One Man Two Guvnors at West Walls Theatre
Written by Richard Bean
Directed by Lexie Ward
To my left sits a gaggle of octogenarians seemingly rendered utterly dumbstruck and capable only of muttering the same non-committal slightly reworded comment back and forth; 'It's very modern, isn't it?'.
Somewhere behind me exists a woman who surely must possess the lung capacity of a blue whale, pausing not once during her hysterical laughter which has continued without cessation for some 15 minutes.
To my right there's a face frozen in shock, though if I listen I can hear the cogs frantically whirring as the brain struggles to catch up with the recent frantic assault on the senses it has recently endured.
Surrounding this tableaux appears an ocean of beaming faces, though I'm certain our little scene is repeated in some variation in other pockets around the theatre.
And this was just the close of Act One.
It's fair to say that One Man Two Guvnors was perhaps not quite what everyone was expecting.
Based on the old Italian classic 'A Servant of Two Masters', writer Richard Bean translates the action to 1960's Brighton in which our 'man' Francis Henshall (Pauley Heron), a failed skiffle player, finds himself working for two 'guvnors'. One, Rachel Crabbe (Sarah Coyle), is disguised as her dead gangster brother Roscoe and the other, Stanley Stubbers (Ben Bason) actually killed the brother and is also Rachel's lover. In classic farce style Francis must keep one from ever learning about the other in order to protect his dual position whilst never knowing that both are in reality simply trying to find each other.
Confused yet? That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Roscoe was engaged to dodgy scrap dealer Charlie Clench's (Stewart Grant) daughter Pauline (Emma Norgate), who has now instead become engaged to aspiring actor Alan Dangle (Michael Spencer), but Rachel (as Roscoe) intends for the original marriage to go ahead in order that she receives money from Charlie which will allow her to escape to Australia with Stanley to avoid him going to prison for her brothers death.
Meanwhile in addition to keeping his two Guvnors apart, Francis must find the time to feed himself, leading to a traditional piece of high farce wherein he finds himself serving both bosses dinner in the same establishment, hindered by the two waiters Gareth (Seb Coombe) and Alfie (Joe Desborough). And once fed, Francis moves on to tackling the second of his desires - finding love, in this instance in the arms of Charlie's bookkeeping 'feminist' Dolly (Caroline Robertson).
And this is without mentioning former Parkhurst inhabitant and now chef Lloyd (James Spark), Solicitor and Alan's father Harry Dangle (Andy Wright), and Paddy - Francis' monozygotic Irish twin.
Some ninety-five percent of this plot is launched in the very first scene of the play which, even for a farce aficionado as myself, makes it extremely difficult to follow. Despite being so top heavy though, the core themes are solid enough that by the close of the first act the vast majority of the audience had picked up who meant what to who, and by the close of the show even the octogenarians to my left understood the Rachel/Roscoe Stanley triangle. (Love one, pretending to be one, killed one. In case you didn't follow).
James Cordon, the originator of the Francis Henshall role, leaves large shoes to fill both figuratively and literally for not only for those who were lucky enough to enjoy the original National Theatre/West End/Broadway run of the production, but also anyone who had likely even heard of the play. It launched him almost singlehandedly from British sitcom fodder to conquerer of America, gathering awards all the way.
Whilst it'd be optimistic of me in the extreme to suggest the same could happen to the Green Room's leading man Pauley Heron, there is no doubt in my mind that he absolutely deserves similar success.
In perhaps the most physically demanding role ever to appear on the West Walls stage, Heron throws himself around with wanton abandon, hurling himself over trunks, eating letters out of a desperate hunger and, most impressively of all, giving himself a thorough hiding during the plays famous 'I've got two jobs...' monologue. But even aside from the superb physicality, Heron brings a great deal of warmth and heart to the role. For all his double dealing and conniving, Francis is never less than a sympathetic character imbued with desires the audience can understand and share. In a production chock full of audience asides and forth wall breaking, Heron gets the bulk of the heavy lifting (again, both literally and figuratively), and he handles the interaction with a loveable charm and consummate ease. He imbues Francis with not only the sense of the clown, but also an everyman, at once full of a deep desperation yet a willingness to please. He's the cheeky bulldog who begs for food, humps your leg, falls over playing fetch and pees on the carpet, but when he looks at you with his big sad eyes and eager wagging tail, you can't help but love him. He's magnificent.
Francis aside, the production is very much an ensemble piece in which director Lexie Ward has impressively managed to gather a cast entirely devoid of weak links and crafted a production in which every character has a moment to shine.
Newcomer Ben Bason impresses as snooty toff Stanley, carrying a thoroughly convincing upper class swagger and delivering hilariously puerile lines 'Wrap his nuts in bacon and send him to the nurse.', 'I spent all my time in the radiation cupboard trying to make my penis glow.' 'Wineorama!' with absolute aplomb.
Sarah Coyle in stark contrast to her previous role as Blanche Du Bois appears to relish playing the 'tough guy' Roscoe, her every gesture and movement positively screaming 'I am a man!' in a manner so gloriously unsubtle that no one thinks to question it.
And, speaking of unsubtle, Michael Spencer's portrayal of 'actor' Alan is so beautifully hammy as to worry any watching vegetarians. Every gesture and head turn is an awkwardly deliberate performance in itself and every word so oddly over enunciated make watching a cringeworthy delight.
As his 'nice-but-dim' betrothed Pauline, Emma Norgate crafts a character so assuredly thick while sickeningly sweet as to be enduringly lovable. I wanted to give her a hug throughout.
Meanwhile audience favourite Caroline Robertson waits patiently until the second act to make her presence felt, delivering a confident, sexy Dollly, able to instigate a wave of laughter through a silly walk alone and with a Thatcher alluding speech that brought the house down.
If Francis is the most physically demanding role the Green Room has ever seen, then Alfie, exquisitely played by youngster Joe Desborough must surely be the second. As an eager octogenarian waiter, thick Irish accent, pacemaker and all, Desborough is a triumph of physicality and flair.
Veering from high farce via pure slapstick all the way through to practically pantomime, One Man will clearly not be everyone's cup of tea. Director Lexie Ward has created a production that is completely unapologetic in being larger than life and downright silly, exactly as it should be. The characters are all well crafted, wound up and let loose to do their thing.
The set design by Sarah Waters as will by now come as no surprise is exquisite. Seemingly taking its inspiration from the pages of a comic book, its stark black and white lines bolstered by simple vibrant colour make it appear the characters are literally leaping out of a page, mirroring the characterisations perfectly.
To avoid lengthy scene changes overdubbed by tedious music, the production utilises video vignettes telling the story of how Francis was fired from his Skiffle Band featuring members of the cast. While they add nothing to the plot these are clever and well crafted distractions and provide a welcome break from the pace of the action on stage.
While I suspect One Man may perhaps veer just a little too much toward the pantomime end of the spectrum for some tastes - Closing with a rhyming couplet song while the cast dance about on stage as a final closing declaration of intent - this in no way diminishes its success. It's a bold and ridiculous play served expertly by an equally bold and ridiculous production. It's a brave step into relatively uncharted waters for the Green Room club and judging by the mixed demographic surrounding me may just bring with it an entirely new audience to sit alongside the existing octogenarians.
As the closing song said; 'Tomorrow looks good from here..."
Thursday 12 May 2016
Thursday 4 February 2016
A Streetcar Named Desire - Carlisle Green Room Club - February 2016
A Streetcar Named Desire at West Walls Theatre
Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Stewart Grant
Tackling 'the classics' is always going to be something of a risky move for an amateur society. More often than not the weight of audience expectation, absolute reverence to the text or compulsion to reproduce what has successfully gone before hangs around a production's throat. A noose poised to kill, while the metaphorical hangman of the inevitable 'talent ceiling' waits in the wings ready to strike. They're called classics for a reason. Everyone knows them. Everyone loves them. Muck them up, and folk will be out for blood.
This time last year the Green Room Club opened their season with an equally ambitious take on a classic and smashed the troublesome gallows to pieces. The Importance of Being Earnest was in every conceivable fashion a roaring success. But Earnest is a light and witty soufflé, the stuff of larks and whimsy, delicate and refined, playing very much to the Green Room's strengths. In stark contrast, A Streetcar Named Desire is a slab of red meat. Stark, uncompromising and all too easy to render either bloodied and undigestible, or overdone and unbearable. Streetcar isn't just a classic, it's arguably the classic. As I noted before the play got underway that it shared a director with last years extremely disappointing Death of an Anarchist, I erected the gibbet and my mind and prepared to don the black hood.
Ninety minutes later, act one ended. The hangman was told to step down.
As act two drew to a close, and I realised I'd been holding my breath for the vast majority of it (not, I hasten to add, due to the use of cigarettes on stage. If you have reached the stage in your life where you are mortally offended by the use of a herbal cigarette in a play when you are clearly of sufficient maturity to have lived through over half a century of people smoking in restaurants, on public transport, in planes and wherever else they pleased, then may I kindly suggest your priorities are in desperate need of considerable realignment. It's neither big, clever, nor in any way justified to take such a righteous stance on something so utterly innocuous. Those so quick to offend are invariably the most ignorant. And if any of you are reading this post and take offence at that comment; good. It was thoroughly intended.), I finally exhaled, wiped a tear from my eye and erupted into an applause so furious I actually frightened the person seated beside me.
Lets get the quibbles out of the way first. No-one, least of all Williams himself, has even the slightest interest in any of the characters in Streetcar outside of the big three. They exist to further the plot or give time for a costume change, nothing more. As such, time in their company feels like time wasted- No disrespect intended to the actors filling these cameo roles. Drawing the most focus as the only character outside the triumvirate who is allowed to utter more than eight lines is Jason Munn as Mitch. It's a thankless role, part mummies boy, part love interest, part chauvinist, and Munn struggles to latch on to any particular aspect, instead offering a slightly awkward, stiff, squinting, occasionally 'Noo Yoik' accented vacuum it's difficult to find any affection for. Characters occasionally take the long way round the dinner table for no other reason than seemingly to 'give them a bit more movement', which never fails to look odd. Another minor gripe is the soundscape used for Blanche's recollections. The haunting, subtle echo of memory is instead replaced by a less than nuanced ON or OFF honky tonk, sounding more like a passing marching band than the whispered frailties of a woman on the edge.
But these are niggles, the tiniest of smudges on an otherwise flawless canvas lovingly painted by Streetcar's big three players. Stella is beautifully underplayed by newcomer Robin Laliberte, husky voiced, world weary and yet thoroughly knowing. Surrounded by mania, Laliberte provides a solid core to keep the audience grounded, a passive presence but impossible to overlook.
Seb Coombe is a revelation, utterly succeeding in perhaps the rarest of phenomena in amateur dramatics: Playing against type. I've watched Coombe in dozens of roles over the years and they've all possessed a certain similarity. A wry charm. A knowing twinkle. This isn't a criticism, indeed far from it. It's a definite skill to be able to draw these aspects out of any given character and to make the most of a seemingly natural gift. But in Streetcar, Coombe manages to find the off switch. Stanley Kowalski is not a nice man, and to so completely disengage the natural twinkle was thoroughly unnerving to watch - absolutely the state of mind an audience should be in while witnessing a man crush a deluded woman's spirit. That Coombe went from a magnificent Richard Hannay to such a deplorable skin crawling Stanley Kowalski is an absolute testament to his talent.
I noted in my review for the Theatre Downstairs production of Unholy Congregation that Sarah Coyle might just be the Green Room's secret weapon. I may have underestimated. It turns out she's the nuclear option. Never on the amateur stage have I seen a performance as powerful as Sarah Coyle playing Blanche DuBois. In equal parts delicately nuanced as it was painfully raw, Coyle peeled back the layers of Blanche over the course of the production, living every moment of the character's utter destruction. I keep wanting to call the performance effortless as means of a compliment, but in fact the opposite is true. Every effort in the world is being used to put Blanche through the emotional wringer, and Coyle captures every single moment and presents it to an audience with an unwavering truth. A nervous breakdown can not be an easy thing for an actor to portray, and Blanche's horrific screams as the doctor tries to calm her down are so painfully real I found myself moved to tears. There isn't enough praise on this earth for me to usher in Sarah Coyle's direction. It was a thing of beauty. Sheer perfection.
It almost goes without saying these days that the set design was superb, making full use of the limited space by ingeniously removing an entire wing of the stage and using using the stage balcony to full effect. The lighting in particular is worthy of considerable praise, particularly for the truly beautiful moments it created where a broken Blanche stepped out of the pure white light of the bathroom, her only place of serenity and peace, into the dingy apartment inhabited by the darkness that ultimately destroyed her.
The pace of the piece holds you on the very edge of your seat, particularly in the wholly uncompromising nerve shredder that is act two, and full credit to director Stewart Grant for assembling a production that in every sense of the word deserves the title of a true classic.
Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Stewart Grant
Tackling 'the classics' is always going to be something of a risky move for an amateur society. More often than not the weight of audience expectation, absolute reverence to the text or compulsion to reproduce what has successfully gone before hangs around a production's throat. A noose poised to kill, while the metaphorical hangman of the inevitable 'talent ceiling' waits in the wings ready to strike. They're called classics for a reason. Everyone knows them. Everyone loves them. Muck them up, and folk will be out for blood.
This time last year the Green Room Club opened their season with an equally ambitious take on a classic and smashed the troublesome gallows to pieces. The Importance of Being Earnest was in every conceivable fashion a roaring success. But Earnest is a light and witty soufflé, the stuff of larks and whimsy, delicate and refined, playing very much to the Green Room's strengths. In stark contrast, A Streetcar Named Desire is a slab of red meat. Stark, uncompromising and all too easy to render either bloodied and undigestible, or overdone and unbearable. Streetcar isn't just a classic, it's arguably the classic. As I noted before the play got underway that it shared a director with last years extremely disappointing Death of an Anarchist, I erected the gibbet and my mind and prepared to don the black hood.
Ninety minutes later, act one ended. The hangman was told to step down.
As act two drew to a close, and I realised I'd been holding my breath for the vast majority of it (not, I hasten to add, due to the use of cigarettes on stage. If you have reached the stage in your life where you are mortally offended by the use of a herbal cigarette in a play when you are clearly of sufficient maturity to have lived through over half a century of people smoking in restaurants, on public transport, in planes and wherever else they pleased, then may I kindly suggest your priorities are in desperate need of considerable realignment. It's neither big, clever, nor in any way justified to take such a righteous stance on something so utterly innocuous. Those so quick to offend are invariably the most ignorant. And if any of you are reading this post and take offence at that comment; good. It was thoroughly intended.), I finally exhaled, wiped a tear from my eye and erupted into an applause so furious I actually frightened the person seated beside me.
Lets get the quibbles out of the way first. No-one, least of all Williams himself, has even the slightest interest in any of the characters in Streetcar outside of the big three. They exist to further the plot or give time for a costume change, nothing more. As such, time in their company feels like time wasted- No disrespect intended to the actors filling these cameo roles. Drawing the most focus as the only character outside the triumvirate who is allowed to utter more than eight lines is Jason Munn as Mitch. It's a thankless role, part mummies boy, part love interest, part chauvinist, and Munn struggles to latch on to any particular aspect, instead offering a slightly awkward, stiff, squinting, occasionally 'Noo Yoik' accented vacuum it's difficult to find any affection for. Characters occasionally take the long way round the dinner table for no other reason than seemingly to 'give them a bit more movement', which never fails to look odd. Another minor gripe is the soundscape used for Blanche's recollections. The haunting, subtle echo of memory is instead replaced by a less than nuanced ON or OFF honky tonk, sounding more like a passing marching band than the whispered frailties of a woman on the edge.
But these are niggles, the tiniest of smudges on an otherwise flawless canvas lovingly painted by Streetcar's big three players. Stella is beautifully underplayed by newcomer Robin Laliberte, husky voiced, world weary and yet thoroughly knowing. Surrounded by mania, Laliberte provides a solid core to keep the audience grounded, a passive presence but impossible to overlook.
Seb Coombe is a revelation, utterly succeeding in perhaps the rarest of phenomena in amateur dramatics: Playing against type. I've watched Coombe in dozens of roles over the years and they've all possessed a certain similarity. A wry charm. A knowing twinkle. This isn't a criticism, indeed far from it. It's a definite skill to be able to draw these aspects out of any given character and to make the most of a seemingly natural gift. But in Streetcar, Coombe manages to find the off switch. Stanley Kowalski is not a nice man, and to so completely disengage the natural twinkle was thoroughly unnerving to watch - absolutely the state of mind an audience should be in while witnessing a man crush a deluded woman's spirit. That Coombe went from a magnificent Richard Hannay to such a deplorable skin crawling Stanley Kowalski is an absolute testament to his talent.
I noted in my review for the Theatre Downstairs production of Unholy Congregation that Sarah Coyle might just be the Green Room's secret weapon. I may have underestimated. It turns out she's the nuclear option. Never on the amateur stage have I seen a performance as powerful as Sarah Coyle playing Blanche DuBois. In equal parts delicately nuanced as it was painfully raw, Coyle peeled back the layers of Blanche over the course of the production, living every moment of the character's utter destruction. I keep wanting to call the performance effortless as means of a compliment, but in fact the opposite is true. Every effort in the world is being used to put Blanche through the emotional wringer, and Coyle captures every single moment and presents it to an audience with an unwavering truth. A nervous breakdown can not be an easy thing for an actor to portray, and Blanche's horrific screams as the doctor tries to calm her down are so painfully real I found myself moved to tears. There isn't enough praise on this earth for me to usher in Sarah Coyle's direction. It was a thing of beauty. Sheer perfection.
It almost goes without saying these days that the set design was superb, making full use of the limited space by ingeniously removing an entire wing of the stage and using using the stage balcony to full effect. The lighting in particular is worthy of considerable praise, particularly for the truly beautiful moments it created where a broken Blanche stepped out of the pure white light of the bathroom, her only place of serenity and peace, into the dingy apartment inhabited by the darkness that ultimately destroyed her.
The pace of the piece holds you on the very edge of your seat, particularly in the wholly uncompromising nerve shredder that is act two, and full credit to director Stewart Grant for assembling a production that in every sense of the word deserves the title of a true classic.
Thursday 22 October 2015
Benchmark - Theatre Downstairs - October 2015
Benchmark at West Walls Theatre Bar
A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower
Written by Molly Edgar
Directed by Jack Lester
&
Wigs and Knickers
Written and Directed by Nigel Banks
Carlisle Green Room Club's Theatre Downstairs programme continues with two new plays facing the unenviable task of following the roaring success of 'Unholy Congregation'. Either by design or coincidence both Benchmark plays share a commonality with the previous triumphant production; both examining an unlikely relationship spawned from a random encounter utilising only two actors, poignancy and great dollops of humour.
Wigs and Knickers written and directed by Nigel Banks survives the comparison very well indeed. Set in a Oncology waiting room, Wigs had the potential to be a very dark and miserable affair with its chosen subject matter, but Banks wisely instead makes the focus of the drama the differing attitudes and coping mechanisms of its characters - upbeat Melissa and ostrich Catherine. For all the dialogue occasionally slips into a wikipedia entry or NHS information leaflet, the characters never for a moment feel anything less than real. The humour shines through and offers a very touching insight into a 20 minute snapshot of two women struggling through a very difficult and raw part of their lives. It's impossible not to be moved by Catherine's 'ignorance is bliss' response to her first screening result, or roar with laughter at Melissa's carefree retelling of the hospital's 'BOGOFF' policy to a pre-emptive mastectomy. A random 'class warfare' moment in the middle diverts attention momentarily - there's an odd feeling that this particular posh vs poor development was a thread from an entirely different script as it felt strangely out of place here - but otherwise the focus remains strong and clear. The characters have depth, substance and a story to tell and it is a pleasure to spend time in their company.
Lisa Moffatt dominates with her performance as 'been there, done that, got the one-boob-bra' Melissa and embodies the character with every fibre of her being. Every line is pitched perfectly to either wring out every drop of humour from the material or to land a perfect gut punch with an emotionally charged but never overplayed moment of poignancy. Jo King also impresses with her perfectly understated Catherine. Alongside such a force of nature as Moffatt it would have been easy to deliver an ordinary 'straight [wo]man' performance and get away with it, but King paces the piece perfectly. Hopefully she'll make a move to the main West Walls stage sometime soon.
Funny, moving, original and with two great performances, Wigs and Knickers is very much a success, tackling a difficult subject with a wry and light touch.
A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower written by Molly Edgar and directed by Jack Lester is a different kettle of fish entirely. In almost every respect Wigs succeeds, Bench fails, principally due to a script written by someone who has seemingly never actually listened to two people having a conversation. Edgar's dialogue is nothing short of woeful. Characters speak only in stilted question and answers or strangely prosaic garbles of melodrama, impossible to make convincing. Characters Jennifer and Daniel manage to be both crudely drawn and one dimensional yet still strangely inconsistent, existing only to sulk about their own lives, emote angrily and eventually, without rhyme nor reason, apparently fall for each other despite neither of them being in any way likeable or endearing. Neither is remotely believable as a real person and the 'will they won't they' that should be driving the play is instead rendered at best inconsequential and at worst thoroughly tedious.
Given such vacuous roles there is little poor actors Matthew Wood and Lisa Dykes can do other than deliver the lines and hope the end arrives quickly. Dykes in particular was trying hard to wring something from the script, successfully portraying the bewildering array of emotions the text insisted upon and is clearly a talented performer when not hampered with a thankless part. Wood, despite his extensive CV listed in the programme struggles to rise above the material, delivering a pedestrian 'awkward young man' and little else.
As Jack Lester's first piece of direction outside of university, hopefully A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower will have illustrated some valuable lessons to take forward. Chiefly that play selection is everything and no matter how much sugar is added a rotten core will never be made to taste sweet. Also that, if a piece is entirely about tourists at the Eiffel Tower, surely they'd choose a bench where they could actually see the famous landmark and not sit facing away...
A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower
Written by Molly Edgar
Directed by Jack Lester
&
Wigs and Knickers
Written and Directed by Nigel Banks
Carlisle Green Room Club's Theatre Downstairs programme continues with two new plays facing the unenviable task of following the roaring success of 'Unholy Congregation'. Either by design or coincidence both Benchmark plays share a commonality with the previous triumphant production; both examining an unlikely relationship spawned from a random encounter utilising only two actors, poignancy and great dollops of humour.
Wigs and Knickers written and directed by Nigel Banks survives the comparison very well indeed. Set in a Oncology waiting room, Wigs had the potential to be a very dark and miserable affair with its chosen subject matter, but Banks wisely instead makes the focus of the drama the differing attitudes and coping mechanisms of its characters - upbeat Melissa and ostrich Catherine. For all the dialogue occasionally slips into a wikipedia entry or NHS information leaflet, the characters never for a moment feel anything less than real. The humour shines through and offers a very touching insight into a 20 minute snapshot of two women struggling through a very difficult and raw part of their lives. It's impossible not to be moved by Catherine's 'ignorance is bliss' response to her first screening result, or roar with laughter at Melissa's carefree retelling of the hospital's 'BOGOFF' policy to a pre-emptive mastectomy. A random 'class warfare' moment in the middle diverts attention momentarily - there's an odd feeling that this particular posh vs poor development was a thread from an entirely different script as it felt strangely out of place here - but otherwise the focus remains strong and clear. The characters have depth, substance and a story to tell and it is a pleasure to spend time in their company.
Lisa Moffatt dominates with her performance as 'been there, done that, got the one-boob-bra' Melissa and embodies the character with every fibre of her being. Every line is pitched perfectly to either wring out every drop of humour from the material or to land a perfect gut punch with an emotionally charged but never overplayed moment of poignancy. Jo King also impresses with her perfectly understated Catherine. Alongside such a force of nature as Moffatt it would have been easy to deliver an ordinary 'straight [wo]man' performance and get away with it, but King paces the piece perfectly. Hopefully she'll make a move to the main West Walls stage sometime soon.
Funny, moving, original and with two great performances, Wigs and Knickers is very much a success, tackling a difficult subject with a wry and light touch.
A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower written by Molly Edgar and directed by Jack Lester is a different kettle of fish entirely. In almost every respect Wigs succeeds, Bench fails, principally due to a script written by someone who has seemingly never actually listened to two people having a conversation. Edgar's dialogue is nothing short of woeful. Characters speak only in stilted question and answers or strangely prosaic garbles of melodrama, impossible to make convincing. Characters Jennifer and Daniel manage to be both crudely drawn and one dimensional yet still strangely inconsistent, existing only to sulk about their own lives, emote angrily and eventually, without rhyme nor reason, apparently fall for each other despite neither of them being in any way likeable or endearing. Neither is remotely believable as a real person and the 'will they won't they' that should be driving the play is instead rendered at best inconsequential and at worst thoroughly tedious.
Given such vacuous roles there is little poor actors Matthew Wood and Lisa Dykes can do other than deliver the lines and hope the end arrives quickly. Dykes in particular was trying hard to wring something from the script, successfully portraying the bewildering array of emotions the text insisted upon and is clearly a talented performer when not hampered with a thankless part. Wood, despite his extensive CV listed in the programme struggles to rise above the material, delivering a pedestrian 'awkward young man' and little else.
As Jack Lester's first piece of direction outside of university, hopefully A Bench Under the Eiffel Tower will have illustrated some valuable lessons to take forward. Chiefly that play selection is everything and no matter how much sugar is added a rotten core will never be made to taste sweet. Also that, if a piece is entirely about tourists at the Eiffel Tower, surely they'd choose a bench where they could actually see the famous landmark and not sit facing away...
Monday 12 October 2015
Playhouse Creatures - Carlisle Green Room Club - October 2015
Playhouse Creatures at West Walls Theatre
Written by April De Angelis
Directed by Eva Cook
My pen floated over my diary page for many minutes while I pondered and collected by thoughts on Playhouse Creatures, the latest production in an excellent season from Carlisle Green Room Club. Under normal circumstances I find opinions almost worryingly easy to settle upon. Rarely a fence sitter, I will merrily leap to one side of a divide over another supremely argent in my confidence that 'sod what everyone else thinks, I'm almost certainly right'. Certainly when it comes to the theatre, it's almost unheard of for me not to rise from my seat at the end of a performance with a definitive critique already forming in my mind. Playhouse Creatures however has me stumped. Which isn't to say I haven't plenty of opinions regarding individual aspects of the production, simply that for the first time in years when my friend asked me as we were leaving what I thought about the play I was forced to use a phrase rarely uttered in my vocabulary; 'I don't know'.
The play follows five actresses - Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, Rebecca Marshall, Doll Common and Mary Betterton - as they struggle to maintain a life in the theatre as first of their kind. Principally a character driven piece, the plot veers from 'light' to 'absent', returning only when writer April De Angelis feels it necessary to remove a player (quite literally) from the stage via spontaneous use of witchcraft, pregnancy or age. This would be fine - a great many plays have succeeded with far less story to work with - but unfortunately as a character piece Playhouse Creatures also largely falls flat. Each of the actresses occupies the role of a acrhetype and sadly little else - Nell is young, pretty and ambitious, Mrs Marshall is seasoned, cynical and vicious, Mrs Betterton is an old pro, well spoken and wise, and as such despite the clear talents of the real actresses portraying these characters, none are given the space to develop into anything other than their initial character description.
Instead of fleshing out our pioneering heroines, De Angelis devotes great chunks of the play to seeing the characters performing other plays. I'd approximate that in total around a quarter of the run time was dedicated to these shows within shows, a technique that works well in comedies but feels out of place here - particularly as, in this instance, they were largely being played for laughs.
Which brings me to, in my opinion, perhaps the biggest failing of the play. Its tone.
I'm not suggesting for a moment here that all dramas should be nothing but serious and all comedies should be nothing but funny. Far from it, the best plays always use aspects of both in order to feel in any way realistic. I find dramas without any humour as tiresome as comedies that spare no time for moments of character. Meanwhile the tone in Playhouse Creatures veers so wildly and behaves so erratically as to render the audience almost uncomfortable. On the one hand we have a play more than happy to get a cheap laugh out of a well placed swear word (which, when used in context and within reason is a perfectly justified and effective ploy - even if it does become somewhat overused in this case), using ridiculous rubber snakes to raise laughs out of outrageous melodrama and, most effectively of all, almost every line uttered by the sublime Doll Common, to scenes of a DIY abortion, a woman fleeing from inevitable burning at the stake and a general undercurrent of all manner of suffering and woe. This shouldn't be read as a criticism of this production - both sides of the coin are well portrayed, the notable void between the two being more a fault of the script than of director Eva Cook.
Despite this inconsistency there was much to enjoy in Playhouse Creatures, not least the scene stealing performance by Jenny Pike as Doll Common. Her deadpan delivery of almost every genuinely funny line in the show had the audience in hysterics time after time whilst also managing the difficult transition from humour to bleak with consummate ease as she told the tale of her father and bear-pits. Sarah Waters also impressed with a beautifully underplayed Mrs Marshall, allowing her moments of righteous anger hit all the harder when they bubbled to the surface. Kath Paterson for the most part successfully channelled Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket in her portrayal of Mrs Betterton and clearly relished the scene describing the art of acting via the medium of a clock face. Michelle Crangle I feel perhaps suffered from a misprint in her copy of the script as for the majority of the play I was convinced I was watching her play the role of Nancy from the musical Oliver!, her "Cor blimey guv'na!" mockney accent certainly originating from a wholly different show the rest of the cast. Thankfully this didn't detract from her well captured more poignant scenes toward the end of the play.
As seems to be par for the course with Green Room productions this season, the set provided a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Few other amateur societies can boast a period set as intricately detailed with little flourishes as the dressing room, or as beautifully designed as the mural adorning the back section of the stage. In this case though the permanent set did provide a few difficulties. By effectively halving the stage space both areas soon felt crowded when all five characters were present which, especially in the dressing room, was often the case. Entire scenes would be played out with almost no movement or changes of position. A line early in the play remarked about how crucial 'stillness' was to acting - perhaps in this case Cook took the line a little too much to heart.
Even having put all of these thoughts to paper I'd still struggle to answer my friend's question as to what I thought about Playhouse Creatures. Which, perhaps, is no bad thing. Whether good or bad, theatre should always get you thinking and, despite the failures of the play itself, this production has certainly had me scratching my head more than any other in quite some time.
Written by April De Angelis
Directed by Eva Cook
My pen floated over my diary page for many minutes while I pondered and collected by thoughts on Playhouse Creatures, the latest production in an excellent season from Carlisle Green Room Club. Under normal circumstances I find opinions almost worryingly easy to settle upon. Rarely a fence sitter, I will merrily leap to one side of a divide over another supremely argent in my confidence that 'sod what everyone else thinks, I'm almost certainly right'. Certainly when it comes to the theatre, it's almost unheard of for me not to rise from my seat at the end of a performance with a definitive critique already forming in my mind. Playhouse Creatures however has me stumped. Which isn't to say I haven't plenty of opinions regarding individual aspects of the production, simply that for the first time in years when my friend asked me as we were leaving what I thought about the play I was forced to use a phrase rarely uttered in my vocabulary; 'I don't know'.
The play follows five actresses - Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, Rebecca Marshall, Doll Common and Mary Betterton - as they struggle to maintain a life in the theatre as first of their kind. Principally a character driven piece, the plot veers from 'light' to 'absent', returning only when writer April De Angelis feels it necessary to remove a player (quite literally) from the stage via spontaneous use of witchcraft, pregnancy or age. This would be fine - a great many plays have succeeded with far less story to work with - but unfortunately as a character piece Playhouse Creatures also largely falls flat. Each of the actresses occupies the role of a acrhetype and sadly little else - Nell is young, pretty and ambitious, Mrs Marshall is seasoned, cynical and vicious, Mrs Betterton is an old pro, well spoken and wise, and as such despite the clear talents of the real actresses portraying these characters, none are given the space to develop into anything other than their initial character description.
Instead of fleshing out our pioneering heroines, De Angelis devotes great chunks of the play to seeing the characters performing other plays. I'd approximate that in total around a quarter of the run time was dedicated to these shows within shows, a technique that works well in comedies but feels out of place here - particularly as, in this instance, they were largely being played for laughs.
Which brings me to, in my opinion, perhaps the biggest failing of the play. Its tone.
I'm not suggesting for a moment here that all dramas should be nothing but serious and all comedies should be nothing but funny. Far from it, the best plays always use aspects of both in order to feel in any way realistic. I find dramas without any humour as tiresome as comedies that spare no time for moments of character. Meanwhile the tone in Playhouse Creatures veers so wildly and behaves so erratically as to render the audience almost uncomfortable. On the one hand we have a play more than happy to get a cheap laugh out of a well placed swear word (which, when used in context and within reason is a perfectly justified and effective ploy - even if it does become somewhat overused in this case), using ridiculous rubber snakes to raise laughs out of outrageous melodrama and, most effectively of all, almost every line uttered by the sublime Doll Common, to scenes of a DIY abortion, a woman fleeing from inevitable burning at the stake and a general undercurrent of all manner of suffering and woe. This shouldn't be read as a criticism of this production - both sides of the coin are well portrayed, the notable void between the two being more a fault of the script than of director Eva Cook.
Despite this inconsistency there was much to enjoy in Playhouse Creatures, not least the scene stealing performance by Jenny Pike as Doll Common. Her deadpan delivery of almost every genuinely funny line in the show had the audience in hysterics time after time whilst also managing the difficult transition from humour to bleak with consummate ease as she told the tale of her father and bear-pits. Sarah Waters also impressed with a beautifully underplayed Mrs Marshall, allowing her moments of righteous anger hit all the harder when they bubbled to the surface. Kath Paterson for the most part successfully channelled Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket in her portrayal of Mrs Betterton and clearly relished the scene describing the art of acting via the medium of a clock face. Michelle Crangle I feel perhaps suffered from a misprint in her copy of the script as for the majority of the play I was convinced I was watching her play the role of Nancy from the musical Oliver!, her "Cor blimey guv'na!" mockney accent certainly originating from a wholly different show the rest of the cast. Thankfully this didn't detract from her well captured more poignant scenes toward the end of the play.
As seems to be par for the course with Green Room productions this season, the set provided a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Few other amateur societies can boast a period set as intricately detailed with little flourishes as the dressing room, or as beautifully designed as the mural adorning the back section of the stage. In this case though the permanent set did provide a few difficulties. By effectively halving the stage space both areas soon felt crowded when all five characters were present which, especially in the dressing room, was often the case. Entire scenes would be played out with almost no movement or changes of position. A line early in the play remarked about how crucial 'stillness' was to acting - perhaps in this case Cook took the line a little too much to heart.
Even having put all of these thoughts to paper I'd still struggle to answer my friend's question as to what I thought about Playhouse Creatures. Which, perhaps, is no bad thing. Whether good or bad, theatre should always get you thinking and, despite the failures of the play itself, this production has certainly had me scratching my head more than any other in quite some time.
Monday 21 September 2015
Boeing Boeing - Carlisle Green Room Club - August 2013
Boeing Boeing at West Walls Theatre from August 2013
Written by Marc Camoletti
Directed by Lexie Ward
"One of the best nights out I've had in a long time."
"My sides are literally aching for laughing."
"You'd never know it wasn't professional."
"Best thing I've seen."
These were just some of the comments I overheard in the foyer after the hysterically brilliant Boeing Boeing came to a close. And I can't find myself disagreeing with any off them.
Boeing Boeing by Marc Camoletti is farce at it's most traditional. There's a man; Bernard (in farce it's always a man it seems. I'd love to see a female-led script one of these days) burdened by a gigantic lie that he will do anything to cover up. In this instance it's his three fiances; American Janet, French Jacqueline, and German Judith, all airline stewardesses enabling him to cunningly organise his life around their respective timetables ably assisted and equally hindered by his butler Thomas and the arrival of his best friend Robert. When a storm grounds all planes farcical high-jinks ensue as Bernard and Robert do everything in their power to prevent the women from ever meeting - a clever trick if you can pull it off in an apartment with no fewer than six doors.
A traditional farce needs a strong, constantly on the ball cast and a director with the knowledge and confidence to keep the action tight, pacey and smooth. Fortunately the Green Room production had both in spades. Director Lexie Ward didn't miss a single beat of action, the rhythm of each scene was full of pace to keep the action moving but had the space where necessary to ebb and flow allowing each character room to make their presence felt.
The cast were superb and all had individual moments to shine. Michael Spencer as Bernard started out all charm and charisma, effortlessly explaining his 'flawless system', only to veer toward a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown when the glass house around him began to shatter. As his accomplice, James Sparks delivered the performance of a lifetime, the explosive energy and pace brought to Robert kept the wheels of the plot turning without any shred of hesitation on the audiences' part. As butler Thomas (a part very effectively gender swapped for this production) Seb Coombe brought a dry wit and wry eye to proceedings, his one liners always finding their mark.
The three stewardesses, while only being fleshed out by the writer as far as the international stereotypes will extend; an earnest but ambitious American, a sensual and sultry Parisian and a scarily efficient German, were each given strong, memorable performances by Alison Hellings, Lexie Ward and Caroline Robertson respectively. Hellings was sweet with a ruthless edge as Janet, Ward sexy and manipulative as Jacqueline and Robertson absolutely hilarious as subtle-as-a-brick Germanic Judith, the somewhat Allo' Allo' Esq accents of the latter two only adding to the general hysteria.
As the old cliche states comedy is all a matter of timing and this production is perhaps one of the slickest shows I have ever been fortunate enough to watch. A sublime treat for not only fans of farce, but for fans of theatre full stop.
Written by Marc Camoletti
Directed by Lexie Ward
"One of the best nights out I've had in a long time."
"My sides are literally aching for laughing."
"You'd never know it wasn't professional."
"Best thing I've seen."
These were just some of the comments I overheard in the foyer after the hysterically brilliant Boeing Boeing came to a close. And I can't find myself disagreeing with any off them.
Boeing Boeing by Marc Camoletti is farce at it's most traditional. There's a man; Bernard (in farce it's always a man it seems. I'd love to see a female-led script one of these days) burdened by a gigantic lie that he will do anything to cover up. In this instance it's his three fiances; American Janet, French Jacqueline, and German Judith, all airline stewardesses enabling him to cunningly organise his life around their respective timetables ably assisted and equally hindered by his butler Thomas and the arrival of his best friend Robert. When a storm grounds all planes farcical high-jinks ensue as Bernard and Robert do everything in their power to prevent the women from ever meeting - a clever trick if you can pull it off in an apartment with no fewer than six doors.
A traditional farce needs a strong, constantly on the ball cast and a director with the knowledge and confidence to keep the action tight, pacey and smooth. Fortunately the Green Room production had both in spades. Director Lexie Ward didn't miss a single beat of action, the rhythm of each scene was full of pace to keep the action moving but had the space where necessary to ebb and flow allowing each character room to make their presence felt.
The cast were superb and all had individual moments to shine. Michael Spencer as Bernard started out all charm and charisma, effortlessly explaining his 'flawless system', only to veer toward a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown when the glass house around him began to shatter. As his accomplice, James Sparks delivered the performance of a lifetime, the explosive energy and pace brought to Robert kept the wheels of the plot turning without any shred of hesitation on the audiences' part. As butler Thomas (a part very effectively gender swapped for this production) Seb Coombe brought a dry wit and wry eye to proceedings, his one liners always finding their mark.
The three stewardesses, while only being fleshed out by the writer as far as the international stereotypes will extend; an earnest but ambitious American, a sensual and sultry Parisian and a scarily efficient German, were each given strong, memorable performances by Alison Hellings, Lexie Ward and Caroline Robertson respectively. Hellings was sweet with a ruthless edge as Janet, Ward sexy and manipulative as Jacqueline and Robertson absolutely hilarious as subtle-as-a-brick Germanic Judith, the somewhat Allo' Allo' Esq accents of the latter two only adding to the general hysteria.
As the old cliche states comedy is all a matter of timing and this production is perhaps one of the slickest shows I have ever been fortunate enough to watch. A sublime treat for not only fans of farce, but for fans of theatre full stop.
Monday 20 July 2015
Apologies for Absence
Difficult to know what order to do this in, so let me start by apologising for my absence over the last month and a half. I can see from both my blog stats and my twitter stream that a regular group of extremely kind people have been checking my blog regularly for updates which have not been forthcoming. I sincerely hope you've not been too disappointed by the lack of new content. It's something I'll be looking to remedy ASAP.
In my defence I have a reasonable excuse beyond simple laziness, though I won't deny that is certainly a factor. I won't bore you with the details as I think you'll agree drama is best kept on the stage but suffice to say I suffered a short spell of mortality realisation (it sounds so much better than 'a heart attack') and I've spent a bit of time being superbly cared for by the marvellous NHS. If only they'd provided free wifi I'd have dedicated a blog to them but, perhaps wisely, that's not a service currently on offer.
Since then I've been taking it easy and recuperating. Or, more accurately, switching between complete bone-idleness and well paced walks to keep the ticker going, aided by a marvellous electronic widget which, as far as I'm concerned, makes me only one step away from being Arnold Schwarzenegger.
During this time rummaging through old diaries seemed a little too much like hard work, but guilt has now outweighed lethargy and I'm going to get back to it. I've had a lot of requests for 'Boeing Boeing' so that'll be next on my agenda, followed by Little Voice which was determined to see come hell or high blood pressure. My review is something on the briefer side to my usual lengthy deconstructions, but hopefully will be of interest regardless.
Thanks for sticking with me during my absence. Your support means a great deal.
William.
An Enthusiastic Amateur.
In my defence I have a reasonable excuse beyond simple laziness, though I won't deny that is certainly a factor. I won't bore you with the details as I think you'll agree drama is best kept on the stage but suffice to say I suffered a short spell of mortality realisation (it sounds so much better than 'a heart attack') and I've spent a bit of time being superbly cared for by the marvellous NHS. If only they'd provided free wifi I'd have dedicated a blog to them but, perhaps wisely, that's not a service currently on offer.
Since then I've been taking it easy and recuperating. Or, more accurately, switching between complete bone-idleness and well paced walks to keep the ticker going, aided by a marvellous electronic widget which, as far as I'm concerned, makes me only one step away from being Arnold Schwarzenegger.
During this time rummaging through old diaries seemed a little too much like hard work, but guilt has now outweighed lethargy and I'm going to get back to it. I've had a lot of requests for 'Boeing Boeing' so that'll be next on my agenda, followed by Little Voice which was determined to see come hell or high blood pressure. My review is something on the briefer side to my usual lengthy deconstructions, but hopefully will be of interest regardless.
Thanks for sticking with me during my absence. Your support means a great deal.
William.
An Enthusiastic Amateur.
Tuesday 2 June 2015
A Change of Approach
We're now a few weeks into my little side project and, looking at my stats, I can see there is a substantial variance in views between my posts. The most popular posts have received several hundred views, with often some 50+ occurring within only a few hours of the blog going live. Others meanwhile are languishing with little over 30 views between them.
As such, I've had a re-think and I'm going to change my approach.
Instead of posting every review I've ever written, a proportion of which it's clear there's little to no audience for, I'll focus on updating with things people are actually wanting to read. Therefore, from now on, I'll be posting reviews by request.
So, dear reader, the power is now in your hands. I've seen an awful lot of theatre across my life and, for the last five years at least, I've chronicled most of it to some degree or another.
If you have any requests for reviews from any piece of Cumbrian theatre from within the last five years please get in touch and let me know. Either post in the comments section of this blog post or let me know via Twitter where I can be reached at @Enthused_AmDram .
In the meantime I'll continue to post new reviews of current theatre in the hope of appearing to be relevant and up to date, words that I've cunningly avoided any association with for the majority of my life thus far.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and I look forward to seeing you comments so I can continue my stroll down memory lane.
William.
As such, I've had a re-think and I'm going to change my approach.
Instead of posting every review I've ever written, a proportion of which it's clear there's little to no audience for, I'll focus on updating with things people are actually wanting to read. Therefore, from now on, I'll be posting reviews by request.
So, dear reader, the power is now in your hands. I've seen an awful lot of theatre across my life and, for the last five years at least, I've chronicled most of it to some degree or another.
If you have any requests for reviews from any piece of Cumbrian theatre from within the last five years please get in touch and let me know. Either post in the comments section of this blog post or let me know via Twitter where I can be reached at @Enthused_AmDram .
In the meantime I'll continue to post new reviews of current theatre in the hope of appearing to be relevant and up to date, words that I've cunningly avoided any association with for the majority of my life thus far.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and I look forward to seeing you comments so I can continue my stroll down memory lane.
William.
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