Theatre and book reviews by Janice Dempsey
There’s a hilarious comedy at the Yvonne Arnaud this week. I hardly expected to laugh and cry so much on a Tuesday night, at a play about aging people marginalised in a private nursing home – and most of the tears were of laughter!
We meet Diana Trent (Nichola Auliffe) grumpily breakfasting in ‘Bayview’ Home for the Elderly, and in the first few minutes of the play we quickly realise that she is more than a match for the frankly creepy staff who try to patronise and control her. With a quick-fire series of withering glares and killer put-downs Diana shows her contempt for Harvey, the inadequate, narcissistic manager and Jane, his assistant, whose inept attempts to cajole her like a fractious child she elbows aside, metaphorically and physically (making excellent use of her walking stick at key moments!) Her view of aging as a bad joke played on humanity, her cynicism and her indomitable energy are an inspiration to all of us! Enter Tom (David Benson), a new and, in his own way, an equally rebellious inmate, and a story begins to unfold, as Diana finds herself and romance is born, without sentimentality or euphemism, at Bayview. The end is surprising – though, on reflection, to be expected. This is an amazing piece of entertainment, successful on all levels. The strong cast play perfect stereotypes: Nichola Auliffe the feisty ex-war correspondent who won’t lie down and die quietly; Jeffrey Holland as Tom, who rebels by retreating ad lib into rich private fantasies; Samuel Collings as Harvey, the vain, neurotic manager, whose body language and sometimes acrobatic stage presence is horribly mesmerising and Emily Pithon, who embodies all badly educated carers as his pathetic, wheedling, downtrodden admirer, Jane. Diana’s niece, Sarah, is played vigorously by Joanna Bending as a chip off the old block that is her aunt. Michael Aitkins originally conceived the idea for Waiting for God as a stage play in 1990 but instead it became a successful TV series between 1990 and 1994. Now Aitkins has revived and rewritten it for the modern stage, bringing it up to date with sparkling, witty dialogue and a fast pace, reinforcing the attitudes that the aging generation of today recognise: resilience, self-respect and a refusal to give up life without a struggle or to lose their sense of humour. Director James Seabrook has produced a winner – do go and enjoy it! This review will also be published on the theatre review page of Essential Surrey online magazine Janice Dempsey 2/5/17
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Is this London, or the USA? No, this is Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and it’s the Capitol in Rome, not Washington. We’re about to witness the downfall of “the greatest Roman of them all”: Brutus, “an honourable man”, driven by his honest belief in political integrity and his distrust of hereditary power to carry out a terrible deed: the murder of his friend, his country’s leader.
This is William Shakespeare’s archetypal tragedy, which explores the dilemma of a good man driven to perform evil deeds by his own beliefs. As Gemma Fairlie, the director, points out, recent productions of Julius Caesar have often been set in such countries as modern Iraq and Serbia. The play poses timeless questions: individual conscience versus political expediency; where should power lie in society; the nature of honour, and above all the role of the mob and the ability of politicians to manipulate us if we let them. As a member of the audience in Holy Trinity Church last night, I was part of the mob, waving placards at the direction of Caesar’s minders, applauding his self-congratulatory speeches, and finally, after an interval tour of the war-zone that’s the consequence of Caesar’s assassination, signing up to one of the rival factions’ armies. As usual, the Guildford Shakespeare Company have produced a mind-blowing production. All the players turn in magnificent performances, most in several different roles, and the principals are very powerful indeed. Noel White as Caesar plays the public charisma and private vanity and insecurity of the great man perfectly. Brutus, played by Johanne Murdock in this gender-neutral production, is powerful in the second half as the commander of the conspirators’ army. Her response as her dying friend Julius looks up gasping “Et tu, Brute” brought a tear to my eye. Jack Wharrier as Mark Anthony is magnificent; he delivers the speech that turns the mob against the conspirators with such passion that “Brutus is an honourable man”, at first a compliment, becomes spitting irony and rabble-rousing rhetoric. Society is shattered into anarchy. Design, lighting and sound are wonderful. I was particularly impressed by the lightning effects that flashed up on the high stained glass windows above us. The company's imaginative use of this unusual dramatic space is reminiscent of the Jacobean theatre in the great houses of the time. I loved the conducted tour of the "war zone" behind the scenes, in the interval, too. This is another palpable hit (forgive the pun and change of play!) for the Guildford Shakespeare Company. Julius Caesar is at Holy Trinity Church until 25th February. Tickets from https://www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk/tickets.php or on the door - but don't risk missing this - seats are limited! This review is also published on Essential Surrey's What's On page. http://www.essentialsurrey.co.uk/theatre-arts/review-guildford-shakespeare-society-julius-caesar/ with photographs, Janice Windle 8/02/17
Not an obvious source of farce or laughs, you’d think, but this is Ayckbourn, and however black, the humour is there, illuminating the real subject of this play: the nature of the artist’s drive to create and the way that that can relate negatively to his need for human relationships and his family’s need for him.
The tussle between Jerome’s need to create a definitive piece of music, and his need to use every significant experience in his life as raw material for his art, is made concrete here. He has listening devices in every room in his flat, recording his family’s and guests’ voices, as he searches for the sounds that will bring his music to life. Not a recipe for relaxed relationships, as he has discovered, but that doesn’t deter him. As Alan Ayckbourn himself writes: “Jerome steals bits of people and really doesn’t even care at all … completely shameless …” The first version of the play was shelved because Heather Stoney, now his wife, was horrified by the uniformly negative message it carried. Rewriting it to be staged in 1987, Ayckbourn introduced the theme of ‘love’ and a new dimension entered the play. The star of the show is a most engaging robot, programmed by Jerome to speak phrases from his recordings when triggered by real human voices. The female robot, with suggestions of “The Stepford Wives” in her behaviour and relationship to Jerome, is a wonderful piece of Ayckbourn fantasy and the source of a great deal of comic business and irony. The question of the value of being human as opposed to being a machine,is another theme that "Henceforward" approaches, with a cynicism that belongs more to the character of Jerome than to his creator, I would guess from Alan Ayckbourne's programme note. And the business of being an actor, too - how much does Zoë feel fit for any role in life? "It depends on the script, dear," she trills. The cast are faultless, to a man, woman and robot, with Laura Matthews and Jacqueline King turning in exceptional performances. The synthesised music, composed by the author/director himself, is an impressive part of the production. Alan Ayckbourn’s direction brings out in the production all the edgy farce, black comedy and menace in his play. It’s a classic Ayckbourn, not to be missed. Janice Dempsey "Henceforward" is at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, until 28th January 2017 A slightly shorter version of this review will appear in the Theatre section of Essential Surrey magazine later this week.
This production does everything perfectly. Lyn Paul, who played the demanding rôle of Mrs Johnstone in the play’s West End run in 1997 and for the past 20 years has taken it up again and again, is absolutely stunning. Her singing is flawless, her presence moving.
Sean Jones’ performance as Mickey is memorable for portraying so sensitively a vulnerable character gradually reduced by circumstances, as the charm, humour and enthusiasm of Mickey’s child-self in the first act is replaced by despair and emotional paralysis in the second. The narrator, Dean Chisnall, is a powerful figure, part Kismet, part undertaker, part nightclub bouncer, part fixer, perhaps part demon, lurking to watch as the drama plays out. His commentaries, sung or menacingly intoned, are essential to the sense of inevitability that hangs over the story as it unfolds. Alison Crawford is Linda, and she beautifully inhabits the character from a skinny child of eight through teenage vamp to despairing young wife and mother. There is not a weak performance in the whole cast. The set worked perfectly, the scene changes were seamless. The music was wonderful, from the menacing drum phrase that sounded like “Eastenders” before that soap was conceived, to the haunting song of “Marilyn Monroe”, the bitter “Easy Terms” and the threatening theme of “Shoes Upon the Table”. The New Victoria was packed, with people of all ages. There were few dry eyes as we stood for five curtain calls. We left with the message and the songs ringing in our ears and minds. Blood Brothers is a musical to revisit, however often you’ve seen it before. Janice Windle 17/01/17 5 stars This review has also been published on the theatre page of Essential Surrey online magazine this week. "B;ood Brothers" is at the New Victoria Theatre until 21st January. Friends were surprised when we booked a cruise from Southampton UK to the Caribbean, over Christmas and New Year 2016-17. "Which airline are you on?" they asked, confusing me for a moment because I hadn't even considered flying anywhere and I'd booked a sea-voyage because I don't like long-haul fllights. We live in easy driving distance of Southampton and it seemed a natural plan to hop on a cruise ship that would take us via La Coruña in Spain, straight to Barbados, St Lucia, St Maartens, Antigua, Grenada and home via San Miguel in the Azores. We have been married for six months now, but we treated the trip as our belated honeymoon. Of course, we soon realised that there was much more to it than a ferry-ride. We were at sea on the Atlantic Ocean for a total of 16 days, while P & O did its best to keep us from suffering from cabin fever and scurvy. They certainly succeeded regarding the scurvy. The food was plentiful, delicious and varied, and available at all hours of day and night, all included in the price of our ticket. The cabin fever was also catered for, with a daily programme of talks on the places we visited and other topics (many of which, sadly, turned out to be aimed at selling something), deck sports, tennis, golf practice, yoga, a small gym, a library, a painting class, a choir, guest comedians, film showings, quizzes, dancing, and music and dance shows by resident entertainers. We also met a lot of people, through sharing dining tables with different passengers every evening. We found a number of like-minded souls, and had some good laughs with them. We were amazed to find that everyone we met had been on cruises several times before, and some virtually lived on cruise ships! Not much of the entertainment suited our taste though we did enjoy some of the films, and particulary enjoyed meeting Eddie the Eagle, who joined the ship for the last three days, promoting the recent film about his life. His talks were highly enjoyable, because he is true enthusiast and a very honest speaker with a great sense of humour; those qualities give him huge charisma. Of course I went along to the art group. which was run by a very pleasant man who had originally been an engineer but now teaches watercolour painting. I decided that I preferred to paint independently, though. The paintings and drawings I'm publishing below are from a small (A5) cartrige paper sketchbook and an A3 pad of watercolour paper that I took along with me. On St Maartens we took a taxi tour and were shown the lovely nudist beach (unoccupied) at Orient Bay, and another beach next to the international airport there, where people go to admire the planes as they swoop in over the sea... an unusual tourist attraction, I thought, because I normally prefer my holiday resorts out of earshot of Boeings. In Barbados we had a morning on the long white sandy beach between our docked ship and Bridgetown and admired the succession of rainbows over the turquoise sea. In the port of Castries, St Lucia, we found the park containg a bust of the Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott, wandered round the busy market, and in a church yard came across the tomb of a colonial wife, Anne Otto Bayer, who died on a voyage to England in 1826 and was brought back to be buried in St John's Church "by her earnest desire". Her husband John was buried there too, ten years later. Everywhere in the islands we admired the beautiful colours of the buildings, profusions of unexpected clashes and atonal harmonies we haven't seen anywhere else. In San Miguel, in the Portuguese Azores, we admired the wonderful baroque cathedral and I bought a pair of delightfully comfortable silver and black shoes in the sales. LA CORUÑA In our 24 days away, we saw and photographed so many things, grand and trivial, that it would take 6 blogs like this to do them justice. (Go to the Facebook albums of my husband, Dónall Dempsey, if you would like to see more of our photos.) I'll sign off here, and leave you with some pages from my holiday sketchbook.
The story is that Weinberl and Christopher, two bored grocer’s shop assistants, decide to go off and find some adventures in the big city, behind their boss’s back. Their ambition is to cause mayhem, and they certainly succeed! The big city is Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, a place of fabled wealth and hedonism, and our “likely lads” are determined to get a piece of the action there. Robert Sheppard plays Zangler, their employer and "Master Grocer", with tremendous verve: pompous and larger than life, he’s master of an amazing array of twisted clichés, metaphors and malapropisms that have the audience reeling and roaring with laughter. Dom Gwyther is brilliant as the extraordinarily assertive new servant who interviews Zangler before “hiring” him as his employer! I loved the echoes of modern internet dating in Zangler's efforts to find a wife, with the necessary deceptions about age and attractiveness that are all too recognisable today! Jason Orbaum as Weinberl has the serious, edgy charisma and expressive legs of John Cleese. He breaks at times into Marxist dialectic or flights of turgid 19th century lyrical prose ; Orbaum delivers these passages with a lugubriousness that makes them very funny. Claire Racklyeft plays Christopher, in the tradition of cross-gender acting (of which pantomime is a familiar example). Christopher is a straightforward young hick just out for fun, and Claire's portrayal of him is vigorous and infectiously joyous. She and Jason make a great comedy duo. Of course, there’s a star-crossed young couple: handsome penniless Sonders (Michael Thonger) and pretty, “proper” Marie (Hana Bird) of whose love Zangler, her guardian, disapproves. Gilly Fick and Kathryn Attwood are flirtatious in beautiful hats as mature sexy Viennese women. Graham Russell-Price plays the lustful coachman to Louise Johnson’s frustrated Lisette, with great gusto. The whole cast is superb in ensemble scenes. There’s a terrible tangle of sub-plots, as there should be in a good farce, and the action is fast and furious. It’s full of puns, double-entendres and witty wordplay, incidents of mistaken identity, mistaken gender, slapstick and even a pantomime horse! What’s not to like in this romp! Tom Stoppard wrote “On the Razzle” in 1981, on the back of its convoluted history from an original one-act farce by John Oxenford in 1835, which led to a musical version in Austrian German by Johann Nestroy (1801 - 1862) who has been compared to the French social satirist playwright Molière. In 1954 its plot and setting were moved to New York in plays by Thornton Wilder, successively renamed "The Merchant of Yonkers" (which failed) and "The Matchmaker", a huge Broadway success leading to a film starring Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine in 1958. “Hello Dolly”, the musical in 1964 starring Carol Channing, and the film 1968, were the plot's next incarnation. Tom Stoppard gave Oxenford's idea a new lease of life, transferred it back to its original Viennese setting, and proved that jokes based on wordplay and buffoonery between the social classes are timeless. This production shows it’s lost none of its verve and wit. A must-see! On the Razzle is at the Electric Theatre, Guildford,
from 30th November to 3rd December 2016 A version of this review is published on Essential Surrey Magazine's Theatre & Arts page with photos.
The plot: news of a missing woman reaches the isolated cottage of Mrs. Bramson, a spoilt elderly hypochondriac who bullies her servants, including Olivia, her plain, penniless niece. Mrs Bramson is duped easily by Dan, a young man who arrives uninvited and ingratiates himself with the female household. He winds everyone around his little finger except Olivia, who suspects his true nature as a fantasist and possibly a dangerous psychopath.
The story literally starts with a bang, to set the scene for unexpected happenings, and rises in the second act to a threatening climax and an unexpected outcome. In between, there’s a great deal of humour. Hubert, who is courting Olivia with little success, is played by Alasdair Buchan with a nod to the young men in P.G.Wodehouse’s books of the 1930’s, and Mrs Terence, the redoubtable cook, is played with great gusto by Mandi Symonds: she is not to be bullied and tells her unlovable employer so in no uncertain terms, in every word and gesture, to great comic effect at times. Gwen Taylor’s Mrs Bramson is self-absorbed and domineering, but vulnerable to flattery. Will Featherstone as Dan manipulates the women with volatile moods; veering from reassuringly (or at times frighteningly) assertive, to charming and entertaining, to scared and infantile, his portrayal of Dan is fluid and charismatic. All the performances are excellent, individually and ensemble: Melissa Vaughan as the timid maid servant, the victim of Dan’s amoral lust; Darah O’Malley, who as Inspector Belsize strikes a note from “An Inspector Calls”; Nurse Libby, tactful district nurse, and Niamh McGrady, who as Olivia (in reality anything but “plain”) manages to make an unexpected change of heart convincing – but I’ll say no more. This is a well-crafted, vivid production that transcends its period setting, with blood-curdling surprises – but no blood. Go and catch this classic psychological thriller at the Yvonne Arnaud this week if you enjoy suspense, humour and the ever-present possibility of “things that go bump in the night”. This review will be published on the Essential Surrey website today, with photos and details of how to buy tickets. Anyone who remembers the satirical Spitting Image TV show will love Dead Sheep, Alan Maitland’s new play about the public clash between Margaret Thatcher and her Deputy Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1990. In this tragi-comedy about the end of Thatcher’s dominance in British politics, the Iron Lady herself is played memorably by Steve Nallon, the voice of Thatcher in the show. Taller and more threatening than any of her colleagues in her all-male cabinet, Nallon’s charismatic figure looms above Paul Bradley as Geoffrey Howe. This mild-mannered man had been Thatcher’s devoted supporter for eighteen years. Denis Healey had famouly compared Howe’s performance in the House of Commons as “like being savaged by a dead sheep.” But, pushed too far, Howe showed that where his strongly-felt political opinions on the UK’s membership of Europe were concerned, he could speak out like “the mouse that roared”, in a resignation speech that took everyone by surprise with its forthright condemnation of his leader’s attitudes. Excellently constructed using a trio of narrators and vignettes of incidents from the months that led up to Howe’s stand, this is about a man answerable to two strong women: his leader, Margaret Thatcher and his wife, Elspeth, between whom sparks fly. Elspeth is sympathetically played by Carol Royle. Incensed by Thatcher’s sacking from the post of Foreign Secretary in 1988, and a sequence of public humiliations of her husband, she encourages him to express his own political ideals. Paul Bradley’s portrayal of a man caught like a rabbit in the headlights of these two strong women is both tragic and very funny. Graham Seed, Christopher Villiers and John Wark are narrators, chorus and the politicians and journalists who watch and comment on the sidelines, and there are some great comic performances from them. The very funny scene when Howe is trying to arrange an appointment to see the PM through telephone calls to their respective staff is handled with tremendous panache and skilled stagecraft. Christopher Villiers’ portrait of Alan Clark is wonderfully venal and leads to hilarious scenes when Elspeth has to deal with his flirtatious advances. Satirical, but based on historical fact, Dead Sheep treats themes of political morality, revenge, loyalty and betrayal with a light but incisive touch. Its other topics, of political morality and “Britishness”, resonate twenty-six years after Geoffrey Howe’s political and personal stand, as relevant today as they have ever been. A great evening of comedy with an edge. 4 stars Janice Windle 21/11/2016 When the Guildford Shakespeare Company sets Grimm’s Fairy Tales for the theatre, you know you can expect something magical. And when it’s staged in an art nouveau travelling theatre space brought in from Belgium, ornate with stained glass and mirrored panels, it’s an experience not to be missed. The round stage steams gently with mysterious vapours as five members of this award-winning company begin an evening of shift-shaping, wizardry and battles against monsters and evil sorcerers. Ant Stones, resident playwright and Head of Education in the GSC, has woven an ingenious play to carry eight of the traditional fairy stories that the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected into a best-selling book in 1812. Wicked stepmothers, child-eating witches, princesses and talking animals stalk the stage. There’s lots of interaction with the audience, in fact at one point I almost shouted, “He’s behind yer! “ in true pantomime style. And when an elf looked me in the eye from the edge of the stage, and said, ”It’s not funny, you know”, I could only laugh harder! The cast members become protagonists, victims and narrators by turns, at times alternating as all three within the same story. The pace is frenetic. Andy Owens’ balletic leaps to and from the space around the stage are spectacular. Amelia Zadarnowska is a charming little Gretel, always clamouring for a story to distract from life’s dangers. Charlotte James is all the beautiful maidens, from Rapunzel to Briar Rose, to the haughty princess who wouldn’t kiss her frog (her Sloane drawl of “Yah, Daddy” is priceless in this last role!). I loved Dominic Rye as the arrogant continental rooster who doesn’t intend to get eaten, as a Surrey student Knight (“on work experience”), and as the elf, standing in a hole with his shoes under his chin to reduce his height! The star of the show is surely Rosie Strobel. Her wonderfully evil laugh, her ability to flounce with every inch of her body, and her strong and very beautiful singing voice are remarkable, whether she’s the big bad wolf, a cat who plays the tin whistle or a witch who eats little boys. Her stage presence, like her stunning wardrobe of richly textured cloaks, is hugely charismatic. The show‘s on for three weeks, before the wonderful mirror tent is packed up and sent back to Belgium. And there’s magic in it every day. Grimm's fairy tales will be showing at the mirror tent in Challenger's Field, Stoke Park, until October 28. To book tickets visit guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk This review has also been published on Essential Surrey Magazine's theatre page, with photos . |
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