Thalidomide, the Musical
The Playhouse, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 September 2006
Thalidomide, the Musical
In a time when musicals are made from almost anything from Jerry Springer, Nixon and Thatcher to the NHS and Ofsted, it should be no surprise that Thalidomide gets a showbiz treatment.
That this is written by and co-stars Mat Fraser, a well-known disabled actor, gives it an added edge.
A man with very short arms looking for love in a long-armed world is the basis for a story that’s as politically incorrect as it can be. Through songs and docudrama, the narrative of the passing years, the horror of the Thalidomide tragedy is made flesh.
Throughout, he is totally enabled by Anna Winslet as they ride a rollercoaster of musical genres, puppets and emotions.
Some incredibly funny moments at first feel uncomfortable. But they soon seem natural and normal.
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Caligula on Ice
Norwich Arts Centre
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 13 October 2006
Caligula on Ice
If you are not much into poetry performance, it may sound like a hippy happening shrouded in substance fumes.
But this was bang up to date. There were three sets, like a well-rounded play with long intervals.
The opener was from Martin Figura, a stand-up poet of nostalgia and our first Christmas poem – “Every year we gather round the tree, opening old wounds”.
Tim Turnbull recited a philosophical puzzle about God living with teenagers. His work is a narrative of assorted tales, littered with props, voices, mimes and acting.
Turnbull’s final set is the main piece – Caligula on Ice. It’s a parody of a spiel for backers of a show that is comedy, circus and topical observation.
After it was all over, I left wondering what is the difference between a performance poet and stand-up comic. Now I know. The former wants to sell books, the latter wants to be loved, like a dog!
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To Kill a Mocking Bird
Theatre Royal, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 18 October 2006
To Kill a Mockingbird
You never really understand a person till you climb into his skin.
This is the story of two mockingbirds. The one, a gentle simple recluse who saves the lives of the two children who, efectively, tell the story.
The other is a black man, falsely accused of raping a white woman and found guilty in prejudiced small-town America, who dies escaping jail.
It’s also about putting a popular school set text on the stage with a cast of actors who shine without exception and a set that deserves applause, moving from outside porches to a hot steamy courthouse.
Equally it is about reminding us with a jolt that assumption of guilt and skin colour can still go together.
It’s a chance for Duncan Preston to put aside his comic idiocy in TV’s “Dinner Ladies” and give us a compelling lawyer who just can’t give in.
It is an opportunity to see a convincing Vinta Morgan as the black man victim and Sally Tatum as his perfectly pitiful white woman accuser.
A stylish black and white story that’s not so straightforward, it leaves a feeling of discomfort yet admiration: of emotion with inspiration. See it.
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Barleycorn
The Cut, Halesworth
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 11 November 2006
Barley Corn
Ingredients – one regional story teller, a leading folk artist, new local choir, landscape and barley that was once transformed to malt in this amazing old building.
But it is the way the ingredients were mixed that made it a special evening. The power of the spoken word, the magic of music and song – now that’s a heady brew!
Hugh Lupton spun great yarns – his smoothly rich voice enchanting. Often with his tongue in cheek, he conjured a forgotten age it’s easy to feel at home in.
Chris Wood worked into the mind with his voice and guitar evoking a rural life that is gone yet lives in us.
Sian Croose conducted Halesworth Community Choir – no instruments, but voices in harmonies and rounds that were delightful.
John Barleycorn was the personification of the myth of the ancient Corn King ceremonies. St George, old Father Christmas and other traditional characters were brought to life.
It explains the dual timing that underpins folk culture. There is tragic time, our span of life. And there is resurrective time – the characters we play never die, they come back again.
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Hedda Gabler
RoughCast Theatre at the Fisher Theatre, Bungay
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 27 November 2006
Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen is a little out of fashion these days, what with the heavy Victorian morals and modern view, it is almost melodrama. Yet with the additional secrets, lies, scandals and hypocrisy, time is surely ripe for a fresh appraisal.
RoughCast do just that with a sharp, well-costumed and plausible presentation.
Now six years old, they formed to tour challenging plays in rural areas – bringing it to the newly-restored and magnificent little Fisher Theatre was an added bonus.
David Green’s brisk direction of a strong cast brings the wordy (and, for its era, revolutionary) story to life in a way that strikes a chord with people of all ages today.
Pistol crackshop Hedda Gabler is newly married, bored, restless, caged. Sarah Farrah’s interpretation is a tour-de-force, from manipulative comedy one moment to subtle menace the next – her pent up anger and impatience reinforced by a uniquely expressive face. We can’t help but sympathise, while her insufferable husband (Grant Filshill) is both superb foil and irritant.
The remaining cast – the ne’er do well (Mark Burridge), the philandering old judge (Paul Baker), the Oscar Wilde-like aunt (Yves Green), the naive-yet-dangerous female friend (Sarah Gray) and the maid (Pat Harris) support through near-faultless characterisations to make a satisfying whole and a stimulating evening.
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Master Juba
Theatre Is… at The Playhouse, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 8 November 2006
Master Juba
“I’m not a victim, I’m young, gifted and black”, is the proud opening of a statement of one man’s assertiveness.
Pressing a number of buttons, this show launches Theatre Is…, a new venture producing quality theatre in East Anglia.
Hard on the heels of Black History Month, it takes the true tale of a young black dancer, William Henry Lane from freed slave background, who danced before Queen Victoria at the Palladium
It is also the story of artistic exploitation foiled and adversity defeated – all told with panache.
Fusing black dance rhythms with Irish folk, Lane’s contribution to dance -“the perpendicular expression of horizontal desire” was tap.
Call and response dance steps from the lively ensemble punctuate body rhythms, poems and narrative in a cross between docudrama and theatre-in-education.
Computer images of changing scenes are a powerful extra feature, as is electro music from traditional melodies all supporting the view that showbiz is a mystery of complexities.
Sprinkled with humorous moments, such as the Ku Klux Klan who lost their hanging rope, the real strength is the study of the relationships between black hero and white mentor and separately with the showman’s wife.
Sensitive sketching of the characters brings to life historic racial prejudices and mutual fears. It’s a night of history, yet it’s topical.
In fact, yes, it’s showbiz.
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Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles
Christian McKay at the Norwich Arts Centre
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 19 January 2005
Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles
It takes a big man to fill the shoes of a larger-than-life legend like George Orson Welles. Clearly, Christian McKay is a man with a passion to bring to the stage the complexities of a great film director, actor, writer and self-confessed ‘Jack of all Entertainment’.
The tightly written sardonic script allowed actor and audience to share a unique journey.
“My name is Orson Welles, or is it?” We gradually discovered the man, the icon.
He name-dropped across the early movie decades. From magician to wonder kid director, to the first love that never died – Shakespeare – he slipped between roles, insights and anecdotes.
The 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds that caused panic as listeners mistook drama for news, led to him being asked to issue a statement to confirm that Pearl Harbor was real.
In Citizen Kane, his masterpiece, we glimpse a bleak pleasure in ownership in mausoleum of emptiness.
And from his inability to leave the dames alone into his fat old age, he ate for the world. A final Falstaff brought us full circle. As the man said, “life is not a film script, it’s outakes. The secret is in the editing”.
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Peapickers
Eastern Angles Theatre Company at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 3 April 2007
Peapickers
Eastern Angles have built up a reputation second to none in the world of devised theatre from well-researched, local heritage.
They bring the past to life, with meaning for today. This one is different in that it has no songs to punctuate the narrative or give characters a commentary opportunity.
It’s a well-written play, though – by Nicola Werenowska – the tale of an American geneticist who is the product of a relationship between an Essex peapicker and a black US airman in the 1960s. He comes looking for his roots.
Straddling two eras, it gets to grips with the nature-versus-nurture debate. He was raised in England with mum till he was six; thereafter with dad stateside.
Daryl (Anthony Taylor) gradually explores the truth of his parents’ love, or who he really is and his mum’s manic depression.
Aided by mum’s two friends (Carman Rodriguez and Anne Kavanagh), that truth becomes more uncomfortable. He even discovers a white half-brother (David Mara).
Susan (Rosalind Porter) as the mum in the Sixties reveals the dark side of what we call bi-polar disorder today.
It strikes a balance between fact and half-remembered fiction, between the clever medical world of today and the other world of 40 years ago.
Worth catching on their tour this spring. After all, who are we really? How many of us really know about our origins?
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Popcorn
Norwich Theatre Royal Youth Company at The Garage, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 30 March 2007
Popcorn
From the pen of Ben Elton, wrapped in the velvet glove of great gags and comic characters, comes the iron fist of thought-provoking issues about responsibility.
“These days, however guilty you are, you’re innocent. Nobody is responsible”.
Which came first: the modern, violent movie, or modern violent society? This play sets the audience wondering.
Fast and furious dialogue, modern American setting and hopping between thriller and farce, it’s a perfect vehicle for the Norwich Theatre Royal Youth Company.
Drawing on the Bonnie and Clyde story via the Oscars and a Tarantino director (Tom Hopkin), it rollercoasters to an analysis of what people will do to get on television.
The Mall murderers (Jack Churchill and Mary Wilkinson) are outstanding in a strong cast. The vamp (Becky Hadley), the not-so-dim wife (Katy Bulmer) and the ghastly daughter (Rebecca Molloy) catch the humour perfectly.
The American accents hold up well and the whole team, directed bravely by Jo Reil, are wonderful.
The experiment in “hit-and-run theatre” works and was summed up by some students sitting near me: “I’ve got to see this again tomorrow!”
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An Enemy of the People
Sewell Barn Theatre, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 March 2007
An Enemy of the People
Marking the centenary of Henrik Ibsen’s death, this classic of ideas and social issues resonates sharply, sadly, with today.
The whistle-blower becomes the outcast; the baying mob damns the man with the conscience.
A doctor finds impurities from a factory in the town bathwater supply. The revelation incurs the wrath of the business community including his own bother.
Director Peter James brings to life the upturning of stones through Victorian characters and the constraints of the stage shape with more humour than one would have thought possible from Ibsen.
The doctor (Bob Young) carries rebel’s passion well and his funereal brother (Ralph Yarrow) is an excellent foil. Petra (Rachel Miller), the doctor’s daughter, is a chip from his block while her mother (Imogen Fletcher) walks the line between wifely loyalty and practicality.
All in all, the evening is an unexpectedly stirring and inspirational warning from the past.
Filed under: Reviews