Avenue Q - Sell A Door Theatre Company

Avenue Q’s been around for a while now and it’s a show I’ve been meaning to see for ages. But I only saw it for the first time this week: the UK touring production from Sell A Door Theatre Company on its stop at Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre (5^th July 2016).

I really enjoyed it. A lot of it was a very funny take on the kind of twenty-something angst that I think a lot of people feel post-university. The opening lyric to one song was ‘What do you do with a BA in English?’. I have a BA in English, and it’s a question I still haven’t really answered satisfactorily, ten years after graduation.

Right now, my answer would appear to be: get a job to pay the bills – preferably one you don’t hate; read books on the commute to and from said job; write a blog about your occasional visits to the theatre.

Well, it’ll do for now.

And that’s what Avenue Q’s final message was. Yes, it’d be great to have a ‘purpose’ (a concept they explained Sesame Street-style on overhead TV screens), but actually most things in most people’s lives are pretty fleeting. Even Donald Trump is only ‘for now’.

So this grown-up Sesame Street, populated by unsentimental muppets who swear, drink, have sex, and sing songs about racism and internet porn, ends up being oddly reassuring.

Part pastiche, part glossy musical, part offbeat and a bit fringey – I know so many people who’d enjoy this show.

Catch it in Eastbourne until Saturday 9^th July!

Sunny Afternoon - Harold Pinter Theatre

People are often a bit snobby about so-called ‘jukebox musicals’. But Sunny Afternoon is not one that shoehorns songs into an unlikely story. It uses songs by The Kinks to tell the (loosely factual) story of the band’s experiences in the 60s. And it does it really well.

A lot of The Kinks’ songs have a narrative style anyway, so these work well in a musical. The band within the story also play songs onstage as a band. So nothing here feels forced or shoehorned in.

The show’s clearly aware of the danger, though, and makes no bones about the artifice required for a musical. It’s established early on that Ray Davies often thinks and communicates through song, and there’s a great line mid-song where his wife asks him to stop singing so they can have a proper conversation. But, often in this show, the ‘proper conversations’ do take place in song. Just see the wonderful a capella ‘Days’ or the moment of rapprochement between the brothers. The songs fold into the story as if they were written especially for it.

All of the cast of Sunny Afternoon play instruments (guitars, drums, trombones) as well as acting and singing. And the band’s instruments and mic stands are at the back of the stage throughout, ready to be used at any moment. It makes it an exhilarating performance – part theatre, part gig. In fact, like Orpheus at BAC, some of the audience are sat at tables in the auditorium, and everyone’s encouraged to get to their feet and dance at the end.

I suppose it’s one way to ensure a standing ovation at every performance.

The great thing about the cast in Sunny Afternoon, too, is that they don’t sing as if they’re in a musical. They sing as if they’re in a band. They give high energy yet nuanced performances which fit the style of The Kinks perfectly.

I’ve always appreciated The Kinks’ music – the witty melancholy of the lyrics combining with that distinctive guitar band sound. To me, as a nineties kid, they sounded like Britpop 30 years early. At the mid-week matinée I went to (on 25^th November 2015), I was one of the younger audience members. Most people there were of the baby boomer generation. Maybe for them the show was powered by nostalgia, but for me it was an exciting new show. In jukebox musical terms, it’s probably closer to Buddy than to Mamma Mia, but better than either as far as I’m concerned.

Very much worth seeing. I’ve been singing Kinks song ever since. (All day and all of the night, you might say).

Nell Gwynn - Shakespeare's Globe

What a fab end to my Globe-going season this year! Nell Gwynn (which I saw at Shakespeare’s Globe on 11/10/15) is funny, bawdy, energetic, and fun, with a luminous star turn from Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the title role.

This is another Globe play about women and theatre (see also The Heresy of Love) – but Nell Gwynn has a much lighter touch, making serious points by making you laugh. The conversation about why Lady Godiva is famous being a case in point.

While based on real people from 17^th century London, the play is not afraid of including a few anachronisms and of speaking to the modern Globe audience through references to our own culture. For instance, Dryden describes the plot of Titanic when trying out ideas for plays – and King Charles’ resounding “Down with austerity!” got a big cheer from the audience.

Like most of my favourite Globe productions, Nell Gwynn does not go for all-out naturalism. During the performance, the ‘fourth wall’ was regularly broken – with Nell’s mother even taking beer from the audience at one point – and this created an atmosphere of inclusivity and spontaneity that made the whole afternoon great fun.

Probably the best thing I saw at the Globe this season.

Rebecca - Kneehigh

I’ve not read the novel or seen any other adaptations of it, so I was coming to Rebecca fresh. But regardless of my knowledge of the book, it’s clear that Kneehigh’s stage production of Rebecca is a very inventive adaptation.

As soon as you see the set, you know you’re in for something special. Part grand house in ruins; part seashore; broken staircases running across the stage. And the boat looming centre-stage throughout the first half, reminding us always that Rebecca’s absence is a very real presence in the house.

If any of the audience at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre (15^th April 2015) was expecting a straight adaptation, with ‘realistic’ sets and the usual period drama tropes, they would have been taken by surprise by Kneehigh’s Rebecca.

This is a much more stylised adaptation. Set, sound, lighting, puppetry and music all combine to tell the tale and draw out the themes. Such as the combination of jazz music on a gramophone and sea shanties being played by the actor-musicians: the clash of the sophisticated and the elemental.

Obviously if you’ve seen Kneehigh before, or know them by reputation, then you know that they’re nothing if not inventive. Rebecca features their trademark music, comedy and playfulness and ties these up in a full on, dark, ambitious production.

I remember seeing Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge in the cinema when it came out, and having to take a moment at the end just to recover from the force of the visual and aural whirlwind that had just swept around me.

I felt a bit like that at the end of Rebecca.

Very much worth seeing.

Shakespeare in Love - Noel Coward Theatre

Clever, fast-paced, energetically played and slickly mounted, this stage adaptation of the film Shakespeare in Love is worth seeing before it closes. I caught it on Saturday 11^th April 2015.

Like the film, the play is littered with references to Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Other well-known playwrights and actors of the period feature as characters – as do monarchs, come to that. The audience is expected to know these references and to recognise them quickly. The pace does not let up for a moment.

Being a regular Globe-goer, I appreciated how the set on the stage of the Noel Coward Theatre cleverly mimicked the Elizabethan-style theatre. The scenes where we were watching the characters backstage (in the foreground) looking out onto the actors onstage were particularly well done.

(It perhaps goes without saying that I thought the way the play within a play was handled here was much better than in Peter Pan Goes Wrong).

With Elizabethan-style music and a jig at the end of the play, Shakespeare in Love consciously echoes the conventions of Elizabethan theatre. I couldn’t help thinking how fun it would be to see this put on at the Globe. Some of the cleverness of the set might have to be jettisoned, but it would bring the kind of immediacy and sense of fun to the production that is a struggle to achieve in a proscenium arch theatre.

As it is, though, Shakespeare in Love has a pretty good go at recreating that atmosphere, and it’s undoubtedly a clever, witty show.

Farinelli and the King - Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe

I went to see the last performance of Farinelli and the King at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on Sunday 8^th March 2015, and I haven’t had much time to write about it since. So sorry this is rather short!

This was a strange, sad little play – both humorous and melancholy. Musing on the relationship between dreams and reality, madness and reason, the physical and the metaphysical, the court and the forest, private and public.

The dual casting of Farinelli – singer (William Purefoy) and actor (Sam Crane) playing the same role – only heightened this sense of duality. The voice as separate from the man.

And surely the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is the ideal setting for this play. Close, candlelit, intimate, but with obscured sightlines meaning you could only ever see part of the action. A wonderful acoustic, too – important for the music.

It was my first visit to the Globe’s indoor theatre and it felt a little strange coming to the Globe and not worrying about the weather. It’s another magical space, though. And it’s always a pleasure to see Mark Rylance do his thing. Especially here.

Twelfth Night - Filter

One of those happy things in life: I’ve never seen a bad production of Twelfth Night. And Filter’s version (which I saw at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre on 25^th March 2014) is no exception.

Anarchic, energetic, and with a definite sense of ‘licence’, Filter’s Twelfth Night offered just the refreshment I needed after a dull Tuesday in the office. (And no, I’m not referring to the pizza and tequila on offer from the cast!)

This production was less concerned with the romantic entanglements of the twins, and more interested in the foolish and drunken antics of the other characters. The notion of misrule wasn’t just acted out in front of us and contained on the stage – it was running right through the whole production.

The way the usually central plot was secondary to the revelry of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The way Shakespeare’s script was almost abandoned for large swathes of the evening while we did things like throw velcro balls at the stage. The way the audience was invited on to the stage in a conga line. Even Malvolio, in this version, was a wannabe rock star who was only too willing to throw off the shackles of convention (and most of his clothes).

I’ve seen a fair few of these elements elsewhere: throwing things at the stage (Bristol Old Vic’s Swallows and Amazons); Shakespeare mixed with audience interaction (The Pantaloons); getting the audience to join in the party (Kneehigh’s Midnight’s Pumpkin – and even Once had a functioning bar on stage). But seeing it at the Devonshire Park Theatre, with its proscenium arch and orchestra pit, just enhanced that sense of misrule.

A middle-aged Eastbourne gentleman near me muttered to his wife half way through: “Well I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And that summed up the evening for me. This stage, which has seen so many Agatha Christies, was overrun by a sort of joyous anarchy. We all joined Filter’s party and helped them turn the play and the theatre upside down for a little while.

And then we went back to work the next day, as if nothing had ever happened. The twins married the right people, and order was restored.

 

Once - The Phoenix Theatre

All these productions requiring actor-musicians; one wonders how actors who don’t play an instrument find any work at all...!

Once is not your average musical. There are no show tunes. No jazz hands. It’s not full of noise and spectacle. If you came to this expecting a Hairspray or a Wicked, you might go away feeling a little disappointed. Or you might go away unexpectedly delighted, depending on your musical tastes.

I had some idea of what to expect, as I’d seen the film of Once (before it was turned into a musical). I knew it was a very understated film – and it has been translated into a very understated musical. I liked it – but I know a few musical theatre fans who would probably not enjoy it so much.

The music is all slightly folky, slightly indie. I was reminded of Damien Rice: the lead actor’s delivery was similar; the female harmonies layered on top were reminiscent of his tracks; and the songs themselves had the same kind of low-key, bittersweet, melancholy kind of feel. I can imagine this musical attracting quite a different audience from a lot of West End shows.

But whoever the audience was, at the end of the matinee performance I saw on 16^th November 2013, they gave the cast a substantial standing ovation at the end of the show.

I heard people commenting on how much like real life it was (not something you’d associate with most musical theatre). And, for all its theatricality, it did feel like Once was striving for a sense of authenticity.

On the incoming, audience members bought drinks from the onstage bar. They milled about in their coats on the stage as the cast started playing in a folk jam session, well-choreographed to appear spontaneous. As the audience members were gradually ushered to their seats, the jam session seamlessly turned into the start of the play. The lights went down only after we’d all already fallen silent, and the bar remained the set for the whole piece, regardless of where the action was supposed to be taking place.

Somehow this acknowledgement of its own artifice – this very lack of fourth wall-style realism in the set – this somehow added to that sense of authenticity. As if, just like the audience, the characters were real people treading those boards and in that same bar.

That the actors were playing instruments on stage helped too. When several strings on the lead actor’s guitar went during a song, it felt raw and powerful and real.

Of course, Once is every bit as scripted, sculpted and choreographed as any other musical – but it does feel different. The story, the music, the performances, the set – Once seems to speak in a different language from most musicals. In some ways, you could see it as doing something similar to what The Beggar’s Opera did a few hundred years ago: putting recognisable characters from the here and now on stage and telling their stories with music from the here and now.

A folk opera for our times, perhaps. Or an indie musical. Either way, it’s quite a trick to pull off.