alinewaites

SALAD DAYS ****
BY Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds
At the Richmond Theatre

‘SUMMER AND SUNSHINE AND FALLING IN LOVE’
Just one of Julian Slade’s beautiful tunes with the Springtime lyrics of Dorothy Reynolds.
This is a completely bonkers show just a lot of crazy incidents, review numbers to fit in with the gorgeous songs – which are amazing – and dare I say refreshing,- in this Rocking and Rapping age.
A short reference to Teddy Boys but, apart from this, the second half of the twentieth century needn’t have happened. It is so set in the innocent and hopeful fifties pre Beatles era and before the sexual revolution. When the word ‘Gay’ meant a kind of insouciant happiness and if homosexuality existed it wasn’t ever talked about. Most people were normal and others were.. queer.
The semblance to a plot is the friendship between Timothy and Jane – two recent graduates from University worrying that they might have already had all the good times they were ever going to have. ‘When we are gone who will give all the parties?’ ‘There won’t BE any parties.’
Life as they knew it, was over. Jane would marry Lord Nigel, Timothy would go into his family business. Bravely they sang ‘We said we wouldn’t look back’. A tear inducing tune and lyric.
It is later on when they are having simply super adventures with a magic piano (yes magic, the piano ‘the one that makes you dance’)
Suddenly, Timothy acquired a piano lent to him by a tramp who offered him seven pounds a week to take care of it. It was surprising to find that it was a magic piano (yes, magic the one that makes you dance}. Now as they see all the staid and self satisfied people throwing their legs in the air, they realise that this is the Time of Their Life.
There are some lovely performances, Wendi Peters and Valerie Cutco Play the mothers of the children as well as several other roles, hairdressers, Dons, Aunts, Employers etc . And of course all dancing along with all the rest .Mark Anderson and Jessica Cross play the young ones and Maeve Byrne is especially

The semblance to a plot is the friendship between Timothy and Jane – two recent graduates from University worrying that they might have already had all the good times they were ever going to have. ‘When we are gone who will give all the parties?’ ‘There won’t BE any parties.’
Life as they knew it, was over. Jane would marry Lord Nigel, Timothy would go into his family business. Bravely they sang ‘We said we wouldn’t look back’. A tear inducing tune and lyric.

Suddenly, Timothy acquires a piano lent to him by a tramp who offers him seven pounds a week to take care of it. It is surprising to find that it is a magic piano (yes, magic the one that makes you dance}. Now as they see all the staid and self satisfied people throwing their legs in the air, they realise that this is the Time of Their Life.
There are some lovely performances, Wendi Peters and Valerie Cutco Play the mothers of the children as well as several other roles, hairdressers, Dons, Aunts, Employers etc . And of course all dancing along with all the rest .Mark Anderson and Jessica Cross play the young ones and Maeve Byrne is especially funny as Asphynxia – ion a sort of Night Club scene I think. Not sure. Of course , there is a comic policeman and a non speaking mime called Troppo (Callum Evans)
The musical director and Tramp are Dan Smith and he plays piano throughout with Andrew Richards on Bass and Joe Pickering on drums. Direction is by Bryan Hodgson and splendid loony choreography by Joanne McShane.
It is good, clean crazy fun of the kind we don’t get nowadays. Settings change by simple tracer lighting effects by Tim Deiling on Mike Lees’s magical setting.
It’s a lovely change and It is a rare treat. We come out smiling.

GALA PERFORMANCE OF THRILLER
For the Prince’s Trust
AT THE LYRIC THEATRE

To borrow a line from Sweet Charity
“All I can say is WOW”
And certainly, this show is the most Wow making production ever.
It has been running for four thousand performances.
What I find most thrilling about this show, is that it seems to get better every thousandth performance, or may it is just that I forget in between celebrations how good a show it is
This special performance in aid of the Princes Trust starred Peter Andre a true Jackson fan, who sang a heartfelt version of “She’s Out of my Life” and “Man in the Mirror” for which he received a standing ovation and later also joined in several numbers with the dancers as easily as if he had been part of the show forever.
It is spectacle upon spectacle. The dancing is incredible with director Gary Lloyd’s unforgettable and innovative choreography. How he can get all those people on stage doing choreography to every number and never repeating himself in any of them. So often some of the dancers will do unbelievably impossible athletic moves. “Can you feel it?” They sing at the end of Act One. The whole audience certainly could.
The leading female soloist is the very beautiful Vivienne Ekwulugo. At the beginning she is dressed in a golden skin tight costume which shows every inch of her magnificent body, she looks like a Goddess and her voice is sent from heaven.
It is impossible to name the whole cast. Two shining examples are Haydon Eshun and David Julien both exceptional singers. Hayden who has been singing professionally from the age of nine was recently named as the most talented male vocalist in the UK..
Special mentions need to go to Xhanti Mbonzongwana who plays the young Michael of The Jackson
Five, and Kieran Alleyn, the epitome of Jackson himself who sings with Xhanti in “Billie Jean” Kieran .was the very first ‘Young Michael’ in 2009
What is so attractive about this show is the racial diversity . I was particularly impressed by a blonde girl who has a great talent for comedy. Leona Lawrenson.
But there is so much huge talent on that stage, so much spectacle, so many incredibly attractive costumes by the Shooting Flowers creative team. We feel almost smothered in a surfeit of sequins.
The set is perfect for the style of the show and it was designed by Jonathan Park. Lighting and Sound is perfect and there are many special effects by the Twins FX
We leave in a wave of euphoria and look forward to Thriller number 5,000

About Leo
BY Alice Allemano
At Jermyn Street Theatre

Leonora Carrington is probably one of the best known artists in Mexico, but very little of her was known in England, the country of her birth. Alice Allemano discovered her at Tate Liverpool in a retrospective exhibition and was impressed by the volume of her work
Born and brought up in a respectable middle class family in Lancashire, She was disowned by her father when she eloped with a married man. He was Max Ernst the surrealist painter. Surrealism was not considered proper art at the time, almost pornographic, but Leonora was fascinated by it.
No time is given but it would be around 2010. A young girl arrives at Leo’s house in Mexico wanting to find out more about her life with Max Ernst.. The girl is Eliza Prentice, a would be journalist fascinated by the life of this relatively unknown woman only known to art aficionados as the girl who was the muse for Max Ernst. Something she vehemently denies. Susan Tracey gives an impeccable performance as the older Leo. She is occasionally irascible, but always retains the inner warmth and spirit of her rebellious nature.
The play is set in two time frames, the visit to Mexico of Eliza (played with a kind of excited innocence by Eleanor Wild) and the late nineteen thirties when Max and Leo were living together.
The set is clever with two areas, the main stage representing Leo’s kitchen for the scenes with the older Leo and Eliza and a raised platform which is sometimes shrouded but when the curtain is drawn, we see all is scarlet, even the scarlet dress of the young Leo for the nineteen thirties love scenes.
Here the two lovers played by Phoebe Pryce as the young Leo and Nigel Whitmey as the very attractive Max Ernst show the true love they had for each other, their squabbles and their passion. Their happiness was interrupted by the beginning of the second world war. Max was arrested by the police and was taken away from her. She went into depression and her father tried to get her into an insane asylum, but she made her getaway and fled to Mexico. Her arrival in Mexico brought her marriage and children but never interfered with her freedom and she always remained her own person.
This play is part of the Rebel season at the Jermyn Street Theatre. It is the author’s first play and it tells a fascinating story, but I felt ninety minutes without an interval was a little demanding. Like Leonora, I too would have welcomed a little escape.
The actors are all vibrant individuals and play their roles with integrity. The direction is by Michael Oakley. Maybe rather too long, but a great story well told and well played. And true to the Theatre’s task of illuminating characters who never give in to convention..

ABOUT LEO
BY Alice Allemano
At Jermyn Street Theatre

Leonor Carrington is probably one of the best known artists in Mexico, but very little o her was known in England, the country of her birth. Alice Allemano discovered her at Tate Liverpool in a retrospective exhibition and was impressed by the huge amount of her work
Born and brought up in a respectable middle class family in Lancashire, She was disowned by her father when she eloped with a married man. He was Max Ernst the surrealist painter. Surrealism was not considered proper art at the time, almost pornographic, but Leonora was fascinated by it.
A young girl arrives at her house in Mexico wanting to find out more about her life with Max Ernst.. The girl is Eliza Prentice, a would be journalist fascinated by the life of this relatively unknown woman only known to art aficionados as the girl who was the muse for Max Ernst. Something she vehemently denies. Susan Tracey gives an impeccable performance as the older Leo. She is occasionally irascible, but always has the inner warmth and passion of her rebellious nature.
After the breakup with Ernst she had a nervous breakdown and was sent by her father to a lunatic asylum from where she escaped and found he r way to Mexico where she remained for the rest of her days.
The play is set in two time frames, the visit to Mexico of Eliza (played with a kind of excited innocence by Eleanor Wild) and the late nineteen thirties when Max and Leo were living together.
Here the two lovers played by Phoebe Pryce as the young Leo and Nigel Whitmey as the very attractive Max Ernst.
WE see the true love they had for each other, their squabbles and their love making. During this honeymoon period, we hear on the radio the announcement that Hitler had invaded Poland and it was the beginning of the second world War. She stayed with Max until he was arrested by the police. He was taken away from her and she suffered her nervous breakdown. Her arrival in Mexico brought her marriage and children but never interfered with her freedom and the way wanted to live. – in praise of freedom.
This play is part of the Regel season at the Jermyn Street Theatre
It is the author’s first play and it tells a fascinating story, but I felt it was a little long, ninety minutes without an interval. I too would have welcomed a little escape.
They are all excellent actors and are beautifully directed by Michael Oakley
It is a clever and very lovely set by Erika Paola Redriguez Egas. It has two stages, the main stage which is
This play is part of the Regel season at the Jermyn Street Theatre
It is the author’s first play and it tells a fascinating story, but I felt it was a little long, ninety minutes without an interval. I too would have welcomed a little escape.
They are all excellent actors and are beautifully directed by Michael Oakley.
It is a clever and very lovely set by Erika Paola Redriguez Egas. It has two stages, the main stage which is made of old wood and is Leo’s kitchen, and a raised platform, occasionally shrouded, but behind the curtain all is scarlet, even including the dress of the young Leo
It is a Bit long, but a fascinating story well told and well played

EUGENIUS ****
BY Chris Wilkins and Ben Adams
AT THE OTHER PALACE
This hilarious comic book musical has returned to the Other Palace due to public demand. It already has a huge vociferous fan base , and they attend every performance recognising and cheering on their favourite characters.
The show is set in the nineteen eighties –Well – who wants to see a jolly comedy show set in the present troubled age? OK, that is one reason The more important one is that the brilliant young composers find themselves more at home with the nineteen eighties style.
As it turns out the show has the best new tunes in town, and the script is wonderfully silly..
Basically it’s a ‘geek beats all’ story. Eugene played by the ever lovely Rob Houchen is beaten up by his bullying peers, mainly for being cleverer than all the rest of them. He is no hero, it is his girlfriend Janey who beats up the bullies . Laura Baldwin plays Janey and has done through many of its incarnations. The other old timer is Daniel Buckley who plays Eugene’s best chum Feris. This character is a real audience pleaser whose appearance is greeted with roars of approval from the fans.
Eugene spends his time locked in the fantasy world of his book and his hero Tough Man. The title of Tough Man is a stroke of Eugenious, as it tells us right from the beginning that there is absolutely nothing remotely serious or sensible about this piece of theatre. The heroine is called Super Hot Lady. Which totally proves this point.
Janey, his pretty witty girl friend puts his comic story up for a competition – which it naturally, wins and the three chums take off for Hollywood where the Tough Man movie is to be made.
Once in Hollywood we have the self important director Lex Hogan portrayed by Alex Bourne in a glamorous white suit to match his luscious white hair, and his highly camp production assistant, the adorably cuddly and very funny Scott Paige. Plus some typically miscast Hollywood stars. Simon Thomas as a German accented Tough Man and Emily Tierney as the awkwardly immovable Super Hot Lady. There are also a load of fish people in addition to the characters in Eugene’s book.
Lex Hogan advises Augene ‘You gotta perform a little kiss ass’ to succeed in the movie business.
However the extra planetary stories click in and we zoom into fantasy. The creation of Tough Man is explained and Tough Man’s villainous twin brother arrives. The Evil Lord Hector played by Neil McDermott has been somehow thrown off his own planet and he is spinning around the Universe trying to find and kill his twin brother.(not sure why)
In addition to the hilarity, there are some really interesting numbers –‘Comic book king of Love’ is beautifully performed by Rob Houchen and of course the rabble rousing number which has the audience joining in – both the song and the accompanying gestures. ‘Go Eugenius’ was the one I found myself singing all the way home.
The kind of entertainment we need , directed by Ian Talbot with Darren Lloyds as musical director and produced by Kevin Wood, George Wood and Warwick Davis.
A show for all the family and kids of all ages from three to a hundred and three. Love It!

EROS
By Kevin Mandry
At the White Bear Theatre.

What did we do without the internet? For This play we have to remember what it was like in the nineties when the system  was in its infancy
Terri, beautifully played by Felicity Jolly,  is a young girl who is lodging with Ross, a failed photographer and is helping him in his current occupation, making brochures, working the computer – and tidying up after him.  He doesn’t pay her, but she thinks of her job as a learning curve. Terri loves the internet. It is a way of making friends, getting to know people she would never normally meet. She is dressed in 90s boho. Boots, a floor length skirt and a long pullover. As the play begins, she is working through a box of discarded toys, finding a Rubiks cube, she very quickly solves it and throws it into the bin.
Terri is worried that Ross didn’t come home last night. When he arrives he says he has been visiting herons and  he quotes Yeats. .’We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare’
Ross (Stephen Riddle) was once famous, used to be known as Black Ross – a follower of  Black Sabbath. He distrusts the internet, He sees it as a world of impossible promises, impossible demands and constant disappointments and believes that fantasy could become virtual reality, because everything exists deep in peoples’ minds. As he says just one click and the picture is encapsulated for ever. But what happens when  fantasy becomes more real than flesh. Will people spend hours watching fake news.
Kate, (Anna Tymoshenko) an old girl friend arrives at the house. In contrast to Terri, she is dressed conventionally. She has made her fortune in the Beauty business with a series of beauty shops across the country and possesses a house with four bedrooms and five bathrooms. She has arrived, bent on some kind of revenge.
When Ross talks of beauty, she remembers it differently. She talks of what it is to be a woman, always on show for that unattainable perfection, Society’s obsession with conformity. She talks of Bryony, Ross’s model, who suffered from her beauty and her desire to be perfect. Men only see the cover, not interested in what is underneath. In the nineties, there was no such thing as ‘ME TOO’.

I found the play unsatisfactory, even though the performances throughout were excellent. I listened carefully to all Mandry’s arguments but they were too confused, nothing was resolved. The play deals with corruption, computers, jealousy, fantasy, revenge, photography, feminism etc. It seemed to me that he was covering too many subjects and could only give each one rather superficial attention.

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SIX,
By Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

At the Arts Theatre

Divorced, Beheaded, Died
Divorced, Beheaded, Survived
THE MUSICAL SIX is something else. It is perfect. It has everything. A terrific feminist rock musical. The six ex-wives of the gross Monarch Henry 8th tell their own stories.
It seems to have taken the world by surprise. It is like nothing else in the West End with a packed, ecstatic house, cheers and applause throughout.
These ten women on stage simply don’t put a foot wrong with the music, the singing, the high energy dancing, and four excellent musicians.
The girls who play the six queens are powerhouses. They dance like athletes and with super voices belt out their numbers like pop singers. Each is a star in her own right. The scripts is full of wit and each girl delivers her lines with enthusiasm and perfect diction. There is no holding back they have great projection and always make sure that the audience is recognized.
The ladies tell their stories, with enormous good humour, the main joke being a competition on which of them had the worst time. Hence the repeated DIVORCED(Catherine of Aragon (handy that Aragon rhymes with Paragon) played by Jarneia Richard-Noel. And Anna of Cleves (Alexia McIntosh); BEHEADEDed, Anne Boleyn (Millie O’Connell) and Catherine Howard (Aimie Atkinson); DIED Jane Seymour (Natalie Paris) and SURVIVED Catherine Parr (Maiya Quansah-Breed) .
Each has their own chance to plead their case, but nobody really cares about who wins. What is so good is that they are all telling their own story, They are not just appendages of a bullying monarch, they are real people in their own right. A good feminist stance!
Production values are now extraordinary. I saw this show last December when it had a try out at the Arts and I was very impressed. Now with the extremely stylish costumes by Gabrielle Slade, brilliant setting by emma Bailey and most particularly the stunning lighting effects by Tim Deiling and the amazing band Katy Richardson, Alice Angliss, Amy Shaw and Terri De Marco,the whole production is unsurpassable. Not a single thing to criticise. Direction by the authors and amazingly varied choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille.
When I saw it before I had a problem with the sound. I think there might be a deaf spot in the theatre. But from my perfect seat in the fifth row of the stalls there was no problem with the sound at all.
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CARMEN THE GIPSY ****
At the Arcola as part of a National tour
The Arcola Theatre presents us with many surprises. Nothing is ever as it could be expected.
This version of Carmen is taken from the original story by Prosper Merimee, retold by Dan Allum who has transplanted it from Seville to a travellers encampment in Great Britain. Dan Allum is the Artistic Director of Romany Theatre, whose plays tour nationally and it is written in English and Romani. He is also responsible for the original Gypsy folk songs.
Carmen (Candis Nergaard) lives in a gipsy encampment represented by a rectangular openwork metal fence which is the sole setting for the piece most of which is performed inside. Mariah and the Musician sit outside with their instruments. There are only five actor / musicians and they play a wide variety of instruments, three guitars, violin, accordion, tin whistle and a couple of spoons.
Carmen is married to Garcia (Michael Mahony) – a bullying husband. ‘Tute shan meero rom, kek meero doovel’ she remarks – (you are my husband not my god).
Carmen longs to escape from her traditional life. ‘Gyppos are parasites, Rats in the sewer’ and crashes her body against the Walls of her cage over and over again . When she meets a young discredited solder don Jose (Adam Rojko Vega) she uses her tarot cards to tell he fortune. He falls in love with her and wants to help her get her freedom.
She is a fortune teller and uses the cards to tell the fortune of a young discredited soldier Don Jose Adam Rojko Vega a ‘Gadje’,( non-traveller) he loves her and wants to help her get her freedom.
“But When the outside world thinks you are scum, can you ever be free?”
‘It’s what we feel that frees us’
The company indulge in traditional cage fighting. Every member of the cast play at boxing a various times, but it becomes serious when Don Jose is pushed into a competitive boxing match. An event which leads into the inevitable ending.
It is a fascinating piece, beautifully performed, but surely can hardly be called an opera because it is mostly spoken and most of the songs are rendered by Mariah (Christina Tedders) and Gareth O’Connor. The rest of the cast join in the singing and we wait for Carmen to sing, but she never does.
The musical director is Candida Caldicot and choreography by Chi San Howard.
Abigail Graham directs.

GREEK
MUSIC BY MARK-ANTONY TURNAGE
Libretto by STEVEN BERKOFF from his stage play
Adapted by Mark Antony Turnage and Jonathan Moore
At the Arcola – in the Grimeborn Opera season.
They warned me that there were no tunes, in case one goes to an opera expecting beautiful soaring arias. There is a large orchestra – about thirteen instrumentalists – which acts as a Greek chorus commenting on the action, heavy on rhythm as well as handling sound effects.
Berkoff has brought Oedipus up to date, making him a cockney, Eddy, born ‘not far from the Angel’ as he says in his first speech, but fed up of the pub led life, preferring to drink in wine bars.. . The director must have been so happy to have rising star, Edmund Danon to play Eddy because his posture and movement is almost balletic and as Jonathan Moore has made practically every scene end in freeze frame, the effect is beautiful, like something out of the National Gallery
But all four actors are astounding. Richard Morrison – also a good mime artist and a very experienced opera performer, is the cockney Dad, Philippa Boyce cosy as the Mum and weirdly prophetic waving her beautiful hands about as the soothsayer and Laura Woods lovely mezzo soprano, who is gorgeous and very dignified even during the sex scenes with Eddy. The two ladies also play a couple of weird sisters as The Sphinx, blending their voices in harmony and rhythm.
There is a lot of laugh aloud comedy, most especially when the cockney Mum and Dad come to visit Eddy and his posh wife. The wife does her best to love the in laws, but she obviously doesn’t understand a word they are saying. And the old couple are subservient, impressed by the way their boy has improved since he left home.
The lines are sometimes spoken, sometimes sung in Berkoff’s stylish work and in the same way, the orchestra, drawn from the Kantanti ensemble talk to us and make appropriate noises. The orchestra remain as the decorative set at the back of the stage – loved the Harp. Baska Wesolowska the designer has allowed the setting to speak for itself. There are just tracer lights which change colour depending on where the action is taking place and there is some expert lighting by Matt Leventhall. The astonishing thing about this production is that every member of it seems to be completely integrated in the work. There is artistic endeavour of all kinds here, music, ballet, comedy, poetry, effects all working towards the well-known tragic ending.
It is easy to shed tears at the end, not at the tragedy but with simple pride at the conductor Tim Anderson, the musicians the actors, all the people who have made this thing happen with so much creative expertise.
An opera with no popular tunes? This is something else.

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR
By Gaetano Donizetti
Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano
Based on the Walter Scott novel The Bride of Lammermoor
At the Arcola Theatre
On a rainy Thursday night what could be lovelier than a typical melodramatic opera by Donizetti
It is part of the Arcola Grimebourne Opera season which specialises in making opera relevant for today.
In this case, it seems to be just a matter of dressing people in normal clothes and doing the opera as written. It is of course in Italian but one soon forgets this as there are English subtitles coming up from time to time on a screen above the piano.
It is a little odd to see the opera with only a pianist -Ben Woodward with Michael Thrift conducting beside him throughout.. Odd it may be , but it doesn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the action.
It is set in Scotland, because Donizetti was fascinated by the wars of the clans in Walter Scott’s story. The Bride of ‘Lammermoor’ and clan wars are at the bottom of the plot.
It’s a well-known story of greed, revenge and frustrated love. In this version, the girl, Lucia Ashton, is romantically in love with Edgardo Ravenswood, a man whose family is at war with hers. Her brother Enrico wants her to marry Arturo a rich man who can get him out of financial difficulties.
The two lovers are vocally beautifully matched in their love scenes. Alberto Sousa as Edgardo wears casual clothes, where Enrico and his religious advisor Raimondo wear elegant suits in order to easily distinguish the factors and making it obvious that Edgardo is an unwanted stranger in these parts.
Nicola Said as Lucia is especially strong in her final mad scene in which she completely dominates the room surrounded by the rest of the cast and the chorus who feel unable to interrupt her enormously powerful voice. This is a brilliant characterisation from a pretty girl with a voice to die for.
Another voice to die for is the operatic base of the remarkably tall and handsome Simon Grange as Raimondo, the priestly advisor to Enrico. The voice is remarkable in his dramatic scenes – it is his job to tell everybody what is happening so he is an ever present character.
Ashley Mercer plays the wicked brother Enrico who cheats her and forces her into an unhappy marriage. He is well cast and gives the impression of his panicky state of mind and desire to save his own skin. He is helped in his nefarious plans by Normanno played by James Bowers. Alisa, Lucia’s friend and confidante is played by the mezzo soprano Rebekah Jones.
It is a satisfying production and one must be grateful to Ben Woodward of the Fulham Opera for the terrific chorus work and to the fabulous Sarah Hutchinson for directing this production.
di lammermoor