Garyswordz

Robin Hood & the Major Oak- Derby Theatre

*****

A fine new Easter production for all the family written by Deb McAndrew who has rebooted the classic tale  for a 21^st century audience in a seamlessly integrated BSL production, signed and captioned.

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All the traditional elements are here for mums and dads but with plenty of child friendly ingredients, not least a powerful eco friendly message about the importance of trees and the environment. In an era when Boris Johnson , Emanuel Macron, and Benjamin Netanyahu have come under the spotlight for perceived abuses of power, the morality tale of the excesses of the Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne has lost none of it contemporaneous impact. And after a Liz Truss/ Kwasi Kwarteng government thought that it was a good idea to take from the poor to give to the rich, Robin Hood is back to offer his own more  egalitarian views on wealth redistribution ably assisted by Little John ( Oraine Johnson).

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McAndrew made her name originally as Angie Freeman in 1990’s  television soap opera Coronation St, but has gone on to forge a distinguished career as a dramatist and playwright with several other productions appearing around the country this year. In April 2018, McAndrew was announced as Leeds Trinity University’s new Chancellor and has worked with  the Hull Truck theatre Company, Northern Broadsides and Claybody theatre.

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Emily Bestow has created a lush set which effortlessly transforms from castle to  forest. Tim  Heywood’s costumes  are lavish and colourful. Musical stalwart Ivan  Stott has composed the score and plays with an onstage ensemble of musicians, along with lead singer Joanna Simpkins  as  Alana Dale who ensures that we all party like its 1499.

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 A strong cast is notable for its character parts, with several traditionally male roles reimagined as female. Laura Golden is brilliant as a rumbustious Tuck, Abbey Bradbury dashing as Scarlett,  the angular, comic Becky Barry delivers withering apercus as Roger the Reeve.

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A fast paced production ensures that proceedings are concluded within two and a quarter hours ensuring that the attention spans of younger audience members are not tested while amplified electric music segments inject zip and chutzpah into the narrative.

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The dynamic of some of the character roles has shifted, Maid Marian ( Mia  Ward)  is less simpering female heroine and more Palace insider, Guy of Gisborne’s ( Dominic Rye)  dastardliness is  throttled back, while the Sheriff  ( Adam   Bassett) channels his inner Basil Fawlty as his plans are frustrated and a splinter in his backside  adds as much discomfort to him as Robin Hood does. The gross medicinal remedies offered to him delighted  the young audience. My two expert child theatre goers,  Sol aged nine, and May aged seven, loved it.

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Craig Painting portrays a youthful, exuberant  Robin Hood with brio and energy, relishing the freedom of the forest in the second Act after the constraints  of his time as a prisoner in the castle in the first Act. Director Sarah Brigham and writer Deb McAndrew  never lose sight of the need to entertain in this brisk and lively family show which runs until Saturday 8^th March

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Gary Longden

What’s this? Panto in Wolverhampton at  the end of February?  Oh yes it is.

Having stormed the normal panto  season first in Brighton, then  the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, the audience response was too positive for  it to wither with the Christmas decorations, thus  it has continued on a short victory parade around the country taking in Wolverhampton this week with further dates thereafter.

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Mother Goose is a Christmas stalwart as a story, and is often performed. What sets this production apart is the cast, specifically  Sir Ian McKellen of Lord of the Rings fame as  Mother Goose.  

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The all important script is by Scouse novelist, playwright and satirist Jonathan Harvey who just happens to have  fellow  Liverpudlian John  Bishop as his comic hitman on stage. The recent political farce in government is a gift for satire, and Harvey dos not miss a trick in singling out the obvious targets, Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman, Camilla Parker Bowles and the energy companies amongst them. He has been a regular on the Coronation St scriptwriting team since 2004, his populist credentials and touch are a given.

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This is a traditional show, affectionately delivered by  Director Cal McCrystal, narrative driven with no over reliance on special effects, still music hall rather than 3D cinema . However that does not preclude copious Tolkien references and a rather wonderful foray into a Shakespeare soliloquy. There is plenty of razzle and dazzle courtesy of  Lizzi Gee’s lively choreography, Prema Mehta’s colourful  pink and green lighting , and Ben Harrison’s sound with Lady Gaga’s “ Born this way”  a showstopper, closely followed by Anna-Jane Casey’s “Cilla” powerhouse : ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’

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Although inevitably MCkellen and Bishop rightly dominate proceedings, the supporting company is strong and effective. Son Jack  ( Oscor Conlon- Morely)is exhaustingly frenetic, villainess  Malignia gloriously enjoyed by Karen Mavundukure, is suitably malign at every opportunity thankfully thwarted at every turn by good witch   soprano  Encanta ( Sharon Ballard), Anna Jane Casey is the goose that lays the golden egg, all of whom sing remarkably well.

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The denouement is messy, Bishop is  very funny, Mckellan is a vision in a frou frou nightdress and delivers his apercus with consummate style.

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The ensemble menagerie of  all singing, all dancing puppeteer  animals are terrific initially shivering in a closed  Debenhams store , Liz Ashcroft’s street set is stunning. The animals are very much part of the fun.  A  donkey that self  identifies as a llama,  Richard Leeming  flickers wonderfully  as  a bat, Genevieve Nicole as Puss wonders if she is in the right panto,  other animals are available!

This  wonderful comic  production runs at Wolverhampton until 25^th February then continues on nationwide our at Liverpool, Oxford, Leicester, Cardiff, Dublin, Salford and Bristol.

****

Touring theatrical companies are having a tough time as costs escalate everywhere. This production by the Cahoots theatre Company, has the answer, reduce your company to one.

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Robert Daws brings Wodehouse in Wonderland to  Derby  in a single-hander which tells the extraordinary tale of Wodehouse’s life ,  and his canon of writing, which was amongst  the most prolific  of the 20th century. The script was prepared by William Humble, providing Daws with numerous amusing apercus.

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The play is set at PG Wodehouse’s home in Long Island, New York state, on a single stage set in the late 1950s, for good reason. He was living in exile there.  A vista of a  beautiful garden lies  beyond, with lighting effects  marking time by gradually changing and dimming  from day to night.

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My parents and grandparents generation had a jaundiced opinion of Wodehouse. They saw him as a German collaborator in World War 2.

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In the 1930’s Wodehouse was earning over £100,000 a year from his writing, playing fast and loose with the taxman by dividing his time between England, America and a home in le Touquet France.

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He was living in France in the 1940s when the Nazis occupied the country and he was sent to Berlin for internment. He was persuaded by his captors to make a series of broadcasts on German radio ‘How to be an Internee without previous training’. It became a cause celebre in the British press with divided opinion. He had a penchant for luxury hotels. He was “interned” in the prestigious Hotel Llardon in Berlin at his expense and lived in the Hotel Bristol in Paris when the allied bombing of Berlin became too intense, all paid for from a German bank account holding the proceeds of his book sales. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was earning £40,000 a year from his work. In May 1909 Wodehouse on a visit to New York, sold two short stories to Cosmopolitan and Collier’s for a total of $500. He was a very wealthy man.

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The retrospective consensus was that he had been ill advised rather than treasonous in his broadcasts , but there was support for the nazis amongst the English Upper classes to which Wodehouse, aka  Plum ( a contraction of his first name Pelham), unquestionably belonged. The extent to which the establishment closed ranks behind one of their own is unclear.

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Daws has his work cut out  as a solo performer using   extracts from  novels and  lyrics in musical interludes from the likes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Ivor Novello.  Wodehouse also wrote plays and contributed lyrics to 25 musicals including the lyrics for ‘You’re the Top” for the British version of “Anything Goes. At one point, Wodehouse had five shows running simultaneously on Broadway and  referred to his novels as “musical comedies without music”.

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Wodehouse wrote more than 70 novels and 200 short stories, creating numerous iconic  characters.  Jeeves and Wooster, Lord Emsworth , the Empress of Blandings, Mr Mulliner, Ukridge, and Psmith all feature in the show. Daws portrays Wodehouse primarily as a comic poet, but sometimes the relentless flippancy becomes wearing and tedious.

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Dramatic devices to ease the pressure on Daws include  off-stage conversations with his wife, letters to his  step-daughter, interviews with his would-be biographer and conversations with his two  Pekingese dogs.

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It is an evening of  Wodehouse’s world comprising  gentle wit and humour framed within  a helpful biographical context.  It is  quintessentially English, and somewhat archaic,  so much so that I expected Jacob Rees Mogg to appear at any moment. As  a one man show the production succeeds as an homage to one of England’s most prolific authors and plays at Derby until the 15th before continuing on nationwide tour.

*****

Derby Theatre and Artistic Director Sarah Brigham have done it again. A superb award winning   new play which won plaudits and awards in London  has arrived in town!

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This production has  very strong credentials. Having played, pre Covid , in London’s  National Theatre and the West End, Laura Wade’s Olivier Award-winning comedy embarks on its first UK tour produced by Bill Kenwright , who is probably pleased to have his mind taken off Everton football Club at the moment of whom he is a director,  winning the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. Wade is prolific and talented and it is a privilege to see her work performed at Derby. The tour reunites the show’s original creative team: Theatr Clwyd Artistic Director and Co-Director Designate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Tamara Harvey directs with co-director Hannah Noone, set and costume design by Anna Fleischle, lighting by Lucy Carter, sound design by Tom Gibbons and choreography by Charlotte Broom.

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The stage set is stunning,  a house  in Welwyn Garden City, on two levels, the ground floor awash with period detail. Jessica Ransom knows how to carry a  1950s swing dress, her every movement and pose on stage stylised and pouted, her waist impossibly trim, her reluctance to sell some surplus dresses is strangely convincing and is  physically  omnipresent on  stage. Both set and costume are the meticulous work of Anna Fleische.

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But it is not long, specifically when she opens a drawer and removes her laptop, that we realise that this is the 21st century, and Judy’s seeming authenticity is not what it seems.

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Hitherto the concept of the 1950’s Stepford wife has been a male, sexually driven one, but here playwright   Laura Wade  turns the idea on its head challenging numerous gender and  feminist stereotypes and having a lot of fun with it as she does so whilst simultaneously our fondness for retro chic on the bonfire of reality.

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Judy’s husband John turns out, to be is  a good cook.  Alex,  ( Shanez Pattni) his  manager, has a genuine self confidence in herself  that Judy can only dream of. Judy’s friend Sylvia (  Diane Keen)  is  seduced by the idea of 50’s glamour but not the reality of it in the same way that she has been seduced by the dancing skills  of her husband Marcus (  Mathew   Douglas)  unaware of his lascivious proclivities.

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Her husband, Johnny delivers  performance  of understated power initially glorying in the benefits of a supine wife hen railing against the reality of it.

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As the first half unfolds so the financial and emotional price of this charade unfolds as she acts out something she is too young to have experienced personally, which is where her Mum , Fran ( Cassie  Bradley) comes in. she didn’t march and burn her bra in the 1960’s to put up with this sort of nonsense and in a powerhouse exchange , then monologue delivers some home truths to her prissy daughter as the cohorts of similarly aged women in the audience silently roared her on.

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Wade creates a fantasy of nostalgia, then cruelly strips it away under Tamara Harvey’s skilful direction. Ransom’s  frenetic brash fragility is memorably exposed as she fears infidelity by her husband, moving from frothy skirts and petticoats to  a buttoned up pink dressing gown as she waits to confront him.

Was  life in the ’50s simpler, less hectic and more satisfying with more time albeit with fewer possessions and disposable cash? Not really concludes Wade.

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“Are you happy?” Johnny asks Judy. “Yes, desperately,” she replies unconvincingly.

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This is  a social comedy whose humour lies in its acerbic observation rather than belly- laughs. Scene changes are memorably executed  by a dancing Marcus and Sylvia to a rock n roll soundtrack

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This  brilliant contemporary production was warmly acknowledged by a well attended first night which runs until  Sat 11^th.