Oliver! - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Music, lyrics and book by Lionel Bart

Freely adapted from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist

Revised by Cameron Mackintosh

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne

Simon Lipkin

Matthew Bourne’s production of Oliver! will quite possibly be the the most glorious musical revival to open in the UK this year. Cast with the cream of the country’s musical theatre talent, Cameron Mackintosh’s revisions of Lionel Bart’s show achieve the rare distinction, that many strive for but very few achieve, of taking a classic and making it even better.

Bourne again works alongside designer Lez Brotherston, in a partnership that has lasted decades and which sees this national treasure of a musical visually re-imagined yet still authentically Victorian, with bridges and revolves and swirling steampunk ironwork transporting us across the England of the story.

The kids are gorgeous, and Bourne’s direction and choreography sees the show kick-off with Food Glorious Food that is as imaginative as it is evocatively charming. On press night it was the young and talented Cian Eagle-Service in the title role, beautifully voiced and with a charming confidence that held the narrative along with our belief in him.

The show's workhouse scenes introduce us to the despicable Mr Bumble and Widow Corney luxuriously played here by the ridiculously talented Oscar Conlon-Morrey and Katy Secombe. Musical theatre cognoscenti will know that the 1968 movie saw Mr Bumble played by Secombe’s father, the late and much loved comic-genius Harry Secombe and Secombe more than honours her father’s memory with her take on the amorous widow. Conlon-Morrey complements her in his skilled and hilarious interpretation of blustering pomposity. A nod too to Stephen Matthews and Jamie Birkett who capture the ghoulish comedy of the Sowerberrys, the undertakers to whom Oliver is sold by Bumble.

Katy Secombe and Oscar Conlon-Morrey

Brotherston’s set ingeniously shifts us to London where Billy Jenkins’ Artful Dodger gives just the right Cockney swagger to Consider Yourself before introducing Oliver, and the audience to Fagin. Much like Steven Spielberg makes his audience wait before unveiling the shark in Jaws, so too does Bart allow almost an hour of the show to (gloriously) pass by before revealing this most complex of characters.

Simon Lipkin's Fagin brings an earthy, magnetic, Sephardic interpretation to one of musical theatre’s most frequently caricatured Jews. Bourne skilfully avoids any classic antisemitic tropes in this Fagin, with Lipkin displaying an intriguing, enchanting presence in his performance. Vocally he is magnificent, owning the Festival Theatre's massive stage in his Reviewing The Situation, with a subtle klezmer-esque nuance to some of the musical arrangement of the number. Lipkin also offers inspired moments of physical comedy, and study him closely for just a hint of Max Bialystock's tragi-comedy in this most glorious of Fagins.

Shanay Holmes is Nancy with a take on this intriguing woman that almost explains her love for such a violent partner as Bill Sikes. Holmes brings power, passion and pathos to the role, wonderfully taking Chichester’s roof off (twice) with As Long As He Needs Me. Opposite Holmes, Aaron Sidwell brings a chilling menace to Sikes.

Under the stage, Graham Hurman’s orchestra of 13 make glorious work of the rich score. 

This fantastic show, with one hit song following another, sees Mackintosh and Bourne open up the genius of Bart’s writing to dive even deeper into the composer/lyricist’s understanding of Dickens' London and above all the human condition. With musicals most frequently being set in the USA, stories steeped in English culture are few and far between. This Oliver! is amongst the finest.

Never before has this show offered more!

Runs until 7th September

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Caretaker - Review

Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Written by Harold Pinter

Directed by Justin Audibert

Ian McDiarmid and Adam Gillen

In what was to be Harold Pinter’s first significant commercial success, The Caretaker has proved one of his most performed and studied works. So Justin Audibert – recently appointed Chichester's Artistic Director - sets a high bar for this production.

Audibert delivers spectacularly. In this curious tragicomedy, part theatre of the absurd, part realism (the dialogue at times is like a whirl through the capital’s A-Z Street Map) Pinter has the capacity to make us laugh and cry at this dissection of a bizarre glimpse of West London life. Ian McDiarmid leads as Davies, a tramp, brought in off the streets by Aston (played by Adam Gillen) into his dingy bedsit. Completing the trio of players is Jack Riddiford’s Mick, Aston’s brother.

This interpretation of Pinter’s dialogue is sublime. McDiarmid’s Davies, forever journeying to Sidcup for his papers, captures the quick-wittedness of the old man – a quickness and a devious nastiness that is matched only by his physical frailty and weakness. McDiarmid savours every word and his Davies is a masterclass in Pinter.

Gillen has possibly the toughest role – having to capture a man whose mental energy was truncated in his youth by an insensitive and brutal application of ECT. His tragedy is of a life cut down and of a man imprisoned inside his permanently damaged mind. That Davies sees and exploits that weakness offers up a moment of on-stage cruelty that is heartbreaking. Aston’s famous monologue at the end of the first half in which we learn of the unspeakable cruelty that he was subject to, is Gillen’s tour de force.

Mick is one of Pinter’s enigmas. A menacing wide-boy, yet who reacts with a fierce sibling loyalty when Davies mocks his brother’s mental disabilities. Riddiford perfectly captures Mick’s complex violent undertone.

All three characters have profound vulnerabilities and it is to this cast’s credit that they exploit Pinter’s writing immaculately, allowing us to watch an emotional bear-pit of human suffering.

And then there is the simple, brilliant wit of Pinter’s writing. Listen closely and reflect that when The Caretaker opened in 1960, that Galton and Simpson’s Steptoe and Son (also set off the Goldhawk Road) was to air on the BBC barely two years later. Pinter’s influence on those brilliant TV scripts is clear and there is more than a hint of Albert Steptoe in McDiarmid’s Davies. Pinter’s absurd use of the London vernacular was later echoed by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their Derek and Clive recordings.

The Caretaker’s words and oh, those pauses, are a joy to encounter. This is Pinter done to perfection.

Runs to 13th July

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

Rock Follies - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

****

Songs by Howard Schuman and Andy Mackay

Based on the television series written by Howard Schuman

Book by Chloë Moss

Zizi Strallen, Angela Marie Hurst and Carly Bawden

Chichester is fast becoming the rock capital of West Sussex, First with Assassins and now with Rock Follies, yet another show is getting its audience into the vibe with a mise-en-scene backing track of pre-show rock classics. 

Howard Schuman and Andy Mackay’s Rock Follies is drawn from Schuman’s 1976 TV series of the same name. In its day the Thames TV production was groundbreaking following an all-girl band, the Little Ladies, from its creation through to the intoxicating highs and the devastating lows of the music business. The stories pulled no punches in displaying the sexist misogyny of the era alongside the sheer ruthless commercialism of pop and rock. The drama was compelling and today, framed around Chloë Moss’ book, Rock Follies makes for a night of theatre containing some blistering performances.

Zizi Strallen, Carly Bawden and Angela Marie Hurst are Q, Anna and Dee the three performers flung together by fate and whose fictional fusion created a band that was ahead of its time, predating and by some years the real life Bananarama and the Spice Girls. All three women are sensational in their roles – and while some of Schuman and Mackay’s lyrics may stray into banality, their melodies are stunning. And when delivered by these three leading ladies, lead to performances that take the roof of the Minerva.

It is re-assuring to see Dominic Cooke’s perceptive flair, recently missed, return to his directing. Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s choreography, honed on Six's female cast, is found to be just as exciting with half the number of leads!

Rock Follies was brilliant in its time, delivering punchy hour-long stories that in those heady pre-streaming days, created narratives that were the UK's water-cooler conversations. Running for 12 episodes, Schuman's incisive teleplays allowed enough time to fully define the characters and their interactions. Here, that 12 hours of telly is condensed into nigh-on three hours of musical, a compression that is far from flawless. The show’s unwieldy second act grapples with an untidy narrative and needs a trim, while elsewhere and far too often the supporting characters are portrayed as little more than 2-dimensional caricatures.

The wonder of this show however lies in Strallen Hurst and Bawden. As an ensemble their harmonies are delicious and in solo work, each woman sings with a unique clarity and timbre that is spine-tingling in its beauty. Indeed, with The Sound Of Music playing just across the driveway in the Festival Theatre it is likely that right now Chichester is staging some of the finest performances in the country. 

Credit too to Nigel Lilley and Toby Higgins whose musical arrangements of the score that, as well as including mostly new material, also offers up a couple of juke-box gems along the way, is inspired and their 5-piece band is sensational. Equal credit to Ian Dickinson’s sound design that not only captures the sounds of the 70s – that noise of a 10p piece being pushed into a payphone’s coinbox will go straight over the heads of anyone under 50 - but also brilliantly captures the acoustics of the three singers' public performances, whether the venue being portrayed on stage is a dingy London pub or New York’s Madison Square Gardens.

The script may creak, but the production values are gorgeous and the performances sensational. A well curated tribute to the 1970s, 

Runs until 26th August

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Sound of Music - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Adam Penford

Gina Beck

Chichester’s regular audience will enjoy Adam Penford’s take on The Sound of Music. Following hard on the heels of the venue’s production of Sondheim’s Assassins, a show that is likely to have made an uncomfortable or even incomprehensible impression upon many of the south coast’s venerable gentlefolk, this hardy perennial from Rodgers & Hammerstein and set in 1938 Austria delivers, for the most part, an evening of absolute delight.

Gina Beck takes on the role of Maria, the local nunnery’s wobbling wimpled postulant who learns that her heart’s desire is to be found not within the convent, but rather beyond the abbey walls and in the arms of local hero and father of 7, the widowered Captain von Trapp.

Beck is quite simply the sound of musical magnificence. Rodgers & Hammerstein wisely gave her character the lion’s share of the show's (many) big numbers, and from the moment Beck rises from a trap door, sprawled across a local mountain top and singing the title number, she sets spines a’tingling. Whether partnering the show’s (excellent) company of kids or Janis Kelly’s equally wonderful Mother Abbess, Beck’s singing is a dream and her casting is an inspired choice.

Kelly of course has the responsibility for the act one closer of Climb Ev'ry Mountain which she delivers flawlessly. Study the programme notes and gasp at Kelly’s operatic credentials, for to hear her and Beck alone is worth the price of a ticket! Equally entertaining are the wonderful Emma Williams as the Captain’s briefly-engaged fiancée Elsa Schraeder and Ako Mitchell as Austrian impresario Max Detweiler. 

If there are flaws in the show they are that Edward Harrison’s von Trapp never quite matches Beck’s excellence and equally that the production’s casting seems clumsy. When Nazis and their sympathisers are played by performers of colour, what should be the horrifically racist impact of the swastikas that adorn the show’s post-Anschluss final act, is muted. The creative team should have thought longer and harder in this regard.

Designer Robert Jones works his usual magic on the Festival Theatre’s wondrous space, his work ingeniously transforming the stage from abbey to mountain top to the von Trapp residence. Likewise, Matt Samer and his 14-piece orchestra offer up a gorgeous interpretation of Rodgers’ timeless melodies. Audiences will not be disappointed.

Runs until 3rd September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Assassins - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by John Weidman

Directed by Polly Findlay

Danny Mac

Only on for a ridiculously short two-week run, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is a beautifully engineered weapon, which in the hands of Polly Findlay and her company of marksmen delivers a rifle-shot straight to the heart of American culture and politics. An all-American treat, Assassins is as scathing of American hypocrisies as Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd is of the corrupt British elite.

A wickedly satirical look at the individuals who, throughout history, have taken a (sometimes fatal) shot at their President, Sondheim’s depiction of these assassins / would-be assassins is as brutal as their own intentions, with all featuring on the spectrum of social inadequacy. The show’s genius however lies in the bravado of Sondheim’s lyrical wit that,  applied to John Weidman’s book and under Findlay’s direction of a stellar cast, delivers some of the finest performances in musical theatre to be found this year.

The audience in Chichester’s Festival Theatre are pumped before the show even begins. Lizzie Clachan’s designs see the Festival’s thrust stage transformed into a TV studio cum Oval Office, with patriotic American drapes festooning the auditorium. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ plays as the popcorn-bearing (yes, Chichester are selling popcorn for this one) throng take their seats. And in what must surely be another first for this august theatrical venue, mise-en-scene cheerleaders whip the crowd into frenzied Mexican waves anticipating kick-off.  Big screens countdown the seconds before Peter Forbes as The Proprietor takes the stage, getting proceedings underway with Everybody’s Got The Right. 

Forbes is magnificently Trumpian in his style – and while his take on the role is a masterful trompe l’oeil, it shows a partisan interpretation from Findlay that skews Sondheim’s otherwise unbiased critique of the American machine. Trump may well be a great visual in terms of razzamatazz and bombast – but Findlay’s omission of any suggested reference to the current senile and absent-minded White House incumbent, that may have offered some balance, belies her personal politics.

A scene from Assassins

Danny Mac heads the list of the show’s gunmen and women, playing Abraham Lincoln’s killer John Wilkes Booth. Mac’s take on the role is assured and defined, taking Sondheim’s wry interpretation of his character and giving it a fabulously nuanced interpretation. Booth’s interaction with Lee Harvey Oswald (Samuel Thomas) in the Texas School Book Depository, telling the nervous, hesitant and self-doubting Oswald that by shooting JFK his place in history will be assured is a dramatic masterpiece. The exchanges between these two in the number November 22nd 1963 demands flawless performance skills and with fine ensemble work in support, the song lands with pinpoint accuracy.

Carly Mercedes Dyer again shows her excellence as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme an acolyte of Charles Manson with a plan to shoot Gerald Ford. Everything that Dyer does is outstanding and it can only be a matter of time before she is cast to headline a major musical. Nick Holder chills as Samuel Byck, the wannabe loser who believes his problems will be solved by assassinating Richard Nixon. Byck is offered no solo songs, just monologues, with Holder nailing the complex role. Jack Shalloo is equally strong as John Hinckley, the Jodie Foster-obsessed loser, out to shoot Ronald Reagan.

Sondheim’s score is another beauty. Jo Cichonska conducts her band, all finely decked out in Americana and seated in a circular pit that lines the front of the stage, with a stylish aplomb. Their take on these inspired melodies is unlikely to be bettered.

This glorious production merits a transfer to a London stage. Whether there is a mainstream British appetite for such a deeply cynical view of the USA is, of course, a different matter.

Until then, head to Chichester – for outstanding musical theatre, Assassins is unmissable.

Runs until 24th June

Photo credit: Johan Persson

4000 Miles - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

**

Written by Amy Herzog

Directed by Richard Eyre

Eileen Atkins

Eileen Atkins’ take on her character, the 95 year old New Yorker Vera Joseph, is the standout feature of what makes, for the most part, a clumsy pot-pourri of themes and issues.

Visited by her grandson Leo (Sebastian Croft), a twenty-something who has seen his coast to coast cycling adventure with a friend end in the friend's tragic death in a road accident, the play explores the relationship between Vera and Leo, with fleeting references to the young man's love (and potential love) interests along the way.

Atkins is a consummately skilled performer, but Richard Eyre fails to extract a convincing New York tone from her words. Her accent is generic American where a harsh Manhattan dialect would have given her more acid observations greater heft. Joseph is a champagne communist like many of her generation, however Amy Herzog rarely journeys beyond cliché in her play’s crass political representations.

Where the script comes alive is in Atkins’ take on her character’s advanced years. Her memory lapses, erratic irascibility and, at times, profound melancholy at the loneliness of her widowhood are poignant and well observed. Sadly, not much else is, and yet again a Chichester audience is found to be laughing insensitively at moments that are far from funny.

It’s not often that a 90 minute play feels like a tedious three hours.

Runs until 10th June

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Local Hero - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

****

Music & Lyrics by Mark Knopfler

Book by David Greig

Based on the Bill Forsyth film

Hilton McRae

The twentieth century gave us few finer rock musicians than Mark Knopfler, whose talent both as a writer and guitarist place him as one of the UK's greats. In 1983 Knopfler wrote the score for Bill Forsyth’s BAFTA-winning film Local Hero and he has now now taken those themes penned some fourty years ago, weaving them into a musical based upon the movie.

Local Hero is a whimsical tale of humanity and the cosmos set amidst the Scottish Highlands. Offshore oil was big business for Scotland in the 70s and 80s and Forsyth’s story focussed on a Houston based oil corporation sending out Mac, a high-powered executive, to acquire the coastal village of Ferness together with its beach for the purposes of constructing a refinery. Mac arrives amongst the canny villagers who are quick to sense the fortune that may be coming their way, and in an era that long pre-dated the internet or even mobile phones, one of the story’s most cosily comforting images is the village's old red telephone box on the beach that proves Mac’s only way of privately communicating with his USA Head Office. Of course the plans do not proceed as anticipated – love, charm and a respect for nature and the stars combine to chart a course that leads to an unexpected but decisively happy and inspiring ending.

Broadway's Tony-winner Gabriel Ebert makes his UK debut in the role of Mac. His is a performance of charm and assured voice, completely believable as the Texan city-slicker who falls for the beauty of Ferness' remote idyll. Opposite Mac is Paul Higgins as Gordon, the village’s pub-landlord cum accountant cum lawyer, who is appointed to negotiate with the oilman and strike the best deal possible. The musical’s triangular love interest comes from Lillie Flynn’s Stella who forges an emotional connection with both men. Arguably stealing the show however is Hilton McRae’s beachcomber Ben, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of the stars in the Scottish skies serves to bring together the narrative’s various strands.

Daniel Evans directs a sensitive ensemble piece from his company which is only enhanced by Frankie Bradshaw’s set design that ingeniously transforms into a sandy, pebble-strewn beach. Ash J Woodward offers up video projections that strive to create the aurora borealis in deepest West Sussex – an effect that relies heavily upon the audience’s ability to imagine the Northern Lights.  

The production's star of course is unquestionably Mark Knopfler’s rich score. His original movie soundtrack offered up a raft of melodies, most of which have been fused into the stage show and it is a mark of the man’s talent that he has been able to create so many songs from these gaelic and celtic themes. The music is powerful, stirring and fresh, containing a heady mix of beautiful balladry and rousing numbers written for guitars and violin. That musical director Richard John’s seven piece band contains no less than three guitarists speaks to Knopfler’s love affair with strings.

This is a show built around Knopfler’s love for Local Hero, itself one of the finest British movies. It makes for an evening of charming, gorgeous theatre.

Runs until 19th November

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Crazy For You - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin

Book by Ken Ludwig

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman

The company of Crazy For You

Crazy For You is a modern musical created around much older Gershwin classic songs. Ken Ludwig’s 1992 book is framed around musical numbers that were by then already 60 years old and the songs are as great as much as the narrative is corny. Corny maybe - but the Festival Theatre have flown in Susan Stroman to direct and choregraph and the result is platinum-plated popcorn. Never has a Chichester audience been as electrified by a show as they witnessed, quite possibly for the first time in the theatre’s 60-year history, Stroman delivering Broadway to Chichester.

The story is delicious 1930s froth that hops between New York and the tumbledown town of Deadrock, Nevada, focussing on reluctant banker from the city Bobby Child and the improbable love that grows between him and country gal Polly Baker. Along the way (spoiler alert) to a happy ending there are rivalries and mistaken identities, all showcased amongst routines that display shimmering ballgown brilliance in one number and eye-popping bar-room shenanigans in the next. Stroman's creative genius sees her stun the audience not just with the bravado and talent of her company, but with her vision that can turn coils of rope and pickaxes into integral parts of her dancework.

Beowulf Borritt’s sets blazingly take the narrative to criss-cross the North American continent, while Ken Billington’s lighting design takes musical theatre illumination to a new level for the Sussex venue. The ensemble numbers are bathed in a brightness of light that only adds to the magic created by the performers.

Stroman is helped by having one of the finest companies in the land. Charlie Stemp leads as Bobby, the quadruple-threat wunderkind who makes his first return to musical theatre in Chichester since being launching his stellar trajectory six years ago in Half a Sixpence. Stemp has powered his way to stardom in both London and New York in those intervening years and the rapturous welcome that the locals showed to him last night defined the town's pride at having unearthed Stemp’s starring genius. His footwork is flawless and when scenes of intricate physical comedy were played out between him and Tom Edden (as impresario Bela Zangler), to witness Stemp and Edden side by side is to see probably two of the most talented physical performers of their generation.

Carly Anderson is Polly Baker. Another faultless musical theatre talent, Anderson is gifted some of the evening’s most poignant solos and her handling of both Someone To Watch Over Me and But Not For Me is sublime. Stroman’s deployment of her company in the large numbers is simply exhilarating, with Slap That Bass and Stiff Upper Lip proving to be choreographed confections of wit and talent in equal measure. Standing ovations in Chichester are rare, yet I Got Rhythm had the audience on their feet cheering as the first act ended. Equally, the spectacle of the show’s Finale was just pure Broadway perfection. Above the stage Alan Williams conducted his 16-piece orchestra immaculately, with Gershwin’s unforgettable melodies wonderfully delivered.

Cameron Mackintosh was in the audience on press night. One can only hope that when his Prince Edward Theatre in the West End becomes available next year, that Crazy For You returns to the theatre where it first played in  London. Until then, get to Chichester - musical theatre does not get better than this.

Runs until 4th September

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Ken Ludwig In Conversation

Ken Ludwig

Crazy For You opens this month at Chichester Festival Theatre. The musical delivers a fine evening of song and dance and drawn from the composing genius of George and Ira Gershwin, one could be forgiven for thinking that the show is a classic hailing from Broadway’s Golden Age. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. While the songs are in part drawn from the Gershwin’s 1930 show Girl Crazy, it fell to Ken Ludwig (who co-conceived the musical with director Mike Ockrent) to create the book for Crazy for You some 60 years later. The show's Broadway opening in 1992 garnered 3 Tony Awards including Best Musical, with similar honours in the Oliviers a year later on its West End transfer.

Ludwig has been very busy at Chichester recently. His adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express has only recently closed at the Festival Theatre after achieving a slew of rave reviews from across the national press. He is back in Sussex again for Crazy For You and I caught up with him in a break from rehearsals to talk about these remarkable productions.

Charlie Stemp and Carly Anderson rehearsing Crazy For You at Chichester

Ludwig told me how Crazy For You was created. “Back in the early 1990s, a businessman called Roger Horchow called me out of the blue. He had invested in a couple of Broadway shows, but had always wanted to do Gershwin. He called me because I had a show on Broadway at the time called Lend Me A Tenor that was the only real comedy on Broadway at the time and he had really loved it. He told me that he had acquired the rights from the Gershwin Estate and would I write an adaptation of Girl Crazy? 

I told him that I couldn't! Girl Crazy has a terrible book. In fact it’s hardly a book at all, more a bunch of blackout sketches with some glorious songs in it: Embraceable You, I Got Rhythm, But Not For Me. So it had an amazing score, but it was hardly a story at all.

Girl Crazy was loosely about an East Coast guy heading West. Well, I ended up keeping that bit of the story so that I could use a couple of the songs as book songs, like Biding My Time and Could You Use Me, but otherwise I threw it all out and started from scratch. I came up with a story, not entirely unlike Lend Me A Tenor, if you think about it, which is someone who in their heart wants to be in show business, but can't quite make the leap. In the case of Lend Me A Tenor, it’s somebody who is an assistant to a producer. In the case of Crazy For You, he comes from a banking family. His parents force him to be a banker, but he just wants to tap dance and that's Bobby in Crazy For You. So, I wrote the idea, came up with the story, and then Mike Ockrent joined in, we found Susan Stroman to choregraph and we built the musical.”

The company rehearsing Crazy For You at Chichester

I asked Ken to tell me more about Susan Stroman. “Well, Stroman is remarkable. She started out as a choreographer, and was rightly acclaimed for Crazy For You and went onto do other Broadway shows. And then, late in the day, she started directing. She and Mike Ockrent who directed Crazy For You got married and they were doing some shows together, and in fact were hired to do The Producers together, when Mike contracted leukaemia and tragically died so young. And then she took over The Producers and directed that on her own.”

And of course it is Stroman who will be making her much anticipated debut at Chichester this year, as she directs and choreographs this revival of Crazy For You!

Chichester hosted the UK premiere of Murder On The Orient Express earlier this year before a planned transfer to Bath. I asked Ken about his ingenious adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic.

“The Christie Estate came to me and said, "We'd like you to take any one of her novels and put it on stage.  I was very flattered and I said, "Of course I'd be honoured to do it." I chose Murder On The Orient Express without rereading it. I hadn't read it in years. I'd seen the great (1974) Albert Finney movie, but I knew the title was such an iconic title. And I thought, well, in itself it's so romantic, the title's romantic and it's exotic and ought to translate to the stage well.

Then I read the novel soup to nuts and realized this is going to be tricky. It's all virtually, all on the train. So to dramatise it, to make it fun to watch on stage and exciting, and a cliff hanger, I changed two things from the novel.

Firstly, I made the murder happen a great deal later in the piece than it is in the book. If you think in a way that's counterintuitive, as it's the murder that gets the story started, but it's really not. As a dramatist I wanted us to meet the characters and get invested in all those characters on the train, so that we cared about who did it, because until the very end w don't know who did it. Jonathan Church, who directed it so superbly, turned to me at one point and said, "Ken, the murder isn't happening till 45 minutes into the play, are we going to be okay?" And I said, "Well, just hold tight. I think we'll be all right." And it ends up being just that and it works.

The other major change I made is that in the book there are 12 suspects and someone even makes a remark about that and says, "Oh 12, like a British jury." I cut that down to eight suspects because there were just too many people to get to know in the compressed stage time.”

One of the standout features of the play was the set design, and I asked Ken for his thoughts on seeing a play that is, for the most part, set on a train stranded in the Alps, physically brought to the stage.

“When the play first ran in the States there was a beautiful set by Beowulf Boritt who in fact I've worked with several times since, and he's doing Crazy For You here at Chichester now. For the play here, a whole different concept emerged between the two geniuses that I had to work with, who were Jonathan Church and his designer Rob Jones. 

Rob had conceived a whole imaginative way to view the train with the locomotive at the back of the stage and pallets that came on and danced around the stage. And, as you saw, they formed the dining car and then formed the car with all the bedrooms. And so we had to imagine ourselves into the setting in a different way. 

It was all in our mind seeing the pieces of it come together and it was, I have to say, the most beautiful, dramatic set I think I'll ever have in my life. And it helped spur me on to write the new pieces, parts of it that I did, because it was so glorious. Rob’s design, from the early design-box stage, made me think about how that would affect Poirot and the big entrances for Mrs. Hubbard, who is very flamboyant American, and all the characters, little Greta Olson, who's afraid of her own shadow. And it inspired me to rethink the dramatic way to tell the story.

Henry Goodman as Hercule Poirot

And of course Henry Goodman (as Hercule Poirot) was a delight. I have known of Henry’s work for a long while and I find his attention to detail is remarkable. He thinks through the character in depth from the beginning of the play to the end of the play. So when we start working, even when we started on the first day and he was practising the first scene, he knows where he wants to end up emotionally, because he's thought about it so much. He's a real intellect. And his skillset is incredible. So he brings both this remarkable intelligence to every role he does and then is able to embody it, because he has such a great set of acting skills and such a good voice too.”

Crazy For You commences previews in the Chichester Festival Theatre on 11th July, where it runs until 4th September. For tickets click here.  

The Unfriend - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

***

Written by Steven Moffat

Directed by Mark Gatiss

Frances Barber

The Unfriend takes a zany idea that’s been based upon a germ of lived experience and blows it up into a two-hour farce. Along the way there is some outstanding performance work, but the story fails to engage.

Peter and Debbie meet Elsa on a cruise. They are a typically mild-mannered English suburban couple, she is a larger than life American widow from Denver with a monstrous past. In a programme note Steven Moffat describes the tale that he has penned as “comedy gold”. Well maybe there are some nuggets lurking in the text, but there is a fair amount of tedium to endure too.

Reece Shearsmith and Amanda Abbington play the hapless Brits, the straight guys around whom the comedy happens. But there is a skill in creating understated English characters who work well in comedy, that Moffat doesn’t possess. Peter and Debbie are no Ben and Ria from Carla Lane’s 1970s TV series Butterflies and given that Moffat is currently a prolific UK TV screenwriter, the narrative he has created here is an example of quite how far the standards of British comedy writing have fallen. Some of the toilet gags in the second half are just downright puerile.

What is magnificent about this play however is Frances Barber’s Elsa. Her character is a female version of Zero Mostel’s Max Bialystock fused with Jack Nicholson’s Daryl Van Horne. Barber bestrides her scenes like a Colossus, devious, larger than life and irresistibly evil. Alongside Barber, Michael Simkins in the most modest of cameos is another perfectly crafted comic creation, years of experience manifest in his perfectly timed delivery.

Mark Gatiss helms the piece. Directing farce is the toughest of gigs and is clearly a craft that (the otherwise highly accomplished) Gatiss has yet to master. Robert Jones and Mark Henderson, Chichester’s current wonder duo of design and lighting, make the Minerva’s presentation of this drama look stunning. 

And as for Frances Barber's performance, kill to get a ticket!

Runs until 9th July

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Henry Goodman talks about bringing Hercule Poirot to the stage

 

Henry Goodman has received near universal acclaim for his portrayal of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express that opened in Chichester last week. Describing the Belgian sleuth as “a cop with a conscience, a detective with dignity”, earlier this month Goodman took a break from his hectic rehearsal schedule to speak with me about the production.

You can read my 5* review of Chichester's Murder on the Orient Express here

Henry Goodman returns to the Chichester stage this month, leading the cast on a newly-written version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. One of the crime-writer’s classic yarns, the story has been committed to screen numerous times. Now, for the first time, in Ken Ludwig’s adaptation, the murder mystery is to be performed live on stage, with Goodman waxing up his moustache to step into the role of famed detective Hercule Poirot. 

“What is so exciting about the challenge of this story is Poirot. We all know I’m standing on the shoulders of giants – Kenneth Branagh, David Suchet, Peter Ustinov, John Malkovich, Albert Finney and Alfred Molina have all played him on screen – but lockdown gave me the time to read quite a lot of the novels and look at all the films. I didn’t do this to nick ideas, although there might be the odd thing that inspired me, but to soak myself up in Poirot and try to understand why he is so important to people. Why did Christie fall in love with him? I see Poirot as a figure of hope and this adaptation enhances that. I’m in my 70s, so it’s an older man who is saying: ‘This was the case that really was unique in my life. Come back and have a look at it with me.’

“Why is Poirot so refreshing, and why is he able to say things about the British that the British can’t say about themselves? It’s not just that he’s got an odd walk, or that he’s slightly eccentric in his speech, or that he is a foreigner out of place amongst all these people because in this story there are a lot of foreigners all trapped on a train who are from Russia, Sweden and Hungary. No, the interesting, exotic thing is it that this blend of cultures makes him act differently to how he does when he is with the English. Ludwig has been very clever about keeping alive the whodunnit and the questioning, but also in allowing me to observe different nationalities and different presumed attitudes. He’s not just a cop with a conscience, he is a man with a moral strength, and that’s why this case is so important to him as he invites the audience to go back and explore it with him.”

Previous Poirots have all been on film or TV where the camera can be close-up on every hair on his moustache. Here, we are in a 1300-seat auditorium, which Goodman last appeared at in 2010 when he played the role of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Prime Minister. “Live performance doesn’t necessarily mean melodrama, because it’s a wonderfully powerful and intimate space, but it’s theatre not film,” says Henry. “That means not ‘bigness’, but a different type of laser-focus on certain things that a camera can cheat on. The camera can suggest a little shot through a window or a lingering dolly shot or all sorts of things, but we have to make it happen in a different way.”

Speaking about the historical context of the story, Goodman continued: “I am very conscious that it’s set in the 1930s just after the Nazi rise of 1933. Although it’s a murder mystery, and Ken’s been very strong on the thriller element of working out what happens when and where, there are certain social attitudes built into Christie in her time. Some of these tend towards the colonial and imperialist. However, these people are trapped on a train in the ‘30s. I don’t want to give anything away, but towards the end of the play they are revealed to be acting in a particular light of current events. There are the attitudes of the thirties: of nobility, royalty, a Russian princess, an American actress. These are the characters in the novel, so they’re nothing new, but we have intensified the contrast between them, creating a strong insight into the attitudes of the time, which speak to us now because here we are with Russia invading Ukraine. In the ‘30s that’s exactly what was going on – an invasion of Europe.”

In 1997 Goodman brought Broadway’s Billy Flynn to London in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago. I ask if there are any parallels between playing a ruthless criminal defence lawyer and an investigating detective?

“I’ve played a lot of manipulative nasty people, but the reason these roles are so interesting to play, and why people enjoy reading criminal novels and dealing with dark stuff, is that there’s something charismatic about them. Flynn is manipulative, while Poirot discovers other people’s manipulation, and that is a joy to play. Poirot is passionate about his moral certitude in a world that is in danger.”

Goodman grew up in the East End and worked a pitch selling watches on Petticoat Lane. He landed his first role in 1960 in a film called Conspiracy of Hearts. He was 10. “The film was about little kids being rescued from a concentration camp by nuns. My picture was in Woman’s Weekly – the first image of myself on film was standing behind barbed wire as a little boy in a concentration camp. These things go very deep.

You can read my 5* review of Chichester's Murder on the Orient Express here

Runs until 4th June at Chichester, then tours to Theatre Royal, Bath

This interview was first published in the Jewish News

Photos of Henry Goodman by Johan Persson

Murder on the Orient Express - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Written by Agatha Christie

Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig

Directed by Jonathan Church

Henry Goodman

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH HENRY GOODMAN HERE

Murder on the Orient Express is one of the most beloved murder mysteries of recent decades. Committed to the screen 4 times and with its grand scenes of Istanbul, steam trains, and treacherous mountain blizzards all framing a cast of glamorous characters from across Europe and the USA,  the romance, intrigue and above all deception have long combined to give Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s celebrated sleuth, the challenge of his detective career.

Equalling that challenge is the task that Chichester’s cast and creative team have faced in taking their audience on a two-hour journey across the Alps to watch as Henry Goodman’s Poirot cracks the case. And much as Poirot stylishly delivers his unravelling of the train’s gruesome murder, so too has Jonathan Church’s ensemble delivered an outstanding interpretation of this ripping yarn.

Ken Ludwig’s adaptation has skillfully filleted Christie’s novel into a two act play that threads the essential elements of the plot into a well crafted tale. There are melodrama and shocks a’plenty with just a hint of wit and humour too, all thrown in with some serious moral anguish in the endgame. Pure theatrical class.

The audience’s disbelief is first suspended by Robert Jones’ stunning set. Like Steven Spielberg’s shark in Jaws, the eponymous steam train is kept out of sight for quite a while as with an ingenious use of sliding arches and simple scenery, Jones transports us to Istanbul for the story’s opening. Then, as the journey commences and those brilliant arches start to slide the locomotive is revealed, a glorious fusion of steel, smoke and light that frames the murderous tale. It is not often that a scene change receives its own round of applause - Jones’ work is sensational and enhanced by Mark Henderson's lighting, the coup de theatres are magnificent.

Many actors have waxed that famed moustache and by his own admission Goodman acknowledges that he “is standing on the shoulders of giants” as he tackles literature’s most famous Belgian, but he unquestionably makes the role his own. On stage for virtually the entire show and with an accent deliciously cod, Goodman probes his suspects with a combination of sensitivity and vigour that is never less than convincing. When the play’s finale sees him wrestling with his conscience, he commands our sympathy. With two Olivier Awards already under his belt alongside countless other nominations, Goodman should garner another gong for his Poirot.

His fellow passengers are all delightful caricatures. With numerous suspects to flesh out in 2 hours, there is not a lot of time to allow each character much depth. The skill therefore in bringing them into relief, as with all drama, lies in the brilliant economies of Ludwig’s script blended with the company’s fine acting and some absolutely gorgeous costume work and millinery (with a shout out here for Sean Barrett’s stunning hats, created for Joanna McCallum’s equally stunning Princess Dragomiroff). Sara Stewart as Helen Hubbard and Laura Rogers as Countess Andrenyi were perhaps the most memorable of the bunch, but there is fine work all round.

Murder on the Orient Express is unpretentious, brilliantly crafted theatre of the finest standard. The horror is not too bloody, nor the scares too scary nor its arguments too complex, with Adrian Sutton’s music (albeit not as majestic as Richard Rodney Bennett’s 1974 movie score) providing an enchanting backdrop to the intrigue.

Chichester have a hit on their hands that deserves a London transfer. Unmissable!

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH HENRY GOODMAN HERE

Runs until 4th June, then tours to Theatre Royal, Bath

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Singin' In The Rain - Review

Sadler's Wells, London

*****

   

                Kevin Clifton, Adam Cooper and Charlotte Gooch

Music by Nacio Herb Brown

Lyrics by Arthur Freed

Book by Adolph Green and Betty Comden

Directed by Jonathan Church

One of the two classic tales that defined the impact of the ‘Talkies’ on Hollywood (the other of course being Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard) Singin’ In The Rain is an unashamedly joyous celebration of talent in both song and dance.

The story is an age-old fable. Silent movie Lina Lamont finds herself overtaken by the trend towards sound recording, and where Lamont may have the looks of a screen-goddess, her voice of course is an unbearable screech.

It takes the genius of Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown to spot the hidden talents in studio-hand Kathy Selden and as everyone knows, the dubbing skills of Selden go on to save the day with Selden herself being finally recognised for the vocal star that she is.

The story is simple, timeless and an endearing tribute to the triumph of good over evil. The show’s title of course derives from Lockwood’s deliriously happy discovery of both Selden’s voice and his own feelings for her – and while the title number has little impact upon the story’s arc it is a Broadway and Hollywood classic and here, under Jonathan Church’s deft direction, the front rows of the Sadlers Wells’ stalls are appropriately drenched in watery appreciation

Church and his choreographer Andrew Wright have reunited to recreate their 2011 Chichester triumph and they have been given a platinum cast to work with. Even more so in the fact that ten years ago it was Adam Cooper who starred as Don Lockwood and it is Cooper who returns to Sadler’s Wells.  With Kevin Clifton and Charlotte Gooch  as Cosmo and Kathy respectively, the trio are an unbeatable combination. Vocals and footwork are breathtaking in their pinpoint accuracy with even Faye Tozer’s squawky Lamont proving a further flawless joy.

For an evening of unqualified delight, this production of Singin’ In The Rain has to be one of the best shows in town.

Runs until 5th September, then tours, with tickets available here