All posts by Edward Lukes

2018

“Lady Windermere’s Fan” at the Vaudeville Theatre

The estimable Kathy Burke is an expert in comedy. Wearing her director’s hat for Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play, her feel for laughs is instinctual: she makes the most heavily quoted of aphorisms light and the whole evening fun. In a cast of big guns, national treasure Jennifer Saunders is the star and has the audience laughing at every turn. Despite a small role, Saunders fans won’t be disappointed. A front of cloth song, written for her by Burke, is the funniest three minutes in a theatre that you can imagine.

Saunders is a good enough actress to know she’s not the lead; her role as the Duchess of Berwick is to show the follies of society and, channelling a previous performance in the much underrated Let Them Eat Cake, she is brilliant at this. The leads are Grace Molony as the moral Lady Windermere and the always excellent Samantha Spiro as the mannered Mrs Erlynne – a woman “with a past before her” –  captivating society despite scandal, and adding drama to attempts at reclaiming respectability.

Grace Molony and Samantha Spiro
Grace Molony and Samantha Spiro

This trio of performers alone makes this a show that celebrates women. And there are some strong performances from the men in the play, too: Kevin Bishop plays the rakish Lord Darlington with passion, and Joseph Marcell gives a first-rate comic turn. But Burke reminds us how strong Wilde’s writing for female roles is – how he treated them with a fairness, if not an equality, far beyond his time. The respect extends to smaller roles for women: Natasha Magigi has a lovely cameo. And Burke makes sure even a maid gets a personality here. There’s a struggle with our titular character, the lesson she has to learn – and the protection those close to her insist on ­– are so dated that she is hard to connect to. But, as Lady Windermere herself says, she is “behind the age” – we are supposed to feel unsatisfied with her, and her development is captured adroitly by Molony.

Most impressive is the production’s treatment of the play’s histrionic moments. We cannot be shocked in the way Wilde expected, although it’s easy to see that the drama and comedy would have been more violently contrasted in his day. But, in keeping with this season of his plays, masterminded by Dominic Dromgoole, we can still see Wilde as a radical. Burke has a clear appreciation of how he played with the theatrical melodramas of his age. There’s a brilliant scene with the burning of a plot-turning letter, and the ironies of family history don’t deserve a spoiler. Wilde was having fun with conventions – Burke follows his lead, and fun is what you’ll have too with this clever revival.

Until 7 April 2018

www.nimaxtheatres.com

Photos by Marc Brenner

2018

“The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” at Wilton’s Music Hall

It’s a delight that this early work from director Emma Rice and writer Daniel Jamieson has been revived and returns to London as part of a tour. Telling the tale of Bella and Marc Chagall, it’s a romance made blissful to watch by its combination of music, movement and imagery. Inspired by Marc’s paintings, flight is used a metaphor for love and applying this to the stage makes the show sky high with beauty, passion and emotion.

The performers are Marc Antolin and Daisy Maywood, who play the couple throughout their lives, as well as incidental characters along the way. Joined by multi-talented musicians James Gow and the show’s composer Ian Ross – whose music is integral to the piece – the singing is divine. The movement the piece demands, with choreography from Rice and Etta Murfitt, emphasises the trust actors and lovers have to have in one another and is a marvel: every limb performs, every action is considered.

From the start, Marc and Bella’s love at first sight is captivating. But their marriage is never free of tension. Chagall fell for his role as a genius early, it seems, and Bella suffered. It’s one of many triumphs that this formidable woman gets her side of the story told: it’s 50/50 all the way, with no trace of Bella a victim. Marc published his wife’s writing after her death, and admits that she could have been “hidden” by history. But not under Rice’s watch!

The past and memory are continually evoked as the Chagall story mirrors the momentous events of the Russian Revolution and World War II. The result is a portrayal of Jewish life as sensitive as Chagall’s own work, full of warmth, humour and, of course, the tragedy of anti-Semitism never far away. A scene where our wandering couple unpack their bags as they discuss the Holocaust uses the powerful symbolism of books and shoes in a breathtakingly simple manner.

What really elevates The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is that Rice and Jamieson have created a uniquely theatrical experience that celebrates the power of make-believe. Highlighted by Bella’s own interest in the stage (which includes Marc’s assumption that she can’t work as she is a mother), imagination is the key to their love and the show. The invention that Rice employs is full of touches that have become her trademarks: the use of costume, and simple props that add humour, with cheeky nods to the mechanics of production. All engender a complicity with the audience that makes a crowd soar all the way through this show.

Until 10 February 2018, then on tour

www.kneehigh.co.uk

Photo by Steve Tanner

2018

“Woman Before a Glass” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

At the risk of damning with faint praise, Lanie Robertson’s play is more informative than it is profound. But art collector Peggy Guggenheim is a great subject to learn about. Following a story of modern art, alongside events in an extraordinary life, Robertson’s collation of anecdotes and vignettes is concise and entertaining.

Peggy was one of the ‘poor’ Guggenheims – her family were millionaires, not billionaires. With the realisation that it wasn’t healthy for artists to starve, her patronage, notably during World War II, built up a collection that spotted modern masters. Taking art seriously, while being flippant about sex, she slept with many of the artists along the way. Robertson sensitively balances the anti-Semitism of the age with dark moments in Guggenheim’s personal life, and, under the direction of Austin Pendleton, Judy Rosenblatt gives a convivial performance that shows Peggy as good company. The show is a 90-minute monologue – that’s a long time for one performer – but Rosenblatt makes it seem easy.

It’s a shame the opening conceit of the audience being guests at Peggy’s home isn’t retained; the “Mio palazzo, Sui palazzo” invitation is neat. Subsequent scenes talking to her daughter off stage, or conducting negotiations about her estate over the phone, seem clumsy in comparison. It’s with the more pedestrian moments that Rosenblatt carries the piece, juggling Peggy’s loneliness and uncompromising self-knowledge with a scandalous sense of humour and an attraction to men in “baggy trousers”. There are too few moments of reflection overall but a final pianissimo moment means we leave on a high, achieving insight into an exceptional woman.

Until 3 February 2018

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Robert Workman

2018

“The Claim” at Shoreditch Town Hall

Tim Cowbury’s play tackles the topic of asylum seekers with intelligence and a beguiling sense of humour.

Following one claimant called Serge, the smart stroke is to play with language difficulties. Lumbered with a poor translator, confusion proliferates over Serge’s arrival in the UK and his motivation for staying. Working with often painfully funny material, the talented cast members bring clarity, whether characters are struggling to communicate in English or in French, with a skill that complements the playwright’s games with language.

The bigger theme is that Serge’s story isn’t the one his interviewers want to hear. In a careful twist, his life is “ordinary”. He has a home and a job and arrived in the UK for reasons he simply doesn’t understand. It’s a bold move for a playwright to underplay the drama with the mundane – and you couldn’t call The Claim gripping. Yet Ncuti Gatwa makes our everyday hero a figure who commands respect: when tears come, they are out of a controlled frustration.

Sadly, Cowbury stumbles with his two officials in search of a more dramatic backstory. There’s nothing wrong with the performances from Yusra Warsama and Nick Blakeley – both are thoughtful and creative actors – but Blakeley’s hapless interpreter can barely put a foot right, and the part comes close to old-fashioned Liberal bashing. Warsama’s intriguing role needs more material if Cowbury is to persuade us of the “fixed process” of a system more concerned with narrative than the truth.

Mark Maughan’s direction has a calm confidence befitting the play. The municipal setting of Shoreditch Town Hall helps, too. Characters frequently address the audience, a technique seldom as unnerving as it is intended to be, but the intention to provoke is admirable and the play’s fresh approach is welcome.

Until 26 January, then on UK tour.

theclaimshow.co.uk

Photo by Paul Samuel White

2018

“East” at the King’s Head Theatre

This is a play for the more adventurous. Steven Berkoff’s East returns to its original London venue after 43 years and, courtesy of its clear influence on in-yer-face theatre, feels startlingly contemporary. With meta touches and strong physical performances, including plenty of mime, there’s lots to excite anyone with a keen interest in the stage.

A paean to life in working-class London, Berkoff presents an impressive psychogeography for a quintet of characters. The violence, racism and antisemitism exposed are all unpleasant. But I suspect the sexism here will upset the most. Even when celebrating sexuality and enjoying a crude, ruthless satire, the objectification of women is relentless.

With Berkoff’s reluctance to embrace a traditional narrative, scenes are told and retold from different perspectives. The time of the action slips mischievously between the 1950s and 1970s with some good jokes around this potentially stuffy technique. As for the five characters – personality shifts as much as it develops. Remarkably, none of this is as confusing as it sounds… you just might not like it if you fancy a good story.

An attempt to extend the already quirky time span in the final scene is a slip on the part of director Jessica Lazar – nice try, though. And there are moments when the staging doesn’t take into account the sight lines – disappointing in such a small space. Both criticisms pale when the performances Lazar nurtures from her cast are taken into account.

Debra Penny and Russell Barnett do well in arguably the hardest roles – Berkoff seems toughest on the older generation. With youthful characters, even when unappealing, their energy is exciting: a vitality embraced by Boadicea Ricketts and James Craze, who play a couple in love (or at least lust). The play’s real partnership comes from Craze, as Mike, and his friend Les. A brilliant combination of physicality and comedy marks an astounding professional debut for Jack Condon. Casting directors don’t often get a mention, but Stephen Moore has struck gold here.

Any risk of upset through its confrontational themes or downright rudeness wouldn’t bother Berkoff – the number of expletives tells you that much. And, quite rightly, Lazar doesn’t shy away from any uncomfortable moments. Whether a string of obscenities goes too far is a matter of taste, but sheer repetition makes a couple of scenes tiresome. Overall, though, the play’s appeal rests on its language, which is full of flashes of startling brilliance. Frequently appropriating Shakespeare alongside Cockney rhyming slang creates so much depth and resonance that the “witty verbiage spewing” from every “gutter mouth” has to be heard to be believed.

Until 3 February 2018

www.kingsheadtheatre.com

Photo by Alex Brenner

2018

“The Phantom of the Opera” at Her Majesty’s Theatre

January sales for theatregoers means getintolondontheatre.co.uk, which offers good discounts for big shows, giving me the chance to catch up with an old favourite. Boasting the third longest run in the West End – there’s a reason it’s been going since 1986 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s phenomenal hit is still a treat.

Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux, with the story effectively captured by Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe’s book, the love triangle between singer Christine, her ghostly tutor, the Phantom, and eligible bachelor Raoul, with a backdrop of 19th-century Paris, makes for a mix of romance and mystery that’s hard to resist. Any element of horror, due to the Phantom’s crime or his deformity, is so deftly handled it adds to the intrigue without giving the show any age restrictions.

There’s no shortage of hits in a score that grabs the audience, and Stilgoe deserves more praise for his admirable lyrics. Plenty of the numbers have been covered by famous singers but they work well theatrically and are delivered in fine style by a cast keen to show their acting skills as much as their fantastic voices.

The show is really Christine’s, played currently by Kelly Mathieson, who gives the role a feisty edge as her character is “twisted every way” by the demands placed on her. If the camp touches get to her by the end of the show, that’s what capes are for and she works hers expertly. Ben Lewis takes the title role, sounding great and managing to show the “man behind the monster” that drives the show. The Phantom is a charismatic and sympathetic figure, despite his pathology. And Jeremy Taylor is also good, even if we all know that Raoul is too bland to really be with Christine.

While the score has aged and the music isn’t as sophisticated as Lloyd Webber’s later musicals, it is always entertaining. It has to be admitted that there’s a lack of menace, even for a family show, with the Phantom stripped of his mask and mystery too early and gaining a touch too much sympathy when you come to consider what he gets up to. But the humour in the show is still strong, and the easy metatheatricality of staging a musical in an opera house works well. The parody behind the scenes extends into the Phantom’s lair in the sewers – there are plenty of hammy touches, many intentional, and it’s impossible not to love it all.

www.thephantomoftheopera.com

Photo by Johan Persson

2018

“Into The Numbers” at the Finborough Theatre

The celebrated American playwright Christopher Chen uses the work and death of scholar Iris Chang to create a complex philosophical play. Structured around a book tour for Chang’s best-seller The Rape of Nanking, billed as detailing the forgotten holocaust of World War II, the play follows the tragic journey towards the author’s suicide. The piece is powerful and demanding.

Elizabeth Chan gives a superb performance in the lead role, reflecting Chang’s articulacy and fragility. Presented as a series of lectures, interviews, and then visits to her therapist, as an insight into mental health Chen’s writing is disturbing and poignant. The roles of the host, husband and doctor are all played by Timothy Knightly – a remarkable performance – and the drama escalates skilfully, evoking Chang’s increasing pain, paranoia and grasp on reality.

Both the story of Nanking and the effect studying such trauma had on Chang are embodied in a series of mystical encounters: with a Japanese soldier, an anonymous victim, and real-life heroine, Minnie Vautrin. The massacre’s moral importance, dramatically essential as Chang becomes “trapped” by her work, is depicted with respectful conviction by all. And the direction from Georgie Staight is impeccable throughout (aided by Matt Cater’s lighting). But these scenes from “another dimension” are less successful. A trio of performers struggles with such token appearances and some ponderous moments. While our attachment to Chang deepens, these forays into philosophical speculation pale.

The text is full of complicated concepts, some of which are surely dead ends, and it would be helpful to point those out more clearly: a representative for modern Japan proves a particular stumbling block. But Chen’s ambition is bracing and the considerations of monism, evil and time are all fascinating. There’s nothing patronising, and I confess some of the ideas were over my head even before having them expressed through the prism of mental illness. If occasionally laboured, Into The Numbers is impressively intellectual, layered and invigorating. Just make sure you’ve blown away any Christmas cobwebs from your brain before trying to tackle this one.

Until 27 January 2018

www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Photos by Scott Rylander

2017

“Five Guys Named Moe” at the Marble Arch Theatre

A hit musical that ran for four years in the West End and transferred to Broadway, this revival boasts its own venue – a spiegeltent courtesy of Underbelly Productions. The pop-up feel is fun but doesn’t really evoke the New Orleans setting. And while the auditorium adds to the sense of an event, the show’s creator and director Clarke Peters uses it clumsily: a racetrack style stage, complete with a walkalator, is little used and creates a sense of distance for most of the audience. The lack of intimacy is a shame, given the terrific performances here.

A quintet of talented singers and dancers perform as the titular characters: they are all consummate showmen, sounding great with impressive moves. Ian Carlyle takes the lead in terms of sheer charisma, while Idriss Kargbo, arguably, has the best voice. Along with Emile Ruddock, Horace Oliver and Dex Lee, this is a team drilled to perfection – yet it makes the party atmosphere the show aims for feel natural. With little help from the script, the actors establish an otherworldly presence – their magical appearance is to impart wisdom on to a drunk with relationship problems called Nomax. This is a tricky role for Edward Baruwa (for too much of the piece he has little to do but stumble around), highlighting the weak story. Nomax’s problems are a slim scaffold for a revue show that in itself is excellent.

Peters’ musical knowledge, attested by his shows on Radio 4, is the overriding talent here; his passion and interest drive the musical, curating a selection of songs not to be missed. The numbers are mostly by Louis Jordan, grandfather of rock & roll and a chief architect of rhythm & blues. The entertaining lyrics are both heartfelt and humorous. The music combines adventurous experimentation with a slick confidence and Jordan’s massive influence makes listening fascinating. Many might be tempted to ignore Five Guys Named Moe as a jukebox musical, and its problems are familiar ones for the genre. But the soundtrack is inspirational, the pacing perfect and the performances excellent.

Until 24 March 2018

www.fiveguysmusical.com

Photo by Helen Maybanks

2017

“Big Fish” at The Other Palace

For this musical version of Daniel Wallace’s novel, John August has adapted his own screenplay from Tim Burton’s film and produced a satisfyingly theatrical show. Big Fish fits into a genre of Americana started by Thornton Wilder’s This Town that celebrates everyday life with a magical touch. At times it is captivating.

Edward Bloom is the not-so-average Joe who is our hero and, as he approaches death, he recounts some wild and wonderful tales about his life. These stories have – somewhat inexplicably – alienated his fact-driven reporter son, Will. Their reconciliation makes the show a family drama of low stakes – and the journey the latter has to take to embrace his father’s optimism is too gentle to be compelling.

Kelsey Grammer takes the lead, ably abetted by Jamie Muscato who appears as Joe’s younger self, and delivers the star factor: he sells the character of a travelling salesman superbly and is a strong enough comedian to make a bad joke go a long way. Matthew Seadon-Young plays son Will, giving a dedicated performance with a strong voice, but his character doesn’t convince. It’s a problem shared by the roles of wives to both men – capably performed by Frances McNamee and Clare Burt – who are sketched with depressing brevity.

The music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa fail to excite – a collection of try-hard numbers that feel forced and end up forgettable. Yet as a chamber piece Big Fish has charm. It’s when we see an ambition to be big that the cracks show; there isn’t the power to deliver a big West End feel here. Tom Rogers’ design is a case in point – clever, even charming, but inventive rather than impressive.

With too much sentimentality – fathers and sons skimming stones on a river is always a bad sign – the death bed reconciliation ends up uncomfortably long. I had plenty of time to check, in case I was just cold and heartless, and there was barely a wet eye in the house. “Part epic tale, part fire sale” is a description of Bloom’s life that could have been a warning – mixing the show’s simplicity with attempts at grandeur fails too many times, and director Nigel Harman struggles to accommodate the piece’s inconsistencies.

Until 31 December 2018

www.theotherpalace.co.uk

Photo by Tristram Kenton

2017

“Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” at the Apollo Theatre

This topical coming of age story won the critics’ heart at its Sheffield Crucible debut. Producer Nina Burns was an instant fan, too, and brought the show to London pronto. Although it doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny, it’s hard to be cynical about a school boy drag queen and a triumph of individuality over adversity. With its welcome diversity this is a true tale for our times and feel good fantasia.

The show has created an exciting new star – John McCrea – who takes the title role. The raving for McCrae is spot on, his stage presence and voice are remarkable; when Jamie acts like a star he makes you believe he is one and, best of all, his precocity is established without betraying the character’s youth and immaturity. For Jamie is obnoxious and self-obsessed – his drag queen name of Meme Me tells that much – yet McCrea manages to make him irresistible.

The ensemble is excellent: especially Lucie Shorthouse, as Jamie’s best friend Pritti, and Mina Anwar, as logical family member Ray. That McCrea carries the show is the fault of the piece rather than his fellow performers. Seeing so much from the central character’s perspective makes the show shallow. There are other great characters here and we should see their stories rather than just have them defined by Jamie.

Although it probably won’t bother many people, this is a collection of songs by Dan Gillespie Sells rather than a real musical. But many of the songs are good, a couple are memorable, and all are well performed. Monotony almost creeps in; too many numbers are mawkish and too many are solos or duets. The lack of songs for the chorus is surprising, given the strength of the cast, and provokes a sense of talent underused.

The oddest decision comes with Tom MacRae’s book. While his lyrics depict working-class life in Sheffield well, and there are some good jokes, the dramatic stakes are downplayed. There’s Jamie’s unbelievably supportive mother (an excellent performance from Josie Walker) and tolerant class mates – just the one school bully? Jamie does face prejudice, but it never feels enough of a threat. Maybe the theatre is the right place for this kind of wish fulfilment – it certainly makes for an enjoyable show – but tension is lacking. There’s no sense of debate or argument, just a token baddy and a school teacher who comes around eventually. The ironic result is a musical with a bold statement that is welcome, but leaves little to talk about.

Until 21 April 2017

www.nimaxtheatres.com

Photo by Johan Persson