See How They Run

10 June 2008
Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage

Blasts from the Past!

Great comedy is based on a loss of dignity, and while some of my nights out in the past may not have been that funny, I'm sure they caused someone great amusement!

But seriously, people in authority being brought down a peg or two or people in situations where they have to behave well and being made to look foolish have been the staple of comedy writers for centuries and that's why the vicar as become such a popular character in farce, especially when their trousers suddenly appear around their ankles!

So to eek out maximum fun from his wartime farce See How They Run, Philip King has given us not one vicar but FOUR - and also thrown in a Bishop for good measure!

This typical farce is a comedy of mistaken identities. Set in the village of Merton-cum-Middlewick, the proverbial "chaos ensues" when it becomes besieged by an escaped prisoner of war, a visiting priest, an actor, a locum priest and a policeman - all at the same time!

Meanwhile, parish spinster Miss Skillon makes a call to the vicar to discuss what, to her mind, is a far more pressing matter as she is outraged by the dalliances of the vicar’s wife, and of course gets embrolied in the action.

The publicity says that the resulting confusion provides an "hilarious" evening. Well, it is amusing certainly, and quite charming and genteel, but side-splitting it's not. I think this is because it is a play of its time (1945), and it was this fact that made the whole experience something that was almost moving for me rather than one that made me cry with laughter.

The first half spends a lot of time setting the scene, when it seemed that every statement is laboriously setting up something that will happen in the future. I found it a little slow but I produced a wry smile when former actor, Lance-Corporal Clive Winton (played well by Emmerdale's Dale Meeks) has to swap his army uniform for vicar's clothes and remarks that he's been in enough plays to know that when somebody swaps clothes bad things happen! I liked the fact that the author was acknowledging his devices! But, that aside I was beginning to shift around in my seat.

Then I spent the interval reading the programme notes and really thinking about it a bit more.

The writer Philip King was conscripted in the Second World War and wrote See How They Run in his spare time, which is quite a feat in itself under the circumstances. It was first staged in Peterborough in 1944 and transferred to the Comedy Theatre in London in January 1945. Now imagine. Two cities filled with service personel and war weary civilians desparately looking for some form of of amusement, something to make them smile in those dark days that were often filled with little hope. Imagine a comedy play about a vicar and his wife, a bishop, a soldier, a policeman and an escaped POW. These characters would have struck chords of recognition amongst those audiences but instead of reading about them or dealing with them, they were invited to laugh at them and not take them as seriously as they had to in real life. It must have been quite a relief.

And so, as I imagined people flocking to get even just a hint of laughter in otherwise dark days I felt a pang of guilt in finding it less funny than the more in your face comedy that I am used to. I began to be charmed by it and admired it as a product of its time with affection rather than judging it against modern comedies.

Added to this nostalgic feeling was the fact that many of the parts were played by actors who have formerly appeared in some of our best-loved TV sit-coms and shows.

There was Hi-De-Hi’s Jeffrey Holland as the bumblingly innocent stand-in vicar Arthur Humphrey, and Guy Siner who starred as Lt. Gruber in ‘Allo ‘Allo who played the escaped German POW and who drew a roar of laughter from the audience when one of his lines in this play was "Now, listen very carefully"! Then there was Michael Sharvell-Martin from No Place Like Home as the Bishop and Emmerdale's Frazer Hines.

Whatever you think of the subject matter, good farce needs good timing and physical agility and this cast certainly had those, especially in the second half. And if you love preposterous situations and nostalgic wartime farce, you'll love this portrayal of a preposterous situation in a nostalgic wartime farce!

It was basically an evening of inoffensive comedy, that made you yearn for the simple laughs we had in the 80s and also, when you thought about the context of when it was written, made you feel quite humble.

Daisy Pulls It Off!

3 June 2008
Gordon Craig Theatre

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me An Answer Do!

I’ve got to be honest. As always, Ian Dickens has got a good cast together and produced a slick production, but I have to say, the question that I want an answer to is, what is the point of Denise Deegan's play?!

The title makes you think it’s going to be a slightly risqué romp, a good old-fashioned farce, but it’s not. It’s amusing, but the main joke runs out after about five minutes and you spend the rest of the two and three quarter hours wondering if anything new is ever going to happen and if we will ever get to the ending, which frankly you can see coming from early in the first half.

The main joke is that it is all set in a girls boarding school in 1927 and all the characters say spiffing and scrummy and other such Enid Blyton-esque phrases in every sentence. As the school girls are played by much older girls it is vaguely comic for a couple of pages, but when you realise that this isn’t going to be the glorious send-up of those kinds of scenarios that the Comic Strip did so brilliantly in the 80s, but merely a recreation of something like Fifth Form at Malory Towers, you know you’re in for a long night. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved Enid Blyton, I devoured her books with relish. But I was seven at the time.

The story centres around Daisy Meredith, who as an ordinary girl at an ‘elementary’ school wins a scholarship to the ultra posh Grangewood boarding school. She’s poor but clever so guess what – despite her one friend Trixie, the rich girls hate her and so they play jolly japes on her, although they are not always jolly and she ends up on the brink of expulsion until, guess what, she saves the day and, guess what, they find out that she is not what they think. Yawn.

How they don’t know this from the start though is impossible. As soon as they start talking about missing heirs and long lost fathers early in the first half, the denouement is galloping towards you faster than Desert Orchid, it just takes an age to get there!

Daisy is charmingly played by Carly Hillman who used to be Nicki de Marco in EastEnders and Trixie by Julia Mallam who was Dawn in Emmerdale, so if you like seeing your ex-soap stars in the flesh then Ian Dickens, as always, has done a good job. I also liked Kim Hartman (Helga in Allo Allo) as the firm but fair headmistress and Ben Roberts (Inspector Conway in The Bill) as the enigmatic music teacher. They are all very good in these roles, don’t get me wrong! They deal with what they are given on the page extremely well, it’s just what they are given that I find wanting!

I have to try and be objective though. The audience around me seemed to be enjoying themselves so who am I to say? There’s obviously a niche for this production so if you’re in a family with daughters between the ages of seven and ten or you’ve never grown out of Upper Fourth at St Clares, wizard wheezes and midnight feasts, then this will make excellent viewing. If you don’t fall into that category, I wouldn’t waste your money!

Fat Pig

29 May 2008
Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London

Food for Thought!

Neil La Bute has added to his plays about body image with an interesting take on, to put it bluntly, having a fat partner with a great personality!

And what I liked about it was that, as well as being very witty, there was always that dark uneasy undercurrent beneath that made you really think about the situation. He also doesn’t take you down the road that you expect at the end, which I think was a far more truthful way of dealing with the subject.

Tom (Robert Webb) meets the big, beautiful, intelligent and funny Helen (Ella Smith). They have an instant attraction and start to date, but although they begin to fall in love, Tom feels that he can’t tell his work colleagues Carter (Kris Marshall) and Jeannie (Joanna Page), of whom the latter had been having a casual relationship with him.

I was so pleased that Robert Webb, one half of Mitchell and Webb, didn’t just do his popular Peep Show slash comedy act. As he veered between being the sensitive and understanding boyfriend who knows what the right thing to do is, but just can’t quite do it, he proved that he really is a very good actor indeed.

Kris Marshall as always gave a solid and well timed comedy performance as the lad about town for whom a woman’s appearance is everything and Joanna Page was good as the slim but spurned ex-girlfriend, although her character is very difficult to actually like and her American accent often sounded as though it had come by way of Barry Island, just like her Gavin and Stacy character.

But the performance of the night goes to Ella Smith as the girl who can’t believe that someone likes her just for her. She feels that her weight will always be an issue and as the play unfolds she is proved right. Her combination of bravado and sadness is quite heartrending and you just want to Tom to stick two fingers up at the others and do the right thing. But does he?

I don’t want to give it away so you’ll have to get down to Whitehall to find out. But I feel it’s more than worth it to see a top cast in an entertaining play that keeps you guessing.

And what’s more? I even know which one’s Mitchell and which one’s Webb now!

The Common Pursuit

27 May 2008
The Chocolate Factory, Southwark Street

In Pursuit of Nigel!

Every girl has a fantasy and Nigel Harman is mine (apart from Sean Bean that is …. Oh and Gary Lineker!) But Mr K thinks the Harman is, and I quote, “a c**k” and not the love god that I know him to be! In fact, when I first suggested that he come on a theatre trip to see the aforementioned extremely talented and versatile performer – to see Guys and Dolls back in 2006 - he said that he would “chuck maltesers at his podgy face”, followed by the classic and predictable “he’s probably gay anyway”. Sigh. Just remember who I married!

Nevertheless, he got through the sighing and eye-rolling that characterised my Guys and Dolls experience and began to understand that everyone has a ‘crush’ or as I put it ‘a celebrity buy’ i.e. one person in the public eye you are allowed to be unfaithful with. Well, to be fair Mr K hasn’t agreed to that per se, but seeing as Nigel is never going to ask me, it doesn’t matter!

I should point out that he was the one who told me that Nigel was in The Common Pursuit at The Chocolate Factory in London’s Southwark St, and as it had an excellent cast, including James Dreyfuss and The League of Gentleman’s Reece Shearmith, he agreed that we could go. I had the tickets booked within about ten seconds!

The great thing about these Fringy venues is that there’s every chance that you will bump into the cast in the Foyer. And yes, you’ve guessed it! As I walked up to the Box Office to collect our tickets, who should walk out of a side door, back lit to make him appear as some kind of God – which of course he is – and walk straight towards me? Yes – the Harman! OMG I whispered to Mr K who, when he realised what was happening looked completely panic-stricken as I am not known for my composure when faced with a love God! But breathing normally, eventually, I nonchalantly got our tickets while trying to ignore the delicious breeze caused by Nige passing just inches from me.

But onto the play!

I first saw this Simon Gray play back in the 80s with Rik Mayall, who frankly could read the phone book and I would howl with laughter. This latest production by Fiona Laird turned out to be a witty and engaging evening, enhanced by the site of the Harman of course!

Look. I’m sorry. I am a serious theatregoer honestly, I don’t normally go on about men like this but goodness me – I really can’t help it in this case!

The play starts in 1986 when all the characters are Cambridge undergraduates about to launch a literary magazine with high intellectual standards.

After that each scene moves forward by a few years until we get to 1986, after which it goes back to the beginning so that we can view their first meeting with the benefit and poignancy of hindsight.

Over time their initial hopes and ideas have faded and friendships have become strained or betrayed. It has witty dialogue and laugh out loud moments but underneath, there’s a sadness as everyone either sells out in the end, or has to compromise or fails to meet their own high standards.

For me, the star of the show is James Dreyfus, a brilliant actor who is so much more than the series of camp, and admittedly very funny, characters that he is known for on the telly. As Humphrey he is sharp, dry and immensely hard on himself. You laugh one minute and feel his intense pain the next.

Ben Caplin is a moving Martin, a troubled but decent man who lives through the lives of his friends before following a route that can destroy the friendships that he holds so dear. And Robert Portal’s Stuart is a suitably irritating, yet still sympathetic character.

As you might expect, Reece Shearsmith provides good comic support as the chain-smoking cynic, but what of Nigel?!

Well, as Peter, the philandering, womanising don who forgoes his talent in order to mass produce popular history books, it seems that he has developed a good sense of comic timing and a nice line in fairly tight trousers! That’ll do for me! But when he is forced to look at the mess he has made of his life, there’s an intensity in his eyes that took me back to young Dennis in Eastie!

This is ultimately a sad piece that shows how innocence and hope for the future dwindles with time, but told in a witty way that makes its climax all the more poignant.

The Jersey Boys

21 May 2008
Prince Edward Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue

Oh What a Night!

With Liverpool not in the Champions League Final there was only one thing to do on the night when the two teams that I despise most went head to head to become Champions of Europe – and that was go to the theatre! Well, as I didn’t want either of them to win, which sadly wasn’t an option under FIFA rules, the only remedy was to do something else completely.

And what could have been more different than The Jersey Boys - a musical biography of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

This show has had a lot of coverage on various TV shows so I was keen to see it, but, not being a big fan of Juke Box musicals I was reluctant to shell out for it. So when I was invited by a PR company, Mr K and I were only too happy to accept - the date was just a bonus!

And we were so glad we did, for we were treated to a great musical experience. Instead of this being a string of hits, loosely held together by a flimsy plot, The Jersey Boys is more like Buddy because it actually tells you a decent story. Yes the plot is still a mechanism between the hits but for someone like me who wasn't familiar with the Four Seasons story, I was hooked to the end. And unlike Buddy, where you know at the start what's going to happen, I didn't know what the denouement would be.

But while the story is interesting and followed the Italian-American boys from New Jersey from their beginnings, through their hits and their connections with the mob, the music was sensational. As the four leads sung their way through hits such as 'I Can't Give You Anything', 'Sherry', 'Big Girls Don't Cry' 'Walk Like a Man' and 'Can't Take My Eyes Off of You' the toes tapped with increasing frequency.

The leads were highly competent. Ryan Molloy gives an excellent imitation of Frankie’s distinctive and high pitched voice and is a strange combination of charisma, sexual magnetism and weed! It’s an excellent performance, as was that of Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio. I was particularly delighted to see Stephen who I had last interviewed and then watched on stage about four years ago when he played Jack in the Watford Palace’s production of Mother Goose! He had brought tears of joy to my eyes when he sang ‘Never Forget’ – something that is not supposed to happen while watching a panto – and it was a real pleasure to hear more of his voice – especially in Oh What a Night! It certainly was!

Glenn Carter is handsome bad boy Tommy DeVito, the dodgy one who starts the band off and then nearly destroys it and Philip Bulcock is wonderful as “the Ringo of the band”, the one who never seems entirely comfortable with the whole set up. It's all sung, danced and staged well and the whole ensemble are well drilled.

This may not be Shakespeare, Ibsen or Blood Brothers (the king of musicals in my book) but it's lively, enjoyable and takes your mind off the football, so may be a perfect andedote to England's non-appearance in Euro 2008!

On heading out into the London night air and picking our way through the mound of those lethal carriage-on-the-back-of-bikes things (who GETS IN one of those?!) we completely forgot to find out who won the big game! In fact, it was only as we heard a chant of 'United' that our hearts sank. Does that mean we wanted Chelsea to win? No way, so we just concentrated on humming our way across Waterloo Bridge!

It had been an excellent evening and as proof I am now the proud owner of Best of The Four Seasons CD - who'd have thought?!