New Victoria Theatre, Woking – until Saturday 6th April 2019
Review by Heather Chalkley
3***
A true homage to 80’s music and youth culture, Producer Mark Goucher brings you a classic love story of breaking up and making up. Maggie Thatcher’s Britain created business opportunities for the young and holidays abroad suddenly became available to an up and coming generation of ‘yuppies’. This comes through in the music. Woven into the score is a range of favourites including Oops Upside Your Head, Making Your Mind Up and Relax!
The costume and set took me right back to that era, along with the big hair and bright colours! Joe McElderry (Garry) sewed the piece together and got the audience up and dancing. The strong voices of Cellen Chugg Jones (Olly) and Karina Hind (Lorraine) really stood out, with lovely harmonies. The star of the show for me was Kate Robbins (Consuela), with a great voice and on point comedic timing. Her repertoire of impressions was hilarious – not many people can have a fair go at both Cilla Black and Tina Turner! The ensemble did a great job creating the 80’s atmosphere, bringing the positive, pioneering energy to their dance, that was coursing through the veins of most young people at that time.
Particularly those who remember the 80’s, this is a fun, feel good, night of entertainment and a chance to capture a glimpse of your youth. Or if you just love 80’s music the party atmosphere runs from the beginning right through to the end and everyone is encouraged to join in.
The Lowry, Salford Quays – until Saturday 6th April 2019
Reviewed by Julie Noller
5*****
The Girl on the Train has pulled to a stop in Salford Quays as part of it’s UK wide tour and it’s definitely a catch it if you can play for you will not be disappointed.
I had previously read Paula Hawkins bestseller back in 2015 after it had been recommended as part of another phenomenon that is Richard and Judy’s Book Club. It was a book of second guesses, suspense, isolation and rebirth in an era of mental health awareness. Directed by Anthony Banks and adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, it is edge of the seat theatre with superb polished acting. It more than does justice to a wonderful novel. The sets are simple but effective, from the fast changes of drab alcoholic Rachel’s flat to the nice houses of suburbia. All mixed in with high speed train journeys, we’ve all been on a train; gazing out of the window into the yonder, daydreaming. Whizzing past houses and lives we know nothing about but somehow day in day out they merge in with own existence. I took my teenage daughter and she loved it gasping at times, she didn’t know what to expect. I purposefully hadn’t explained the story line, we spent the interval discussing the plot and what may have actually happened. It’s fair to say there are lots of different curve balls and conclusions to keep you guessing until the stories end.
The story is a brilliantly dark one, it is a warts and all tale of a young woman’s sadness, how her life has spiralled out of control. It’s her fight against self loathing, hatred of those things and finally like a phoenix she rises from the ashes. Infatuated with a young couple she watches from her daily commute to nowhere, she longs to be in their perfect life; they just so happen to live next door to her ex-husband, but not everything is as rosy as that fantasy life.
Samantha Womack is simply divine as Rachel Watson, she seamlessly without us noticing transitions from sad pathetic alcoholic, meekly moving as D.I. Gaskill states from being a Waitrose alcoholic to a paper bag one, touching on his own demons; Rachel is slurring, being sick in an old pizza box, her self care is non existent hence the same clothes daily, living only for that train journey and her next drink, suffering blackouts and a patchy memory. It’s apparent that she is a highly intelligent woman but lonely, without friends. Who could blame her for living life in a fantasy world with the perfect Jess and Jason. Jess is actually Megan seen on stage in flashbacks with Kirsty Oswald in the part. The thing you notice about Megan is possibly more to do with Rachel’s state of mind. Her dress is a light bright orange summer one, and it slowly changes almost unnoticed at first to eventually change to black, perhaps because she loses her life or perhaps as a nod to her own state of mind and depression; can any of us actually understand how the person next to us is thinking or feeling?
Oliver Farnworth is poor confused Scott Hipwell, Megan’s husband, he is immediately under suspicion has us guessing what he has done to his missing wife. John Dougall is D.I. Gaskill, a police officer with the human touch, a man who appears to raise suspicion on everyone, somewhat pities Rachel and yet holds her woman’s intuition in high opinion, somehow everyone is happy to talk to the drunk as if she isn’t a threat. Adam Jackson-Smith is Tom Watson a man who at first is understanding of his ex wife and her need in him, the late night phone calls, he checks on her almost too many times. Then when she begins to pull away from him and begins to establish friendships in unusual places with different men from Scott to Kamal Abdic (Naeem Hayat) the psychiatrist who has his own demons.
It starts to clear for the audience there are control issues at play. The big difference from the book is how the humour shines throughout in a very British manner. It eases the tension allows us to catch our breath and relax before changing track again and like a train journey you don’t actually know which platform you end up standing on. All the actors bring their characters sense of need brilliantly to life, you would think even the most self assured would trundle along easily; however it brings us to the conclusion that it is quite often the opposite. A little bit of self belief is all it takes to help yourself as in Rachel’s case she finds a purpose in life, she chases away her demons and finally in those moments of clarity during her blackouts. She finds a way through her very own black hole. Rachel is a little bit of us all, amateur detective, getting it wrong on her journey to self discovery.
PUBLIC BOOKING OPENS 8 APRIL 2019 FOR WEST END PRODUCTION OF
D E A R E V A N H A N S E N
ADDITIONAL TICKETS RELEASED
Public booking for the West End production of Dear Evan Hansen opens next week on Monday 8 April 2019 at 10am BST. The Production will release additional tickets following a sell-out priority booking period.
Dear Evan Hansen will begin previews at the Noël Coward Theatre on Tuesday 29 October 2019 with opening night on Tuesday 19 November 2019 at 7pm. Casting will be announced at a later date.
The winner of six Tony awards including Best Musical, as well as the 2018 Grammy award for Best Musical Theatre Album, Dear Evan Hansenis directed byfour-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif and features a book by Tony award-winner Steven Levenson and a score by the Tony, Grammy and Academy Award-winning composers of The Greatest Showman, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul.
A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed he could have. Evan Hansen is about to get the one thing he’s always wanted: a chance to finally fit in. Both deeply personal and profoundly contemporary, Dear Evan Hansen is a new musical about life and the way we live it.
Reuniting the original Broadway creative team for this West End production, Dear Evan Hansen is produced by Stacey Mindich and features scenic design by David Korins, projection design by Peter Nigrini, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Japhy Weideman, sound design by Nevin Steinberg, and hair design by David Brian Brown. Music supervision, orchestrations and additional arrangements are by Alex Lacamoire. Ben Cohn is the Associate Music Supervisor. Vocal arrangements and additional arrangements are by Justin Paul. Danny Mefford is the choreographer. Casting by Jill Green Casting. Sash Bischoff, Adam Quinn andDanny Sharron are the Associate Directors. Judith Schoenfeld is the Production Supervisor. US General Management 101 Productions, Ltd. Adam Speers is Executive Producer.
Dear Evan Hansenhas won the Drama League Award for Outstanding Musical Production and for the off-Broadway production, two Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards and two Helen Hayes Awards. The Grammy Award-winning Original Broadway Cast Recording ofDear Evan Hansen produced by Atlantic Records, was released in February 2017, making an extraordinary debut on the Billboard 200 and entering the chart at #8 – the highest charting debut position for an original cast album since 1961. The album went on to win the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album and recently became only the third cast recording this decade to go gold. A new deluxe version of the cast recording, including six bonus tracks and a pop cover from Katy Perry of Waving Through a Window is now available digitally.
Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre to great critical acclaim on 4 December 2016 where it has broken all box office records and recently celebrated its two-year anniversary. A record-breaking US national tour launched in October 2018 and is currently touring North America and new production opened in March 2019 at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre.
LISTINGS
Theatre Noël Coward Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4AU
Directed by Josie Daxter; Composer: Steffan Ress; Set Design: AbbyandAlice
Lighting Design: Matt Whale; Sound Design: Chris Murray; Costume Design: Chloe Doherty
Design Consultants: Elise Edge and Harriet Darling
A secret London location
10 May – 30 June 2019
Following the sell-out success of The Great Christmas Feast, The Lost Estate today announces its latest experience, The Lost Love Speakeasy. Written by award-winning playwright Juliet Gilkes Romero and set within an illicit world built by designers Abby and Alice, it is a Jazz Age tale that sweeps audiences from the African American fishing villages of South Carolina to the glittering lights of Broadway. Woven into the story are classic songs from the era arranged by SteffanRees, and decadent plates from Temper Restaurants’ Executive Chef Neil Rankin each inspired by this epic journey.
The Lost Love Speakeasy stars Samson Ajewole (Shorty) and April Koyejo-Audiger (Stella). It features music from The Lost Love Rhythm Kings, led by Jamie Cullum’s MD, RorySimmons, flamboyant prohibition cocktails and dancing till late. Opening at a secret London location on 14 May, with previews from 10 May, and running until 30 June.
It is summer 1929, just months before the end of the Jazz Age.
The Lost Love Speakeasy is Manhattan’s hottest joint, famous for its jazz and glamour, kitchen and cocktails and, above all, its legendary discretion. Stella, the Lost Love’s patroness, together with her house band, The Lost Love Rhythm Kings entertain Hollywood A-listers, sports stars, mobsters and struggling artists alike, creating the city’s most infamous and desired nights out.
Things have gone from strength to strength for Stella. But tonight a ghost from her past appears, conjuring memories of a lost love in the heartlands of the Deep South. As New York is replaced by South Carolina, it turns out Stella was not always the glamorous star she is today…
Enter Manhattan’s infamous secret speakeasy, dress to the nines for one glittering, illicit night and become the beautiful and damned of 1920s New York. Indulge in food from the streets of Manhattan, sip illicit prohibition cocktails and lose yourself in a heart-breaking tale from the height of the Jazz Age.
William Kunhardt, Artistic Director of The Lost Estate, said today, “From Gershwin to Berlin to Armstrong, we’ve always wanted to tell a story with the music of the Roaring ‘20s. When we discovered Neil’s open-fire cooking and fell in love with Juliet’s writing, we knew we had everything we needed to create that experience. We hope – as with all our work – that guests will enjoy both a brilliant night out, live art of the highest quality and a deeply moving story.”
Juliet Gilkes Romero is a playwright and journalist. She has reported for the BBC from countries including Ethiopia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Her theatre credits include Upper Cut, Razing Cane – which was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award, At the Gates of Gaza – which won the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Best Play Award in 2009, Bilad Al-Sudan and the forthcoming The Whip (RSC). Her television credits includeSoon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle. She is also under commission with the Stephen Joseph Theatre and Eclipse Theatre.
Samson Ajewole plays Shorty. His theatre credits include The Comedy About a Bank Robbery (Criterion Theatre), Damn Yankees (The Landor Theatre), The Life (English Theatre, Frankfurt) and La Cage Aux Folles (UK tour).
April Koyejo-Audiger plays Stella. Her credits include Porgy and Bess (English National Opera) and A Yoruba Opera (Opera in the City Festival). As a soloist she has performed at venues including London Coliseum, Sadler’s Wells, Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre, Westminster Cathedral, and the Dutch National Opera.
Josie Daxter directs. As Revival Director her credits include The Magic Flute (Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam/English National Opera/Aix-en-Provence Festival) and A Dog’s Heart (Dutch National Opera/English National Opera/La Scala, Milan/Opéra de Lyon); and as Assistant Director, The Rake’s Progress (Dutch National Opera/Aix-en-Provence Festival). Her Movement Direction credits include Why is the Sky Blue? (Southwark Playhouse) and James and the Giant Peach (West Yorkshire Playhouse).
Neil Rankin is London’s leading open fire cook. He is Executive Chef of Temper Restaurants Group, a series of barbecue joints filled with smoking open fire pits, mouth-watering tacos and steak, heady mezcal and fine wines. Rankin honed his skills in many of London’s leading Michelin starred kitchens. He then rose to the top of the open fire scene as Head Chef at both Pitt Cue Co. and The Smokehouse in Islington. He has an Observer Food Award, a place on BBC’s Great British Menu and is author of Low and Slow: How to Cook Meat.
Presented as a work-in-progress, The Wolf Inside Me is a work commissioned by the Blue Elephant following consultation with the theatre’s Youth Board members, aged 8 to 16.
As usual, the young people come up with more mature, socially important and community-minded ideas than the older generation would credit them with, resulting in this study of teenage loss and grief. Director Sepy Baghaei, dramaturg Grace Chapman and actors/devisers Elizabeth Schenk and Sean Stevenson spent a week on the concept, and the showings became largely improvised following a set structure. Of course, this means that there is an inherent freewheeling style at times, and some awkward pauses and overlaps, but these fit the mental and social states of the two characters.
Between scenes where Hannah (Elizabeth Schenk) and Connor (Sean Stevenson) meet at the observatory, they are isolated in their own grief, Connor’s grief voiced by his electric guitar, and Hannah’s by her constant failed attempts to voice her ideas about Pluto’s existence. The repeated, often uncomfortable accompaniment of the guitar is an effective ad affecting way of demonstrating Connor’s mental state, as in his day to day existence he seems to have put up a barrier of not seeming to care about the world. The contrast between his own music and the melody he plays that his mother wrote is a lovely light detail adding to the complicated pieces of his feelings. Although it is obvious very quickly that Hannah is dealing with a recent and raw loss, Connor’s loss is revealed more subtly and gradually. Hannah is frantically searching for answers and reasons in her coursework and trivial things, echoing her desperate need for answers to the big question – why did her dad have to die? Both actors capture the confusion and anger of the characters beautifully without overdramatising or trivialising the issues.
A fantastic analogy often used is that children jump in and out of puddles of grief, while adults are swept along in a deep river of grief. Teenagers, trying their hardest to be independent and mature often find it hard to talk about their feelings and well-meaning people expressing sympathy is the last thing they need. Hannah and Connor’s characters demonstrate this in a well-judged and empathetic way that is ripe for further development. The play currently runs at about 45minutes, ending after the pair open up honestly about some of their feelings. It would be interesting to follow the characters meeting up over time to watch their relationship grow. Ideally this would involve them beginning to chat about becoming comfortable and able to speak to other people close to them about their grief and begin to share more with them, leading to a gradual reduction of the pair’s need for each other and a fading, but never disappearance of the pain of the electric guitar.
A promising and exciting beginning for an important and relevant project.
Darlington Hippodrome is to team up with ODDMANOUT Theatre Company to create a dynamic new community theatre company called The Foundry.
Darlington Hippodrome is to strengthen links with local theatre production company ODDMANOUT to create a dynamic new community theatre company to be called The Foundry.
During the 18 month restoration of the Hippodrome the theatre and ODDMANOUT worked closely together on two major projects alongside performers from the local community creating a full-scale production of the Charles Dickens classic ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and an immersive theatre experience titled ‘Anywhere’ which took place around the new Hippodrome building taking audiences on a 50 minute tour of the new venue and introducing characters that shaped the history of the theatre.
Following a successful bid to Arts Council England and support from Creative Darlington, The Foundry will build upon the desire shown by local performers who were involved in the two previous projects. The Foundry will open it’s doors in 2019 to regional performers to embark on a 36 week programme of professional training and workshops across a range of dynamic contemporary theatre practice developed by ODDMANOUT through it’s work across the globe over the last five years.
Scott Young from ODDMANOUT Theatre Company said “We are thrilled to be working with Darlington Hippodrome to offer a bespoke new training opportunity to local talent at The Foundry. It has always been our ambition to make the company’s work as open and accessible as possible, The Foundry is the next phase of our work in achieving this. We want to be part of emerging artists’ journey as they forge their careers and grow as theatre makers, and to be able to do this in our home town of Darlington is an exciting time in our organisations growth.”
The Foundry will meet on Tuesday evenings at the Hippodrome for three 12 week terms. To find out more about The Foundry and how to get involved please visit the Hippodrome website www.darlingtonhippodrome.co.uk
London’s hottest new sing-along musical theatre piano bar OVERTURES has now opened its doors, just fifty yards from Marble Arch. Whether you sip cocktails, savour wine or love a beer, whether you are a discerning show-tunes aficionado or just want a drink, everyone is invited to enjoy the uplifting, magical feeling of musicals in this fun-filled and unique bar.
Located in the basement of LGBTQ pub, the City of Quebec, OVERTURES is London’s answer to the renowned Marie’s Crisis Café in New York. The evenings are unplugged and spontaneous – it’s just the crowd, the piano, the pianist and the showtunes. There’s no set list, no stage, no microphone and no shooshing. Everyone’s welcome to sing their heart out – or just stand and enjoy the musical mavens. It’s riotous and rambunctious and welcomes all ages, all sexual orientations, all backgrounds and all singing levels.
Songs on offer range from popular classics – such as Les Misérables, Wicked, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music and Grease – to the cult showtunes from Stephen Sondheim’s musicals and everything in between.
Similarly to its New York relation, walking into OVERTURES is like stepping back in time where people come together and gather nightly round the keys. Spot a musical theatre celebrity relaxing after their show. Grab a traditional New York style cocktail and take a pew. But, most importantly, sing! Be one voice in a big crowd singing in unison.
Founder Ray Rackham comments, We never anticipated the hunger of the general public of London, in needing a place to sing out loud until the wee small hours. London welcomed this very New York institution with open arms, and I am delighted the pub and its clientele have entrusted my team to establish a singalong presence permanently in the heart of London.
OVERTURES will feature regular guest appearances from the famed pianists and singing bar tenders from Marie’s Crisis Café and will also showcase homegrown talent in one, big, showtune singing family.
With their inaugural production currently touring the UK, Wise Children today announce their adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers, co-produced by York Theatre Royal in association with Bristol Old Vic. Adapted and directed by Emma Rice, the production opens on 25 July at The Passenger Shed in the company’s home city of Bristol, before embarking on a tour to venues across the UK including Cambridge, York, Exeter, Manchester and Oxford.
The windows shone. A green creeper climbed almost to the roof. It looked like an old-time castle.My school! thought Darrell, and a little warm feeling came into her heart. How lucky I am to be going to Malory Towers!
Nostalgic, naughty and perfect for now, Malory Towers is the original ‘Girl Power’ story. Join Wise Children for high jinks, high drama and high spirits, all set to sensational live music and breathtaking animation.
Darrell Rivers is starting school with an eager mind and fierce heart. Unfortunately she also has a quick temper! Can she learn to tolerate the infuriating Gwendoline Lacey, or value the kind hearted Sally Hope? Can she save the school play and rescue terrified Mary Lou from the grip of a raging storm? If she can do these things anywhere, she will do them at Malory Towers!
Adapted and directed by Emma Rice, this is a show for girls, boys, and all us grown up children who still dream of midnight feasts and Cornish clifftops.
The show is officially licensed by Enid Blyton Entertainment, a division of Hachette Children’s Group (HCG). Karen Lawler, Head of Licensed Content at HCG, says “Enid Blyton created incredible female characters at Malory Towers: strong, capable and always, always kind. ‘Women the world can lean on,’ in Enid’s own words. We share Emma’s passion for these characters and we couldn’t be more excited to see Emma’s vision of Malory Towers come to life.”
Emma Rice is the proud and excited Artistic Director of her new company, Wise Children. She adapted and directed the company’s debut production, Angela Carter’s Wise Children (The Old Vic/UK tour). As Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe (2016/18), she directed Romantics Anonymous, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl(and Other Happier Tales). For the previous 20 years, she worked for Kneehigh as an actor, director and Artistic Director. Her productions for Kneehigh include: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Tristan & Yseult, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with National Theatre), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre); Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions); Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic); Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler’s Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages); and Steptoe and Son. Other work includes: the West End production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Oedipussy(Spymonkey); The Empress (RSC); and An Audience with Meow Meow (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). Brief Encounter was revived this year at the Empire Cinema Haymarket.
Emma Rice on Malory Towers…
I’ve always been drawn to the years that followed the Second World War. It’s a time that feels close enough to touch, as I vividly remember my grandparents and how the war affected their lives. My Mum’s parents – poor and largely uneducated – decided that their children would have access to all the things that they hadn’t. I don’t know how they managed it on a railway worker’s pay, but my mother was sent to a remote grammar school in Dorset: Lord Digby’s School for Girls.
Whilst not a boarding school, Lord Digby’s was an extraordinary place of learning that changed my mother’s, and by extension my own, life. The tendrils of passion and education that Lord Digby’s stood for reach out across 60 years and more. They reached out over my inner city comprehensive education and have shaped my own beliefs and choices to this day.
My adaptation of Malory Towers is dedicated to the generation of women who taught in schools in that period. With lives shaped by the savagery of two wars, these teachers devoted themselves to the education and nurture of other women. It is also for the two generations of men that died in those same wars, leaving us with the freedom to lead meaningful, safe and empowered lives. And it is for Clement Attlee and his Labour government of 1945 who looked into the face of evil and chose to do what was right. These people changed the political landscape in their focus on care, compassion and the common good.
Malory Towers was written at the heart of this political revolution, and embodies a kindness, hope and love of life that knocks my socks off. ‘Long live our appetites and may our shadows never grow less!’ the girls cry.
My mother wrote to her teachers at Lord Digby’s until they died and is still friends with many of the girls she met there. And when I see my Mum, born into the poorest of rural backgrounds, enjoying Dickens and Almodovar and speaking French to her childhood pen-friend, I am stopped in my tracks. She went on to dedicate her life to the NHS and the helping of others whilst never losing her appetite for life, culture and hope. I salute her, and I cheer the education that threw this mind and soul into the air and said, “be a woman that the world can lean on”.
So that’s why I am making Malory Towers, with gratitude, hope and sheer pleasure! I call it my ‘Happy Lord of the Flies’ and it is joyfully radical to its bones. Imagine a world where (left to their own devices), people choose kindness. Imagine a world where difference is respected and arguments resolved with thought and care. Imagine a world that chooses community, friendship and fun. Now that’s a world I want to live in and, at Malory Towers, you can!
Wise Children Tour Listings
The Passenger Shed – Station Approach, Bristol BS1 6QH
Finborough Theatre, London – until 20th April 2019
Reviewed by Antonia Hebbert
4****
No, this is not an evening of Rod Stewart. Stay with me, all the same, because this is a spellbinding show. The name comes from an old sea-song about a Liverpool prostitute who cheats a sailor. (Liverpool and cheating women are always popping up in old sea-songs.) In this retelling by Lionel Bart and Alun Owen (directed by Michael Iliffe), Maggie is a prostitute with a heart of gold, and has fallen in love again with her childhood sweetheart. He’s been round the world and come back with principles, so when he gets a job in the docks, he soon leads a walkout over a dodgy shipment of guns.
It’s a celebration of Liverpool, the docks and tough dockyard people, written just as the city was about to storm the world with the Mersey sound (and go into bitter industrial decline). It premiered at the Adelphi in 1964, with Barry Humphries among others in the original cast. The tiny Finborough Theatre might seem an odd space for a musical revival about a big city, workers’ rights, and the conflicts of love, beliefs and the need for wages. But the intensity of song and dance in the small space works a treat.
Lionel Bart’s songs are a real hotchpotch, and for me had an honesty that’s missing from typical musical belt-out numbers (naming no names, Andrew Lloyd Webber). Ballads, folk, rock and roll and sea shanties rub shoulders with stomping group numbers, all beautifully sung whether in tender solos or group harmonies, with musical director Henry Brennan at the piano. The dancing is a delight, ranging from a very intense tango-ish encounter of prostitutes and dockyard workers through lovely jive to a surprising comic number towards the end, involving a three-way swap of hats, shoes and coats (choreography by Sam Spencer Lane). Verity Johnson’s set is exceedingly basic, involving boxes, steps and some ropes, but it works – you feel that you are there in that pub or dockyard.
Kara Lily Hayworth is an adorable Maggie, both steely-tough and vulnerable. Natalie Williams is nicely brassy as her co-worker Maureen. James Darch is suitably noble as Maggie’s sweetheart Patrick Casey, and Mark Pearce is a commandingly villainous Willie Morgan, the local fixer and wheeler-dealer. All the ensemble were convincing characters: a couple of other standouts were David Keller as Dooley, the old-school docker who is well past his best; and Michael Nelson as the fiery Judder Johnson (and terrific dancer – how do knees do that?)
Written at the age of 25, Idomeneo is considered Mozart’s first operatic masterpiece.
There have been countless incarnations of this opera and the English Touring Operas production, directed by James Conway is a paired down version which allows Mozart’s score and the performances to take ‘centre stage’. Some cuts to the production were more obvious such as combining the role of the Kings adviser Arbace and the High Priest. This isn’t detrimental to the performance.
The orchestra conducted by Jonathan Kenny, were fantastic and received justified rapturous applause at the end.
The use of a simple but effective set means we are always focused on the performers who in turn have to be constantly involved even when they are not singing. The chorus of Trojans and Greek manage this through out and as a result are able to convey the emotions of the story very well.
The story itself is set on Crete after the Trojan war and we are introduced to the captured Llia, daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, performed beautifully by Galina Averina who manages to demonstrate elegant prowess but also despair, passion and strength wonderfully well. Despite her despair because of her loss she falls for Idamante the son of the King of Crete (Idomeneo).
Idamante is played by Catherine Carby. Again a wonderful vocal performance, at times I didn’t feel convinced by the relationship between Idamante and Llia. This did improve by the final act though.
This blossoming relationship enraged Elettra played by Paula Sides, daughter of the Greek King Agamemnon, she herself is also in love with Idamante. Hers is one of the stand out performances in the opera with her display of maddening rage in the final scene was just brilliant.
The other stand out performance was by Christopher Turner who plays Idomeneo himself who has made a sacrificial promise to the gods for safe passage during a storm. A promise to sacrifice the first person he sees turns out to be his own son Idamante.
The conflict and emotional turmoil Idomeneo experiences is conveyed fabulously. He sends his son away to safety with Elettra and this new opportunity with Idamante pleases her. This is not to be as the gods are angry because of Idomeneo broken promise.
The climax of the final act sees all the main protagonists perform at their best. We see the resigned despair of Idomeneo, the heroic sacrifice of Idamante, the loving altruism of Llia and the madanning rage of Elettra.
This was a memorable first opera for myself but not perfect. The slightly unconvincing bond between Llia and Idamante, the slightly inconsistent translation screen (only one was working so I felt for some of the audience who had no translation), and we were slightly distracted by the two orchestra members who insisted on coming in and out throughout the performance.
The English Touring Opera are touring extensively till June 1st.
