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Review: Robin Hood, Greenwich Theatre

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Once again the Greenwich Theatre panto fires a confetti cannon of fun into the audience. ‘Robin Hood’ is this year’s offering and, if you’ve seen the recent run of Christmas successes before, the tried and trusted formula will work its magic again; if it’s your first time (and there were plenty of those in Saturday night’s audience) then you too might be bowled over by this confident and self-assured show.

The Master of the Revels is the overworked Andrew Pollard as writer, actor and director. He is genuinely The Lord of Misrule as we are made to laugh at things that under any other circumstances would be very unfunny indeed – it’s best not to enquire how or why the jokes work, they just do.

Andrew Pollard has gathered together a team that absolutely holds the confidence of the audience – the ensemble is the artistic equivalent of a safe pair of hands. This means we can sit back in our seats and simply let the waves of jokes, dance and improvised humour wash over us. It’s not a lavish show, but everything is well tailored to create a good hearted colourful spectacle and this year’s production does have added visual sparkle.

Chris Wither’s energetic lighting design adds much in its use of X-factor style moving lights as they zip from Sherwood Forest to Nottingham Castle while illuminating and dazzling the audience.

Andrew Pollard’s Nurse Germoline, gives any pantomime dame in the country a run for his – or her – money. Smutty, outrageously attired and adorable, the ‘Naughty Nursey’ thrives when chatting up the audience and finding a suitable victim. In our case Dave, a scout leader from East Grinstead, was the object of the Dame’s attention – well, what do you expect when you literally bring your own braying pack along with you?

Anthony Spargo returns to Greenwich as a wonderfully evil Sheriff of Nottingham with a vulture side-kick. The addition of ventriloquism this year was a master stroke – I didn’t even see his beak move. He looked and sounded like a seedy, long-legged Richard Branson.

Garry Ellis plays a lively Alan McDale the Camp Balladeer (get it?) who oddly ends up falling in love with the evil, but gorgeous, Consuela – don’t bother to work it out, just go with the flow. All the cast buy into this wonderful nonsense and so too do the audience. Adults and children were on their feet well before the traditional sing-song at the end and the audience richly endorsed the stupidity on the stage.

Gone are last year’s banker jokes, Pollard knows when he’s flogged a dead pantomime horse, so this year Olympic equestrian jokes are given a good trot around the stage. The writing is always well researched and locally topical, although I’m pretty certain there is no factual basis for the Dancing Druids of Deptford – it would be nice if there was.

Musically the show is as wide ranging as ever, shifting from Rule Britannia to Gangnam style within in the blink of a crotchet. Musical Director, Steve Marwick, otherwise known to us all as Uncle Steve, controls his cast with a baton of iron, producing rock solid numbers for both soloists and dancers.

The addition of elements of real stage magic, including levitation, kept the audience on its toes and the cast never left us a moment to question the glorious silliness of the plot. ‘Robin Hood’ is simply rollicking good fun and it hits the pantomime bullseye. Forget 5 stars, let’s just put one huge star on on top of Greenwich Theatre’s panto tree!

Robin Hood runs at Greenwich Theatre until January 6th.

Review: April in Paris, Greenwich Theatre

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The fine revival of April in Paris, currently playing at Greenwich Theatre, isn’t going to set the world alight, but it will bring the warmest of glows to what is, at the moment, a gloomy old world.  The outlook is as bleak now as it was in 1992 when the play was written.  The play is set against talk of redundancies, job insecurity, pit closures and lack of money, themes that seem horribly familiar.  The outlook is grey, the set’s grey, the costumes are grey – even the tomato sauce bottle fails to provide any splash of colour.  Add into the mix a couple who have grown out of love and the play seems an unlikely source of comic entertainment.  The only pleasure for the husband and wife trapped in a black and white world comes from the dry, acerbic banter that Bet and Al have honed in the relentless drudgery of their lives.  At the start of the play their sharp overlapping dialogue provides the bleakest of humour, neither really listening to each other, and both seeking either the security of the garden shed, or the shoe shop, to hide from each other as their 25 year old marriage disintegrates.  A hint of relief comes in the shape of a competition entry, an escape route that Bet dreams of; it is a dream that comes true.

John Godber, the director and writer of the play, creates startlingly simple transformations of scenes as the audience effortlessly journeys with Bet and Al towards France after they win the prize of a romantic weekend in Paris.  The play literally brightens; colours are introduced into the costume and set as none- too-subtle symbols of Al and Bet’s transforming relationship.  The snappy dialogue jokes, that seemed pointed and vicious, become tokens of affection, and the warm glow that I spoke of earlier begins to fire up both the actors and the audience.   The second half begins with a dazzling scene change as a new set is revealed, comically echoing the cartoon-like style of the film An American in Paris; perhaps Godber toyed with A Northerner in Paris as an alternative title.

Wendi Peters, familiar from Coronation Street, returns to Hull Truck after many years to play the role of Bet.  She has a marvellously grumpy expression throughout most of the first act; there is something of Les Dawson about her curled lip and introverted body language.  In Paris she transforms herself, blossoming before the audience’s eyes, taking advantage of snatched moments offstage to effect a myriad of small but significant off-stage changes so that, eventually, she flowers in more than one respect.

Rob Angell’s changes as Al are rather more subtle. There are fewer evident visual alterations but at the end of the play we see a man who stands taller and who has gained self respect – even if his new found dignity is comically challenged by muggers in the Paris metro.  Godber has a romantic sensibility, a belief in the power of humans to transform, and Al’s development as a painter exemplifies this aspect of his work; perhaps it is the latent teacher in Godber that never likes to give up on a lost cause.

The pair of actors are pleasingly at home in the play and appear entirely comfortable with the style of the piece, dipping in and out of scenes to share their thoughts with the audience; they act as a perfect foil to one other.  Their use of mime can conjure steak tartare out of nothing, and their evident physical skill makes the disco on the P&O ferry one of the funniest scenes in the play.

Godber’s theatrical style will come as no surprise to anybody who is familiar with plays such as Up and Under, and Bouncers (Hull Truck’s last play to tour to Greenwich), but it is always a pleasure because it is unfailingly witty and gently humorous.  It is a shame that the audience for the show at Greenwich was so small, it deserves better.  Godber’s plays are never less than polished entertainment and frequently hold a very large mirror up to the audience so we can reflect on out on lives – in the politest and wittiest way.

April in Paris continues its run at Greenwich Theatre until Saturday 19th March.

Review: Drings Sausage Workshop

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Sausages.  Drings.  Drings Sausages.  The words roll off the tongue like National and Maritime.  I’ve heard the sausages lauded on Radio London by Drings regular Danny Baker, eaten them at scout barbecues and sampled the World Cup special variety created in the green, gold and black colours of the South African Flag.  The latter were superbly tasty, and I’m hoping they can be rolled out again for the Brazilian World Cup (only they’d have to miss out the black bits).  The creative team at Drings might be stretched for the Olympics and, perhaps, that’s why they are spreading their wings with a series of sausage making workshops.  Maybe they are looking for new ideas from their eager amateur sausage trainees for celebratory special editions, bangers to mark the opening of the Cutty Sark, chipolatas to slip into a toad in the hole for the completion of the foot tunnel renovation…I might be getting carried away.

With a little trepidation about the gory side of things, I joined the eager group of wannabe butchers who turned up for a Monday evening sausage workshop after a dull, February-grey working day.  The kitchens Drings were using were those of the Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency on the Greenwich Centre Business Park.  The facilities were first-class; the gleaming surfaces made us feel like real chefs.   The ‘sausagees’ were provided with aprons, although we had been warned to wear old clothes in case we got the odd bloodstain.  I’ve never been hugely keen at looking at large lumps of dead meat, but I became curiously sanguine when faced with a whole side of pig (organically reared Blythburgh pork).

Butcher and Drings owner Michael Jones’s enthusiasm was infectious; he started with a potted history and geography of the sausage covering, amongst other places, Iraq, South Africa and Northern Europe.  He took us through facts about sausages that appeared to have hitherto eluded most of the group and made us feel we were on the road to becoming sausage archivists.  It sounds odd but it was compelling stuff – but still the side of pork beckoned.  Health and safety and knife handling were all that stood between us, chasing down the ribs, de-boning the pork and having a bottle of beer.  The knives were razor sharp and Michael gave much excellent information about how to handle one; use a steel and get a knife ground.  Then we were let loose – suddenly the room went quiet as the group got down to work. With knives that were sharp and fingers that were hopelessly amateur there wasn’t much room for error.  Mercifully all went well and the group breathed again.

Michael’s partner in butchery for the evening was Andrew; they have worked together at Drings for two years creating their own sausages on site.  He produced a dozen bags of mince he ‘had prepared earlier’ for us to make our first unseasoned Italian sausages.  Handling the mixture was like kneading bread; a very therapeutic activity.  Instead of silence there was thumping, scraping and satisfied punching of the sticky mixture – who would have thought that releasing the protein could be so satisfying?  The machine for piping the sausage did look like a spaceship from Flash Gordon, all aluminum and hinges.  Although Andrew allowed the sausages to effortlessly gush in one long stream from the machine it wasn’t to be quite so easy when the amateurs took control.  Loading the machine and turning the crank had all the joy of playing the game Mousetrap – except with edible results.  The whole process was great fun, but looking two yards of sausage in the face was just the start of the trouble, and we were soon to learn the technical term for ‘trouble’; linking.

Linking was the highlight of the evening, it was like knitting with spaghetti, or, as my neighbour described it, balloon modelling with meat, and he nearly did make a poodle.  I can’t repeat the twisting and looping action that we learned, but Michael and Andrew nursed the group through it with care and enormous attention.  The sense of achievement that each member of the group felt was tremendous, comparing the size of each others sausages was, of course, a favorite occupation and ribald comment was the rage.  Now Michael and Andrew really cut us free with another 2kg bag of mince and a table laden with crumb, herbs, Meantime Chocolate Beer and so on. Our job was to concoct a sausage of our own to take home.  I quickly lost track of what I’d put in, but I know that chocolate beer, mace and apple played some part.  22 chains of sausages look very impressive, and that is what the group had made by the end of the evening.  The links had become more regular as time passed by and it all looked pretty professional, not bad for three hours work.

The evening concluded with Drings sausages in buns and Meantime Porter for refreshment, an almost perfect combination.  There wasn’t a dissatisfied customer in the kitchen.  If you want to know what goes into a sausage there’s no finer place to start – although Michael was curiously quiet on the subject of black pudding.  One of my fellow ‘sausagees’ was anxious to tell us how much better it was than the Red Letter Day experience he had been on.  That might be because Michael and Andrew weren’t just good teachers; they were great.  They were clear, interesting and fun – I suggest Drings put that in a sausage and sell it behind the counter.

I came home with my DIY haul feeling like the hunter-gatherer returning from a particularly good day on the Thames Estuary flood plain.  Now I’ve just to get them out of the freezer and test them on the family.

Michael will be running more sausage workshops, but his next venture is an evening of beef, provisionally booked for March 7th.  He’ll look at the whole animal, including cheaper cuts, so you might make your money back when you visit his shop. The price is £85, which might seem a lot, but I came home with plenty of meat, had food, a good time and was genuinely impressed by the art of sausage making.  You can follow Drings on Twitter as well as contacting them at Info@drings.co.uk.

Review: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Greenwich Theatre

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The playwright Brecht’s artistic vision was to address issues of huge significance and confront the audience with them – in short, to make the audience think.  Blackeyed Theatre’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, currently running at Greenwich theatre, does fulfil this aim successfully and in doing so marries the play’s historical setting with current affairs.  Director, Tom Neill, begins by confronting the audience with an energetic debate as villagers aggressively invade the auditorium to argue about land ownership shouting over the audience’s heads; from then on we know we’re going to have to sit up and pay attention.  In this moment the ensemble convey successfully the tensions of all land disputes from the neighbour’s fence to the problems in the Middle East.  This level of topicality is sustained throughout the evening and the story resonates with the big issues of the day on many levels.  Images of today’s politicians, protests and riots are projected onto the walls of the set. I found this quite effective, but at times lost track the thread of the visual argument.

The set is simple, yet everything is significant, and there is no starker image than the noose that hangs over the stage.  During the play the noose also becomes a mountain and a river across which one of the characters makes a perilous journey.  Part of the excitement of the evening was to see how the props that littered the stage were going to be used, and then reused to create a new scene or image.  Every element is imaginatively used in a production that is endlessly inventive.   The use of a violin as the baby at the centre of the story had a real poignancy, and the fragility of the instrument that, like a baby can scream pretty loudly, was delightful.  I did wonder if, as the baby grew, the violin would transform into a viola and cello, and I was rather sad when it didn’t.

The ensemble consists of five very talented actors, but on occasion it is stretched to convey the numbers of characters that Brecht creates.  This leads to an awkward ending where the child at the centre of the story is literally pulled between his birth mother and foster mother.  No matter how inventive the direction there is no getting away from the fact that a good deal of the impact of the moment is lost is having one character play both roles – however true to Brechtian intent the action might be.  In other respects Anna Glynn’s performance, the actress who played both parts, was the highlight of the evening.  She moved between the grotesque masked character of Natella and the more sympathetic Grusha with real ease.  I was moved by the contortion of her body that created, at times, genuine shock and despair.

It’s important to say that the evening was also fun – the ballad singing of Paul Taylor held the story together with an easy charm and the musical accompaniment was both witty and had punch.  Many of the characters, no matter how grasping or revolting, had a comic sensibility and laughter was not in short supply.

As the story developed I felt the pace of the action dipped slightly in the middle of the second half, but I was impressed by the ability of the actors to drive the story forward and it wasn’t long before the two intertwining stories grasped my attention again.

‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ is a play of enormous scope and creates a huge vision of the interplay between individual and the state.  Blackeyed Theatre’s production is one of the most successful productions of the play that I have seen.  It remains true to those elements of theatre practice that Brecht was particularly known for, and as such it was also a real education for the audience and the many students watching.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle runs at Greenwich Theatre until Saturday 12th February.

Review: Private Peaceful, Greenwich Theatre

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Michael Morpurgo wrote Private Peaceful with a mission in mind, that was to help grant posthumous pardons to soldiers shot in the First World War for cowardice; this was, happily, realised in 2006.   In Simon Reade’s adaptation the character Private Peaceful too has a mission; to ‘set the record straight’ with regard to his conviction for cowardice. In a play lasting 80 minutes, he does just that – the performance lasts only slightly longer than the court martial that has convicted him.

The stage is set without any trappings, just a young man curled up on an old iron bedstead in a barn, awaiting execution by a firing squad.  The young man is Private ‘Tommo’ Peaceful, and the play keeps returning to this location as his pocket watch “slowly slides away the seconds” towards the final moments of his life.  We experience flashes of his life as Tommo’s story gradually unfolds during the course of the play.  There is an inevitability about the structure of the narrative but the trick that is so successfully pulled off is to make the audience care intensely about Tommo’s journey.

Mark Quartley, an outstanding young actor at the start of his career, takes on the role of Private Peaceful, and he creates a touching and affecting portrait.  During the course of the play he is called upon to create a battalionful of other characters that populate the stage in Tommo’s journey from Devon to the Western front.  The performance is energetic, with clear and precise transformations from one character to another, as Quartley effortlessly becomes a young wide eyed-child, a colonel, a schoolteacher and even a cantankerous old woman urging Tommo to join up for the army well before he’s reached the proper age.  He has an impressive physical presence and a vocal precision that creates and maintains the audience’s attention.  Sound and lighting carefully enhance the simplicity of the play; they are both judiciously used to indicate mood and location.  As the play reaches its conclusions key moments are dramatically staged, slow motion is used highly effectively to illustrate the pain of the battlefield and the worthlessness of human life on the Western Front.

The narrative is full of carefully woven images that trace Tommo as he grows from a young child in an Edwardian country idyll to the final moments of his life. The mud that young Tommo feels between his toes as a child when he walks excitedly through a stream becomes the gooey mud that “wants to drown you” in the trenches.  The thrill of seeing his first aeroplane cutting its way through the Devon sky becomes the smoke-trail of a Royal Flying Corp biplane plunging to the ground over Belgium.  The images that are evoked at the start of the play turn to dust as the horrors of war overcome Tommo and his brother Charlie.

Simon Reade’s adaptation makes no concessions to children regarding the reality of the battlefield and it has real bite; for the adult it has the simplicity and punch of a well-told parable.  However, there is also a lightness of touch that allows the audience to laugh at the world through Tommo’s eyes, even in extremis.

Michael Morpurgo’s books about the First World War and its effect on the individual have reached an entire generation of children and their influence grows. As the lavish stage adaptation of War Horse continues to run in the West End and the publicity machine cranks up for Spielberg’s adaptation of it for the big screen, Private Peaceful quietly begins its national tour at Greenwich Theatre.  It is worth noting how effective a one man show can be; it is startlingly simple, and surprisingly effective.

Private Peaceful is on at Greenwich Theatre until Sat 29th January.

Theatre Review: Cinderella, Greenwich Theatre

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Trudging through the snow and ice with the kids makes a pantomime feel particularly special. Perhaps it’s the anticipation of the warm atmosphere inside the theatre, or it might just be memories of being taken to Greenwich Theatre as a kid back in the ‘70s.  Cinderella, this year’s Christmas panto doesn’t disappoint, it packs a punch in every department and leaves the audience overflowing with goodwill.  It might lack the celebrity touch, but while Hasslehoff swashbuckles in Wimbledon and Melinda Messenger is the genii of Bromley, it is the strength of the ensemble that may make Greenwich’s offering the pick of the bunch.

Every performer works their brightly coloured socks off to give the audience a great time and the script, expertly written by Andrew Pollard, gives the whole cast a chance to shine.  Pollard returns to Greenwich for the fifth time as a dame, this time as an ugly sister, so what better place to start when talking about this show?  From the wispy tops of their ridiculous wigs to the handsomely constructed knickers under their fantastical dresses the ugly sisters, in the form of a thin Pollard and a wide Paul Critoph, relish every comic moment.  Their sheer size gives them, literally, a comic head start as they totter around the stage on huge platform shoes.  The audience loved the double entendres and their easy command of the stage – we know we’re in safe hands and the laughs are long and loud.   Their set pieces, in the bedroom and the bathroom, are accomplished pieces of silliness and both performers know exactly how to use an improvised aside for maximum effect

Adam Dougal as Buttons builds a cheeky relationship with the audience, whilst Tania Mathurin, playing the Fairy Godmother, doesn’t have to rely on pyrotechnics to carry her through the show; she has a cracking voice and a presence to match.   In fact all the cast are able to carry a song and Steve Marwick’s musical direction shrewdly caters for all age groups with medleys effortlessly merging The Andrews Sisters with the Eurythmics and Tinie Tempah.  The show ends with the inevitable sing-along and such was the rapport that the cast had with the audience that I couldn’t see anybody who wasn’t joining in; it would have taken a real grouchnot to have gone along with the crowd.

Cinderella and Prince Charlemagne carry the main storyline. In panto these moments often flag as the audience anticipates the arrival of another comic scene, but in this production Hannah Wilding and Luke Kempner keep the momentum of the romantic plot going with good comic timing and help from Tommy Coleman’s strong Dandini.

The genre of pantomime requires the director to tread a fine line between polished amateurism and over-produced glitz, and this show not only treads the line but dances along it with glee.  The director Kieron Smith keeps a tight reign on the performers, making sure the pace is fast and snappy, always leaving the audience wanting slightly more.  The choreography is never too ambitious, but always witty and attractive.  Mention should be made of the talented, hardworking and young group of singers and dancers that form the dance ensemble.   Constantly energetic, this small group manages to punch well above its weight, creating the sense that there are many more performers than there actually are.  This becomes a great strength as they confidently join in with the fun that the leads are having on stage.

The design of the show makes the most of the warmth that can be created in Greenwich Theatre, a proscenium arch, richly painted in gold and apricot colours, brings the actors as close to the audience as possible and makes the most of the stage’s thrust, allowing transformations to be effected through the revolving sets.  The show achieves a huge amount with limited resources, so much can be achieved with a couple of mirror balls and a whiff of smoke; there’s something really attractive about a show that relies on the strength of the performers rather than the ‘wow’ of theatrical wizardry.

To be frank I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the show as much as I did, and I think that applied to most of the audience.   Several hundred audience members got more than their money’s worth and, if you haven’t booked your seat, do so now.  The show has already extended its run by 10 days to accommodate record ticket sales.

Greenwich Theatre booking information

Book Review: Crump by P.J. Vanston

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Wandering through the grounds of the Old Naval College it is easy to see that the university has brought many good things, including refurbishment of buildings and a pretty good stationery shop and, indeed, the freedom to wander through the grounds.  P.J. Vanston’s book Crump, set in a ‘fictional’ university firmly located in the heart of Greenwich, looks behind the facade into the workings of a new university; to say that he doesn’t like what he sees is putting it mildly.  The contrast between the dreaming domes of Wren’s buildings and the standard of education within is at the heart of this acerbic comic novel.  I confess I haven’t spent much time thinking about what happens inside the Naval College since its transformation to a university, and this book has set my mind wondering.

The onomatopoeically named Crump, a lecturer in English, arrives in Greenwich with hope in his heart, a spring in his step and filled with a desire to educate.  He is quickly cast adrift in the stormy world of burkas, multiculturalism and gender-neutral linguistics and soon his spirit is crumpled by the weight of education-speak and political correctness.   Whatever else the book is it is thought provoking, holding many sacred cows of political correctness up for ridicule in what should be compulsory reading for the Daily Mail book club – if such a thing exists.  There are uncomfortable passages when Vanstone challenges the reader’s own political correctness; there is no doubt that the book can be quite outspoken in confronting issues of race, gender and sexuality.

Crump is very readable, events come thick and fast, assaulting and mugging both Crump and the reader.  This means that the author leaves us little time to digest events before we’re into the next outrageous catalogue of catastrophes.  A moment for us to catch breath would have been helpful, perhaps allowing descriptions of characters to be more fully viewed through Vanstone’s comic eye.    There is much common sense in the pages of this book, but there is little to distinguish between the author’s voice and Crump’s voice, making passages of the book a barely concealed manifesto against university education as we know it today.  The book is not wholly negative though, praising as it does aspiration and academic learning, but is does yearn for the days before admission fees and courses of dubious progeny.  This certainly strikes a chord, and many readers working in university education will identify more strongly with the political thrust and main character than I did.

The references to Greenwich are very specific, with glowing descriptions of the park and the Cutty Sark.  The pubs get short shrift and Vanstone’s characters don’t explore Greenwich much beyond the town centre – Crump might have been more chilled had he found The Union, or if he had been able to look out of his office window towards The Old Brewery.  The inner workings of the university were illuminated a little when I went on the tour of the library, or ‘learning zone’, on Open House weekend and Vanstone has certainly captured the impersonal utilitarian atmosphere that I detected.  The use of Greenwich as a backdrop for the book is effective and lingers in the imagination; although not nearly in the same class as Conrad and Ackroyd, you should think of adding Crump to the your literary Greenwich reading list.

Review: The Laramie Project, Greenwich Theatre

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‘The Laramie Project’ is the result of an imaginative collaboration between Wild Oats Productions and the Greenwich Theatre; it is a moving and challenging piece of drama. The play is a piece of ‘verbatim theatre’ that draws its script from eyewitness accounts of an actual event. This style of theatre can be effective and affecting, and so it proves on this occasion. The actors forensically dissect the circumstances around the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, and in the process unpick the small town community of Laramie, Wyoming (population 26687), revealing frightening attitudes towards its gay community. The depth of the tragic subject matter might frighten a potential audience off, but the production has an engaging lightness of touch and a keen sense of the human comedy from which hope eventually emerges.

The eight members of the ensemble play an extraordinary range of characters, changing role from moment to moment, adopting elements of costume that become key to identifying their characters. Islamic feminists, pastors, bar tenders and doctors emerge from the narrative to give their take on the events before they fade into the background of the story. Director Joseph C. Walsh succeeds in organising the staging effectively, leaving the audience in no doubt as to where their focus should lie. He also uses theatrical trickery to great effect, pulling us into the story and making the connection between the actor and the audience more intense.

The play successfully relies on the talents of the actors’ characterisations to maintain the pace of the narrative. Throughout there is a tremendous sense of energy on stage and the actors’ commitment to telling Matthew Shepard’s story is apparent, so much so that it almost becomes a mission. It would be difficult not to be deeply moved by the speech that Francis Adams makes, in the role of Shepard’s father, when addressing a court on the question of the death penalty. For a play that is largely based on words there are many highly charged visual images, not least the simple opening image where chairs create the fence where the crime took place, with simple coat pegs loaded with costumes echoing the three crosses of the crucifixion. My only significant reservation about this production is in relation to the decision to have two intervals instead of one, which seemed to unnecessarily disrupt the flow of the piece as we were approaching the finely tuned conclusion.

As the evening developed, another piece of verbatim theatre, by the Tricycle Theatre about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, sprang to mind. We have our own hate crimes closer to home and ‘The Laramie Project’ is an important piece of work because, for all its focus on small town America, there are universal truths in this play that give it a direct relevance to our local community.

The Laramie Project, Tue 21 – Sat 25 September 2010
Contact Greenwich Theatre for tickets.

Theatre Review: Twelfth Night, Greenwich Park

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After six years, and twelve productions, Rainbow Theatre’s summer visits to Greenwich have become a welcome regular fixture.  Always genial, witty and committed to presenting Shakespeare’s plays as uncomplicated narratives, their latest offering, Twelfth Night, in the Observatory Gardens, is no exception.

It is a feature of director Nicolas Young’s productions that he engages with the audience at the earliest possible opportunity.  On this occasion Ross Muir and Peter Goode, as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, made a beeline for the children I was with and gave a very good comedy double act explaining their roles in the story.  After that the ten year old could hardly look at the double-act on stage without giggling, and he wasn’t helped by their bawdy gesturing either.

The style of Twelfth Night was entertainingly exaggerated; with Andre James Storey’s Orsino taking the laurels for his extraordinarily energetic lovelorn duke.  His performance was big enough, and grand enough, to fill the whole of Greenwich Park with unrequited love – appropriately he was almost Olympian in the scale of his supposed adoration of Olivia.   Although this resulted in an unequal match when his real love for a wryly-witty Viola was revealed, it somehow didn’t matter.  The practical logistics of how the marriage might develop were neither here nor there; it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

The sub-plot rivalled the main action for audience interest, but Matt Salisbury’s Sebastian and twin sibling Emily Bennett’s Viola managed to hold their own against a comic tidal wave emanating from Countess Olivia’s kinsmen.  Malvolio stands and falls by the foolery that surrounds him, and Mark Lascelles produced a convincing comic reaction to the nonsense around him.  In particular his cross gartering scene was tremendously funny – and worrying, as he adopted a series of shockingly awful poses echoing the covers of men’s magazines.   Nicolas Young produced a fine comic scene in the garden that rivalled both the recent productions in the West End for comic value.

There is something consistently good-hearted about Rainbow Theatre’s productions; they are pitched to exactly the right level for the venue and the audience.  As the audience were doused with regular showers during the play I wondered how Barry Stevenson’s Feste would deal with his closing song, ‘the rain it raineth very day’.   The answer was that, spontaneously and pleasingly, the audience joined in to accompany him.

Theatre Review: The Tempest, Greenwich Park

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If you’ll forgive the pun, ‘The Tempest’ takes the Observatory Gardens, in Greenwich Park, by storm. The Oxford Shakespeare Company use the space more creatively than other groups that have visited the gardens in the past and they tell the story with admirable clarity. The text is cut down to an hour and a half, which may seem over hasty, and certainly there is little room for fully rounded characters to emerge, but the shortened version allows for a constantly energetic and captivating telling of the story – and all before the park gates are locked.

In director Mick Gordon’s production the audience is set in a circle, ringed by flaming torches. The idea that that we form the boundary of the island is a strong one, and is emphasised when Miranda appears in a huge wedding dress with a flowing train that circles the stage, forming a pink beach.

The ensemble is small for a play with such a vast range of parts, but the doubling is handled with considerable ingenuity and wit. Caliban doubles with Ferdinand, which makes for a very interesting dynamic, allowing the animal side of Ferdinand to emerge and creating a more human portrayal of Caliban.


Michael Hadley and Sophie Franklin in The Tempest

At the heart of the production is a fine performance by Michael Hadley as Prospero. The proximity of the seating allows the audience to get exceptionally close to the action, and that helps us see the tension that flows through Prospero when, for instance, he confronts his errant brother at the end of the play. The clarity of Hadley’s verse speaking sets a high standard for the rest of the cast and, for the most part, they match him in all aspects.

Miranda, played by Sophie Franklin, is of particular note; she conveys an excellent urchin-like quality, full of mischief and wonder. The moment when the scales fall from her eyes and she discovers that the world is populated by men is very effective.

The costumes, created by Adrian Lillie, are colourful and creative evoking a sense of faded Edwardian grandeur. The actors jump in and out of them throughout the play fully within the audience’s sight – often with seconds to spare before they emerge on stage, a formidable technical challenge. Nicholas Lloyd Webber (yes he is a relation) has composed an exciting score. His percussive musical accompaniment to the tempest itself, hammered out on a vast copper cone dominating the stage, is as arresting a sound as it is a visual image.

There are elements of the play that seem unnecessarily complicated, including accents that I think were meant to clarify the doubling, but didn’t. There are also some arguable decisions regarding moments of clowning, it might just be me but I felt the gag of having Sebastian in snorkel and flippers outlived its comic potential pretty quickly and introduced an awkwardly contemporary feel to the costumes.

If you are looking for a highly nuanced production that fully explores ‘The Tempest’ I would head for the Bridge Project at the Old Vic. If, however, you are prepared for a high velocity telling of the story in a fantastic setting, possibly with a child or two in tow, then Greenwich Park is the place to be.

The play runs in the Observatory Garden, Greenwich Royal Park, Monday 21st– Friday 25th June, Tuesday 29th June – Friday 2nd July, 7pm, and Sat 3rd at 6pm. Booking through the Pleasance Theatre box office www.pleasance.co.uk 020 7609 1800.