Tag Archives: Proud Haddock

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“Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life)” at the Southwark Playhouse

If quirky is what you want Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis’ show can’t be beaten. A “bio-historical musical” set in primordial soup, its characters really are yeast and the conflict revolves around how they evolve. So, top marks for crazy. The score tries hard and the production is enthusiastic. But the musical is, ultimately, just an oddity.

Credit where it’s due – the ideas are fine. With hints of Greek tragedy and Shakespeare, the oldest yeast (a king, of course) battles against change. As the organisms encounter greed, ambition and love – for the first time in history – the chance to examine abstract concepts is embraced.

Regrettably, adding meta-theatrical touches proves distracting and predictable. It leads to a weak role for a narrator character, who comes too close to a very odd schoolteacher despite valiant efforts from Sarah Slimani. Being both self-consciously silly and serious is an interesting mix, but not a successful one. The joke of taking such absurdity as profound ends up repetitive.

A focus on romance (which buoys the second act) allows the performers who become the first multi-cellular organism (Stephen Lewis Johnston and Hannah Nuttall) a chance to shine. But despite plenty of spirit the show drags. The originality is only single-cell deep – we always know what’s coming next and it doesn’t come quickly enough.

Hollman and Kotis are too keen to tell a “dark tale”. Maybe the fear is that serious questions are needed to justify the bizarre premise? Maybe it’s part of the joke? Either way, the best of the humour comes from the production. There’s strong work from Shane Convery and Mari McGinlay as ‘the Wise’ and ‘the Sly’ as well an unwitting accomplice to courtly intrigue, played by Marisa Harris. All three performances are committed.

It’s director Benji Sperring’s work that shows Yeast Nation in the best light – inventive touches that add charm and fun too often missing from the script and lyrics. Lucie Pankhurst’s work on movement is strong, suggesting amoebas in a fashion that proves oddly hypnotic. In addition, while it probably shouldn’t – and while I can’t explain why – setting the whole thing in Yorkshire adds immeasurably. After all, why not? The accents become the anarchic touch the piece itself craves for but misses.

Until 27 August 2022

www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Photo by Claire Bilyard

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“Billy Bishop Goes to War” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

This low-key play from John MacLachlan Gray and Eric Peterson tells the true story of a Canadian WWI pilot and makes for a surprisingly gentle commemoration in the Great War’s anniversary year. Our hero, Billy, is pleasingly unusual: an unwilling recruit, accident-prone yet “gifted” and achieving a record “score” for kills. For most of the play, he is shockingly callow. It’s really Charles Aitken’s commandingly affable performance throughout that makes him watchable. Aitken grafts like a real trooper and carries a heavy burden. From caddish bounder to troubled boozer (and doubling as a couple of female parts along with way), he forces energy into a flat script again and again.

Oliver Beamish joins as an older Billy. Director Jimmy Walters allies the roles well, with solid work throughout, but the Billy who looks back at his youth is wasted and simply wallows in nostalgia. It’s with a small number of cameos that Beamish can come into his own, injecting, possibly too much, humour into the story. The japes around Billy’s scrapes go on too long and are repetitive, with weak jokes. The rest of the time Beamish accompanies on the piano – this is a play with music – but sadly the refrains are poor and the lyrics awful.

The play doesn’t get serious until after the interval – fair enough – maybe that was Billy’s personal experience. But then we get more music… and it doesn’t improve in quality. Walters highlights the play’s most interesting features – the role of Britain’s colonies in the war and the idea that the motherland likes its heroes dead – but the play itself doesn’t explore either enough. Worse still, Bishop’s “bloodthirsty” battle lust, so honestly admitted, is left unexamined. The drama and the horror of war are insufficiently evoked. In one sense, this is a useful corrective aside from the more prevalent glory-or-guts narratives of conflict. But the thrill of the kill should lead to a chill in the theatre that is conspicuous by its absence.

Until 24 November 2018

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk 

Photo by Robert Workman