Music on a Distant Shore - Ryde Depozitory

From the moment you enter the theatre you are transported to the Scottish Highlands by the superb fiddle playing, echoing one of the play's themes.

The Depozitory provides a cosy and very civilised environment, and I was soon settled with a glass of red to enjoy the show.

And enjoy it I did.

The early scenes were a little slow for me, I have to admit, but they set the scene – we met Elaine, a struggling widow juggling a job she hates and her domestic and maternal responsibilities while yearning for love – and a different job (and boss!)

Once the internet romance starts to blossom, juxtaposed with the grind of the telesales job she clearly isn’t suited to, as her frustrated boss seems to delight in pointing out, the pace picks up and the audience is carried along by the excellent performances.

There are some moments of high comedy, even if one or two of the plot devices are a little predictable, and the four actors make the most of the humour with careful timing and delivery, while the underlying pathos of the characters’ situations come through more and more as the play progresses and elements of the past unfold alongside the current action.

While we immediately see and sympathise with the difficulties faced by Elaine and her son Kevin, who is desperate for some form of connection with his dead father, we could be forgiven if at first sight we think Alma, the ‘happy medium’, and Arthur, Elaine’s boss, have their life organised as they want it.

Without giving away the plot, as the play moves towards its denouement, we discover that those we thought were in control of their own lives are just as unfulfilled as anyone else. And through four extremely sensitive and accomplished performances we are led to an unexpected but fitting conclusion.

Gradually, along with the characters, we learn that although we may think we know what we want in life, sometimes life itself has other ideas.

Music on a Distant Shore is on this evening at Chale Church – if you don’t catch it there, it’s worth crossing to the North Island to see it in Portsmouth on 26 June.

The Truth Untold

This brand new play by Kevin Wilson, takes its title from a Wilfred Owen poem, Strange Meeting, which explores the meeting of two enemy World War I soldiers in the Underworld.

Appropriate for this centenary year, but the play takes the theme rather than subject matter of the poem: the action is set firmly in the present day: two protagonists, former school friends who are now a Conservative MP and a Social Services manager respectively.

Just like the soldiers however, these men have so much - including their past - in common, but find themselves on different sides of the political debate because of their chosen career path. Both are pressurised by the expectations of others and the truth gets lost amid the posturing and empty justifications.

The catalyst for their meeting after many years apart is the death of a small boy in care, and the subplot exploring the way the media cynically exploits the situation with no thought for anything other than selling copy is effectively written,, particularly a scene in which the boy's grieving mother cannot voice her feelings and allows the reported to construct the copy he wants and portray her as feckless and at the same time critical of the system which has allowed her son to die.

The profoundness of the impact of the meeting on both protagonists could have jarred without the cleverly interspersed flashback scenes which enabled us to appreciate the depth of, and reasons for the attachment between these two as boys. With this insight, the audience appreciates the way the confrontation with a former ally and friend turned opponent leads each to question, and then reject, the values of the life he has been leading.

The play itself was beautifully written, with some telling speeches at exactly the right moment; the staging was simple - the odd scene change could have been slightly sharper but that's a minor criticism and it didn't impact on the flow of the story. The portrayals of the protagonists were sharply drawn and the emotional torture as the play unfolded was brought out well. The supporting cast, playing various roles, were effective, especially the MP's ambitious wife, and the dialogue between her and her husband was at once humorous and insightful.

Not only is the nature of the truth - told and untold - questioned, but our habit of wanting to pigeon-hole people, and the media exploitation of this, is laid bare. I was led into the trap of wanting to label characters - feckless? Grieving? Sentimental? Uncaring? Gay? Straight? Conservative? Labour? But in the end, the only label worth putting on anyone is human. And being true to yourself is the most valuable form of truth.

I very much hope The Truth Untold will be staged again - it deserves a wider audience than it has yet had.

Road – Apollo Theatre

‘Road’ is now in its second and final week at the Apollo Theatre, Newport – and if you haven’t yet been, and you like a play that leaves you thinking – go!

In fact, even if you have already been, ‘Road’ is one of those plays that not only bears seeing more than once, but each time you see it, you notice something you didn’t see before.

It is multi-layered and complex, and does what drama does best: provides not merely an entertaining way to spend the evening (though it does that too, and there are plenty of laughs along the way) but a thought-provoking way of making you look again at our society.

It is nominally set in the 1980’s in a small Lancashire town – probably because this was familiar territory to its writer, Jim Cartwright (of ‘Little Voice’ fame) and the accents and cultural references place it in that timespace.

But – almost tragically so – it transfers seamlessly to contemporary society, for the themes explored are, although maybe in a slightly different way, still relevant.

If you are expecting a ‘traditional’ storyline with all the loose ends tied up in a pink bow at the end, you will not find such neatness in ‘Road’ – or indeed in life.

Instead, we are shown a slice of the existence of various residents of the ‘Road’ of the title by our guide the vagrant Scullery, and the stage, cleverly compartmentalised, takes us, with very simple sets, from a living room to the exterior of another house, to yet another bedroom.

Along the way we meet a series of characters who could so easily be forgettable and one-dimensional, but who, as portrayed by the cast of this production, manage to make a real impact in the short space of time we spend with them.

Each is battling against the forces of society which seem to be against them, trying to find their own way through. From Valerie, the battered housewife who, through her own anguish somehow still recognises that the husband she has come to hate and fear is acting in response to his own despair and sense of failure, to the ex-skinhead who remembers the adrenaline rush of the fight but has turned to Buddhism to seek some form of peace; from the lads and girls -young and not-so-young – seeking oblivion through alcohol and sex to the hopelessness of young Joey who rejects the world that has failed him by starving himself in his lonely bedroom, joined by his girlfriend, to Scullery himself getting by on rum and petty theft, the residents of ‘Road’ are beaten down by unemployment, poverty and squalor.

It could so easily be a very depressing piece, but is saved through the humour and the natural humanity that somehow shines through despite everything. The drunken banter between Marion and her paramour Barry over the whisky bottle; Scullery’s vain attempts to find something worth pinching in a house he mistakenly thinks is empty; the Prof’s mission to compile a dossier of the  area and its residents and the over the top DJ Bisto are all very funny, though underpinned by pathos.

The play bears comparison in tone to ‘Under Milk Wood’ but I see a stronger parallel in TS Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ which also shows us an array of characters all trying to find some way through the futility of their existence. Like Eliot though, Cartwright does not let us quite leave in despair – just as ‘The Wasteland’ ends with the possibility of redemption, so ‘Road’ finishes on the chant of ‘Somehow – might escape’, and the small lights burning in the dark are an apt final image.

It would be wrong to identify any one actor as the star of this ensemble piece – most of the cast take on more than one challenging role, working as a closely knit team to bring the ‘Road’ to life so effectively.

Challenging it may be but the play is also very funny and always entertaining – and definitely worth seeing.

Raymond Froggatt and his Band – Shanklin Theatre May 17 2014.

An evening to remember! 

My relationship with Froggie goes way back – though he’s blissfully unaware of this – to the mid 1970’s when I was invited to stay with a schoolfriend for the weekend. Her sister Jeannie, who did indeed have light brown hair, played the Frog’s first two albums over and over all weekend, and I was hooked.

I still have the cassette tape Jeannie illicitly made for me (I did invest in the originals later!) of ‘The Voice and Writings’ and ‘Bleach’, complete with the sound of a door slamming just after the first verse of ‘I’m Sure’, and I have loved his music ever since. 

Although Raymond himself would no doubt reject this comparison, I love his work for the same reason I love Bob Dylan – the beauty and poetry of the lyrics and the often deceptively simple melodies that carry the words straight into your heart. Whether you are singing along to ‘Froggie Went A’Courting’, crying at ‘Teach Me’ or ‘The Old Accordion’ (which I can’t hear or sing without tears to this day) or finding parallels in your own life with ‘The Invisible Chain’, the songs touch some chord in your heart.

As a youngster in Norfolk I would go to venues like Snape Maltings to see him, and have been lucky enough to enjoy his live performances many times, so when I discovered he was coming to the theatre down the road from my house I naturally immediately snapped up front row seats.

Froggie is in his 70s now, and you know how singers can, as they get older, start to lose their voice and their charisma? I’ve seen it with several of my old favourites from 40 odd years ago.

But not Froggie! Nor his band – and in particular Hartley Cain, who has played guitar by his side so long they are an integral part of each others’ music. Froggie without H Cain would be like – well, May without Mercury. 

Raymond may be a bit slower on his feet than he was all those years ago but his voice is as rich as it ever was, and his humour as sharp and self-deprecating.

Many of my old favourites – and newer favourites – got a look in, from ‘Somewhere Under the Sun’ to ‘Roly’. Yes, I know others have recorded Froggatt songs, but no one sings them like he does – and with all respect to singers like Cliff Richard, I still prefer the author’s versions of ‘The Singer’ and ‘Red Balloon’ – and thanks Froggie for finally explaining the meaning of that song!

A slightly more political note was sounded with the self explanatory ‘Nobody Believes It Any More’- so true. 

But the central message of most of his music has always been the love that binds us all together in our lives, and I could only agree with him when he said that it is evenings like this that we will remember in our lives, thanked the audience in his typically humble way for enjoying his music and told us that ‘an old Brummie’ loved us for that. Well, the audience clearly loved this old Brummie too!

As he has for almost the last half century, Froggie made us laugh, made us cry, touched our hearts and thoroughly entertained. He sent me out of the theatre with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Thanks Froggie!

The Rose - Revealed!

A couple of weeks ago, strolling along the South Bank, I was just passing The Globe Theatre, one of my favourite London spots....

...OK, I admit it – I wasn’t passing the Theatre: I was heading for the door as I usually do, to soak up the ambience and just possibly part with a bit of cash in the bookshop...

..when I saw a small sandwich board informing me that The Rose Theatre had an Open Day, with Free Admission.

The Rose Theatre?

I mean – THE Rose Theatre??

As in the theatre where two Shakespeare plays premiered? Where Will himself trod the boards?? Along with Kit Marlowe et al???

Surely not. That Rose Theatre disappeared 400 or so years ago, along with the Bear Pits and the Stews – or brothels – that littered Southwark in the late sixteenth century.

Didn’t it?

Intrigued, I followed the sign round the corner into Park Street and sure enough, there was an open door leading to a theatre, and on the wall next to it was a blue plaque confirming that this is the site of the original Elizabethan theatre.

I walked into a small foyer area and was welcomed and shered straight through to a gallery space where 50 or so chairs were set out round a central performance area, and a film was playing to a couple of seated visitors.

I joined them for the end of the film which proved to be a potted history of the Rose theatre narrated by Sir Ian McKellan, and as it finished the lights went up and I was suddenly aware of a large empty space below the gallery, lit only by red LED lights:

And yes, as you can see, most of it is under water...

By the time I had listened to a lovely volunteer called Suzie enthuse about the project I was hooked.

I learned that not only was I sitting directly above the still existing foundations of the actual Rose Theatre where Shakespeare actually performed, which have managed to cheat time and the property developers for over 400 years (to say nothing of the Luftwaffe) but that dedicated people are raising money to excavate the site – some of it was explored in 1989 but there is lots more to find out about – and that the final intention is to open the site to the public as a preserved space with galleries used as educational and display spaces along with somehow continuing to use the Rose for the purpose it was originally built for so long ago.

Eventually I, along with many other Shakespeare admirers I’m sure, hope to stand on the very spot where the Bard of Avon once acted and no doubt directed. I will also be able attend a performance of one of his plays in the same theatre in which it was performed four centuries ago.

In fact, I have already achieved the second, as you will see if you read the review below!

In the meantime, we have some money to find!

So I will be taking part in a Readathon on 31 May, at the Rose, in which we aim to read through 12 of Shakespeare’s plays in a day – 12 hours in fact. If you would like to sponsor me, please email msullivan58@hotmail.co.uk
 

If you would like to come along, either as a reader or a member of the audience, please do visit the Rose Theatre’s webpage for the event here: http://www.rosetheatre.org.uk/events/event/readathon-at-the-rose/

And if you would like to know more about the Theatre, their website is here: http://www.rosetheatre.org.uk/

Richard III Review

On Saturday evening, along with a couple of like-minded friends (for like-minded, feel free to read batty!) walked into a tiny theatre space with no heating, no specialised lighting or sound equipment, no cafe or toilet facilities, having travelled up to London specially for the experience of seeing a production of Richard III performed by four women with minimal props on a performance space smaller than my lounge.

Batty? Perhaps, but the experience was magical and worth every mile traversed to get there.
The theatre itself contributed about 50% of the magic: it was the Rose, famous to anyone who has studied Shakespeare and Elizabethan Theatre, which, true to its name, has risen from under a sixties’ office block ready to be claimed as our own in the 21st Century.

The dimly lit foundations, gleaming under water, provided an atmospheric backdrop to the play, and a wonderfully haunting acoustic for the singing and drumbeats which added to the dramatic tension, as well as the other-worldly quality that permeated the performance.

The other 50% of the magic was supplied by four actresses from the Scrawny Cat Theatre Company, and if I had any questions about how four people would be able to present the myriad of characters Shakespeare put into this play (and I did!) the answer was ingenious: simple costumes, smoothly and efficiently changed, to tell us who is who, simple puppetry to represent child characters, and sharing the title role between all four actresses, each of whom brought a slightly different quality to a complex character, which served to point up Richard’s ability to be charming, scheming, openly evil or apparently sincere by turns.

Oh, and by judiciously trimming the play to omit some characters and bring it down to a length that modern audiences can cope with sans loo or heat. How those Elizabethan groundlings fared in poor weather I don’t know!

Like most people nowadays, I view Shakespeare’s representation of a villainous Richard as deliberate spin to please the Tudor overlords rather than an accurate portrayal of this historical figure, but let’s not allow a bit of slander to get in the way of telling a good story – after all, the tabloids today are just as happy to destroy reputations, and like so much of Shakespeare’s writing, there are elements in the play which provide food for thought about contemporary society.

An unusual take on a familiar play, but it remained true to the spirit of the piece and the audience was carried along by the story, able to suspend disbelief, as Coleridge would have put it, because of the acting ability shown by every one of the small cast. A truly inter-supportive team, each actress was able to change character not just with the costume – that served as a visual cue – but by a different stance, altered timbre to the voice, distinctive gait. It was evocative enough to make me sympathise with Queen Elizabeth’s loss of her sons, even while seeing them represented by nothing more than a couple of silky squares of material.

Sadly the run is now over. I feel lucky to have caught the last performance, and if you’ll take my advice, you’ll get along to the Rose Theatre to soak up the atmosphere, and you’ll keep a sharp eye out for future plays at the Rose – and any being produced by Scrawny Cat.

If Richard III is anything to go by, a wonderful evening’s entertainment will be guaranteed.

Mojo: Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high!

Just over a week ago I was privileged enough to attend a performance of ‘Mojo’, written by Jez Butterworth, at the Harold Pinter Theatre just off Leicester Square, and I am still exhausted yet hyped up by the experience. Compelling, mesmerising and very, very funny.

That the cast will have managed to perform the play six more times since then speaks volumes about their fitness and dedication. The amount of energy expended must be enormous, let alone the vocal strength required to deliver lines at such a high volume and speed throughout the evening. Mojo, at least this production of it, is a thrilling and fast paced black comedy – the audience needs their wits about them to catch all the jokes and banter.

And that’s not taking account of the amazing amount of talent crammed on to that smallish stage.

If the play was cast with one eye to attracting a cross section of the populace who are not necessarily theatre goers, they succeeded: for the older Downton Abbey afficianados, there was Brendan Coyle, strutting around the stage without the aid of a walking stick using language that would give the Dowager Countess palpitations; for the younger Harry Potter set there was Rupert Grint in his first live theatre show, and I did spot a few familiar Ron Weasley scared faces on stage; and in between there was Colin Morgan, fresh from his TV exposure as Merlin, which I have to admit I’ve never seen, but may do so if Morgan’s performance on screen is as good as on stage.

Add in Daniel Mays, who everyone recognises from somewhere, and the relative newcomer Tom Rhys Harries, and you already have a stellar cast list, but for me the icing on the cake was the chance to see Ben Whishaw on stage: a much anticipated treat. And he didn’t disappoint – if there was a star of the show – and it was very much a collective piece – he was it, albeit by a short way. 

The play is set over a couple of hot July days in 1958, in a seedy Soho nightclub which, judging by an article in the programme, is very loosely based on the 2i’s coffee bar where real life Elvis wannabes were discovered – Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde... In the first scene we see their fictional counterpart, Silver Johnny, backstage preparing for his performance which, we later learn, is being watched by some important people. Right from the start, the tone is set as Johnny struts, jives, drinks, adjusts his hair – among other things  - and generally gives off an aura of extreme nervousness.

The next two characters we meet are Potts and his sidekick Sweets (so called because he provides the pills most of the characters are forever popping, which does nothing to dispel their edginess). Mays’ Potts is a sharp suited, oily quaffed fifties spiv, who anticipates a share in the dosh Silver Johnny’s talent will make for the team. He and Grint’s Sweets sit at a table in the upper room of the nightclub while the show is going on below them, and via their nervous banter the audience learns that Sam Ross, so rich his shoes are made of ‘baby fucking buckskin handstitched by elves’ is being schmoozed by the nightclub owner, Ezra. Sam, Potts asserts, will take Johnny to America and make them all rich. Given his physical jitters, one wonders who he is trying to convince.

As the rest of the cast appear, the atmosphere becomes even more stressed as the tensions between the characters add to their individual anxieties. Skinny Luke (Morgan), the cloakroom attendant, is clearly in awe of Ezra’s son Baby, simultaneously wanting to copy his clothes, for which Baby derides him, and in constant fear of possible violence from him. 

Baby himself (Whishaw) is a complex mix of psychotic tendencies, one minute chasing Skinny around the room armed with a sword, or throwing chairs through the air, the next almost catatonic and unresponsive, the next demanding and menacing. In one memorable scene he goes out to buy toffee apples for everyone, as a gesture of solidarity, but no sooner has he handed them round than his personality has undergone another change and he demands that Skinny pay him for them. Gradually we learn a few facts about his background - that he has been abused by his father for instance - which help us sympathise with him.

The following morning we meet the final character, Ezra’s manager Mickey, who brings the news of Ezra’s murder the night before. In the face of the disbelief of the others, Mickey and Skinny, who aligns himself to the person he believes has the power to protect him, assert the truth of the murder by announcing the body was found in the bins. In two bins, they clarify. Silver Johnny meanwhile has disappeared, presumably kidnapped by Sam Ross who was reluctant to share the proceeds of his talent.

The rest of the play explores the effect of the murder on the depleted team as Mickey and Baby vie for control and the rest desperately try to hold on to some form of sanity and security in the face of the threat of Sam coming back to deal with the rest of them. Mickey clearly knows what Baby is capable of and by turns placates and confronts him. 

Nervousness, insecurity and fear are at the very centre of Mojo, which can be read as a study in these emotions and their impact on characters who are already damaged. While Sweets and Skinny try invasion to find security in the shadow of peopple the wrongly perceive as more powerful and assured than themselves, Potts blusters his way through, Mickey bullies and Baby is terrifyingly calm and violent by turns. The only character who has recognised talent meanwhile is treated, quite literally, as a piece of meat by the others.

In the end, despite Mickey’s posturing and assumption of the role of leader, he can only throw out pointless orders, and it is left to Baby to finally take action to get Johnny back, which he does armed with a cleaver which – he tells the assembled horrified cast – has left Ross with a bit of a headache. In recovering the star however, the psychotic Baby has made a discovery about the betrayal of his father which forms the climax of the play, leading to another murder and finally destroying the nightclub team forever.

Judged purely on the plot, Mojo would be a depressing play. However, there is so much comedy of character, such as Potts' immediate joy on discovering Silver Johnny has returned (albeit that he is strung up by his ankles with Baby watching him intently) - Potts' exclamation of his trademark 'Fish are jumping and the cotton is high!' betrays his complete failure to understand the situation. Baby meanwhile, asserts that he has been spurred into taking action because: 'There's nothing like having your Dad cut in half to focus the mind'.

Can't argue with that!