Review – The Woman in Black *****

The Orchard Theatre in Dartford has shown perfect timing by booking The Woman in Black for Halloween week.

It’s genuinely spine tingling and properly frightening. But it’s also much more besides. It’s an object lesson in theatrical story telling making brilliant use of the theatre itself to become a key element in the play. At the same time it asks the audience to invest in the piece. Vital elements are there but have to be discovered and put together by us. Our imagination is explicitly called on to fill in the blanks left by a deceptively almost non-existent set. You would be forgiven for not realising this perfect piece of theatre was originally a book. Stephen Mallatrat was asked to adapt Susan Hill’s story to fit a very tight budget and this constraint inspired him to create a truly exceptional theatrical experience.

The pace is gentle to start with. And humorous. Arthur Kipps (Robert Goodale) begins to recount his ghostly tale in an empty theatre, rehearsing for when he is to perform it in front of friends and family. He is not, as is painfully apparent, a performer, so has employed the services of an actor (Daniel Easton) to coach him. Bumbling around and making many false starts, things suddenly drop into place when the actor decides to assume the role of the younger Kipps and has Kipps play all the other characters he meets on his journey to Eel Marsh House, where he is going to wind up the estate of the recently deceased owner, Alice Drablow.

We have train rides, a pony and trap, a graveyard, the fog enshrouded marshes, an eager and loyal dog. All created with a mixture of sound, lighting, a few props and, sometimes, with nothing more than our imagination.

Daniel Easton as the actor is warm and confident. We too feel confident in his presence, making it even more unnerving when he becomes frightened of what he is witnessing. As Arthur Kipps, Robert Goodale shows us a man whose confidence has been destroyed – a grim warning of what may become of our young, confident actor. But he also gets to play every other character Arthur meets, changing with a stoop here, a hat there, a walking stick or whatever. This helps establish that things are not necessarily what they seem and adds to the increasing and palpable tension in the theatre as the evening progresses. Yes, there are moments to make you jump, but there is much more as well. There’s a sense of foreboding and a feeling you’re seeing something genuinely spooky.

This is a remarkable piece of theatre. If you’re someone who’s not sure of straight plays and only thinks of seeing a big, sparkly musical, please do see this and find out just what brilliant theatre can do.

The Woman in Black is on tour and at The Orchard Theatre, Dartford until 2 November 2019.

 

Review – Gasping at The Space ****

Ben Elton’s first play is a deconstruction of capitalism and consumerism centred on the idea of a yuppie-style company hot shot that air can be turned into an aspirational consumer good. We have designer water so why not designer air?

Like all good satire the leaping-off point for this increasingly outrageous story is close enough to be within touching distance of reality. In fact, it already happens to some extent. When I was in Las Vegas some casinos would leave their doors open, wafting cool, refreshing, air-conditioned air into the street to lure you in from the 117-degrees-in-the-shade Nevada heat.

The story develops as Sir Michael Chiffley Lockheart, head of the Lionheart company, asks his over-eager underling Philip to come up with a ‘Pot Noodle’. That is, to create a market where none existed before. Generating money where there was none. The idea becomes Suck and Blow, a device to generate purified air in your home or business. The downside is in doing so it sucks oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere to the point that it’s runaway success results in a shortage of normal, breathable air – unless you can afford to pay for it.

This is early ‘little bit of politics’ Ben Elton and he lands his punches at corporate greed, management speak and class distinctions with delightful and subtlety-free abandon. It appears there’s no point he thinks can’t be improved by a good joke and the script is packed with great laughs throughout.

The bright-eyed but naive yuppy leading the Suck and Blow project is Philip, played by William de Coverly. At first I was concerned he was playing the part as Rik Mayall in full Alan B’stard mode. At times it seems the lines must have been written with him in mind, although in fact the part was originally played by Hugh Laurie. Mayall’s force-of-nature performance style is, though, unique and un-matchable. Reminding us of him can’t invite favourable comparison and de Coverly is at his best when he leaves that behind and let’s his own take on the ridiculous and sexually naive Philip come through. He has loads of energy, which always works well in the intimate setting offered by The Space. And he gets some great laughs purely from his body language and facial expressions.

Michael Jayes plays head honcho Lockheart, who steers Philip to exploit the commercial opportunities of his idea for selling fresh air.. Lockheart is quick to see commercial opportunity at every turn. Whenever Philip’s project encounters a problem he instantly spots a way to exploit it to his advantage. Jayes does this with an easy charm combined with an underlying ruthlessness. You can totally see why he got to the top.

Philip’s junior sidekick, Sandy, is the real brains of the operation and in the part Gabriel Thomson wisely plays him completely straight, providing a great contrast to the over-the-top Philip. You may know Thomson from his eleven years playing Michael Harper in the BBC sitcom My Family. He certainly has comedy skills, shown at their best here in a brilliant scene where he finds himself juggling, I think, five different mobile phones, at one stage even passing one to an audience member to hold.

Skevy Stylia is Kirsten, the steely advertising genius who helps Lockheart and co bring Suck and Blow to the market. She has all the right lines and anyone who’s ever dealt with an advertising agency will recognise the type. The cast is rounded out by Emily Beach in various supporting roles, enjoying herself particularly as a weather forecaster.

Co-directors Gavin Dent and Neil Sheppeck have used the confines of The Space well, with minimal props bringing the scenes to life and keeping the pace up. They conclude the play with a post script in the form of a video of Greta Thunberg telling us the world has got to change. I know production company Rising Tides has an environmental agenda and there are obviously environmental aspects to a play about the air we breath. But I think this is perhaps stretching Ben Elton’s targets into areas not originally the focus of the play. Unusually, also, after this the cast did not reappear to take their bows. I guess the reasoning was to leave us thinking about Ms Thunberg’s message rather than massaging the actors’ egos, but it would have been nice to be able to show appreciation for their work.

Gasping is at The Space in rep until 16 November 2019.

Review – Ghost Stories ***

Ghost Stories is back in the West End for Halloween. It’s been a huge success since it first appeared in 2010. Paying homage to a format seen in some classic British films it contains three separate stories, introduced by Professor Goodman (Simon Lipkin).

The professor tells us people like to see patterns to make sense of the unexplained. The episodic format gives a sense of structure to which we cling in the face of the genuinely uneasy atmosphere the show creates. Your brain is messed with from the moment you enter the building. Weird and creepy sounds are played through the PA system even in the bar. Inside the auditorium the house lights are not working, being replaced by strings of work lamps whose caged bulbs flicker erratically. Apparently random numbers are scrawled on the walls.

The first story, concerning a night watchman at an almost empty warehouse, sets the style. The setting is obviously spooky and the usual creepy elements are duly present: mysteriously unexpected sounds in the dark, odd voices on the radio and a weird child/doll. Children are a sure-fire ingredient in these kinds of tales if you want to be extra sure of chilling spines. I still think the scariest of the modern Dr Who stories was the one with the child in the gas mask asking, ‘Are you my mummy?’

The suspense and tension in the theatre build nicely. Partly that’s because of the expectations on us to be scared. This is not a subtle evening. The stories are very much of the ‘scary tales round the camp fire’ variety – those told with a torch shining up your face for added impact. And that torch device is actually deployed unashamedly here. The shape of the stories in each case is also similar, with each one building to a shock moment designed to make you jump – which it can’t help but succeed in doing. That’s because theatres are easy places to make dark – just turn out the lights. Then make a sudden loud noise in the silence (very loud in this case) and behold; the audience jumps. But my instinctive reaction to being made to jump, when all the authors have done is effectively shout ‘boo!’, is to feel manipulated and determined not to be caught out  again.

The best ghost stories have more going on than this, though, and this is true of Ghost Stories itself. It’s in part an exploration of guilt and how our mind copes (or fails to cope) with it. There are hints of what’s really going on in the professor’s lecture. And the fact it’s written by Jeremy Dyson and Any Nyman is enough to tell us to be alert to another layer beyond the story within a story which the professor is telling us. I won’t say more because it’s clearly best to enjoy this sort of experience without spoilers.

Finally I  must say that the skills of cast, stage crew, sound and lighting are deployed with brilliant timing to deliver the stand-out thrills. However immune you consider yourself to this sort of thing I defy you not to be, at least for a second, genuinely scared!

Ghost Stories is at the Ambassadors Theatre until 4 January 2020.

Review – Buddy ****

Buddy is an early example of a juke box musical. It was first performed in 1989. From my recollection of seeing it many years ago on a previous tour, this latest version seems to have more of the music and less of the story. There is, for example, an extended concert sequence at the end of Act 1 set at the Apollo theatre in Harlem. But I may be mis-remembering. It’s been a long time and there have been many more juke box musicals since!

There is a problem with telling the Buddy Holly story, which is that his career as a performer and song writer of any note lasted less than two years before his untimely death in a plane crash in February 1959. And that offers precious little time for the kind of conflict or drama that attaches itself to other artists with longer careers and, therefore, marriages, divorces and children. So the Buddy Holly story is mainly about the music. It’s striking how many tunes performed by him and in many cases written by him are still well-known standards. No wonder his death at the age of just 22 along with the J. P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) aged 28 and Ritchie Valens aged 17 (the pilot was also in his twenties) is known as the day the music died.

It is the knowledge we have of this brilliant promise so tragically cut short that colours everything about Buddy Holly’s story. And it is the music which is best served by this latest tour. As a musical Buddy makes exceptional demands of its young cast. Not only must they act and sing, but also play instruments. So they are in effect their own band. And unlike a conventional pit-based band they don’t have the luxury of sheet music from which to play.  Their dynamism and energy is enough to make you forgive the rather perfunctory attention paid to exploring the characters and stories other than through the songs.

As Buddy A J Jenks was on sparkling form and convinced us of Buddy Holly’s genuine passion to do something different musically. Miguel Angel provided a much needed boost of energy in Act 1 as Tyrone Jones, host at the Harlem Apollo, with a brilliant performance of Reet Petite. Harry Boyd, meanwhile, turned in a bravura set of performances as various producers, managers and other industry figures crossing Buddy’s path. He was great in them all, although I found I was losing some if his words when he was being the narrator, largely because of the lilting style of the southern drawl he used in that role.

Since this production first appeared the biographical juke box musical has come a long way. More recent shows like Jersey Boys and Tina have more edge. But they still follow a form that was largely invented here. It may seem less fresh now, but Buddy Holly’s astounding and all-too brief contribution to modern popular music is enough to sustain this show on its own.

Buddy is at the Orchard Theatre, Dartford, until Saturday 12 October 2019.