alinewaites

An evening with Rodgers and Hart called ‘Any Old Place With You’

The cabaret room at Ye Old Rose and Crown in Walthamstow is a great venue for trying out any  new solo performance, but this particular one is already perfected enough to go straight into a larger venue.

Julie Ross is an excellent interpreter of these wonderful songs written by, in my opinion,  the most accomplished and extraordinary  songwriters of the twentieth century.

Richard Rodgers, of course, went on to work with Oscar Hammerstein in productions like Oklahoma, Carousel and South Pacific, but to my mind, these numbers cannot compare with the extreme wit, sophistication and sensitivity of Lorenz Hart.

The show included songs from all their top shows including  The Girlfriend, Pal Joey, Connecticut Yankee and Babes in Arms-  which was presented at the Rose and Crown earlier in the year. This show contains a plethora of standards, ‘My Funny Valentine’, ‘The Lady is a Tramp’, ‘Where or When’, ‘I wish I were in Love Again’ all of which have  Hart’s quirky lyrics. What a genius.

And Julie is just the girl to show him off.. She is a terrific performer. Cool, relaxed, never belting just acting out Hart’s poetry and making the most of it. She is a brilliant actress and works in the way all the best actresses do making the words seem like they are being rendered for the very first time.  But she is performing thirty nine songs and each one has to have it own individual interpretation.  I must have seen ‘Ten Cents a Dance’ done dozens of times but never with the emotional impact she gives to the story.

It was with great joy I witnessed her performance of the Jessie Matthews song from Evergreen ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’  I remember it so well from a very happy time in my life. It was a tour of Cornwall and the company were living in a St Ives Cottage. There was a gramophone but we only had one record. Sinatra  doing ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ and on the other side, my ultra favourite song ‘It never Entered My Mind’ a number that has a mixture of heartbreak and gentle wistful humour that gets me in tears every time. Of course Julie’s version was no exception.

So what else is there to say about this lovely woman with the curly red  hair and canny resemblance to Bernadette Peters? She gave us lots of information about the two guys as well as singing 39 of their songs. She has the intelligence, the sense of humour and the humanity to make the very best of the very best.

This may have been a tryout – but believe me, it won’t be the last we hear of it.

A wonderful heart lifting experience.  Thanks Julie.

Aline Waites is an English actress, director, producer, reviewer and writer. She is widely known for a long spell playing Gwen, the daughter of Mrs Dale, the BBC’s famous fictional diarist in Mrs Dale’s Diary.^[1]

Life and career[edit]

She studied for the theatre at Webber Douglas Academy. On graduation she won the Silver Medal and a BBC contract, and at the BBC was lucky to work with famous actors of the day, including Sir John Gielgud ^[2] to whose Ernest Worthing she played Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest. She played Gwen, daughter of Mrs Dale twice daily on radio in Mrs Dale’s Diary, which was later renamed The Dales.^[3] Her mother was first Ellis Powell and later Jessie Matthews.^[4] Latterly, single-again Gwen took increased prominence as the parental characters aged, with her choice of new husband a major cliff-hanger just before the serial ended.

As a stage actress Aline Waites did many tours and seasons, including Rep at Torquay, Bournemouth, Southampton and Bangor in Northern Ireland.^[5] Favourite roles were Marilyn Monroe in The White Whore, Jane Eyre and Melanie in Gone with the Wind 2.

On television she debuted as Lottie in The Puppet Master, a live transmission in 1956. She played Nurse Joan Edwards in Emergency Ward 10,^[6] and was in A Life of Bliss ^[7] and other drama productions.

She started Aba Daba Music Hall, the first fully professional pub theatre company, at the Mother Redcap, Camden Town, and from 1970 at the Pindar of Wakefield Theatre in Gray’s Inn Road. This venue (now the Water Rats) was purpose built for the company. In 1980 she produced a political twice nightly revue for Kennedy’s in the Kings Road called Downstairs at Kennedy’s. A new project at Underneath The Arches in Southwark, begun in 1991, continued until 1996. The music hall performances were at first traditional, but soon became well known for their radical nature.

Her life partner for many years was Robin Hunter. With him she created political pantomimes each year for the Pindar, The Arches and the Canal Cafe Theatre. Together they wrote twenty five shows. With Robin Hunter and John Gould she wrote Hit the Fan or Not the News Revue, performed at the Canal Cafe.

She wrote Stairway to Paradise, a musical biography of Marilyn Monroe, with music arranged by David Wykes, which was performed at The Arches and the Canal Cafe.^[8] She has organised big charity performances at venues including The Old Vic, the Shaftesbury Theatre, the Mayfair Theatre and Charing Cross Music Hall – also shows in Scandinavia, France, Germany, Canada, and the USA.

Her company did three summer seasons in Copenhagen, and toured major cities in Denmark many times throughout the seventies.

Presentations included Gone with the Wind 2 (nineteen productions in various venues) and Road to Casablanca, which were written with Robin Hunter and David Kelsey. Fanny’s Revenge with music by Jeff Clarke and Death on the Isle – music by Antony Feldman – were Waites/Hunter musical comedies.

Non-music theatre was represented by her production of Pinter’s The Birthday Party for a tour of Denmark Waites and Hunter also did Corporate events and wrote special material for sales promotions. A popular one was a Whodunnit game called The Star is Dead.

She has also written comedy sketches for the younger generation, including the Brighton Revue Company.

She co-wrote, with Robin Hunter and David Wykes, The Illustrated Victorian Songbook, Michael Joseph 1985.^[9] Her novel A Thing Called Joe was published in 2016. Her next book She That Plays the Queen will follow shortly. Other writing projects, both books and plays, are in preparation.

As a director of plays, her productions include Waiting in the Wings, Noël Coward’s play set in an actress’s retirement home – with a cast of eighteen on a small stage^[10] – as well as Coward’s Still Life and Red Peppers.^[11] Aline Waites has been a reviewer and interviewer for Plays and Players national theatre magazine, and other journals. She has reviewed for the Ham and High (the Hampstead and Highgate Express), for  Time Out, Whats On, Remotegoat, and elsewhere. She took a BA hons lit degree from the Open University in 2005.

She was for several years on the North West Branch Committee of Equity. She is also a member of Writers and Artists, Actors’ Benevolent Fund, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Musical Theatre Network.

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She studied for the theatre at Webber Douglas Academy.

On graduation she won the Silver Medal and a BBC contract, and at the BBC was lucky to work with famous actors of the day, including Sir John Gielgud ^[2] to whose Jack Worthing she played Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest. She played Gwen, daughter of Mrs Dale twice daily on radio in Mrs Dale’s Diary, which was later renamed The Dales.^[3] Her mother was first Ellis Powell and later Jessie Matthews.^[4] Latterly, single-again Gwen took increased prominence as the parental characters aged, with her choice of new husband a major cliff-hanger just before the serial ended.

As a stage actress Aline Waites did many tours and seasons, including Rep at Torquay, Bournemouth, Southampton and Bangor in Northern Ireland.^[5] Favourite roles were Marilyn Monroe in The White Whore, Jane Eyre and Melanie in Gone with the Wind 2.

On television she debuted as Lottie in The Puppet Master, a live transmission in 1956. She played Nurse Joan Edwards in Emergency Ward 10,^[6] and was in A Life of Bliss ^[7] and other drama productions.

She started Aba Daba Music Hall, the first fully professional pub theatre company, at the Mother Redcap, Camden Town, and from 1970 at the Pindar of Wakefield Theatre in Gray’s Inn Road. This venue (now the Water Rats) was purpose built for the company. In 1980 she produced a political twice nightly revue for Kennedy’s in the Kings Road called Downstairs at Kennedy’s. A new project at Underneath The Arches in Southwark, begun in 1991, continued until 1996. The music hall performances were at first traditional, but soon became well known for their radical nature.

Her life partner for many years was Robin Hunter. With him she created political pantomimes each year for the Pindar, The Arches and the Canal Cafe Theatre. Together they wrote twenty five shows. With Robin Hunter and John Gould she wrote Hit the Fan or Not the News Revue, performed at the Canal Cafe.

She wrote Stairway to Paradise, a musical biography of Marilyn Monroe, with music arranged by David Wykes, which was performed at The Arches and the Canal Cafe.^[8] She has organised big charity performances at venues including The Old Vic, the Shaftesbury Theatre, the Mayfair Theatre and Charing Cross Music Hall – also shows in Scandinavia, France, Germany, Canada, and the USA.

Her company did three summer seasons in Copenhagen, and toured major cities in Denmark many times throughout the seventies.

Presentations included Gone with the Wind 2 (nineteen productions in various venues) and Road to Casablanca, which were written with Robin Hunter and David Kelsey. Fanny’s Revenge with music by Jeff Clarke and Death on the Isle – music by Antony Feldman – were Waites/Hunter musical comedies.

Non-music theatre was represented by her production of Pinter’s The Birthday Party for a tour of Denmark.

She has also written comedy sketches for the younger generation, including the Brighton Revue Company.

She co-wrote, with Robin Hunter and David Wykes, The Illustrated Victorian Songbook, Michael Joseph 1985.^[9] Her novel A Thing Called Joe was published in 2016. Her next book She That Plays the Queen followed shortly. Other writing projects, both books and plays, are in preparation.

As a director of plays, her productions include Waiting in the Wings, Noël Coward’s play set in an actress’s retirement home – with a cast of eighteen on a small stage^[10] – as well as Coward’s Still Life and Red Peppers.^[11] Aline Waites has been a reviewer and interviewer for Plays and Players national theatre magazine, and other journals. She took a BA hons lit degree from the Open University in 2005.

She was for several years on the North West Branch Committee of Equity. She is also a member of Writers and Artists, Actors’ Benevolent Fund, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Musical Theatre Network.

DISASTER
by Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick

at Charing Cross Theatre

I just wish there were more stars to award a show. This is worth at least seven and a half. It was only on for two performances and though the director gave them all scripts to read from, the actors – mostly West End feature players – insisted on learning the roles and performing them with all props and costumes etc. The stage staff also joined in, doing the lighting, the costumes etc. all for nothing.
This was a charity show in aid of MAD – Make a Difference and it is mostly to raise funds for victims of Aids or HIV so it was a good cause, but it was not only the cause that made the actors and staff so keen to work on the show. It is because it is simply bloody brilliant.
It is a spoof on disaster movies and it is hysterically funny from beginning to end. The cast is amazing. They play it as if they have been properly rehearsed, choreographed and directed for weeks. Certainly they have been rehearsing, but Sunday afternoon was the first time they had actually done it together.
it
Most especially Jennifer Simard who plays the – nearly guitar playing – nun called Sister throughout. Sister is not only obsessed with gambling but so madly in love with a one armed bandits that she embraces them like a lover. She played the role on the Broadway version and made the trip over here just to perform it again.

Simon Lipkin who is practically Mr West End these days plays the ridiculous nasty villain, especially funny when approached by a blind girl, and pretends not to see her. She has been blinded by the Earthquake, only one of the many disasters that befall this helpless cast. They start on a Shipboard Casino and encounter Shipwreck, Volcano, Earthquake, tidal wave, Piranha fish and sharks. It’s a wonder any of them survive – well most of them do. Sally Ann Triplett plays Shirley a woman who is dying of some unknown disease that produces crazy physical symptoms one by one. She eventually expires doing a mad tap dance in order to save the hero and heroine from a tidal wave – but how can a tap dance…? don’t ask!

When I first saw Seth doing his Deconstructing Broadway show I thought maybe we just had the same sense of humour. Judging from the audience response to DISASTER, everyone has the same funny bone.

I – and all the other people who witnessed these shows hope desperately that it will be restaged here at our dear little Charing Cross Theatre which fits it so admirably.

4.0 out of 5 starsA lovely story and a great read, and who can ask for more than that?

By Terry Eastham on 28 May 2016

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

This book has two things that really appealed to me. The first was the style of writing. it was easy to read and the mixture of present day and past life stories worked really well to explain the personality and spirit of Joe Tully. He isn’t your everyday literary hero, but is a normal man. The years may have aged him, his family may have deserted him ,but he is an old trooper and never loses his sense of who he is and what he wants. The second factor is that Joe, and most of the other characters, are all involved in the theatre, which is one of my own loves. The author brings all her experience and love of the theatre into her writing and it really shows through. Her description of the play in the back room of the pub was perfect and is still as true today, where some fantastic work is produced in fringe pub theatre venues, as it was in Joe’s day. I took this book with me on a long coach trip, and the hours flew by as I travelled in Joe’s world. By the last chapter, I really hoped the old guy had a wonderful final years before he went off to the great orchestra pit in the sky.

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4.0 out of 5 starsJust Joe

By W. Russell on 11 Mar. 2016

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Joe is a musician, a man who plays in the pit at West End shows, composes music, fancies his chances and makes the wrong one, living to regret it. We meet him in his old age dumped in a retirement complex by his daughter and awful son in law after he has accidentally set fire to his flat. Joe may be down, but he is not out. The books takes us back to why he got where he is, and springs some splendid surprises about where he will end up. Aline Wates paints a lovely picture of 1960s London, a vanished world, and Joe is a beguiling if infuriating character who encounters some equally entertaining and not too well behaved people along the way. Great holiday reading – if that is not an insulting thing to say. I almost read it in one go, and that was only because I ran out of time on the first attempt to read it. Could easily be an in one go book.

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4.0 out of 5 starsmusicians `jammed` into the wee small hours in basements in tin pan alley and people loved, laughed and drank their lives away

By Stewart Permutt on 21 July 2016

Format: Kindle Edition

Actress-producer Aline Waites` debut novel is a delightful nostalgic trip into sixties and seventies London, where theatres above pubs were just emerging, musicians `jammed` into the wee small hours in basements in tin pan alley and people loved , laughed and drank their lives away. It also shows quite movingly how time takes its toll on the central characters through a series of vignettes from past to present. An easy but satisfying read.

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4.0 out of 5 starsA very entertaining read.

By Angela Mowforth on 11 Sept. 2016

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Joe is a musician and a wonderful character – stubborn – infuriating but such a charmer! His story is a joy to read.

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4.0 out of 5 starsJoe is good

By Londonjerez on 18 April 2016

Format: Paperback

A thoroughly enjoyable read.

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Wild at heart  ****

A selection of short plays by Tennessee Williams

If you are a fringe venue and you want to give your actors and your audiences a good evening what do you do? You hold out a welcoming hand to the playwright of genius – Tennessee Williams. A writer who seemed to get right into the head of his characters and allows actors to give of their very best.

Some of the pieces currently at the Pentameters were written when he was very young and are mostly brief character studies – most of whom will appear later in longer plays. These are all very short but very significant and show his enormous sympathy with people in some form of emotional distress. These are just four of his over seventy one-act plays.

At Liberty introduces us to a typical Tennessee diva. An actress, Gloria (Ava Amande) who believes she belongs on Broadway but who has been infected with a fatal disease and her time is short. She still means to make the most of what life she has left and goes out drinking and dancing every night much to the distress of her mother (Victoria Kempton) who waits and worries at home for her.

Mr Paradise (Philip Gerrard) concerns a forgotten poet. His book of poems is over twenty years old and it is picked up by a young woman (Alice Ivor) who comes in search of him. She wants to resurrect him. But he believes poetry has had its day and people are more interested in guns.

Hello from Bertha is set in a red-light district of St Louis and the scene is set and ushered in with the sound of “St Louis Blues” Bertha (Sarah Dorsett) lies in bed, she is too tired to do anything. The woman who is tending her wants her to go to a hospital or at least call a doctor. She is obviously sick but there has been no prognosis. Obviously, she is mentally ill and this part allows the actress a full range of physical drama.   No wonder actors want to work in Williams.

Finally, there is Talk to me like the Rain and Let me Listen. Brad Johnson and Alice Ivor play a couple who cannot communicate with each other.

These short plays are directed by Seamus Newham and most of the six actors play more than one role.

It is an unusual setting for the Pentameters, who usually excel in the elegance of their sets. John Dalton has created a feeling of poverty with its run down, dull brown with just a bed, one or two chairs and a table which get moved around in between each piece. It is played straight through without and interval and lasts about eighty minutes.

This is a brilliant resumption after a fallow period at the Pentameters and a sort time of closure. Long may it continue at this standard

THE NEXT TEN MINUTES AT THE LONDON THEATRE WORKSHOP

On Sunday I had an extraordinary and inspirational afternoon of emotion, drama, comedy and song. Add to this a party atmosphere of genial fellowship, a charismatic host, and limitless alcohol.

This was at Ray Rackham’s new London Theatre Workshops in Leadenhall Market.

The session was for some reason called The Next Ten minutes and it was a showcase of some of the work in development at the LTW and the treats in store for us in 2017.

The company won great accolades for their productions at their previous theatre in the Kings Road, Fulham and most especially for Through The Mill a story of Judy Garland which appeared first in Fulham and most recently at the Southwark Playhouse.

.The pieces of theatre were wide in their coverage.

Ranging from a very touching and funny excerpt from ‘Freddie, Ted and the death of Joe Orton’ by Don Cotter. A title that set it firmly in August 1964. We only saw part of the first act with Robert Styles as Freddie,  Chris McGuigan as Ted, Norma Cohen played a visitor Dilys with  James Neale as her son Glen. Amanda Bailey and Ray Rackham played BBC announcers. It is about a pair of men living together and it resembles slightly a witty version of the TV series ‘Viscous’ However we shall have see the rest to give judgement but what we saw was highly entertaining, the characters well drawn and the comedy extremely well realised.

One of the Rackham’s musical plays was ‘Therapy’ about four people telling about their visit to a counsellor.. Two couples and two single New Yorkers. Involved in the writing and production of musical comedies – the current one being a musical version of ‘Three Sisters’. There are four songs from this musical coming at intervals during the afternoon and performed by Tom Harrison, Belinda Wollaston, Madelaine Nicole Jennings, Anton Tweedale, Chris McGuigan and Alistair Frederick.

‘City of Champions’ is a play by Steve Brown about 1980s teenage superstars who are now grown up, having been through the whole drink and drugs culture and come out the other side. Some of them meet after a long absence. Joel Arnold Harry Anton and Amy Burke. This is beautifully acted and a fascinating subject about what happens to child stars when they eventually achieve adulthood.

.Disturbance is a thriller by Ray Rackham. It takes place during a super storm. Amy has been watching the destruction of live Television and has left it too late to evacuate. She has to stay and wait for the storm to pass. She is surprised by the presence of another person in the building. A man who is looking for a missing cat. They decide to wait together, but there is something not quite right about this stranger. That is all we know, but it is a super beginning to a thriller. The wonderful Nova Skipp plays Amy and Rob Carter is Adam.

But for my money, the star occasion of the afternoon is the play by Carolyn Scott Jeffs. It is called ‘FANNY, a new music hall’ title that filled me with dread. Having been involved in Music Hall for much of my life, I have seen so many duff plays on the subject. However the music hall is simply a setting for a play about the terrible diseases suffered by the poor  and homeless in that era. Fanny is played by the almost over talented Lizzie Wofford who puts a stamp of stardom on every part she plays. She sings to us a couple of music hall songs (we have to join in) in her world shattering voice. And then sits beside accompanist Peter Dodsworth and plays and sings ever so sweetly Marie Lloyd’s song ‘Up in  the Gallery’ Not a dry seat in the house! This is a one woman show which will be seen at the LWT early next year.

The LWT is like a happy family – and everybody has a good time. Ray Rackham is a joyful presence and is in love with musical theatre and all the many highly talent people involved in it. I was so privileged to be invited to this event and am looking to seeing all the shows .next year.

.The afternoon ended in a most appropriate way – with Lucy Sutton singing the number she sang from Through The Mill ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Ray Rackham has created his very own Emerald City in the  Land of Oz.

WONDERFUL TOWN

Music by Leonard Bernstein

lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

From the play ‘My Sister Eileen’ by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorovants

and short stories by Ruth Mc Kenney

The Rose and Crown musicals proves that it is possible to put on a bit musical comedy in a room above a pub – of course it helps when the pub belongs to the producer and musical director of All Stars. But they perform positive wonders in that small space.

Here is yet another example of what enormously successful musical theatre can be made in a small venue with an ensemble company. Of course, to have an ensemble that works, the actors all must be able to sing and dance as well as play drama and comedy. And director Tim McArthur always manages to find the pick of the bunch. This is a rich mix of fantastically talented performers.

The story concerns two sisters, Ruth and Eileen from Ohio trying to make their way in New York – the Wonderful Town of the title.

The two girls are perfectly cast. Lizzie Wofford and Francesca Benton-Stace both beautiful but different in temperament. Eileen wants to be an actress and flirts and falls in love with every man she sees – much to her victims’ enjoyment. Lizzie Wofford plays Ruth, the intellectual who outshines every man she meets and sings ‘One hundred Easy ways to Lose a Man’ , Wofford is quite wonderful and gets better every time I see her. She carries a lot of the comedy with her would-be publisher Aneurin Pascoe but there are also villains, idiots, prostitutes – all human life is there in Christopher Street and all are seriously weird.

The plot is a bit of a mess. But enjoyable nevertheless.

However, I have a problem with all ensemble shows these days. Just too much choreography. I long for someone to come on and just sing a song without the rest of the cast jigging about behind them. There are some delicious songs in the score. ‘A Little Bit in Love’ which Eileen sings about every man she meets. The love song ‘It’s love’ the kind of number that stays with you for days afterwards and the hilarious ‘Conga’

My personal favourite which unaccountably brings tears to my eyes is ;The Wrong Note Rag’ which is played beautifully by the MD Aaron Clingham. I would have liked him to have that moment to himself but of course there is a chorus of frenetic dancing going on all the time.

It could be just me, but I do wish they would occasionally stand still.

Nevertheless, whatever I say, this is a great show to go and see. Take the trip to Walthamstow before it comes off., Don’t miss it.