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Cutty Sark: Review of the restored tea clipper

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Cutty Sark

The day before the Queen reopened Cutty Sark, local journalist Ed Ewing attended the Cutty Sark press day. Here's what he made of the restored tea clipper...

I am writing these words while sitting directly underneath the Cutty Sark. That’s a sentence I never imagined writing. I am enjoying a coffee and vanilla shortbread courtesy of the Cutty Sark café, which is also directly below the Cutty Sark.

It’s finally here, being opened tomorrow by the Queen, and to the public thereafter. And what’s it like? My first thoughts are that sitting here feels a little like sitting in the British Museum – it’s the glass and steel roof above you.

The second is that Harry Potter has a lot to answer for. Having just taken a self-guided tour of the ship I can tell you that it is full of ‘interactivity’. ‘Ghosts’ of long dead seamen pull faces at you from mirrors in the cabins; photographs rotate in digital displays of old newspapers; a Scottish voice lulls you with history in the new mini theatre.

Elsewhere, less digital artefacts catch the eye. A ship in a bottle made by someone onboard, elegant reconstructions of the tea chests, line-drawn plans of the ship that show how sleek she really is.

On deck it’s all go to get ready for the Queen. Painters are still painting, and TV crews step gingerly past anything white in case they come off worse. A gang of riggers walk along the top of the glass roof sweeping, wiping and polishing. Richard Doughty, the driving force of this whole £50m project, beats circuits of the ship with journalist after journalist, explaining the facts and the “journey”.

I ask one of the riggers where he’s from. Essex, he says, one of many interested sailors and modern day merchant seamen drawn from across the UK who have got involved in a “once in a lifetime” project to help restore the ship. He’s been working on it since January, when they put the masts up, and he’s now slicing the ends off ropes, making sure there are no loose ends.

It’s up on deck that the Cutty Sark feels like a ship. Down below, beneath the ship, or walking between decks on one of the very ordinary, functional staircases, it feels like an exhibit. It always was of course, but somehow it feels more permanent now, more museum-like. A little of the romance has gone, evaporated as she has been encased in glass, a giant ship in a bottle.

But she is still here, the Cutty Sark, she has not been completely swamped beneath glass and steel and push-button ‘story telling’. The ribs of her are still there, the rust that only a few years ago threatened to destroy her has now been stopped in its tracks and painted thickly white, the masts and rigging rise up proudly, their newness smelling of creosote and hemp.

The Queen will be here tomorrow. Next to me someone says, “This is nice,” and relaxes over her coffee. We will have acres of coverage of it over the next couple of days, and a good thing too. When the Cutty Sark project began it was not certain that it would succeed; when the ship burned it was a genuine setback.

She will no doubt be a success. The space beneath the ship feels like it has ‘corporate event’ stamped through its new, 2012, DNA.

The rigging will last 25 years at least, my rigger friend says. “If not 50.”

She’s not the same as she was, and you can’t imagine a drunken artist climbing the rigging to the very top on New Year’s Day, as rumours from the old days have it. She’s not as rustic, or as basic. But then she’s not rusting away in a heap either. And that’s got to be a good thing. She’s survived, and from the look of this, will go on surviving for a long time to come.

Click here for information on booking a visit to Cutty Sark

Review: The Temperamentals, Greenwich Theatre

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Boy George (in hat) with the cast of The Temperamentals plus, right, Brian Paddick and Patrick Wilde and director Joseph C Walsh far left.

BOY GEORGE arrived with a flourish, hiding behind a pamphlet used like a fan to ward off SE10’s solo paparazzo as he swept quickly into Greenwich Theatre.

“Marvellous!” thought the theatre-goers gathered outside the Rose and Crown, as they finished their drinks and rippled in after him.

The show’s cast had invited their special guests – Boy George, Brian Paddick and Patrick Wilde – to Greenwich by Twitter. Amazingly, they’d all come, agreeing to sit on a panel discussion at the end.

David Ames, the 24-year-old actor who plays Rudi Geinrich, had been the main Tweeter. Afterwards, in the panel discussion, there was a moment:

“We haven’t met in person,” said Boy George, the old hand, waving from across the stage.

“I know! Hello!” waved back the young actor.

We had just sat through The Temperamentals (a codeword for ‘gay man’ in 1950s America), a play about the Mattachine Society, a gay rights group founded in the USA in 1948 by Harry Hay and a young Rudi Gernreich.

At the time Harry was 36 and Rudi, who later became a famous fashion designer, was 26. Rudi was Austrian, Jewish and gay and had fled Austria aged 16. Harry was American, Marxist, a teacher and married but gay.

The play opens with the two of them talking, discussing ideas and flirting with each other. Harry has a manifesto, he explains later, a gay rights pamphlet, and he wants to change the world with it.

“It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever read,” says Rudi, whose family had died at the hands of the Nazis.

This meeting of minds led to the foundation of the Mattachine Society. Originally just four men, the Mattachine Society ended up spreading throughout metropolitan America, with clandestine meetings attracting hundreds of people.

The story turns on the trial of Dale Jennings, arrested for allegedly soliciting a police officer (entrapment, as they used to do not so long ago and as the UK’s other famous George knows only too well). The trial led to publicity, which led to the growth of the society.

At this point someone in the audience whispered to her friend, “Do you know how this ends?”

“With everyone off it down at G.A.Y.,” he replied.

It was a point the audience picked up on later. Do today’s young gay people care enough – or indeed know enough – about the things their politically-motivated gay forefathers went through? Do they know they suffered? Does it matter?

Boy George said the Mattachine Society was all news to him. “I thought gay history started with Stonewall in 1969.” The Stonewall Riots, when drag queens rioted in the streets of New York, are often cited as the birth of the gay rights movement.

“Today,” he added, “it’s all Britney or Kylie.”

Does it matter? Yes, said Brian Paddick, it all matters, history is important. We live in a diversity bubble in London and it’s easily burst. Just this week, he said, his (gay) neighbour had ‘banned’ him from helping him shift furniture out to the countryside.

“My neighbour thought his parents might recognise me as a gay man and that would out him,” he explained. The neighbour has lived with a boyfriend for six years. “And this is in Sussex,” he said.

But of course, pointed out Patrick Wilde, the world has moved on a lot and this story wouldn’t happen like this today. The internet, Facebook and Twitter would see the message spread like wildfire.

This was theatre you had to concentrate on. Miss a line or two and you could be lost. You had to work at it – characters popped in and out played by the same actor and it could take a moment to catch on or up.

It felt like a difficult web to weave, which is perhaps the point. Numerous strands of history – WWII, Jewish history, Black history, gay rights, Hollywood, fashion, Communism and then to top it all the McCarthy Trials – plus the character’s own personal lives were all in the mix.

It left you feeling a little exhausted but also on the road to exhilaration. It didn’t happen on Thursday night, but apparently the show was electric on the Wednesday. And I could well see why. The history is fascinating, the struggle each individual faced – public shame and professional failure – humbling and the pair at the centre of it all clearly in love, both intellectually and physically, but strained because of it.

It was, in short, a demanding play with a lot of words – lightened by a sprinkling of good one-liners delivered with comic perfection by Matt Ian Kelly playing co-leader of the society Bob Hull. But demanding is good. You could imagine it being pared back and powerful in a tiny theatre, or you could see Kevin Spacey playing the lead in the movie.

Either way, it’s sure to carry on. Written in 2009 by Jon Marans it’s already won a handful of awards. It’s also attracted the attention of some big names. Sir Elton John helped back this particular production financially – a sure sign that the long forgotten tale of Harry Hay and Rudi Gerngreich, won’t be forgotten for very much longer.

Boy George in Temperamental visit to Greenwich

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Hold onto your hats, Boy George is coming to Greenwich Theatre. He’ll be attending the off-Broadway hit The Temperamentals on 2 June and will take part in an on-stage discussion after the show.

Also taking part will be former top London policeman Brian Paddick and playwright and screenwriter Patrick Wilde.

The play’s director, local Greenwich boy Joseph C Walsh, will have the job of keeping everything in order, or not.

Set in late 1940s America, The Temperamentals tells the story of two men – communist Harry Hay and Austrian refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich – who together set up the Mattachine Society, the world’s first gay rights organisation.

The story explores this “relatively unknown” chapter in history – a time when being gay was illegal and often dangerous.

It is the second time in a year that Joe has brought an award-winning show back to Greenwich Theatre. He wowed audiences last year with From Laramie With Love, a tale about the murdered US teen Matthew Shepard. We interviewed him back then here.

This time he hopes to do the same. The Temperamentals is coming fresh from Ireland where it scooped an award for its run at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival earlier this month.

In a press release Greenwich Theatre welcomed the play’s arrival, which is showing for two nights only:

“The play marks an important moment for Greenwich Theatre – for the first time we have brought together two of our young supported companies – Wild Oats Productions and City Lights Theatre Company – and pooled the resources of the three companies to create the show.

“We are proud to have carried the name of Greenwich Theatre to Ireland with such success, and delighted that such an eminent panel will join us on 2 June to discuss the play.”

Tickets are £12.50, concessions £7.50, through Greenwich Theatre
http://www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk/


Photo: Patrick Wilde, Brian Paddick and Boy George will be on stage on 2 June

Nicole Faraday: Greenwich’s Wicked Woman

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“Christmas isn’t Christmas without it, it’s sparkly, it’s fun, enjoyable for all the family – everybody needs a bit of glitter in their life!”

Nicole Faraday is sipping a hot toddy, nursing a rough throat and trying to think of a reason why we should all love panto.  She’s in the middle of a Snow White run at the Shaw Theatre on Euston Road, the other side of town for this SE10 based actress, and we are having a post-show drink at a bar in Euston station.

I have just sat through a fairly desperate two-and-a-half hours, lightened only by her and another actor, a pro comic called Andrew Fleming. Everyone has said it, including the reviewer from The Stage: she and he hold the whole thing together and provide the only entertainment in an otherwise pretty bad panto.

The lead, Snow White, is played by “ex-EastEnders star” Madeline Duggan. You could replace her with a mop in an Alice band and it would do a better job. She’s only 16 and is a TV actor not a stage darling, so she almost has an excuse, but then again, at £17 a ticket, the producers should be biting their fists in shame. The “ex-Gladiators star” Wayne Gordon is also lacking, but then he’s just on for some muscled-up eye candy, while Prince Charming, well, he’d be better off playing the wooden puppet in Pinocchio.

Nicole Faraday

Anyway, having left my critic head at the door – it’s for six-year-olds and it’s panto, after all – I had settled in to watch. I’ve known Nicole since we were neighbours in Greenwich, so my interest is not really professional. The first time I met her she was knocking on the glass door dressed as Barbarella, all silver hotpants and fur trim. “I can’t stop, I’m on my way to a party, but I just wanted to say Hi!” She came in and held court for 40 minutes – “Ooh! Wine! Go on then!” – and that was it, neighbourly friends.

“I like to think that although I play the evil character that I add a bit of sparkle and jeu-jeu to the audience’s Christmas,” Nicole is saying.

Show me what jeu-jeu is, I ask.

“I can’t show you for the newspaper, can I!” she laughs. (Despite telling she insists I’m writing this for a grand newspaper, I’m not I say, it’s for Greenwich’s local website). I get to sing fabulous big belty songs and I get to be evil with a wicked laugh – hahahahah.” That’s jeu-jeu.

Nicole is a proper actress. She is trained, can sing and has had proper TV roles: she enjoyed mini celebrity before it was ‘Celebrity’ as Snowball in the hit TV series Bad Girls. It was set in a women’s prison and the show had – still has – a cult following. It’s still shown around the world too, and she has made a mini career out of it, winning an award for her role in Bad Girls the musical in the West End.

At the time of her TV-fame she knocked back a photoshoot for one of the lads’ mags – or rather, her agent did. “She said it wasn’t what serious actresses did.” It might not have been quite the done thing, but it turned out to be a surefire route to mainstream attention and fame for many.

So instead of instant Celebrity and naked exposure, she has gone the long route – the ‘serious’ route. TV roles in stalwarts like Doctors, The Bill and Casualty, with theatre roles that take advantage of her powerful stage vocal. She toured for months playing US singer Eva Cassidy, before seeing another Celebrity, Steps singer Faye Tozer, take on the role a year later. She got it back again though, playing her at Greenwich Theatre and on tour in the UK.

And of course panto. Every year she gets to play a wicked queen or an evil witch.

“This is the third time I’ve played Wicked Queen in Snow White, but I’ve played Evil Queen in Sleeping Beauty too.” The Stage praised her performance this year, saying she was “bosomy and fun”. The British Theatre Guide called her “suitably vile” with a “wicked laugh”.

“She’s my favourite part because she’s such an archetypal baddie,” she says. “And she goes along with other bad characters I’ve played.”

She likes it, she says, because, “you can play it glamorous but her heart is black as night.” She’s attractive but “evil and cunning with it”. She adds, “Otherwise you’re just playing an old witch in make up.”

Nicole is too professional to diss her other cast members, but it’s clear she is head and shoulders above the others, as is her co-star Fleming. Doesn’t she get annoyed, seeing TV Celebrities steal the limelight – and the pay cheques – from trained pros?

She demurs, and instead talks about “market forces” and “bums on seats”. It is important though, she adds, to have a “mix” of those who are “experienced and fully trained and used to the genre” as well as “people recognisable from the television”.

We talk about something else. Dwarves. One of the weirdest parts of Snow White is how, in this production and others, the Dwarves are so often played by children in costume. Often with a recorded soundtrack of their voices. It’s freaky.

She laughs outrageously very briefly and then composes herself. “This is what I’d like to say,” she begins. “Every year, when there are lots of Snow White’s going on, there is a national dwarf shortage." Really? "And they get paid a fortune. Sometimes they have to fly dwarves in from other countries." Who knew?

"Consequently, a number of productions have to rely on children from local dance schools wearing massive heads, which is what we’ve got."

Or rather, they did. The day after our interview Nicole posts on her Facebook page (1,100 friends and rising) that two of the children playing dwarves were stopped from going on stage mid-show because the production didn't have the right licenses for the child actors. "Chaperones will be charged," is how she put it.

Nicole has lived in Greenwich since 1998. She spent 10 years in a flat in West Grove before the whole building was redeveloped into one house. "My entire flat is now the kitchen.”

"Then I moved to Nevada Street," she says, "opposite the Greenwich Theatre stage door and the Rose and Crown, which is one of my favourite pubs. We used to use my living room as the smoking area. Then I moved to Maze Hill, where I live now."

New Year will see her hanging up her Wicked Queen crown for another year and embarking on new theatre projects.

"I’m going to be working on a new idea called Band of Gold the Musical written with Kay Mellor," she says very enthusiastically. "We’re just workshopping it but I’m very excited about it."

Then there is a one-woman show: "Two 45-minute sets with a piano and guitar at the Pheasantry on the King's Road on January 22nd."

And there is her regular stint hosting Show Off, a cabaret night in London's West End where the audience – very often off-duty or post-show West End performers – take advantage of an open mic to belt out show tunes.

It's got quite a following: "We’ve had Nick Moran from Lock Stock, and Keira Knightley turned up last time." After joining in with the Oom-Pa-Pa sing-a-long at the end the Hollywood star said she’d enjoyed herself and “would be back".

Very jeu-jeu, I say.

"Yes," she laughs wickedly, "Very!"

Nicole Faraday  hosts Show Off on 7 January and plays the Pheasantry on 22 January

Saturday Night at Greenwich Comedy Festival

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“I like women comedians better – I think they have to work harder,” said my plus-one. And so it proved at the Greenwich Comedy Festival, at least on Saturday night.  Held in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College the event is in its second year, although “much, much bigger,” according to the organisers.

Last year only saw one tent and one bar. This year there was a Spiegel Tent, a 1,200-seat Big Top, a cabaret lounge and a handful of places to buy upscale burgers and chips or posh pies (everything £5, more or less). Beer was £3.80.

Notably, the event really did have a festival vibe. It felt friendly and fun, like a mini Edinburgh Festival. And it was busy – the tents were packed and the queues for the Spiegel Tent snaked through the trees. Time was festival-flexible too – Shappi Khorsandi, the British-Iranian comic started almost an hour late, but no one seemed to mind.

Inside, Shappi swore she’d only planned a 20-minute set, not the hour we’d paid for (£15 – festival prices). She was always like that, she said, one reason why her husband and she were getting a divorce; he was a neat freak. That set the tone, because despite the previous week’s rolling-news coverage of Koran-burning threats, she largely stayed away from many of the topics – Iran, Islam, the burqa etc – that made her name.

She could have gone there if she wanted to, you felt, but the one mention of the Koran-burners sent such an obvious chill through the audience that who knows how she would have got out of it. Anyway, she said, she’d been too absorbed getting a divorce, and having a child, to pay attention to politics for at least a year. All, that is, except one funny foray into the world of Andrew Neil, Kirsty from Location, Location, Location, and the infamous ‘BBC barge’ party on the Thames on election night in May. All libellous, I’m sure, so not for repetition here, but suffice to say Kirsty came off worst. It was good to see, and she had the audience in her palm for the full hour.


Inside the Big Top

Afterwards, we flooded out of the Spiegel Tent and into the Big Top to catch Jenny Éclair’s set. She is well known from TV, although I hadn’t seen her live. It makes such a difference – she works hard, has brilliant, original material, and brought the house down with her stories of life as a menopausal mother of adult-teenagers.

By chance, sitting next to me was the woman from Greenwich Council who’d come to check the festival’s health and safety. She was all praise for the organisers, and rightly so – they’d done a good job.

Next came Stewart Lee, whose set failed to match Jenny Éclair’s, or indeed Rufus Hound Daniel Kitson, the night’s compere. Never mind, half of us got him, the rest were too chilled to worry.

All up a great night, and by all reports a good festival (it was a week long). The only fear is word gets out and next year it’s bigger, more expensive and loses the magic. But Saturday evening, it managed it to a T.

From Laramie, With Love: Greenwich Director Joe Walsh

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‘Emotionally searing’ The Laramie Project talked to 200 townspeople following Matthew Shepard’s torture and murder in 1998.

Joseph C Walsh is the young Greenwich director behind the “searing” Laramie Project coming to Greenwich Theatre later this month. Based on the life and brutal 1998 murder of US student Matthew Shepard, the play’s subject matter – prejudice and homophobia – is still, as illustrated by Greenwich’s very own recent , a hot topic. Greenwich.co.uk spoke to Joe to find out more.

Joe, you're bringing the Laramie Project to Greenwich Theatre - your local theatre - later this month. What's the play about?

It examines a small town’s reaction to the murder of 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998. The original writers of the play travelled to Laramie six times in the 18-months after Shepard’s death and conducted over 200 interviews with people in the community.

Those interviews paint a fascinating, sometime funny, incredibly moving and insightful portrait of a town struggling with its own identity and international media scrutiny.

So every word in the play is ‘real’?

Yes. It’s completely based on interviews with the people of Laramie as well as journal entries and court documents. The play does an incredible job structuring this into a satisfying theatrical event.

You've produced it before haven't you? What's the history behind the show?

It was premiered in Denver, Colorado in February 2000 and then in New York in May 2000. Since then it’s become one of the most produced plays in the USA and has received productions worldwide including two major London productions. Our production is the first major London outing for the show since 2005.

And what’s your relationship with the show?

It started in 2000 when I saw the original Off-Broadway Production. To this day it is one of the most powerful, memorable and special experiences I have ever had in the theatre. It became a goal of mine way back then to direct the show and try to share it with as many people as possible.

Last year we presented it at The Space in Mudchute and revived it as part of the Dublin International Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. We’re thrilled to bring it to Greenwich Theatre – my home theatre.

It's been described as a 'must-see' and 'emotionally searing'. Why emotionally searing?

Because the audience is aware that every word said on stage came from a real person. The town of Laramie is shown warts and all, and we as an audience are asked to come to our own conclusions about the people and the incidents presented.

The subject matter itself is hugely emotive, and the play is so well structured that the audience becomes completely wrapped up in the story-telling.


Joe Walsh in action in West Side Story. Photo: Mat Roberts / Facebook

Tell us about yourself. You're from the States but live in Greenwich…

I’m originally from a city called Lynn just outside Boston. I grew up performing and in my teens began directing. Theatre has always been a part of my life. I grew up in a political family and although I didn’t follow directly in their footsteps I feel that my interest in projects like The Laramie Project comes from that background.

Is where you are from anything like Laramie? Are you from Smallsville USA?

Lynn is a fairly big city, so no. But I think what is amazing about The Laramie Project is that I do see some of where I grew up in it and the people I knew. I think the themes and concerns expressed by the townspeople are universal.

How did you end up in London and Greenwich?

I moved here eight years ago to do my Master’s Degree in Directing. I’ve lived in and around Greenwich the whole time.

And now you work fulltime as a director?

At the moment I split my time between freelance directing and education. I’m the musical theatre director in residence for Plumstead Manor, and previously was the head of musical theatre for Greenwich Theatre.

As a director, I’ve directed half-a-dozen UK premieres, a couple of Irish premieres, an acclaimed Irish tour of The King and I and a London revival of The Anniversary. In the West End I served as resident director on When Harry Met Sally and Coyote on a Fence.

What's Laramie like now?

The company returned to Laramie for the 10th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death to see how the town had changed. It seems that many people feel that Matthew’s death opened a dialogue that changed people’s opinions about sexuality. Others think nothing has changed and there are some who try to excuse the entire incident as a robbery gone wrong.

Matthew’s father said, “Matt’s beating, hospitalization and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate. Good is coming out of evil. People have said enough is enough.”

I suppose one of the messages from the play is that prejudice and bigotry happens anywhere, and can have dreadful consequences. What do you think then when you see something like the News Shopper letter row, in your own big-city back yard?

Well, it’s people like Mrs Fitzsimon’s that make me so proud of the work we are doing with this play. Mrs Fitzsimon is perfectly welcome to her beliefs and opinions, however, it does concern me that this letter may be read by some as a reason to commit violence against members of the gay community – marginalisation and judgement of a minority group plant the seeds of violence.

I would very much like to share The Laramie Project with Mrs Fitzsimon and hear her opinions on the Matthew Shepard case. I will try to get in touch with the News Shopper and offer her free tickets to the show.

Are you a campaigner at heart? Is that why you've brought this play to the stage?

Yes, I think I am. I was brought up in a political family and have always been drawn to theatre with a social conscience. I love the theatre. I love all genre of theatre, and I do think that at the heart of anything you can find a message to share.

Can theatre really change the way people think? Or is it usually a case of preaching to the converted?

I think great art can change the way people think. When I saw the original production of The Laramie Project there were older women sitting in front of me. At the interval one said she wasn’t enjoying it and wanted to leave. The other convinced her to stay. By the end the one who wanted to leave had to be helped out of the theatre by her friend because she was so moved. It had a profound impact.

Living in a place as seemingly open as London it is very easy to forget that people have fought hard and some have lost their lives in order to open up a dialogue about sexuality and all forms of equality.

I know your local is the Rose and Crown, next door to the Greenwich Theatre… what are your other local haunts / top tips?

Well, there is obviously our gorgeous park, lovely beer gardens and of course Greenwich Theatre and Picture House. I can also guarantee that the Organic Café has the best breakfast in London.

And what's next for you? And the Laramie Project?

As I said, we’re keen to bring The Laramie Project to a wider audience. We’d love to take it on tour and find a home for a longer run in London. We’re also developing a very exciting schools project for the show, and are hoping to present The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later at Greenwich Theatre in October. Personally I’ve just begun writing a new musical and am going to be touring Germany with a theatre company.

Thanks Joe. That’s enough from us. Plug your play in 25 words or less.

The Laramie Project is an important, entertaining and moving piece of theatre. It will open your mind and make you think about yourself and your community. It is a special piece of theatre that will resonate with everyone, and leave you contemplative and inspired. Oh, that’s 44!

The Laramie Project, Greenwich Theatre
Tuesday 21 September – Saturday 25 September 2010
Greenwich Theatre Box Office: www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk / 020 8858 7755

A Celebration for Stephen

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The life of Greenwich Theatre’s front-of-house photographer will be celebrated on 1 August.

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery

Barbara Windsor in Sing a Rude Song, 1970

Stephen Moreton-Prichard was the Greenwich Theatre’s front-of-house photographer for 15 years. During that time he photographed some true greats – some already well established, some, relative unknowns destined for stardom.

Now, his life is to be celebrated with a special one-off show at Greenwich Theatre. A Celebration for Stephen will bring together artists, professionals, colleagues and friends in a special performance for one night only on 1 August. Stephen died earlier this year after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s, and all the proceeds will go to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Stephen took up professional photography in 1960 after a career in the Army. He spent the next 38 years working in film for numerous clients. Buildings were a speciality, as were product shots for publications like Which?, in the days when magazines contracted professionals, instead of, as now, relying on PR digital handouts.

He worked from a studio on the top floor of a rambling four-story house on the borders of Blackheath and Lewisham, where he and his wife Celia moved to in the late 1960s.

But it was theatre, and in particular Greenwich Theatre, where Stephen’s creativity was allowed to flourish. His natural eye gave him the artistic flair, and his professionalism delivered the shot.

When Greenwich Theatre was reopened in 1969 publicity photos were needed and Stephen was asked to provide them. It was the start of a working relationship that lasted until 1984.

Over those 15 years he photographed many productions, and many rising stars. Barbara Windsor dressed as a pearly queen in 1970 stands out, a dramatic looking Mia Farrow in 1973, Glenda Jackson dressed as a maid in 1974, a young Nicholas Lyndhurst in 1974, Penelope Keith, Felicity Kendal, Kenneth Branagh, and a 21-year-old Rupert Everett – destined for Hollywood – were all captured by his lens.

The show on 1 August is being produced by Stephen’s wife Celia and a night of rare variety is to be expected – founder of the well-regarded Centenary Company, Celia is well known in local theatre circles as a minor impresario.

She has drawn together friends, professionals, colleagues and locals who have something to give by way of tribute. Expect choral music, foot-stomping music hall numbers, calypso, Gilbert and Sullivan, Welsh folk, Purcell, Mahler, William Byrd, Satie, Mozart and spoken tributes. An exhibition of Stephen’s photographs will also be on display.

Tickets are £15, with all proceeds going to the charity – the theatre has donated itself free for the evening, and many of the professional performers have waived their fee.

Many locals who knew Stephen will be there, while others are flying in from as far afield as Australia for the performance.

“Expect much laughter,” Celia told Greenwich.co.uk, “and just one or two tears.”

Show: A Celebration for Stephen
Date and time: Sunday 1 August 2010, 7.30 pm
Box Office: www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Rupert Everett in Another Country, 1981

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Kenneth Branagh in Francis, 1983

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Nicholas Lyndhurst in Harding’s Luck, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendal in Norman Conquests, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Glenda Jackson and Susannah York in The Maids, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Joy Parker, Gwen Watford and Mia Farrow in Three Sisters, 1973

Theatre Review: Laughter in the Rain, Churchill Theatre Bromley

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Neil Sedaka at the piano with actor Wayne Smith and cast on the opening night of Laughter in the Rain, a new musical about Sedaka’s life. Photo: Churchill Theatre

Monday night in Bromley and a sea of grey heads in the stalls greeted us. They were here to see a new musical about the life and times of Neil Sedaka, who started his rock-n-roll career in the 1950s and is still going today.

Much to my shame I thought he was dead, provoking peals of laughter from the theatrical crowd I was with in the interval bar. “No! He’s alive!” chastised one, a West End actress and Greenwich glitterati.

And still going strong by all accounts: he turned up in Bromley for the opening night of Laughter in the Rain last week and was so taken with it he changed his flights so he could see it again. ‘Forty of my songs, three hours, audience on its feet, all about me…’ You can understand why he called Heathrow.

Sedaka started life sharing a two-room flat in New York with his family and three aunts. As a child his mother encouraged him to play the piano with a career as a concert pianist in mind. But rock-n-roll happened and the teenage Sedaka rebelled and started writing songs with geeky neighbour Howard Greenfield. Together they formed a musical partnership that sold 40 million records between 1959 and 1963.

Stardom faded abruptly in the face of the ‘British Invasion’ by the Beatles in the 1960s, which left him skint. But a 1970s comeback helped by Elton John put him back on top. Now he’s a legend, with a new album out this year.

It’s an interesting tale spanning six decades – rags to riches to rags and back to riches – and it’s told simply and well. It could do with delving deeper into the darker years to give it a bit more emotional narrative, but it skips along at a pace from hit to hit.

And that’s what the audience is there for: the songs. A full house would guarantee dancing in the aisles. A three-quarter house on a cold Monday night and we only danced at the end. A weekend crowd would be a lot of fun.

Wayne Smith plays the lead. His voice is beautiful. He sings flawlessly in almost every song – some feat. But two scenes nearly steal the show. Kieran Brown as Tony Christie singing Amarillo could easily bring the house down if cheesed up. And Kieran Brown (again) as Elton John could, if camped up, run away with the night. Both scenes are kept in a lowish key, probably for that reason.

The set is effective. A cinemascope style screen shows film footage and photographs from the time to lend authenticity and occasional poignancy. The clarity of staging lets the music shine through.

All up it’s a lot of fun, and a rollicking good show. A bit of tweaking on its way round the theatres of England as it tours this summer (Elton John needs new glasses, for starters) and the West End must surely beckon.

Until Saturday 13 March, Churchill Theatre, Bromley