UK Theatre Network

Manchester Royal Exchange is the only game in town for adult theatre-goers this Christmas.  Their Yuletide offering is always an out-and-out comedy, whether that be traditional English farce (See How They Run, 2008), European classic (Cyrano de Bergerac, 2006), or, as with 2005’s Harvey, an American screwball comedy perhaps better known in a black-and-white film version starring James Stewart.

Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You is an absolute fit for the latter category, although this co-production with Told by an Idiot Theatre Company is so extraordinarily physical and theatrical it completely dispels all sepia-tinted memories.  The madcap household of thwarted balletomanes, aspiring playwrights, xylophone-playing printers and exotic animals would be matter enough, but when you throw in a Russian émigré dancing master, an unexpected tax inspector, and most worryingly of all an amateur firework-maker, you can expect things to go with a bang.

Apart from the pyrotechnics, flying ballerinas and animatronic snakes, director Paul Hunter almost turns the play into a Busby Berkeley musical with scene changes re-imagined as dance sequences from The Great American Songbook.  There are endless bits of slapstick and comic business that would have done the Marx Brothers proud, as well as occasional moments of disaster that might just be deliberate.

Outstanding among the frenzy of (deliberate) over-acting are Golda Rosheuvell as the best stage drunk I’ve ever seen, Maggie O’Brien playing Grand Duchess Olga, an exiled aristocrat who now waits tables with sneering condescension, and Miltos Yerolemou in an electrifying performance as the terrifying maitre de ballet.

Paul Hunter takes full advantage of the proximity of the audience to involve them directly in the action - the people in the cheapest seats (the banquettes at the front) probably had the best night of all, which is entirely appropriate for a play that cocks its snook at materialism and wealth.

On the face of it an anti-capitalist screwball comedy might seem a real play for today.  But You Can’t Take It With You fails to answer the paradox at its own heart: true, it takes a swing at Wall Street bankers like Mr Kirby (Martin Hyder with a comb-over hairdo that deserves its own programme credit), but has nothing to say about Grandpa Vanderhof (an avuncular Christopher Benjamin) who maintains his family’s unconventional lifestyle by living off the substantial rents of his buy-to-let property portfolio; and his elaborate tax evasion scam is more or less eulogised, the dirty plutocrat!

Laura Hopkins’ set-on-wheels and Sian Williams’ choreography are at the heart of the show’s success.  Judging by the queues at the box office on press night, this is Manchester’s answer to One Man, Two Guvnors.  Smug in the knowledge that I’m already booked in again for January, I advise you to buy your tickets at once.

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU is on until Saturday 14 January 2012
Prices £9-£33
Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30, Sat @ 8pm
Matinees: Wed @ 2.30, Sat @ 4pm
Christmas & New Year performances vary - see website
Box Office: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk

The Library Theatre Company is popping up all over Manchester before eventually moving into its new home.  The latest port-of-call on this four-year odyssey is a disused cotton mill in Ancoats, the world’s first industrial suburb.  Murrays’ Mill is a listed building in the process of being regenerated, but it was already half a century old in 1854 when Charles Dickens was writing his state-of-the-nation novel, Hard Times.

Cruel factory owner Josiah Bounderby and foolish local MP Thomas Gradgrind attempt to create a more efficient workforce by regulating human life along strictly scientific and mechanical lines - “Now, what I want is, Facts.”  In the end though their dogma destroys the people who are most precious to them.

This site-specific promenading performance is an adventure for both the theatre company and the audience, as the actors emerge from behind the proscenium arch and bring their characters out into the real world.

The evening begins with a series of installations in the dark and damp basement of Murrays’ Mill, an atmospheric space teeming with specially recruited volunteer actors.  Riotous gin houses, artisans’ workshops, mean little sitting rooms and filthy bedrooms all echo to a never-ending cacophony of horses’ hooves clattering on cobbles, rattling machinery, crying babies, hacking coughs and fiddles playing Irish jigs.  This is a genuinely immersive and intimate experience, as well as being thoroughly eerie – there’s no interaction with the audience, but the figures move round without seeming to see you – I couldn’t decide if they were ghosts, or I was.

The action then moves upstairs to a long, narrow, low-ceilinged room with bare floorboards underfoot, wooden beams above, and exposed brick walls.  Here designer Judith Croft has created a series of open-plan “compartments”, a bit like a department store for stage sets, representing the various parlours, offices, schoolrooms, gambling dens and hovels of the story.

Inevitably in turning a full-length novel into a two-and-a-half hour play something has to give.  Ironically, given the performance’s industrial location, it’s the working-class aspects of the narrative which have been shrunk to almost nothing, so the weaver Stephen Blackpool is reduced to a walk on part in the domestic drama of the middle-class Gradgrind family.  And although Charles Way’s adaptation has been written especially for this production it still feels like a conventional theatre script rather than something that would only ever work in the unique space of Murrays’ Mill. 

However the promenading aspect is the theatrical equivalent of a 3D film at the IMAX, allowing us to observe Dickens’ gallery of grotesques at very close quarters - and the acting from the professional cast members is extraordinarily good.

The ever reliable David Fleeshman portrays Gradgrind as an essentially benign if misguided figure; Verity May Henry is lively and colourful as Sissy Jupe; and Mina Anwar’s Rachel is passionate and instantly sympathetic.  Unsurprisingly, though, it’s the villains who dominate. 

Richard Heap was a memorable Magwitch at the Library Theatre several Christmases ago, but at least I was viewing him from the safety of the stalls.  His over-the-top interpretation of the loud, vulgar, bullying Bounderby is hugely enjoyable, both funny and horrific.  I was only a few feet away as he drooled over fragile young Louisa Gradgrind (Alice O’Connell), demanding a kiss like a lecherous elderly uncle, and the physical immediacy made me shudder with horror – an intense and thrilling moment.

Arthur Wilson is hilariously creepy as Bounderby’s oddball clerk Bitzer, and Gareth Cassidy’s nervous high-pitched laugh captures the latent hysteria in Tom Gradgrind.  Richard Hand’s Harthouse is a plausibly attractive playboy, and he’s practically unrecognisable as strict schoolmaster Mr M’Choakumchild.  Equally versatile are David Crellin, who doubles the rather worthy Stephen Blackpool with avuncular circus owner Mr Sleary, and Lynda Rooke as both Stephen’s drunken wife and the down-on-her-luck gentlewoman Mrs Sparsit (whose resemblance to Christina Rossetti is uncanny).

Chris Honer directs the action with his usual sure touch and gets the very best from his fabulous cast, but there are a few logistical problems with the promenading, and although I enjoyed this production I would have been even happier watching it from a seat in a theatre.

Hard Times is on until Saturday 2 July 2011
Location: Murrays’ Mill, Murray Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 6JA
Entry time: 7.15pm

A limited number of tickets are available on the day from the temporary box office at The Midland Hotel, Peter Street between 5.30-6.30pm, cash only.

Prices: Mon-Thurs £20 (£15 conc); Fri-Sat £22
Box Office: 0843 208 6010
www.librarytheatre.com

Arthur Miller’s 1955 play A View from the Bridge, set in the impoverished world of New York dockers and longshoremen, has the same sense of timelessness as the Greek tragedies it references.  Yet the subplot about desperate illegal immigrants and their precarious twilight existence strikes an urgent contemporary note today.

Eddie Carbone is a simple and good-hearted manual labourer.  Thanks to his generosity and sense of responsibility his wife Beatrice has never had to work and together they have raised Beatrice’s orphaned niece Catherine as their own.  But as Catherine has grown up Eddie has become more over-protective and possessive of her, and Beatrice’s eagerness for Catherine to fly the nest is as much for her own sake as her niece’s.

Miller’s narrator is the neighbourhood lawyer Alfieri, a not-so-cool and dispassionate observer of the unfolding drama.  For him, legal practice walks hand in hand with the laws of nature: “The law is only a word for what has a right to happen”.  As Eddie’s natural affection for Catherine becomes something more sinister, the catalyst for his inevitable punishment arrives in the guise of Beatrice’s illegal immigrant cousins, Marco and Rodolpho.

Olivier award-winner Con O’Neill plays Eddie with a surprising amount of tolerance and humour – in fact humour is the overwhelming note of Sarah Frankcom’s production – but the moment in Act Two when Eddie crosses the line with his niece draws an audible gasp of horror from the audience.

Anna Francolini’s jealous Beatrice, who seems rather too smart and middle-class to be married to a docker, revels in the shrewish aspects of the role, while Leila Mimmack’s feisty Catherine seems to grow up in front of our eyes.  Ronan Raferty’s sparkling and mercurial Rodolpho has exactly the quality the playwright describes of being able to make people laugh just from his manner of speaking.

Ian Redford was in the Exchange’s production of Antigone a couple of seasons ago, and his Alfieri seems steeped in classical Greek tragedy from the outset, while some lively cameos (assorted neighbours, longshoremen and immigration officers) remind us of the 1950s Brooklyn setting.

James Cotterill’s simple and uncluttered design lets the action move swiftly and clearly, and Peter Rice’s sound design is particularly interesting when Eddie makes his fatal phone call.

The tumultuous applause at the end of the show clearly indicates that the Royal Exchange has another hit on its hands.

A View From The Bridge is on until Saturday 25 June 2011
Prices £9-£32
Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30, Sat @ 8pm
Matinees: Wed @ 2.30, Sat @ 4pm
Box Office: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk

A Grand Classical Gala by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra took place on 16th November at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury.

As I was sitting in the packed stalls waiting for the Gala to begin, I was a little disappointed when I realised that my view of some of the wind and brass soloists would be slightly obscured. I have not had a lot of opportunity to see many purely orchestral concerts before, but I understand from other audience members present that the stage set up was not what you would necessarily expect for an orchestra of this size or prestige. Indeed, I did feel sorry for one particular violinist who was more in the wings than he was on stage. Nevertheless, not seeing all the musicians all of the time did not matter in the slightest as soon as they started to play.

The evening opened with Bedrich Smetana’s ‘The Bartered Bride Overture’ and it instantly became apparent why The Royal Philharmonic is acknowledged as one of the UK’s most prodigious orchestras. The sprightly and energetic beginning to the overture was executed to perfection by the strings, grabbing the audience’s attention gently, but utterly, right from the start. As the passionate and detailed layering of the piece developed, it was easy to hear how the musicians were seemingly effortlessly able to demonstrate their mastery of the genre. This became more and more clear as the orchestra began their second selection of the evening, with haunting, passionate and highly recognisable extracts from Bizet’s ‘Carmen’.

The orchestra’s conductor for the evening was the animated Stephen Bell. Stephen was born in Bury in Lancashire and studied conducting at the Royal College of Music under the renowned conductor Norman Del Mar. Known for his diverse repertoire and versatility, Stephen now finds himself increasingly in demand, both at home and abroad. He has performed with a wide variety of European orchestras including the BBC, Brighton and London Philharmonics and the Manchester Concert and Ulster orchestras. He has also worked with an eclectic range of artists, from Julian Lloyd Webber, Hayley Westernra and G4 to Katie Melua, John Barrowman and Chris de Burgh, to name but a few! A highly energetic and involved conductor, his calm but impassionate love for the music was instantly noticeable and I found him entertaining to watch but without this being distracting from the music itself. His advanced grasp of musical dynamics and his ability to communicate with the entire orchestra so precisely was a pleasure to behold. 

For the third selection for the evening, a performance of Edvard Grieg’s ‘Piano Concerto in A Minor’, the orchestra was joined centre stage by the highly acclaimed piano soloist Sarah Beth Briggs.

At the age of only 11, Sarah made a very successful start to her UK career by becoming one of the youngest ever finalists in the history of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. She made her concerto debut a year later and has since claimed international recognition as a soloist. Her status as an adventurous and vibrant recitalist showed through as she executed the famous opening piano flourish of the concerto with fervour and dexterity. The continued rippling solo phrases of the rest of the piece were only accentuated and enhanced by the addition of the rest of the orchestra, creating a truly beautiful, occasional understated but none-the-less compelling performance. The powerful closing phrases before the interval were met warmly by the audience who awarded Miss Briggs three curtain calls.

After the interval, the audience were treated to Dvorak’s beautifully poignant Symphony No.9 ‘From the New World’. Again, the grandeur and expertise of the orchestra was evident from the poised and gentle opening, through the piece’s warm and galloping mid section and into its splendid finale. Having heard only the very famous ‘Hovis’ section of this symphony before, it was a joy to hear it its entirety, especially as the musicians mapped its development and journey so delightfully.

Overall, the selection of music for the evening had something for everyone. There were some famous and highly recognisable pieces interwoven with some less known extracts, which made for a balanced and engaging evening, made all the more enjoyable by the detail, precision and beauty of the playing. A wonderful evening of excellent music, greatly enjoyed by all.
 
Vicky Poole

Love on the Dole, like Hobson’s Choice, is something of a House Speciality for north-west theatres - in the last decade I’ve seen three different versions of Walter Greenwood’s Depression-era Salford stories at The Lowry alone.  Yet David Thacker’s programming of the piece could not have been more prescient at the very moment when an economic downturn promises mass unemployment, and a coalition government is implementing massive cuts in services and benefits.  Today’s newspapers barely contain a headline which doesn’t have a parallel in the play, up to and including the Manchester Evening News report about police violence against a demonstrator at a political rally in Bolton.

Greenwood’s drama, co-written with Ronald Gow, tells the tale of the poor but respectable Hardcastle family who are driven into deeper and deeper poverty by the decline in manufacturing trade and consequent mass lay-offs. With an unapologetically socialist agenda embodied by the neighbourhood’s working-class radical Larry Meath, the writers also paint a picture of a spirited community brimming with life in spite of endless hardships.

Clare Foster is funny and feisty as Sally Hardcastle, a girl who longs to leave the slums but finds her life choices increasingly constrained. Her moods veer from romantic to tearful to furious in the blink of an eye, but the actress is fiercely committed in all of them. Octagon regular Keiran Hill is the idealistic Larry, and he captures the poetic and passionate soul of the character from the moment he sets foot on stage.

The immortal trio of disreputable tea-drinkers, Mesdames Dorbell, Bull and Jike, are as enjoyably presented as I have ever seen them, particularly accordion-wielding Mrs Jike played with a salty East End relish by Annie Tyson. And Colin Connor as Sam Grundy is the epitome of a seedy back-street bookie with his brown bowler hat, fat cigar and wad of notes - a superbly menacing turn which casts an authentically dark tone over the whole production.

Director David Thacker’s decision to stage this play in-the-round is absolutely the right one, working well for both the intimate interior settings and the public scenes.

Judging by the enthusiastic responses from the audience at the post-show talk I attended, this still-topical play is going down a storm in Bolton - booking soon is highly recommended.

Love on the Dole is on at Bolton Octagon until Saturday 6 November 2010

Tickets: from £9.50

Eves: Mon-Sat @ 7.30pm

Matinees: Fri 17 Sep; Sat 2 & Wed 6 Oct @ 2pm

Box Office: 01204 520661

www.octagonbolton.co.uk

If a picture is worth a thousand words then the accompanying production shot should tell you a great deal about Brandon Thomas’s 1892 farce Charley’s Aunt, which has just opened at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.  If you examine the photograph carefully you will notice that Oliver Gomm, who might be said to share the title role, is not playing a conventional Victorian widow.  But then, Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez is, in her own words, “no ordinary woman”.

Dating from the same period as The Importance of Being Earnest and the Savoy operas, Charley’s Aunt is every bit their equal for verbal dexterity, ridiculous situations and favourite stock characters - the silly-ass lord, the tyrannical uncle and the gauche lover are all present and correct.

The simple premise - two Oxford students invite their prospective fiancées to lunch and require a chaperone at short notice - is complicated by (among other accidentals) a jealous guardian, an impoverished (but titled) father, and the imminent arrival of a millionaire aunt who has never met her orphaned nephew because she’s been living in Brazil - “where the nuts come from”.  And in the best tradition of English farce there’s plenty of elaborate business, clowning about and slap-stick. 

Oliver Gomm is lovably daft as Lord Fancourt Babberley, and his virtuosic comedy cadenza with the piano in Act 3 earned him a round of applause on press night.  Stephen Hudson as the put-upon valet Brassett acts as a kind of world-weary Chorus, Malcolm Rennie is terrifyingly pop-eyed as the apoplectic Uncle Spettigue, and Briony McRoberts is charming and mischievous as the relative from the New World.

Director Braham Murray has slightly updated the setting to the 1920s for no discernable reason, although it is to the detriment of the plot device: the extremities of Victorian propriety might necessitate a cross-dressing chaperone, but the Bright Young Things of Brideshead-era Oxford could happily have managed without.  And if the intention was to give a Wodehousian flavour to the proceedings it doesn’t work because the most of the playing is far too naturalistic.  But at least the business is performed with flair and fluency, and all the physical comedy is first-rate.

Designer Johanna Bryant gives us three delightful sets, and the ladies’ flapper costumes are ravishing.  Truly, if the Royal Exchange were ever to go up in flames it would be the wardrobe department that I would rush in and save.

Those who have seen Charley’s Aunt before know it’s one of the English stage’s most copper-bottomed comedy classics, a treat never to be missed, and will already have booked their seats.  If you haven’t seen it before then you should make arrangements to remedy this situation as soon as possible. 

 

Charley’s Aunt is on until Saturday 7 August 2010

Prices: £8.50-£29.50

Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30, Sat @ 8pm [no performance Tues 6 July]

Matinees: Wed @ 2.30pm, Sat @ 4pm and Tues 6 July @ 2.30pm

Box Office: 0161 833 9833

www.royalexchange.co.uk

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s “trivial comedy for serious people”, gets a seriously good revival in the final production to grace the Library Theatre stage.

In just over a century this pearl among plays has taken its place alongside the classics of the canon.  Wilde’s sparkling wit and idiosyncratic style reach their acme in a text which is now so universally familiar that, like Hamlet, every line seems to be a quotation.

Director Chris Honer has assembled a cast of familiar faces (including old favourite Leigh Symonds as a brace of butlers) alongside a new generation of acting talent.  Among his discoveries is floppy-haired fop Alex Felton, a long-limbed, lissom youth who seems to have been born to play the role of the incorrigible Algie.  Florence Hall’s Cecily is perfect as the Victorian type of unspoiled innocence, although Natalie Grady as the more worldly Gwendolen has the edge on them both when it comes to comic timing.

Simon Harrison brings humour and sweetness to the otherwise stolid Jack Worthing, and Olwen May’s very funny turn as dotty governess Miss Prism gives the character more than her usual share of charm.  However Malcolm James’s cameo as the inveterate celibate Rev Chasuble nearly steals the whole show, wringing a laugh from every line without ever overplaying.  In fact the whole production is an example of what can be achieved from truth and taste, something Wilde would have appreciated.

It may seem strange, but the best example of this self-imposed restraint is the director’s decision to have Lady Bracknell played in drag.  Russell Dixon’s solid bulldog build and uncompromising masculinity mean that even though he speaks in low and moderate tones his Lady Bracknell has an underlying authority.  Ironically this enables him to play her as a living, breathing woman, rather than as the shrill caricature which is often the character’s fate. 

Designer Judith Croft’s opulent sets consist of a wall of slats with a beautiful cut-out design and a well-matched assemblage of antique furniture,  And her mouth-watering costumes almost deserve their own billing: the Lady Bracknell tout ensemble plays a huge part in Russell Dixon’s transformation, while Alex Felton seems to have become Ms Croft’s fashion muse.  How else could she have dreamed up those divine crimson shot-silk breeches?  And who else could possible have carried them off with such aplomb?

There can’t be a theatre-goer in the region who doesn’t have a soft spot for Manchester’s lovely Library Theatre and who doesn’t regret the closure of the little auditorium buried in the Central Library’s basement.  However the Library Theatre Company itself lives on and will be performing at The Lowry for the next few seasons.  And at least The Importance if Being Earnest is a high-point for the company to take leave of its home of more than half a century.

 

The Importance of Being Earnest is on until Saturday 3 July 2010

Prices: £8.00-£18.00 (concessions available)

Eves: Mon-Thurs @ 7.30pm; Fri & Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Thurs & Sat @ 3pm

Box Office: 0161 236 7110

www.librarytheatre.com