Woking Writers Circle

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Tag: New Victoria theatre

  • Funny Girl

    Funny Girl

    PHOTOGRAPH: MANUEL HARLAN

    Funny Girl is a musical loosely based on the life of real star Fanny Brice.  Some liberties are taken with the facts but it is entertainment with a capital E and essentially remains the story of a vaudeville chorus girl who rose to become a Ziegfeld Follies star.  Along the way she met and fell head over heels in love with Nick Arnstein, a suave gambler, whom she married and with whom she had two children.

    Those are the basics of the show. But despite her total infatuation, her love was sorely tested when he was constantly away on the racetrack or playing cards when she wanted his support.  He, on the other hand, was desperate to make sufficient money so that he could stand as her equal and not have to be bankrolled by Fanny whenever he needed cash. Alas, his “no fail” plan to open a money-making casino was dashed when a hurricane destroyed the building and so he turned to crime and a dodgy Wall Street bond scam to make the fortune he longed for. He was caught out and sent to prison.  On his release, he admitted to Fanny that he had come to realise that they are not compatible and they divorce with the show ending with Fanny, left on her own, singing ‘The music that makes me dance’ – almost a soliloquy. Along with the plot come a host of exuberant musical numbers and several dance routines, most of which involve Fanny but demonstrating the talent of the chorus. Comedy is provided by Fanny’s mother and her poker-playing lady friends.

    Funny GirlNatasha J Barnes, apparently the second string for the part of Fanny, who is playing selected venues on the UK tour deputising for Sheridan Smith, nevertheless gives us a flawless performance as does Darius Campbell as Nick, pictured right.  Both of whom are well served by Joshua Lay as Eddie, her long-time mentor, and Rachel Izen as Fanny’s mother, Mrs Brice, and the rest of the cast. Michael Pavelka has produced a fitting set and Michael Mayer is to be congratulated on his direction so the show well deserved the stand-up ovation it received at the end of the performance.

    [Dermot Hoare 25 April 2017]

    Funny Girl is at the New Victoria theatre, Woking from Tuesday 25 April to Saturday 29 April at 7.30pm, with 2.30pm matinees on Thursday and Saturday

  • Million Dollar Quartet

    Million Dollar Quartet

    MDQ archive shotI am a bit of a theatre geek, but even more so I’m a music geek. If you are trying to listen to the radio and hear me say “Did you know …” you know you are about to get a lecture on what I consider to be an interesting sidenote in music history.

    Million Dollar Quartet tells the story of one of those interesting sidenotes in music history – in December 1956 Elvis Presley (Ross William Wild), Jerry Lee Lewis (Ashley Carruthers), Carl Perkins (Matthew Wycliffe) and Johnny Cash (Robbie Durham) all ended up in the studio at Sun Records together and spent the day messing around and jamming (see archive picture, above) . It’s not much of a story, so Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott, who co-wrote the book, have beefed it up a bit by adding the backstories of the singers’ relationships with Sun and some drama about contracts. The trouble is it’s still not much of a story.

    The first half introduces the musicians by having them play a bit of one of their hits (Elvis’s That’s Alright Mama, Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues), then pausing for flashback to their fateful first recording, narrated by studio owner Sam Phillips (Peter Duncan) before continuing with the song. The information in the flashbacks is nothing that someone with a passing knowledge of rock ‘n’ roll, or a copy of the programme, wouldn’t know and while it’s well staged I did have to swallow the urge to shout “Get on with it!”

    The second half is more about the music, with less interruption of the songs. The conflict, such as it is, is that Sam Phillips wants Johnny Cash to sigh a new three-year contract. Unbeknownst to Phillips, Cash had already signed to Columbia. In reality, Cash didn’t sign to Columbia until 1958 and would release an album, Johnny Cash Sings the Songs That Made Him Famous with Sun, the recording of which continued long after the Quartet. The truth is (rather prosaically) he’d gone to the studio to pick up some money.  This isn’t the only fudging of facts – the real recording was mostly gospel songs, but let’s face it, we want hits.  Elvis’s girlfriend at the time was a dancer named Marilyn Evans, not a singer called Dyanne (Katie Ray), but we need someone for the high notes.  Cash is barely audible on the real recording, but it would be a crime to waste Robbie Durham’s voice.

    The music is well played and well sung, with good impersonations of Presley and Cash’s distinctive voices. At the start we are told the actors are playing their own instruments, and they clearly are. This is impressive, but does it matter? At a music gig we care that no one is hidden behind a curtain playing the tricky solos, but does it make a better theatrical experience that the guitar playing is for real? This is one of the play’s problems; it can’t decide if it’s a tribute act or a piece of theatre.

    It does conform to the Aristotelian unities of time, place and action, which is unusual in modern musical theatre. There is one set – the studio. Occasionally characters go outside, denoted by a blue spotlight and their taking their coat from a messy pile on the right of the stage and putting it on. All action takes place within a day. There are no costume changes, no dancing horses. The cast are dressed appropriately casually. It is committed to being a story about that one day, which is refreshing.

    There are some issues with the staging. People wander in and out of the studio for no apparent reason, some guy (I think he is the musical director) is sat in the studio writing notes but never referred to, and there is the messy pile of coats which (maybe it’s my inner mum) I found distracting.

    I feel like it sounds like I didn’t enjoy myself, which isn’t the case. Million Dollar Quartet is fun. There are laughs, chiefly from Carruthers’ self-aggrandising yokel Jerry Lee Lewis and his bickering with the other singers. There is acknowledgement that rock ‘n’ roll is black music, which the likes of Phillips and Presley repackaged to be palatable to white folks. On leaving many of the audience commented how much they’d enjoyed it, particularly “the last bit” – the (now obligatory) sing-a-long section. Certainly the cast can’t be faulted – they are all excellent musicians and it’s no surprise several of them are recording artists in their own right. They did the best they could with an imperfect play.

    If you like rock ‘n’ roll music you’ll like it. It you like deep storytelling then you won’t. For me it was neither fish nor fowl – not enough story for theatre, too much story to be a gig. The music geek in me likes the idea, but the theatre geek can’t love the execution.

    CAST PHOTOGRAPH: DARREN BELL

    [Catherine Rogan 29 March 2017]

    Million Dollar Quartet is at the New Victoria theatre, Woking  from Wednesday 29 March to Saturday 1 April at 7.30pm, with matinees at 2.30pm on Wednesday and Saturday

  • Rent

    Rent

    PHOTOGRAPH: MATT CROCKETT

    I missed the original performance of Rent back in the late 90s and the subsequent film, although was aware of its impact and acclaim, so was pleased to hear that a brand new production celebrating its 20th anniversary was coming to Woking. The multi-award winning rock musical, inspired by Puccini’s opera La Boheme, was written by Jonathon Larson and ran on Broadway for 12 years, from 1996-2008, and for 18 months in the London West End. Sadly, Larson didn’t experience the success of his play, nor see the film adaptation, as he died unexpectedly the night before the show’s first off-Broadway performance in New York. And after seeing this performance, all I can think is, what a shame, as the play is a triumph of originality and dynamism, that lives on to this day.

    Rent tells the story of a group of struggling artists in New York’s East Village, fighting for individuality and love amongst the threat of gentrification and conformist lifestyles. The passion and tragedy of La Boheme serves as the structure, but Larson brought in modern themes and a score that appeals to current values and perspectives. The audience loved it.

    Set, costumes and a live band on stage sets the scene perfectly, absorbing the audience into the time and the place. Unlike some performances I’ve seen, the all-British cast delivers the American accent well, without going too nasally. The first couple of numbers were a little low in energy levels, but once we were familiarised, the dynamism on stage took over and the audience was completely engaged. Layton Williams as Angel stole the show with his performance of Today 4 U, and after that, the performances were galvanised. Well, doing a flawless, handless backflip in four-inch heels while singing and dancing sets the bar very high indeed! Strong performances also came from the women performers, who sang with a passion. Lucie Jones, our current Eurovision hopeful, as Maureen, memorably delivers a hilarious performance that works the mike in unimaginable ways, and Jenny O’Leary as Joanne, dancing an unexpected tango, delighted the audience.

    Funny, sexy, and moving, Rent is playing at the New Victoria theatre from Wednesday 8 March – Saturday 11 March, with additional matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.

    [Amanda Briggs March 2017]