Featured Post

One hundred people’s ninth favourite thing: [title of show] @swkplay

Image
[title of show] takes you back to a time before the fast paced social media where word of mouth for a positive show came from chat boards, video diaries or (god forbid) blogs. A simple staging makes it an ideal (and economical piece to stage), but it’s sweet and earnest take on just putting on a show, and putting it out there and taking a chance gives this show its heart. With a strong and energetic cast and endless musical theatre references, it’s hard to resist and it’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse .  It opens with Hunter (Jacob Fowler) and Jeff (Thomas Oxley) as struggling young writers in New York City. An upcoming New York Musical Theatre festival, inspires them to write an original musical within three weeks to make the deadline. As they discuss ideas, writers block, distractions and endless other good and bad musicals, an idea for a show emerges. Which is about writing a show for a musical theatre festival.  Their friends Heidi (Abbie Budden) and Susan (Mary Moor

Theatre: Marguerite

I wasn't planning on heading out to see some musical theatre on Friday night, but the prospect of a bargain basement ticket to see Marguerite was too good to pass up. Fortunately the power of web advertising which was playing a excerpts the show on the internet while randomly browsing theatre websites on Friday (as you do) prompted the hunt for cheap tickets... It didn't take long to find them...

The fact that the show is selling tickets for as little as £12.50 suggests that the economy is hurting the West End, the punters don't want to see a show updating the story of La Traviata or Camille to occupied France, or both... I suspect it is both.

This is a pity as there is a fabulous cast headed by Ruthie Henshaw and Julian Ovenden (pictured left) as the two lovers Marguerite and Armand. I was last distracted seeing Ovenden in Grand Hotel and here he gets to play a bit of jazz, run around in boxer shorts and get into a bad temper... I challenge anyone not to go "Phwwwwoaaar" at that... For Henshaw fans apart from her great range and fabulous outfits, you also get to see a bit of her nipple.

The production looks gorgeous as well. The only problem is that the material that everyone has to work with... It feels like it could do with another workshop. The show starts off well enough (not counting the dull opening number) but just as the story should be getting interesting it loses interest in the central characters and we are inflicted with choruses and marches. Marguerite and Armand start making mad passionate love after a bomb goes off in her front garden and blows out her French doors... And then its all downhill from there... There is so much doom and gloom from that point onwards as they sing in minor keys about the peril that lies ahead that I wondered why they ever bothered. I also pitied the cast that had to sing what seemed like scales and glissandos and sustain difficult vowels eight shows a week.

I lost count the number of times Marguerite gets slapped about, had her crotch grabbed or spat upon. Not to mention having the nipple shown. Maybe that's what they mean by a musical for grown ups. If the show is aiming to be a musical for grown ups, it was a pity they didn't think about going for a bit of subtlety. The whole German occupation and French collaboration felt like a history lesson spelled out and shoved down your throat. The creative team (including many who were responsible for that Les Mis show) seemed more interested in history lessons than providing an evening's entertainment. Even Les Misérables had comic relief amongs all that moaning about stolen bread... This show at two hours felt like a descent into depression and by the end I was just glad it was all over. A few small changes (maybe more songs by the three principals and a few less chorus reprisals of that awful song "Day By Day") could make this something a little better than it currently is.

Still for the price, and if you're a Henshaw / Ovenden fan it is still worth catching... Quickly... It may not last...

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...