Review – Hairspray ****

Hairspray continues to please, with it’s bouncy tunes and appealing story about outsiders finding their place in a society initially unwilling to welcome them in. This year it’s been the (belated) summer musical at the ENO’s home at the London Coliseum.

The story concerns schoolgirl Tracy Turnblad’s ambitions to win a place on the local TV dance show and to integrate the black and white performers, the black company being allowed to perform only on ‘negro day’. The cast for this revival of the production last seen in the West End with Michael Ball just up the road at the Shaftesbury theatre is top notch, with Mr Ball once again doing the honours as Edna Turnblad, as he did for the whole of the previous West End run. He clearly loves the part and displays all the qualities you’d expect from a musical theatre star. Playing his husband Les Dennis proves to be a great choice, being both convincing in the part and with a warm on-stage chemistry between him and Michael Ball’s Edna.

I’m ranking it four stars because of the performances and the brilliance of the score, but it was nearly three, simply because the show is almost defeated by the theatre itself. The Coliseum is vast, with a huge space between the front rows of the circles/balcony and the stage. Even the stalls are kept at a safe distance by the large orchestra pit, sparsely but very effectively filled by the band. Added to that, the stage itself is framed by a front cloth with a TV-screen shaped opening through which we watch the show. As well as being apposite for the plot this also serves to reduce the width of the stage by about a third. In short, the theatre is too big for the show. It feels lost on the stage and remote from the audience. The music itself is so strong it just about compensates for this. Michael Ball is sufficiently bold and twinkly to come across no matter what. And Marisha Wallace storms the place as Motormouth Maybelle, although not all of the cast are as successful.

I’ve seen several of the ENO summer musicals and this problem of scale is not unique to Hairspray, but others seemed to have worked better (for example Bat Out of Hell and Man of La Mancha). Extending the stage over the vast pit would help. Next summer, though, it’s My Fair Lady, which might just be grand enough to live up to the room where it’s due to happen.

Review – The Woman in Black *****

The Woman in Black is remarkable in two ways. Yes, it’s a long running West End show that’s not a musical spectacular or The Mousetrap. More significantly, it’s a brilliantly theatrical experience, which is remarkable considering its origins as a book. The adaptation to the stage is so complete and integral to the work, it’s hard to imagine it having ever been anything

Having seen it on tour in modern venues I had always wanted to experience it ‘at home’ in the older Fortune Theatre. Host to treats I wish I could have witnessed such as Flanders and Swan and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe, it has its own rather magical history of laughter. Since 1989, though, The Lady in Black has haunted the place in more chilling style.

Set in the 1950s, the story concerns Arthur Kipps, who is sent to sort out the papers of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, entailing a visit to the spooky Eel Marsh House. The local village is akin to that in An American Werewolf in London, where any talk of the deceased and the house is quickly and mysteriously shut down. Add in a dangerous causeway to reach it, swirling mists, a graveyard and a child’s nursery and you pretty much have the classic ingredients for a classic ghost story. But this is so much more than that, thanks to Stephen Mallatratt’s brilliantly theatrical approach, which turns these familiar ingredients into an experience which engages the audience’s imagination to such spectacular effect that, as producer Peter Wilson said after the first evening of the re-opened show, “you scared yourselves”.

We are enormously helped in this by perfectly judged lighting and sound, whose timing is critical to some moments where you’ll be the most scared you’ve ever been in a theatre.

With all these ingredients in place, we find ourselves in the hands of Arthur Kipps, our nervous but reliable narrator, played by Terence Wilton. Kipps is at an empty theatre to be coached by ‘the actor’ (played by Max Hutchinson) in order to be able to recount his tale of his visit to Eel Marsh House. Wilton is so effective as the traumatised and hesitant Kipps that it comes as a real shock to see him assume in an instant the various other characters in his story. A scarf, a hat, a coat, a change in gait and we are in the company of someone else entirely. He also gets a moment when the child’s nursery is revealed where he has to list the numerous toys it contains. I’ve learned a few lines in my time and lists are just horrid to get in your head. Surely a little actors’ test added by Mallatratt! As his acting coach, Hutchinson is typically actorly and we feel confident in his presences. He has a rhythmic and almost percussive way with his lines. But the telling of the tale requires ‘the actor’ to assume the role of Kipps at the most dramatic moments. It’s a tribute not only to the writing but to Hutchinson’s engaging performance that you could tell the audience was gripped with fear and trepidation with him.

With some genuine jump-out-of-seat moments and a pervading atmosphere of suspense, this remains the benchmark for ghost stories in any medium and shows how live theatre can do things with you and to you like nothing else.