not really a moment, but I went to this show expecting to be severely underwhelmed by Kim Cattrall. I was very much not. A really exceptional performance from an actor I now have a lot more time for.

10. Judas Kiss

Rupert Everett was on career best form in this play about Oscar Wilde. It felt like this was the role he'd been waiting all his life for and he was exceptional in it. Fantastically lit and staged too, definitely one of the best looking productions I've seen for some time.

Top moment - Everett commanded the stage at all times. It was great to see him actually living up to his potential, something that is depressingly rare.

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Review: The Scottsboro Boys

I went to see a musical last night and I left the theatre viscerally angry.

 

That's not a sentence you see very often is it? In fact it's not very often that I see anything at the theatre that makes me feel as angry, as outraged and as sad as The Young Vic's superlative production of The Scottsboro Boys did.

 

Written by Kander and Ebb (of Cabaret and Chicago fame) and directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman (one of my theatre heroines, probably most famous as the director-choreographer of The Producers on Broadway), The Scottsboro Boys tells the disgusting true story of a group of nine young black men arrested on a baseless charge of raping two white women on a train in 1930s Alabama. The group were thrown into jail, tried multiple times and always found guilty despite the fact they had done nothing wrong and one of the women admitting that the rape accusation was an outright lie. Eventually some of the group were released and all of them were finally - posthumously - pardoned this year. (There are obviously far more detailed histories of the story online and you should read one of them.)

 

Not an obvious choice for a musical right? But in the prodigiously talented hands of its creative team it totally works. The story is told in the form of a traditional minstrel show, subverted by having an all black - with one exception - cast playing both black and white roles. The set consists of a semi circle of chairs (traditional in a minstrel show) which the cast use to create all of the settings for the story from the train the group are arrested on to the prison cells they're held in. The staging is devastatingly simple and effective and the subversion of the minstrel show stereotypes done very cleverly to really highlight how insidious and hateful the racism the group faced was.

The songs, as you'd expect from Kander and Ebb, are universally excellent. From the heartbreaking ballad Go Back Home to the defiant and angry Nothin' every one is skilfully written to combine the very necessary point the song is making with a cracking Broadway tune. Nowhere is this done to better effect than in Electric Chair, which combines the horror of the youngest of the group's (he was 13, think about that for a minute) nightmares about his death sentence with an absolutely mind boggling tap number. It really shouldn't work, but it does.

But the most devastating moment of the piece for me is the final titular track which combines the traditional minstrel cake walk with the story of what happened to the group. It's performed in blackface make up - how was that ever acceptable? - and combines the hopes and promises that the group would be free and live fantastic lives with the reality of life as an emotionally scarred black youth with a criminal record in the 1930s Deep South. The way each member of the group lists off what happens to them isn't overplayed or overdramatised and as a result is horrifically effective.

 

The quality of the staging and material is enhanced by an utterly superb ensemble cast. Standout performances for me came from Adebayo Bolaji as the group's angry young man Clarence Norris and Kyle Scatliffe as Haywood Patterson, effectively the group's leader. Scatliffe has the majority of the heavy lifting acting and singing-wise and carries it off faultlessly. His raw anger at the injustice done to him is electric and permeates everything he said, did or sang. If there's any justice in theatreland then he'll be a huge star. Bolaji was equally assured as Norris - the angriest of the group to begin with, desperate to take violent revenge on the white authority figures surrounding him who is heartbreakingly broken by the end of the piece. Every member of the - very young - cast deserves some recognition though as there really isn't a weak link amongst them.

 

All in all, I think The Scottsboro Boys is the best thing I've seen in London this year. I'd implore you to get a ticket, but sadly the run finishes tonight. Hopefully it will come back at some point and if it does you'll find me at the front of the ticket queue.

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