Tommy - Review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London


*****

Music and lyrics by Pete Townsend

Book by Pete Townsend and Des McAnuff

Additional music and lyrics by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon

Directed by Kerry Michael

Ramps On The Moon’s production of Tommy, directed by Kerry Michael, is a truly wonderful production. As the rock opera created by The Who is famously about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid”, so does this work build upon a cast, at least half of whom triumph in their performance over a range of disabilities.

The story telling is clear and alongside Michael’s deft and moving direction, Mark Smith (himself deaf and who choreographed a stunning Tommy two years ago at Greenwich) again does wonders with his dancework, offering yet even more truth and honesty to the complex moralities of the tale.

The casting is ingenious. Peter Straker’s Acid Queen is astonishing vocally, with a stage presence alone that exudes power and is worth the price of admission! Pete Townsend has even written him a new song in Act 2, that rounds off his character perfectly - and remember: when Tommy first played in the West End in 1979, Straker was the show's Narrator. 

Shekinah McFarlane’s take on Mother is out of this world - this talented performer has a voice that firmly places her in the diva category as she remains one to watch. 

In the title role, Tommy is played beautifully and emotionally by newcomer William Glint. When he sees his father for the first time and shouts out ‘Daddy’, spines tingle. Max Runham sings powerfully as Captain Walker and his scenes with Glint are very touching. Garry Robson is a suitably gruesome Uncle Ernie.

The whole ensemble play, sing and dance many roles throughout the show, with a mention too to Robert Hyman’s sensational band, who break out into character parts as well as playing their instruments.

This Tommy is a magnificent production that serves to highlight the scarcity of disabled people on stage generally and it is a shame that it takes a ground-breaking production like this to point that out. Hopefully more theatre companies will be inspired by this example.

Reviewed by Trevor Davies

Touring until 1st July

Oh What A Lovely War

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

****

Joan Littlewood's Musical Entertainment by Theatre Workshop, Charles Chilton,
Gerry Raffles and Members of the Original Cast

Directed by Terry Johnson

Ian Bartholomew

Fifty years after the outbreak of the First World War Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop commemorated the conflict with Oh What A Lovely War at London’s Theatre Royal Stratford East. Today, in the War’s centenary year, the same theatre re-stages the show. 

The musical opens frivolously, as an end of the pier Vaudeville extravaganza, with carnival lights, fancy drapes and a company of pierrots inviting the audience to join them in war games that condense the four year war into one evening. But by the interval the injuries and carnage are mounting and as the curtain rises on act two, the glamorous red drape that previously adorned the centre stage-back is now collapsed and crumpled, suggesting at turns the mud of the trenches or the blood of the fallen.

What makes Littlewood’s work all the more inspiring is that the musical numbers are all songs of the period, often composed with gallows wit by troops in the trenches. From the filthy irreverence of Christmas Day In The Cookhouse, through to the noble, heart-breaking dignity of And When They Ask Us, the poignancy of the songs lands like a whizz-bang. Hearing them a hundred years on, we know that they were once sung by men whose destiny was quite likely to be killed in battle. 

Terry Johnson’s visions are as beautiful as they are haunting. Trenches, ballrooms and Speakers’ Corner are all staged via simple scenery and classy acting. No stage-blood in this show, rather the horrifying mimes of bullets hitting men and gas being inhaled, as an electronic screen updates us with specific details of horrific casualty numbers. A cast of twelve play the many roles, with veterans Caroline Quentin, Shaun Prendergast, Ian Bartholomew and Michael Simkins sharing the most prominent characters. Quentin’s bosomy recruiting-showgirl turn, I’ll Make A Man Of You is a treat worthy of archiving, whilst the men’s interchangeability from pierrot, to soldier, to officer is seamless. Bartholomew’s General Haig is a clever caricature that avoids cliché.

There is something aesthetically pleasing about a show that honours the bravery of the humble foot soldier returning to its origins in E15 and to a theatre so rooted in London’s East End, the traditional heartland of the capital’s working man. That authenticity extends into the orchestra pit where Mike Dixon’s five piece band reject all digital instruments in pursuit of an entirely acoustic sound. Dixon plays a real piano rather than the eponymous keyboards, whilst Graham Justin’s brass playing sets a perfect tone.

In a moment of life imitating art, shortly before the show’s opening, Education Secretary Michael Gove slated it (together with the BBC comedy Blackadder's episodes set in WW1) for mocking history. As many of the First World War’s generals were buffoons, so too is Gove. The Great War with its two most notable technological advancements of the machine gun and poison gas gave rise to slaughter on an apocalyptic level. Most famously at the Somme and Ypres, Haig despatched nigh-on millions of British troops to certain death for what was to prove negligible strategic gain. Oh What A Lovely War does not mock war, far from it. Nations and armies deserve strong intelligent leadership, that for too much of the First World War, was lacking. Gove’s recent pronouncements only show his failure to have appreciated the show's message and remind us how easily history can repeat itself.

Alongside Picasso’s La Guernica and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Oh What A Lovely War is a work of art that brings the horrors of war into our collective conscience. Johnson and his company have honoured both The Glorious Dead and the vision of Joan Littlewood. Their show is moving, compelling and the finest history lesson in town.

Runs until 15th March 2014

Gutted

Theatre Royal Stratford East

*****

Written & directed by Rikkie Beadle-Blair



Louise Jameson and Frankie FItzgerald

On entering the Theatre Royal Stratford East, you immediately notice that the plush curtains have been removed from the stage and in their place a mirrored wall, which like a safety curtain, rises as the play begins. Rikki Beadle-Blair who directs as well as writes has a clear message. Gutted will mirror parts of society and that however hard it may be, watching his play is to take a look at either ourselves, or at components of our communities alongside whom we live.



This is a strikingly innovative piece of drama. The four Prospect brothers, their mother Bridie and their relationships with their partners, are tracked from twenty-something years ago, to the present. The writing is gritty and very coarse. Eye-wateringly funny knob-gag humour, never once gratuitous nor out of context, sits side by side with deeply harrowing revelations of abuse. This is a story of damaged people trying to find their way in the world and more often than not making wrong decisions along their journeys.  Through Beadle-Blair's text, in which nearly every character with only few exceptions is damaged goods, we watch how over the course of lifetimes, decisions are made, that are often at best no more than shoddy compromises and at worst a series of blind-eyes being turned to horrendous acts of evil.

The performances are all flawless and several are outstanding. Louise Jameson is the widowed Bridie, a loving, supportive and feisty mother and grandmother. She is the rock of the Prospect clan albeit with a complex past and it is not until her spectacular, raw,  denouement scene towards the end of act two, that we understand how she has hardened herself to have survived a life of continued misery, mixed with a surprising combination of profound understanding of what has occurred around her and also encompassing a mind  boggling talent for denial. Rarely has one character earned in turn not only our sympathy but also our contempt.

Frankie Fitzgerald shines as middle son Mark Prospect, most notably when, acting as his younger self and as a child who has not been subjected to the sexual abuse that his siblings have endured, expresses his own low self-worth and inadequacies as to why he is not attractive to the abuser. Through snatches of such distressing dialog does Beadle-Blair reveal a world that is fatally flawed. Later in life when Mark learns that his own infant children are being abused, the horror of his comprehension combined with the manner in which he speaks to his terrified damaged kids, is deeply moving. The performance is all the more astonishing given that there are in fact no children up on stage and Fitzgerald is speaking to empty space. Sadly, his performance is so good that we can painfully conjure up the images of the youngsters in our minds eye.

James Farrar and Jennifer Daley

Jennifer Daley's Lucy Lockwood is another fascinating and ultimately morally bankrupt character. She is a young woman drawn to brother Matthew Prospect (played by James Farrar) and so in love with him that not only is she accepting of his damaged sexual history, she is prepared to support his warped cravings, offering to "breed lovers" for him. She portrays her character so un-sensationally that when we hear her make that hellish offer, one that so rails against the basic precepts of maternal love and protection for a child that rather than be shocked, we weep. Lucy is one of the most complex and profoundly selfish characters created for the stage in recent years

Beadle-Blair's writing is a requiem for Britain's victims of moral depravation, though he does sow some seeds for hope and redemption, via youth, in the final scenes. The Prospect family are a brood who have learned to satisfy their craving for love and respect via football, drugs, religious fundamentalism and abusive behaviour. Their sexualities are ambiguous, and any sexual respect for others that they might have had, was lost years ago. The play is uncomfortable, searching and also downright bloody brilliant. It deserves a transfer to a more central stage for a longer run. Soon.

Runs until May 25

Sus

Lion & Unicorn Theatre, London

****

Written by Barrie Keefe

Directed by Paul Tomlinson

Alexander Neal

Barrie Keefe’s Sus is revived in an intimate traverse setting at Kentish Town’s Lion & Unicorn theatre. Inspired by and drawn from the police’s  “stopping on SUSpicion” powers of the 1970’s that were widely misused against the black community, the producers are keen to suggest that not a lot has changed in the last 35 years.

Set on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory, the one act play’s action never leaves a police interview room. Interestingly, the crime for which Delroy, a black man who has been brought in from the pub for questioning, is not a SUS matter, but rather the recent bloody death of his pregnant wife,  where CID officers Karn and Wilby have not unreasonable initial grounds to suspect him of her murder. It is the extent however to which these institutionally racist coppers pursue their line of inquiry, throwing their rule book out of the window and treating their suspect appallingly, that makes for such gripping theatre that is at times unbearable to watch.

Keefe’s writing has always been gritty, peppered with just enough coarse language and above all sprinkled with frequent exchanges of cockney gallows-humour that only an accomplished London writer can master. That a highly charged moment of confrontation can be reduced, in a moment, to a comparison of the respective sexual charms of TV newsreaders  Anna Ford and  Angela Rippon (this is 1979 remember) demonstrates Keefe’s ability to make one chuckle uncomfortably whilst at the same time cranking up the dramatic tension.

Wole Sawyerr is Delroy who, as the the mood of the piece darkens, digs deep to find his his grief and his rage . When he is beaten up by Wilby, one feels for the agony of the blows and his pleading tears crave our sympathy. Of the two cops, Nason Crone’s Wilby is perhaps the most stereotyped. His is the lesser educated of the two policemen, most capable of expressing his contempt for Delroy with his fists. Wilby is a complex character with whom Crone has yet to engage at an appropriate level of depth.

It is Alexander Neal’s Karn that is the engine at the core of this production in a performance that again demonstrates the excellence to be found on London’s fringe. Neal relishes every word of Keefe’s carefully crafted irony and chain smoking, moustachioed and with hair greased back, he embodies a truly ugly side of the police that Life on Mars’ Gene Hunt set about portraying in an altogether lighter vein.

Seen today, Sus is a fascinating piece of historical comment, that at the very least was prescient in describing the culture that was to surround the police response to the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence.  Two years after the play premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East (where Paul Barber defined Delroy) Brixton and Toxteth erupted into riot, largely prompted by an abuse of the Sus laws. The programme states that this production is a response to the 2011 riots but that association seems a little opportunistic. The social and violent unrest of those more recent summer troubles was certainly a complex cocktail, probably fuelled by a lot more than just a kicking out at a racist police force.

As an observation, the packed audience on press night (some of whom were atrociously behaved and all credit to the actors for playing on) was entirely white, not an accurate reflection of this city’s ethnic make-up and Sus is nothing if not a play that deserves to be seen by all. A strong company, Neal’s chilling performance and Keefe’s still shockingly electric writing make for a troubling 90 minutes. Catch it if you can.

Jack & The Beanstalk - Review

Theatre Royal, Stratford East


***

Book and lyrics by Paul Sirett
Music and lyrics by Wayne Nunes and Perry Melius
Directed by Dawn Reid

Oliver Taheri and Jack Shalloo

The Theatre Royal in London’s Stratford has a reputation for excellence in its Christmas offering each year. Jack & The Beanstalk, this season’s pantomime is a big visual extravaganza that will keep the kids well entertained for a couple of hours, but it may leave the parents wishing for a bit more of a meal than Jack’s magic beans.

Paul Sirett takes the classic fairy tale, introducing us to Jack as the traditional good for nothing, albeit with a talent for body-popping. Jorell Coiffic-Kamall plays Jack and his movement and expression together with his wide eyed innocence, make him a hero that children can believe in, identify with and cheer along as well when the going gets surprisingly scary. Michael Bertenshaw a veteran of Stratford East who plays Jack's mum, is a talented and well experienced dame, deliciously grotesque on the eye and with a voice that’s wonderfully tuneless. Whilst Sirett has made only minor tweaks to the traditional narrative, he seems to have forgotten that there will be a significant adult constituent to his show’s audience, particularly when the school groups cease over the holiday period. Disappointingly, very few of Bertenshaw’s gags are aimed at the grown-ups and a local panto in particular should be able to be cheeky, mocking and satirical, as well as being top notch entertainment for the young ‘uns.

The supporting cast are a talented bunch. Jack Shalloo and Oliver Taheri provide the comic relief as a pair of bungling burglars. They ham it up appropriately, Shalloo’s singing voice also providing some brief moments of quality harmony. Outstanding vocals are also delivered by Allyson Ava-Brown as Harpo, a woman with a harp joined to her head by the ogre (yes, that possibly is a tad grotesque for a panto). Brown is an accomplished chanteuse and her voice and presence would make for an excellent, home-grown, Rachel Marron one day.

The ogre’s lair and the giant-sized ogre himself, a cleverly designed and animated puppet, have a slightly distasteful air of the Saw movies horror franchise, a suggestion further enhanced by the oversize tools that hang in the ogre's kitchen and the nasty little radio-controlled cars that scoot across the stage adorned with severed limbs. If any stage blood had been added the show would have garnered a 16+ recommendation.  And at the risk of sounding like a “don’t try this at home” preacher, why in what is clearly aimed at being a children’s show, were characters allowed to climb into an oven, of all things, to hide?

The show’s music has some clever moments with minor interludes of blues and soul, but again comes over as a touch too anodyne. A nod to one or two popular and familiar songs would not have gone amiss.

This is Sirett’s first effort at panto writing and it shows. Many fine writers before him have run aground on the treacherous rocks of comedy creation. Pantomime, like commedia dell ‘arte needs perceptive pencraft, married to excellent performance and whilst in this production, the talent on stage is first rate, their material seems to be focussed too much on diversity and political correctness at the expense of humour. If the writers did not wish to offend, they have also largely failed to amuse. Where were the snappy or even visual gags and where was that well drilled slapstick? One should not expect a mega-bucks production at Stratford East, that is not what the theatre is famous for. It is however renowned for being a home of sharp comment, pointed and well-rehearsed comedy as well as cheeky pantomime excellence. Young kids will love this Jack and those accompanying them will delight in their glee, but this production is really just a seasonal children's show rather than a pantomime that is fun for all the the family. As an honoured festive tradition, this platter is in need of a little more sauce.

Runs until January 19

Dangerous Lady - Review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

****

Adapted by Patrick Prior

Directed by Lisa Goldman

Claire-Louise Cordwell as Maura Ryan

Dangerous Lady is the most traditional of plays, mounted in a wonderfully traditional theatre. Martina Cole's first novel has been adapted for the Theatre Royal Stratford East by Associate Writer Patrick Prior who, in an age where crime novels are typically dramatised via film or television replete with clever camera angles and expensive explosions, has taken this tale of London's criminality in the late twentieth century and simply transformed it for one of London's most atmospheric stages. This play is a cracking yarn of old fashioned east-end values, villainy, violence and virtue.

Claire-Louise Cordwell is Maura Ryan, the femme fatale of the play's title. We follow her from birth, born into a family of Irish Catholic heritage. Her mother is a single parent matriarch, adored by her three sons and daughter and the theme of family loyalty and the consequences of betraying such commitment, runs through the play as through a stick of Brighton rock. The young Maura unwittingly falls in love with a rookie policeman, a relationship that is destined to be doomed whilst her siblings slowly build up an empire of organised crime across the city and the play tracks her over thirty years with neat socially historic nods to the illegality of abortion, the illicit widespread fundraising for and growth of, the IRA and an intolerance of homosexuality. Maura's brothers are characterisations of villains both factual and fabled. There are aspects of their life that echo the Kray Brothers and the emerging republican influence on London's gangland bears more than a passing resemblance to the crumbling of Harold Shand's empire in Barrie Keefe's The Long Good Friday (see weblink below). Director Lisa Goldman has her cast portray shootings, beatings and factory explosions in a manner that is convincing without ever being gory, her London very much a recognisable tableaux.

Cordwell's is a tour de force performance . On stage for almost the entire production, she carries the success of this story. Hers is the character that is the most defined by Prior and she brings an authentic humanity to the spectrum of Maura's emotions as she experiences love, loss, and anger as well as developing a ruthless controlling streak as she grows to command her brothers' empire. Her journey is physically tough, and the violation she suffers at the grubby hands of a bungling abortionist is harrowing to watch. Cordwell has her audience wincing at the pain she endures and cheering at her triumphs.

Veronica Quilligan is convincing as the sibling's mother, powerful yet, in later years, weary with grief and surprisingly vengeful. As eldest brother Michael, James Clyde is a watchable if somewhat two-dimensional hoodlum, his gay sexuality, coke habit, and menacing manner being a little cliched. In a haunting moment, Allyson Ava-Brown, playing several supporting roles in the story, sings an ethereally beautiful Amazing Grace at a family funeral.

Whilst act one of the play charts Maura's rise to power and is both credible and gripping, the second half, in which the story's various plot lines moves towards resolution can at times feel contrived. This may well be the corollary of editing Cole's original 500 page novel into one evening's entertainment.

The set is simple yet ingenious and with 48 scenes to accommodate, Jean-Marc Puissant's use of concentric revolves enables a diverse range of locations to be effectively and stylishly represented. Matt McKenzie's sound design, with background music suggesting the years passing and vocal and special effects, including a particularly authentic church echo, add to the production's ambience.

Martina Cole's work belongs in this east London setting. Her story with its classic themes of love, brutality and revenge makes for a grand evening of adult theatre.

Runs to November 17


 A lookback on The Long Good Friday

Photograph: Robert Day