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3 - The Lady Vanishes - Kings Edinburgh

Iris is catching the train from Austria back to England and meets retired governess Miss Froy and shares a compartment with her. But after Iris wakes from a snooze Miss Froy has vanished and no one onboard remembers seeing her - why is the Nun wearing high heels? Where is Miss Froy? Is Iris suffering from a brain injury? Can one woman outwit the Nazi regime? And most importantly will Charters and Caldicott get back to London for the test match?

Stoild is the word - a show that is never boring but which never rises above a general feeling of "this'll pass muster". An adaptation of the legendary film directed by Roy "Sandbaggers" Marsden and starring the usual suspects within the "Classic Touring Company" - former soaps stars, CTC regulars Robert Duncan and Ben Nealon BUT this time we have Juliet Mills as the titular Lady and Maxwell Caulfield as a Doctor on the train.

I'll admit here that I've always found Caulfield (The Colbys, Grease 2, Emmerdale) to be an utterly awfully wooden actor but here he's actually passable, which is damning with faint praise but honestly watch an episode of The Colbys and wonder how he ever worked again. Maybe its the German accent he's affecting but on stage he comes across as a lot more natural than his screen performances and is part of an engaging ensemble.

Mills gets the easy part, owing to her vanishing she is on stage for mere minutes across both acts and its left to former Eastender Lorna Fitzgerald to carry the plot.

And its the plot that drags this to the middle ground, there isn't enough here for 100 minutes without some padding, the adulterous couple could easily be excised without any major changes to the plot, someone else could fill the "oh yes I remember seeing her" role that the female half of the couple plays.

The final shootout is laughably staged with one of the characters narrating what is happening off-stage. Also I don't think there is one single mention of the word "Nazi" which considering we have swastikas on display and one of the supporting characters on the train is just called "The Official" despite the fact he's clearly in a Gestapo uniform.

...and what does happen to the husband of the Nun? A big thing is made about her helping out the Nazis as her husband is being held hostage and will be killed unless she complies and yet she switches sides rather easily. RIP Mr Nun

A perfectly entertaining show that fails to hit the heights - 6/10

The Lady Vanishes - Touring - Richmond Theatre

I saw this last night and it may be a creaky old and familar plot but as with the matinee which preceded it (see Rough Crossing thread), the cast gave it their all and the audience lapped it up. Originally I hoped to see it in Guildford but held off booking due to my op and was then unable to get anything except an expensive return; however, in Richmond I had 2 hours of fun, front row dress and only £12 - bargain!

I caught the Oklahoma! revival on Broadway last night and this is a MUST SEE! The show is so dark , sexy, and amazingly different. Seriously, if you are going to NYC this summer you must see this show! I've posted more of my thoughts on the international board.

The Night Watch - Kings Edinburgh

Its 1947 and in post war London we meet several characters - a wandering lost soul, a young man helping an arthritis ridden elder gentlemen, a newspaper reporter and two women running a dating agency. What has led them to their current place in the world?

I read and enjoyed the book of this several years ago and pleasingly this matches the backwards narrative of the novel. We start in 1947 with 2 characters visiting the house where a third character rents a room and from there we move backwards to 1944 to visit some of our characters enjoying the freedom that war work gave to females whilst others are in prison and then finally its 1941 and we see the very first meeting between two characters who will split up in 1944 and which will lead to complications in their life in 1947.

The first 5 minutes or so are bizarre as the cast stand on stage handing out chairs to each other, my expectations dropped considerably during this section as I sat there thinking that we were about to get an abstract take on the source material but thankfully after this things picked up considerably.

What we've got here is a 110 minute play that takes the main themes from the book and successfully, for the most part, transfers them to the stage. Its a very basic set with a backdrop of St Pauls etc having a part staged house sat in front with the sides of the stages being some rubble heaps that increase in size as we move back to the blitz.

My main concern is that it actually took me to the interval to realise that Kay and Julia were actually being played by different actresses - I honestly couldn't tell them apart and it wasn't until they were on stage together (although not together) that I realised they were different actors. I think I was thrown by another actor playing two roles in the introductory sequences with nowt more than a change of jacket so figured that they were having the love rivals for Helen played by the one actress in a sort of "look at us, isn't this a clever rouse" but alas no it was just two very similar performances from two very similar looking actors.

Kay is our weak link in the cast, I've no idea where the accent this is played in has come from but by jiminy I hope its not her real voice. Its odd. That's the only way I can describe it, well maybe a sort of female impersonation of Cary Grant crossed with Hugh Grant and for me it just didn't work. There is a decent performance in here but its lost in the voice.

The rest of the cast were good value, we have characters who are like onions with their story being revealed layer by layer as the one with the happiest ending in 1947 is in the worst place in 1941 and the character of Helen (the love interest of both Kay and Julia) who easily wins hearts with her stunning good looks but who as we discover isn't the sort of person you want to be in a relationship with. And for me the cast brought them to live in a perfectly fine fashion.

The direction is nice enough once we get beyond the chair acting, although the end of Act 1 threw a bit too much dry ice out into the audience for my liking. I'm not sure about the sound design as I was struggling to pick up the noises that were going on behind the voices of the actors - not helped by a couple of talkers a row or so in front who got shushed several times but kept talking anyway.

A very pleasant evening and a very solid 7/10. Don't expect the intricacies of the book, its very chaste, but as a starting point this is splendid enough effort.

That is surely grounds for being kicked out of theatre school!

Saturday Night Fever - Italia Conti

Made my first visit to Italia Conti last night, to their premises in Clapham. It's a quick walk from Clapham North station, right next to the Landor Theatre. Not quite the luxury of the modern surroundings of some other theatre schools, but nice enough once you actually get inside (and the front of house staff have worked out how to process tickets).

The theatre is raked, although the seats seemed to extent a long way back. It is shared seating (no arm rests), sit anywhere apart from the front row, which seemed to be reserved for latecomers. The view from centre second row was excellent. This was full, so I'd recommend getting there half an hour before to get a good seat. Unusually for a theatre school, they had glossy programmes for sale at £4 each. I didn't buy one, as they had a cast board with photos.

Saturday Night Fever was billed as new production. It is much closer to the original version than the one that's currently touring (no Bee Gees). I don't know the musical that well, so I couldn't spot many changes. Tony's boss was a woman. They were also heavily teasing Tony being gay in the first half (lots of staring past the women who were interested in him to look at the men etc), but Tony went for the girl in the end.

The staging for this was simple, largely just four large boards, mirrored on one side, turned around at various times. Performances from the third year students were mixed. Some people with great potential, with Brease Woolley as Annette standing out to me. I think Paul French as Tony had the role almost by default, being much taller than the typical male theatre ensemble member, nicely built (briefly taking his shirt off) and having the handsome tanned look. He danced very well and did a good job and I wouldn't be surprised to see him in West End roles in the future.

The main area to improve is the sound really wasn't right. Mics that weren't turned on at the right time and various harmonies that just didn't gel. One accent that went from reasonable New York when speaking to Irish when singing. On top of that, various people in the audience were talking to one another, which is unusual as theatre school shows are normally completely respectful.

Two more shows today if anyone wants to attend. There are still tickets available for 2pm. 

They are also presenting Little Women next week. I don't think I can make it unfortunately, but I know it's a favourite musical of many.

An Evening of Eric & Ern at Christmas
- Fairfield Halls Croydon

A festive version of the touring show, which is in Croydon for one week.

Basically, it's a series of Morecombe and Wise sketches and songs performed by the two actors who presented the play Eric and Little Ern, which I saw a few years ago. The sketches and punchlines are all well known, but that doesn't stop them being funny (and many of them were also in the play). 

They do ad-lib a bit. There was a joke about them staying in the Premier Inn in Croydon this week and a woman in the audience in absolute hysterics for at least 10 minutes which kept setting everyone else off.

It isn't really a Christmas version. I don't know the normal version of the show, but the only Christmas changes are a Christmas tree on stage, one brief mention of Christmas towards the end and the musical guest Becky Neale sang All I Want For Christmas Is You as her real song (and Send In The Clowns as her funny song). She has a pleasant voice.

Not too many people there last night, unfortunately, but that's always the case in Croydon. The non-seasonal version of the show is being performed elsewhere, including some dates in the Duke of York Theatre in February with Ruthie Henshall.

If you like old cheesy jokes and don't mind being picked on if you sit at the front, this is a lot of fun.

Running time is just over two hours, including an interval.

Thanks for the review. I have already booked for this too, but unfortunately can only do an evening, so it is a rather pricey show when the train/taxi/hotel costs etc are taken into account. Also always a bit put off when you can't choose a seat. But glad to hear it's worth the money - and yes, the casting was the main reason I decided to attend.

Well, here we go again...…

2020.01 Ragnarock - MAC, Stirling

A golden age is ending. There have been three years of winter. The sun hangs low in the sky, unmoving, there is little food and society is finished. The serpent spits poison all over the world, Fenrir attempts to shatter his chains and not even Odin can save the world...
A young girl and her brother battle to seek a future in a promised land, moving through a fractured world as dreams and reality clash around them.

I don’t know, I really just don’t know. This was totally not what I was expecting - based on the blurb I was thinking it was going to be the story of two children attempting to survive the end of the world. But instead it was a video/aural/puppetry telling of the story.

4 performers building a set, lego style with shoebox sized houses, paper Mache mountains, paper trees etc then placing little plasticine figures in the set and filming it on a Go-Pro (projected onto a screen) whilst a voiceover and appropriate musical accompaniment told us what was going on. So our performers don't really get much to do despite being on stage for the whole show, there is a lot of moving small models about and pointing small cameras at them but that's almost it, we get a monologue from Odin about fate (see below) and Fenrir attempting to trick them into shattering his chains but aside from that its mainly a voiceover from children.

Bizarre, odd and at a brisk 65 minutes it didn't outstay its welcome BUT for me because I'm being asked to care for someone made out of Playdoh I just didn't connect with the story. I enjoyed all of the Norse mythology bits (various hats being used to represent the likes of Fenrir) but didn't actually care for the central thrust of the story. Also an odd decision about half way through to have Odin tell us who is going to die.

A the great ash tree trembles to its roots 6/10 and an odd start to the year.

2020.03 Ten Times Table - Kings Edinburgh

Meetings bloody meetings! A group of residents in a small market town, form a committee to, look at boosting the towns standing by holding a fete complete with re-enactment of the deaths of 12 workers at the hands of the establishment 200 years previously. As we count down to the day the committee splits along worker/establishment lines and dangerous feelings come to the surface.

Welcome my friends to the "Classic Comedy Theatre Company", yes its Uncle Bill and his regulars but this time they have moved on from Christie, Drama and Film adaptations and moved to Comedy.

Which is nice.

But this just wasn't funny. I feel that I could write the exact same thing for every Ayckbourn I've seen - horrible people do horrible things to each other in a gently amusing way and then the quiet character will bring the house down with a pointed barb at one or two points.

I think I have to admit that the Ayckbourn house style just isn't for me - yes its a pleasant enough evening but it lacks bite in relation to its social commentary and the vast majority of what jokes there are do appear to be dependent on delivery and thus Robert Daws gives us his all in the most consistently entertaining performance and wrings chuckles out of moments that really don't deserve them whilst Craig Gazey goes OTT a couple of times and overplays his minutes centrestage to an extent that we loose the amusement.

The rest of the cast include those Uncle Bill regulars Robert Duncan, Deborah Grant and Mark Curry plus the aforementioned Gazey, one time EastEnders Mrs Hewitt Elizabeth Power and Emmerdale refuge Gemma Oaten.

BUT its Harry Gostelow as Tim, the former soldier who wants to give the proles a taste of some cold hard steel, who comes on and steals the show right out from under Daws, in a 10 minute cameo at the end. Which led me to wonder what on earth Duncan was doing in this show, its a terrible part of a man being drunk (repeatedly) and not saying anything of note. I cant believe they hired one of the most well known faces simply to fall off a toy horse. Its a crying shame Gostelow isn't giving this performance from the start.

And the production also lets the play down, it wasn't until someone mentioned the death of Noel Coward in Act 2 that I realised I was watching something set in the 70s. It could be any fading hotel at any time, the set and costumes didn't scream 1970s BUT Grant playing Helen Dixon is styled as what can only be described as Mrs Thatcher garb and hair (complete with handbag) and Gazey as Marxist teacher Eric has clearly been modelled on Jeremy Corbyn.

Overall it passed the time but it just didn't deliver for me.

4/10 - a fete almost worse than death!

2020.04 - Mouthpiece - Traverse 1

A woman takes a step forward into the air. A teenage boy pulls her back. Two lives are changed.
Libby whiles away her days in New Town and still calls herself a writer. Declan is a talented young artist struggling with a volatile home on the city's outskirts. As they form an uneasy friendship, complicated by class and culture, Libby spots an opportunity to put herself back on track, and really make a difference. She needs his story. But does she have a right to it?

A 95 minute one act look at a writer with severe block who finds her muse in a 16 year old NEET who stops her from committing suicide one night. Over the course of the play we find a writer using someone for her own ends as she goes on a Poverty Safari in terms of finding the language and situations that fire her imagination and will get her published again.

Its a look at the middle classes using other peoples misery for their own ends.

A sparse set represents the hills overlooking Edinburgh, a café, a bedroom and the Traverse Theatre whilst our cast of 2 give it their all - in a script which includes more uses of the C word than you'll hear down Govan Cross on a Saturday night at chucking out time- with one time Spooks actor Shauna Macdonald portraying the blocked writer and current student Angus Taylor is great as the NEET who sees a new world open up in front of him but who ultimately cant escape his place in the circle of life.

Its entertaining, its obvious, its well acted but even at 95 minutes it overstays its welcome by a good 10 minutes - the last half hour or so does see us seemingly going round in circles again and again and again once the relationship falters.

A Shut it you See U Next Tuesday - 7/10

2020.07 - Oor Wullie - MacRobert

Wahid feels out of place at school, the mysterious librarian Dudley gives him an Oor Wullie book to read. Wahid soon finds Wullie and his pals are in town and looking for his bucket. Basher is also looking for the bucket as she is fed up of the stories being about Wullie instead of her.

Poor writing, poor direction, poor staging, poor me for sitting through this mince.

As subtle as a brick, the message isn't so much hammered home as launched with a full tactical nuclear assault - being an outsider is hard but you can still make friends.

Wahid and Basher being the same character in search of the same plot resolution. The difference being one is ostracised because of his race and the other because of her behaviour, and its just off in terms of what it does to the plot. They have almost the exact same character arc throughout but one is from the good side of things whilst the other is from the Basher side of things. It lop sides the plot into too many parts being almost carbon copies of what we've already seen. It just needs something different injected to push the plot along, as my goodness the second half drags - the child a couple of seats along from me audibly asked if it almost finished a good half hour or so before it finally crashed to a juddering stop.

Dull. Poor. Jings Crivvins and Help ma Boab it stank. 1 point for the Dudley reference, which I don’t think anyone else got this evening and 1 point for Jeemy.