Interview with Maddy Anholt for Maddy's Many Mouths

Maddy's Many Mouths is a fast paced, short comedy about the lives of 12 very different women, seen through the eyes of porn obsessed, public schoolboy, Thomas Prism. This is the first play by actress and script-writer, Maddy Anholt, who plays all the female characters. She has recorded a version for Radio and hopes to bring the show to TV. I caught up with her to learn a bit more about her play.

So how did it start out?

It started off as a one woman piece about an American Doctor, talking about her thesis on multiple personality disorder, but it turns out all the women are in her! That was the idea I took around to many comedy venues but I got the feedback that this isn't going to go very far because I was taking the piss out of mental health issues. I never thought of it like that, I just wanted a foundation to bring these characters from. Thomas Prism came about as a result of this, as someone to work from. I used to play the boy.

How do you write?

When I write, I just start talking out loud in an accent and pick up the character's gestures and ways of speaking. I took a nanny job and every day I would sit in their £1.3 million house and just speak in all these different accents. I had a list of about 40 or so women from the book that I carry round with me and I sat down one day and picked the 12 strongest, most different women. All the characters have bits of me. Some are based on people I've met.

Could you tell me a little about the characters?

I've been working on the characters for years, its an organic process. I never wanted it to be about a heavily scripted piece. We've got an outrageously confident Aussie women, Paloma Freel, whose massively overbearing and really in love with herself, she's 27. My model for her was Dolly Parton. She's got this thing called the Paloma Package. (puts on Aussie accent) She gets rid of their wives and kids, takes the house and drops them after that. Saffron, (puts on a sultry voice) is like a yummy mummy who's discovered Buddhism, but she's absolutely pissed all the time. She came up with this idea for a company, to fill the missing bits of people's jigsaw puzzles, it's called, “I'll Fill Your Hole”. But a lot of these women come from really tragic backgrounds. It's human nature to find pleasure in other people's misfortune. It's not a feminist piece at all, I never intended it to be. It's like an overview of women in general in society.

When did you discover you had a talent for accents?

My mum's Irish and we've got like 46 cousins and family all over the world. Every Christmas we have a gathering and having people from all over the world influenced me. Even when I was really small, I found it quite easy to mimic people off TV or radio. It wasn't a conscious thing. It wasn't till actually quite later when I realized I could use this.

So what happened to the radio version?

It's a good radio piece but it lost a lot visually. 3 or 4 production companies wanted to put in on, but it didn't get broadcast because I didn't have complete control of it and I just wasn't happy with it. I basically want it on TV, like a TV series based around 12 women. I've written episodes. So this one's about Relationships and Careers. The women let rip about every detail of their sex lives to a 16 year old boy and then that moves onto careers. It's excellent on stage, but I greedily want to share it with as many people as possible. I think its got the potential to affect a lot of people, not only the women themselves but their boyfriends and husbands, sitting next to them saying “thats' what you do!” So far its been the fastest selling show at The Canal Cafe Theatre. We're gonna do the Camden Fringe this year and we're thinking of taking it to Edinburgh Festival next year so we'll see what happens.

Maddy's Many Mouths debuts at The Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice on Weds 3 Aug

To book tickets please call 0207 289 6054

Shakespeare’s cross-dressing pastoral comedy receives an inner-city update in Greg Hersov’s joyful production this summer. 

The usurping Duke Frederick has relocated his court to the Playboy mansion, where the dress code is formal evening wear and bunny-rabbit ears.  Superficially this is a world of liberty and licentiousness, but even champagne on tap can’t enliven the misery or distract from the air of menace and suppressed violence.  No wonder Frederick’s lively daughter Celia and melancholy niece Rosalind prefer to hide away in the chill-out lounge with its mellow tunes and low lights.  When Frederick finally snaps and exiles Rosalind there’s actually a sense of release and the promise of new-found freedom.

Designer Ashley Martin-Davis says his inspiration was the high-noon of hippydom, the Summer of Love; but with its acid-hues, status sneakers and skinny jeans the Forest of Arden looks more like mid-90s Madchester – all that’s missing is a big bomb going boom – though it happens that the forest is festooned with boom-boxes, as multi-coloured loudspeakers descend on wires from the gods.

Cush Jumbo is elegant and restrained as the Rosalind, but disguised as Ganymede she becomes a back-chatting, baseball-cap wearing, body-popping inner-city “blood”, with the accent and attitude to match.  Ganymede is part performance poet, part rapper, and the way this style of speech animates the language, the imagery, and the rhythms of the poetry, not to say the divided nature of Rosalind’s character, is an absolute revelation.  This has got to be the most inspired interpretation of a Shakespearean character since OT Fagbenle’s blaxploitation Mercutio for English Touring Theatre.

Arden’s other inhabitants are a selection box of soft centres and hard nuts.  James Clyde’s raddled ex-rock star Jaques looks every inch the former “libertine”; Gyuri Sarossy’s yuppy estate agent Oliver comes over very strongly as a nasty piece of work who wouldn’t scruple to redevelop the wild woodland into designer apartments; and Terence Wilton has a lovely cameo as a happy-clappy, bike-riding Sir Oliver Martext.

The musical interludes are beautiful, led by Howard Hutt’s melodious Amiens; he makes a fine impression with his verse speaking too, and would have been a vast improvement on Ben Batt’s uninspiring Orlando, whose gruff manner and blue shirt seem more suited to working on the tills at Tesco’s.

Above all, director Greg Hersov remembers that As You Like It is a comedy and gives us a bright, summery production that will raise the spirits.  As Ganymede might say: “Rispeck”.

As You Like It is on until Saturday 6 August 2011
Prices £9-£30
Evenings: Mon-Sat @ 7.30
Matinees: Wed & Sat @ 2.30
Box Office: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk

If you ask anyone who has seen Avenue Q what the show is about, you usually get told “it’s like Sesame Street for grown-ups!”. This is indeed a good description, but it sells this show short. Avenue Q has a decent plot and a very good (and funny) script. The musical numbers too are witty and at times moving. The music is catchy and hummable. All in all, everything you want in a musical – and then they add puppets!

 

Following the story of college graduate (and puppet) Princeton (one of two roles/puppets played by Adam Pettigrew) who has found himself on Avenue Q to find an apartment – having started at Avenue A and worked his way out to the cheaper neighbourhoods – Avenue Q is a story with lots of heart, but peppered with enough risqué humour to please a varied audience of musical die-hards and those of the Family Guy generation who can enjoy childish humour in adult territory (or vice versa).

 

Avenue Q could easily have gone down the “star name” casting route, but have luckily avoided that to bring back some previous cast members from the West End run of the show. Rachel Jerram has moved up into the leading role of Kate Monster and shows a real skill in comic timing and a powerful belt voice in the moving ballad of 'There's a Fine, Fine Line' and in the duet 'Fantasies Come True'. Her 'doubled' role of Lucy The Slut provided some great moments of humour and showed how versatile this young actress is (Jekyll & Hyde take note - this is how you perform two characters convincingly at the same time - studied voicework!)

 

Miss Jerram was not alone in showing this skill, in fact all principal puppeteers/performers were taking on (at least) two roles! Chris Thatcher as Nicky/Trekkie Monster/Bad Idea Bear showed the greatest variety of voices and if he’d slightly toned down the “mugging” facial expressions, could easily have stolen the show from Miss Jerram.

 

A special mention must go to Katherine Moraz who played Mrs T and one of the Bad Idea Bears. She provided the “second hand” to many of the two person puppets and her timing made the transitions for the principals seamless and gave an effortless look to what must be a fastpaced show both on and off the stage.

 

What really makes this show stand out is the great comedic script and the witty song lyrics, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx really are the Noel Coward for the Facebook generation. With titles like “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist”, “The Internet Is For Porn” and “Schadenfreude” (look it up – even the word in itself brings joy in its own unique way!) it also doesn’t shy away from controversy, but everything is dealt with in the best possible taste (except perhaps from the puppet sex – which leads to another witty song entitled “You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (While Making Love)”).

 

Anna Louizos very clever set design combined with the sharp lighting from Howell Binkley make a simple single set transform from exterior to interior with ease, and a very ingenious lighting transformation into the Empire State building shows that even in the design, ingenuity outweighs flashy set-pieces and full stage transformations.

 

The biggest compliment that I can give this show is that having dragged my (rather reluctant and non-musical fan) partner to see this in London, they not only begged to come see this again with me, but have been telling all their friends to go to. So, in case word hasn’t already reached you that way, get your tickets sorted now and head down to Avenue Q for that great childhood feeling of laughing at things you know you shouldn’t!

 

Contains scenes which may be unsuitable for under 12s.

 

Performances:

 

Tue 28 Jun:       7.30pm

Wed 29 Jun:      2.30pm, 7.30pm

Thu 30 Jun:       7.30pm

Fri 1 Jul:           5.30pm, 8.30pm

Sat 2 Jul:          4pm, 7.30pm

 

Tickets: £12.50-£30.50

Box Office: 08448 717 648(bkg fee)         
Web: www.ambassadortickets.com/glasgow

Girls Night

Gala Theatre, Durham

I’m becoming accustomed to being only one of a sprinkling of men in the audience now. Having already had the dubious honour of reviewing The Vagina Monologues, Women on the Verge of HRT, Hot Flush!, Menopause the Musical, Mum’s The Word and The Naked Truth, I can now add Girls Night to the ever-increasing list of productions aimed at a predominantly female audience.

Louise Roche’s comedy-musical follows the lives of four friends as they gather to celebrate the engagement of Candi-Rose, the daughter of another friend who died 22 years ago in a motorcycle accident. Little do they realise that their deceased mate, Sharon (Serena Giacomini) is watching over them as a rather unconventional guardian angel!

The plot sees the four friends, Carol (Gillian Taylforth), Liza (Rebecca Wheatley), Anita (Katie Paine) and Kate (Lizzie Frances) meet in a nightclub for an evening of Karaoke, drinking and reminiscing and also provides the perfect opportunity for the cast to belt out a succession of girlie anthems including ‘Young Hearts Run Free’, ‘I’m Every Woman’, ‘I Will Survive’, ‘I Am What I Am’ and ‘We Are Family’.

Kate Unwin’s set design, complemented by Kris Box’s lighting, sets the scene well and effectively recreates the look and feel of a nightclub. However, Colin Ashman’s sound tended to be over-amplified on occasion and drowned out some of the singing.

The cast is comprised of actresses who are also great singers and even Gillian Taylforth, a performer who is not usually associated with singing, delivers a very respectable version of ‘We Don’t Cry Out Loud’, despite a slight lyrical mix-up.

Although Girls Night won’t ever set the theatrical world alight, it is a crowd-pleasing concoction of Karaoke classics that does what it says on the tin.

Steve Burbridge

Runs until Saturday 25 June 2011.

COMMUNICATING DOORS

The Gala Theatre, Durham

The concept of time travel has fascinated playwrights, scriptwriters and novelists for decades, and Alan Ayckbourn is no exception. His forty-sixth play – he is now up to 76! – Communicating Doors, is based on the subject and ponders what lies behind the mysterious locked door in the corner of your hotel room.

This cracking comedy-thriller begins with a dying old businessman, Reece Wells (Ben Porter), attempting to ease his guilty conscience. He calls upon Poupée (Laura Doddington), a dominatrix, to witness the signing of a statement in which he confesses to being involved in the murders of his two former wives. But when his ruthless business partner, Julian (Ben Jones), who is also implicated by the statement, finds out Poupée (‘it’s French for doll!’ she insists) escapes her fate by fleeing through the communicating door and finds herself transported back to the same hotel suite twenty years earlier.

The plot sees the ‘specialist sexual consultant’ confronted with Reece’s second wife, Ruella (Liza Goddard), on the eve of her murder. Can she alter the course of events and save Ruella? And can the pair go back a further twenty years and prevent Jessica (Daisy Aitkens), Reece’s first wife, from being killed, too?

Set in three different time zones, 1990, 2010 and 2030, this clever and complex play has you on the edge of your seat throughout. Liza Goddard gives a brilliant performance as Ruella, and she is supported by a consummate cast. The pace of action is frenetic and following the story requires a certain amount of concentration but, ultimately, this pays off and the audience is rewarded with a fantastic evening’s entertainment.

Steve Burbridge.

Runs until Saturday 18 June 2011.

Calendar Girls

Darlington Civic Theatre

There’s not a lot you can say about Calendar Girls that hasn’t already been said. The show, which tells the true story of twelve extraordinary members of the Women’s Institute who give their annual calendar a very untraditional twist to raise money for an extremely worthy cause, is now a global phenomenon. Having enjoyed a run in the West End and numerous national tours, the consensus among my fellow critics and audience members alike is that the current touring cast are by far the best yet.

Darlington’s Civic Theatre was filled to capacity on opening night, and apparently is a sell-out for the remainder of the week – and, when the curtain went up, it was perfectly evident why. Not only does this inspirational stage production have the power to make audiences both laugh and cry, but it is also performed by a consummate cast that comprises some of the best-known performers in the entertainment industry, including sitcom stalwarts and soap stars.

Lesley Joseph (of Birds of a Feather fame) heads the cast as Chris Harper, the ebullient driving force behind the calendar idea. Her performance is engaging and energetic and she demonstrates the depth of her versatility as an actress, mixing pathos and poignancy with great comic timing and proving – as if she ever needed to – why she remains one of Britain’s busiest actresses and that there is so much more to her than only Dorien Green.

Sue Holderness (Marlene, Only Fools and Horses) provides the perfect contrast as Chris’s best friend, Annie Clarke, the bereaved woman whose husband’s death is the catalyst for the creation of the ‘alternative’ calendar. Her portrayal is skilfully subtle and there is a real rapport between Holderness and Joseph. There is also an intensity to the scene where Chris and Annie have a confrontation and, subsequently fall-out, which was somewhat lacking in the 2003 film starring Helen Mirren as Chris and Julie Walters as Annie.

Ruth Madoc (Gladys, Hi-de-Hi) relishes the role of the snooty chairman of the Knapley WI group and never misses an opportunity to steal a scene with a bitchy comment. She takes Marie’s pretentions to the verge of caricature but never goes too far and always retains the believability of the character.

Helen Fraser (Sylvia ‘bodybag’ Hollamby, Bad Girls) also provides much hilarity with her portrayal of Jessie, the retired schoolteacher. Her ‘no front-bottoms’ line had the audiences in stitches and her delivery was punchy and spot-on throughout. Deena Payne (Viv, Emmerdale) is the unorthodox vicar’s daughter, Cora, and displays a rather impressive singing voice. Kacey Ainsworth (Little Mo, EastEnders) plays Ruth, the most timid of all the women, whose philandering husband is playing away with a blonde bimbo beautician (Camilla Dallerup). Kathryn Rooney provides much of the glamour with the hair-tossing, golf-playing character of Celia.

In a cast that is dominated by such towering talents, it would be easy – but extremely unfair – to overlook the contribution of the actors who perform less high-profile roles. Colin Tarrant (Insp. Monroe, The Bill) gives a heartfelt portrayal of John Clarke, who dies of leukaemia, Kevin Sacre is effective in his doubling-up as photographer, Lawrence, and television director, Liam, Robert Gill is Rod Harper and Susan Bovell plays both Brenda Hulse and Lady Cravenshire.

The entire production and technical team are to be commended too, particularly author Tim Firth, director Jack Ryder and designer Robert Jones. Calendar Girls is a triumphant piece of theatre that should occupy a date in everyone’s diary.

Steve Burbridge.

Runs until Saturday 21 May 2011.

 

For the first time ever, comedy legend and the most senile member of Monty Python will be bringing his "An Evening with the Legendary John Cleese” tour to the UK. Best known for his idiosyncratic turns in Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, John Cleese will bring his unique comedic perspective to Glasgow audiences for three nights only: Mon 6 – Wed 8 June.

 

Cleese has achieved a lot in his career which started as a sketch writer for BBC Radio’s Dick Emery Show and then The Frost Report. After this stardom beckoned, and Monty Python was created with Cleese co-writing and starring in four series and three films.

 

He went on to achieve further great success as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with his then wife Connie Booth. After huge UK success John went on to crack the USA with A Fish Called Wanda (which he wrote and starred in with Jamie Lee Curtis). The late 1990s saw the unstoppable Mr Cleese appear in the James Bond movie The World is not Enough and later Die Another Day. From writing to starring in plays, musicals, theatrical and comedy productions, to films and sitcoms, Cleese has done it all, and now it’s time for him to tell you about his jam-packed life.

 

Cleese says: "It is an evening of well honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical tit-bits, details of recent surgical procedures, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin".

 

Ends/

 

LISTINGS

 

An Evening with the legendary John Cleese

Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Mon 6 – Wed 8 June @ 7.30pm

Tickets: £21 - £33.50

Box Office: 08448 717 647 (bkg fee)

www.ambassadortickets.com/glasgow (bkg fee)

The Naked Truth

UK National Tour

Reviewed at Middlesbrough Theatre

Dave Simpson’s smash-hit comedy play, The Naked Truth, which is set in a pole-dancing class, is now in its fifth fantastic national tour and its popularity shows no signs of waning. The show tells the stories of six very different women and boasts an all-star cast, led by singing sensation Maureen Nolan and former diva of the dales Claire King. There’s also ex-pop princess Michelle Heaton, Hollyoaks actress Julie Buckfield, the star of the West End show Hairspray, Leanne Jones, and the slightly lesser-known Alison Young.

Five women, who are all very different in terms of background, age, shape and personality, struggle to conquer pole-dancing under the expert instruction of the glamorous Gabby (Michelle Heaton). Each of them has their own individual motivations for being there and, as their stories begin to unfold and intertwine, they share laughter and tears in a play that demonstrates the solidarity of the sisterhood and celebrates strength through adversity.

Ex-Emmerdale and Bad Girls star Claire King plays Rita, a character you really wouldn’t want to mess with. But behind the bravado is a woman who is the victim of domestic abuse and is desperately protective of her two daughters. King is flawless in her carefully crafted characterisation of the tart-with-a-heart. Leanne Jones is the larger-than-life loudmouth who is looking for love in all the wrong places, Julie Buckfield is the self-obsessed snob Tricia, whose perfect life isn’t as rosy as it seems, Alison Young plays it strictly for laughs as the delightfully dippy Faith and Maureen Nolan completes the line-up as the demure and dignified Sarah.

As you might expect, there is much hilarity to be enjoyed as the novices acquaint themselves with the pole. Much of the comedy derives from physical clowning and Leanne Jones sends herself – and her size and shape – up with great sport and humility. The script relies heavily on ribaldry for the most part and the predominantly-female audience cackled along in delight.

However, when Sarah receives some devastating news, the others soon put aside any differences, pull together, and decide to turn their newly-acquired skill into a fund-raising charity event. Maureen Nolan is a performer who brings warmth and believability to any role (incidentally, she’s my all-time favourite, best-ever Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers) and she excels as the terminally ill housewife. It is to Miss Nolan’s credit that she had the courage and strength to accept such a part, given the impact that cancer has had on her family over the years.

Stephen Leatherland’s direction strikes the perfect balance between the moments of comedy and tragedy and there is never any jarring of the two. Despite such serious issues underpinning the production, the overriding themes are of triumphant resilience, the power of friendship and living life to the full. The Naked Truth is an empowering piece of theatre with a joie de vivre that is heart-warming and truly inspiring.

Steve Burbridge.

Runs at Middlesbrough until Wednesday 30^th March 2011. For further tour details log on to www.theatre-productions.com