13/04/19: A Murder Has Been Arranged, Finchley Methodist Church Hall

It’s 1930 and Sir Charles Jasper plans to celebrate his birthday on the stage of a “haunted” theatre. He is set to inherit two million pounds at 11 p.m. – the exact moment he turns 40 – but that inheritance is cast into doubt by the unexpected arrival of his rather odd nephew and a series of deeply strange goings on...

Despite the far-fetched premise of Emlyn Williams’ supernatural drama, and a rather too lengthy running time, the Guild Players put on a strong performance. Established favourites Caroline Knell and Louisa Agamemnos were as reliably watchable as ever, and it was also good to see the return of Rachel Kaden and Sean Roberts from the 2018 triumph that was Widdershins.

The period jazz music played during the interval was a nice touch, as were the well-judged costumes.

In the second half, the play became increasingly multilayered, with references to amateur dramatics(!) and Macbeth being made within the clever theatre-within-a-theatre setting.

As usual, the Finchley Methodist Church Hall had the disadvantage of outside traffic noise – a reminder that it’s worth being in the first couple of rows to have a chance of catching all the dialogue. Despite that, and a complicated narrative, the actors never stumbled.

04/04/19: Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story, Hope Theatre, Islington

It’s Chicago in 1924 and two school friends are reunited. Nathan Leopold (Bart Lambert) is obsessively in love with Richard Loeb (Jack Reitman) and wants to resume their previous affair, but Richard has changed. Inspired and seemingly possessed by the controversial writings of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he exploits Nathan’s devotion in return for making him an accomplice in a series of crimes. Having signed a contract in blood, their pursuit of the ‘Ubermensch’ ideal inevitably leads the pair beyond arson and petty burglary and into more disturbing and challenging transgressions. They gain notoriety as the Thrill Killers – at a considerable cost...

Directed by Matthew Parker, the Hope Theatre’s production of Stephen Dolginoff’s 2003 true-crime musical is stunning. Narrated in flashbacks during a parole hearing 34 years later, it maintains an incredibly high level of drama – considerably aided by the sensitive and dynamic piano playing of Musical Director Tim Shaw. It helps that the source material – both the script and songwriting – is so consistently strong. When the dialogue stops and the singing begins in lesser musicals, it can often seem like filler. In Thrill Me, every song carries the narrative forwards and sharpens the focus on the personalities and motivations of the two men. Lambert and Reitman are note-perfect throughout – quite some feat given the sheer number of lines and lyrics they have to deliver across the 80-minute performance.

There are a couple of fairly major plot twists, which means that the show continues to surprise you just when you think you’ve worked out how it will unfold. There’s real intensity conveyed, both in the vividness of Nathan’s feelings for the man he worships and in Richard’s fixation on amoral self-transformation.

Subtle lighting helps to build the atmosphere, particularly in the scene in which they set an abandoned warehouse ablaze – a perfect visual metaphor of their fiery passions. Creative use is also made of recorded voices (those of Dewi Hughes and Bryan Pilkington) and sound effects, providing a three-dimensional framework that instils the action with even more realism.

The play examines the psychology of egos, ethics and manipulative behaviour as well as tackling bigger themes of society and individualism. Primarily, it asks the question: what would you do for love? As it explores those extremes you find yourself simultaneously appalled and captivated by these two characters, whose escalating predicament is all the more chilling for being based on a true story.

REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS.

21/03/19: Macbeth, Jacksons Lane, Highgate

Directed by Mary Swan, the Proteus theatre company’s version of “the Scottish play” is boldly set in the City in October 1987 just as Black Monday sent financial markets reeling into chaos.

The action takes place in snappy suits, with cocaine snorted off glass tables and dialogue barked into office telephones. The production picks up on the themes of corporate greed and ambition that famously characterise that era. I would have liked them to have done much more with this notion and fully explore those ideas, but the stock exchange context provides a visual backdrop rather than an integral, driving element in how the story unfolds.

A cast of just five actors ambitiously take on all the major parts. Macbeth himself is played by Riz Meedin, who if anything seems a little too casual and unruffled in his delivery to truly carry off the complexity of the role. There’s something missing – an intensity, perhaps. Danny Charles ably tackles Duncan, MacDuff and Lennox, while Umar Butt is fairly solid as Banquo. But all three males are often upstaged by the two female leads. Alexandra Afryea is especially strong as Lady Macbeth and the scene in which she sleepwalks, visibly tormented by her deeds, is perhaps the most memorable of them all. Meanwhile, Jessica Andrade proves herself hugely versatile as Malcolm, Lady MacDuff, the doctor and one of the witches.

It was an inspired choice to play 1980s pop and new-wave music over the sound system between scenes. Bursts of Bronski Beat, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Eurythmics, Japan, Joy Division and The Smiths are highly effective. Better still is the wonderful surprise moment near the beginning when the cast suddenly start moving in time to the stark drum-machine mechanics of “Blue Monday” by New Order. It’s both funny and startling. A later scene, just as powerful, has Jessica Andrade lip-syncing to Prince’s “Sign o’ the Times”. Macbeth is at its greatest when it takes these audacious liberties with the source material – those brief instances when it veers off into almost surreal interpretation and embraces the worlds of dance and mime. It’s less successful at delivering the primary narrative. Despite a running time of more than two hours, much of the plot progression felt rushed and disjointed. It’s perhaps inevitable that large chunks of Shakespeare’s writing need to be done away with in any modern adaptation, but it sometimes seemed that these edits were made at the expense of logic or clarity. If you are already familiar with the play in its entirety, though, you’ll find that there’s plenty to enjoy here.

REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS

13/03/19: Saga, Etcetera Theatre, Camden Town

Saga is the daughter of God, sent down from Heaven to observe how we live on Earth. In her brief time here, she passes through a series of social scenarios that point out to her the various extremes of human nature.

Written by Michael Currell and loosely based on August Strindberg’s A Dream Play from 1901, this clever and witty one-hour production is ambitious and covers a lot of thematic ground. Saga is witness to racism, our treatment of the homeless, the superficiality of social media and the shallowness of political opportunists. The play squeezes in plenty of Big Issues (the property ladder, Brexit and poverty are all referenced) without taking obvious positions of judgement, perhaps because the narrative is so overtly surreal.

Some of the dialogue, references and in-jokes – and even some singing – takes place in Swedish. If you are Swedish (like many of the audience), it will obviously mean a lot more to you. If, like me, you’re not Swedish you may find parts of it completely baffling and somewhat alienating. But this frustration aside, you can still enjoy the general sense of whimsy and the ABBA songs that appear at the beginning and the end of the show.

The three supporting actresses do an excellent job of bringing to life various characters, multitasking seamlessly in a way that makes the cast seem far larger than it is. Frida Storm is particularly strong in the lead part, conveying a believable innocence and naivety that’s touching and more than a little sad. She cannot understand the cruelty people demonstrate. Seeking to experience love, it makes no sense to her to hear of YouTube “likes”. And finding beauty all around her, she cannot fathom why human behaviour can be so ugly.

Directed and produced by Olivia Stone with the most minimal of stage sets, Saga holds up a mirror to modern life and exposes its contradictions and ironies. Impressively, it does this with playfulness, originality and charm.

REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS AND ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE

02/03/19: Connecting..., Chapel Playhouse

A one-man show written and performed by Billy Hicks, and produced and directed by Lucie Regan, Connecting... is a funny and moving look at what it means to be lonely in the era of technology.

In 1997, a nine-year-old boy is moving into his new bedroom. We learn that he struggles to connect with others and make friends. He records cassette tapes of himself speaking about his interests and raving about his love for Doctor Who. The choice of that iconic timelord isn’t an arbitrary one: the show itself simulates time travel, leaping forwards a few years with every subsequent scene. Each time we encounter him, through puberty and into adulthood, the protagonist is a little older but still just as lonely. As he embraces the ever-changing technology made available to him (from MSN Messenger to Facebook and smartphones) – and as the narrative continues to fast-forward to the present – we are reminded of how the electronic networks that are meant to be “connecting” us are also increasing our isolation. On the internet, you can be anyone you want to be. But the inevitable flip side of this freedom is that accumulating “friends” and “likes” is no substitute for real friends who really like you.

What makes it compelling is the hugely energetic physical comedy of Billy’s performance as he bounces around the stage. Then there’s his quick-fire verbal dexterity. He reels off a barrage of cultural references from TV and video games, as well as bringing them to life by imitating the sound of early internet dial-up and singing or miming fragments of indie-pop hits of the early 2000s. It amounts to a torrent of expression that must have been expertly rehearsed to be performed so fluidly without stumbling. It’s especially notable how well Billy inhabits the world of a child. Plus, some of the lines (such as the clever joke about the fourth wall) make you think as well as laugh.

Thematically, it could have ended up somewhat simplistic – life can be lonely, technology can be alienating – but the performance is sufficiently quirky and imaginative to explore those themes in depth. Likewise, this could have become an excuse for lazy nostalgia. Remember Sonic the Hedgehog? Remember Wheatus? But the barrage of ephemeral recollections is used to underscore the mindset of a restlessly changing young man and the quickly evolving times in which he strives to find meaning.

REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS AND ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE

20/02/19: The Wrong Ffion Jones, The Vault, Waterloo

What does it mean to be Welsh? And what does it mean to be Welsh when everything you know and love about Wales is under threat? These are the questions asked by Ffion Jones, playing herself in a hilarious one-woman show at the Vault Festival.

In a dystopian near-future, Wales has become “Walesland” – a stifling theme park of itself cynically controlled by tycoons Bevan, Bevan, Bevan and Co. (The choice of name is presumably a cheeky nod to Rhys Bevan, the show’s director.) Jones works as a tour guide and finds herself faced with a horrible moral dilemma when the Bevans offer her an opportunity that puts her trade – and that of her colleagues – at risk. To complicate matters further, she is becoming the face of a rebellion against their corporate values. Will she abandon her principles? Or will she put Wales before her own interests and lead the revolution?

In telling the story, Ffion brilliantly embodies its various characters, flitting between them with remarkable wit and invention. It’s quite some feat to hold up both ends of a conversation, using different voices and poised in different positions to bring alive diverse personalities, but she conjures up three-dimensional scenarios with a winning blend of physical agility and comic flair.

The humour is surreal and sophisticated. While there are inevitably jokes about Tom Jones, Richard Burton and sheep, they are never obvious. With a lightness of touch that prevents it ever becoming worthy or self-important, the show goes way further than mere wisecracks to make profound observations about capitalism and national pride. The clever use of projected home-video footage of Ffion as a young child adds emotional depth and introduces some visual variety. There’s real subtlety at work here, making it a refreshing and stimulating 55 minutes.

Ffion oozes charm, from the moment she steps on the stage waving a leek to seeming completely taken aback at the well-deserved standing ovation at the end. The quick-wittedness of her delivery – possibly honed through stand-up or improv comedy – is astonishing. In fact, if there’s a criticism it’s that it’s occasionally a little too fast. There’s so much going on, so rapidly, that you can’t always catch every visual or verbal gag. This makes it tricky to keep up with certain moments in the narrative. When she slows things down a little, such as for her amusing and oddly touching cover version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler, you can really savour the dazzling range of her gifts.

The staging is minimal, with just three chairs, a microphone stand and a screen. But nothing else is needed: Ffion Jones creates an entire world.

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REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS AND ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE.

23/01/19: Blue Departed, The Vault, Waterloo

Written by Serafina Cusack and performed by three members of the Anima Theatre Company, Blue Departed is a remarkably intense piece of work. A modern, urban version of Dante’s descent through the nine circles of Hell, it details the utter despair endured by a drug addict (brilliantly captured by Mark Conway) who has just lost the woman he loves (Rebecca Layoo) to a heroin overdose. Cast in the role of Dante, he relays his suffering in a near-continuous series of exchanges with his dead lover, who “speaks” to him through interrogations, recriminations and reminiscences – angry, heartbroken, defiant, loving – and who physically haunts and taunts him around the stage with a gymnastic fluidity. Their paranoid, nihilistic, almost stream-of-consciousness chatter jumps around in both chronology and location – from his flat to her funeral service and a wake that seems to take place in a casino – underscoring how oppressive and all-pervasive his state of self-loathing has become. His earnest younger brother (Richard James Clarke) provides glimpses of sanity and warmth, but the downward trajectory is inescapable.

This one-hour play is certainly bleak, but flashes of humour offer some much-needed relief. Props are minimal – a couple of stools, a few items of clothing hanging from a rail, two plates of food that have a grotesquely comic fate – but the stripped-back set is effective because most of the “action” exists in the shadowy forms of memory or hallucination. It’s a play that mainly occurs within a fevered mind.

Within the small “Cage” room at The Vault, the actors have limited space to work in. But director Henry C. Krempels turns this limitation to the play’s advantage: the restricted floor area only serves to further highlight the characters’ sense of claustrophobia and imminent panic.

Bursts of menacing ambient sound are used creatively, with layers of distorted electronics accompanying moments of crisis or heightened awareness. This works well in that it’s hugely atmospheric, but there were points at which the noise was too loud and threatened to drown out the actors. That’s a shame because it is a play in which every word counts.

This one criticism aside, Blue Departed is a gripping and desperately sad study of pain, addiction and loss.

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REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS AND ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE.

29/12/18: Robinson Crusoe, Greenwich Theatre

It was good to have writer and director Andrew Pollard back after his year off (see Cinderella). It was also a delight to see Anthony Spargo again taking on the role of the villain. He enters the stage singing the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” – an excuse for his obligatory annual Mick Jagger impersonation – and full of his usual overwhelming charm and charisma.

The sound was terrible where we were sitting on the far left of the theatre, with the too-loud music bouncing off the walls and often muffling the vocals. Sonic clarity is important when the words are so clever and funny, and also when there's so much noise coming from the children in the audience. It was also frustrating to be sitting under a jet of air conditioning that was hot in the first half and which turned icy after the interval.

These gripes aside, it was a highly enjoyable show with plenty of big laughs. As always, the threadbare “plot” was the least important element – instead of going to live on an island, Robinson Crusoe ended up in the USA. It’s the songs and the on-stage banter that make it so special.

As usual, they managed to squeeze in a couple of scenes of surreal comedy gold – one based entirely on fish puns and another involving anaesthetics in a dental surgery.

Musically, it offered “All Together Now” (The Beatles), “How Deep Is Your Love?” (Bee Gees), “Let’s Stick Together” (Wilbert Harrison) and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” (Shania Twain). The singalong competition judged by “Uncle Steve” was with the “Baby Shark” song, which Pollard correctly observed would mean nothing to anyone over 30.

There were topical and local jokes about Brexit, Theresa May, Donald Trump and Greenwich, along with all the usual daft elements. It’s essentially the exact same show each year, but with ever more inventive costumes. The sets are also inspired, and a scene involving projections of a gold mine effectively evoked the movement of a mine railway journey.

A slow start didn’t bode well, but once Pollard and Spargo hit the stage this was a real treat.

26/12/18: Paradise, Hampstead Theatre

Written by Dusty Hughes and directed by Alice Hamilton, Paradise is a gently profound play about ageing. Roddy (played by Geoffrey Freshwater) and Goose a.k.a. Amanda (Sara Kestelman) are old friends who have enjoyed lives of relative luxury in an old-age home. But a change of management brings with it a stricter regime and tests the limits of their relationship.

There are many stands running through this – the onset of dementia, what it meant to be homosexual in Britain during the years that this was illegal, how corporate-speak denies us our humanity and what it means to love someone when most of your life (and theirs) is now in the past.

There are only four actors and they have to carry a lot of fairly heavy material, but they handle this in a subtle and sophisticated way. Rebekah Hinds and Claire Lams are excellent as the manager and care assistant.

There are plenty of lighthearted moments, too. The funniest of these involves Roddy reciting British prime ministers in a sort of rhythmic dance as part of a memory-recall exercise.

The play gathers gravitas as you learn more about the lives of the four individuals. By the end you are left feeling sadder and wiser.

13/12/18: Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out!, London Welsh Centre

From the outset I knew this wouldn’t be a standard evening at the theatre. The opening set piece – “Bohemian Rhapsody” performed with absurd new lyrics – throws you in at the deep end and lets you know what to expect. The Not Too Tame theatre company’s Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out! is comical, irreverent and deliberately ridiculous. The show is noisy, smart and streetwise, and you are never more than a few seconds away from another funny line.

To say this show is “loosely based” on Cinderella would be a major understatement. Luke Barnes’ script riffs on motifs from that fairytale and rides a huge anarchic truck through the middle of it with no attempt whatsoever to be faithful to the source material. It’s so fresh, relaxed and spontaneous that it feels improvised. The small cast operate in your midst and ignore the stage altogether.

The “story”, what there is of one, explores the fate of the young, orphaned Cinderella (Gemma Barnett), who works in a pub with her smelly, suicidal dog Buttons (Alex Griffin Griffiths). The latter spends most of the evening carrying a prosthetic leg. (You eventually find out why.) Cinderella also lives with a wicked stepmother called Judy Garland (Jess Johnson) and her ugly sisters Simone and Garfunkel. (Some of the audience might have been too young to get that joke, but I appreciated it.) Played by Louise Haggerty and Naomi McDonald, these two absolutely steal the show with a relentlessly flirty, hilariously bitchy double act that’s a delight to watch.

Jack Condon inverts the character of Prince Charming so that his name becomes somewhat ironic. Meanwhile Jack Brown is “Mike”, an amiable compere with long hair, a beard and a glittery silver dress. Mike holds the whole thing together, although much of the show’s appeal comes from the way it seems to teeter on the verge of collapse.

Jimmy Fairhurst’s direction makes the most of the small space available, and it works because the bar in which we’re seated naturally becomes the pub in the story. A karaoke machine is utilised at regular intervals for the likes of “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and “Stand by Your Man”, with the cast singing lustily and drawing the audience into the act without humiliating anyone too much. A few punters are picked on mercilessly, but the actors are skilled enough to gauge who is happy to play along.

Don’t be expecting anything approaching a standard theatre production: this certainly isn’t a plot-driven narrative experience. Plus, if you’re offended by “colourful” language then it’s probably not for you. It’s perfect for a fun night out with a bunch of mates, but don’t take your young kids or elderly parents. The energy is infectious and has the effect of making you feel pleasantly drunk even if you’re still sober. You soon find yourself grinning, then laughing out loud, swept along by the rowdy exuberance. And if all that isn’t entertainment enough, you’re even invited to take part in your own karaoke session afterwards.

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REVIEWED FOR THE SPY IN THE STALLS AND ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE.

24/11/18: Some of My Best Friends Are Women, Finchley Methodist Church Hall

The latest show by the Guild Players had a lot to live up to after the stunning Widdershins. Written by Carole Tricker, this is a comedy about five women at a book group. It starts gently enough, with each of the characters revealing aspects of their lives, loves and personalities, and progresses into farce via a daft off-stage narrative about one of them drinking too much, briefly going AWOL and hitting a man with an umbrella.

The actresses bravely did their best with the material, but the play itself could have been far stronger. It really needed some sparkling dialogue and/or thematic weight to offset the lack of actual drama. It appeared to shy away from making sharper points about friendship, gender politics and suburban niceties with the result that it didn’t seem to have a huge amount to communicate. It was left to the creative cast to mine the dialogue for laughs, which they did successfully.

19/04/18: Widdershins, Finchley Methodist Church Hall

I have seen many productions by the Guild Players, and this was probably the strongest. Written by Don Nigro and directed by Louisa Agamemnos, Widdershins is an expertly performed mystery thriller. It sustains a sense of tension and genuine drama throughout.

The premise is convincingly spooky: two inspectors are sent to a house to investigate the sudden disappearance of a family. A husband, wife and two daughters have simply vanished. Police inquiries reveal that there are sinister matters afoot: tales of shadows and light, superstition and druids. And the word in the play’s title – often repeated by the characters, like a mantra, with creepy insistence – is the key that unlocks a secret world of ambiguity.

The clever direction allows the disappeared to walk around the stage and interject in conversations – as memories or perhaps as ghosts. James English, the head of the family, is an eccentric writer fascinated by the occult. Fully engaged in this role – almost possessed by it – Sean Roberts delivers a superb, freewheeling monologue in the first act. This compelling sequence is one of the major highlights of the show.

As the narrative unfolded and the mystery deepened, it seemed impossible that it could be elegantly resolved without resorting to a cheap gimmick or an overly convenient solution. It was a pleasant surprise, then, that the conclusion was so satisfying. There were moments of occasional humour to lighten the intensity, but overall this was a dark and thought-provoking work that probed deep into the nature of perception and reality.

30/12/17: Cinderella, Greenwich Theatre

The annual Greenwich treat. I was dismayed to discover that this year the pantomime would not star Andrew Pollard, who has been the actor/director/dame of the show for at least a decade. On the plus side, he did write it and even appears in a “virtual” filmed cameo as Halley’s Comet. 

The songs are always a highlight, despite "Uncle" Steve's three-piece band in the orchestra pit drowning out the vocals at times. We were treated to the Friends theme (“I’ll Be There for You”), “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls, “ABC” by the Jackson 5, “Somebody to Love” by Queen, “Somewhere Out There” by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, “A Night to Remember” by Shalamar and “Roar” by Katy Perry. The singalong involved “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets – chosen to tie in with the overarching subject of “comets”.

Stealing the show were the two ugly sisters. Kylie was played by the usual villain actor Anthony Spargo. He was as hilarious and commanding as ever, exuding OTT evil charisma. Mylie – smudged lipstick all over her face – was played by Lizzy Dive, with perfect comic timing.

There’s usually one scene of high surrealism, but this time there were two – one set in a bathtub (with nods to Titanic and Jaws) and one set on an airbed filled with dangerously explosive gas…

As usual, there were local jokes (most of the show was set in Greenwich Observatory), topical references (Brexit was an inevitable mention) and off-piste moments in which the cast try to make each other laugh by deviating from the script. It was so entertaining that I almost didn’t miss Andrew Pollard.

28/12/17: Dear Brutus, Southwark Playhouse

This little-known 1917 play by Peter Pan writer J. M. Barrie is magical and mind-blowing. A group of people, seemingly with nothing in common, find themselves invited to a house on Midsummer Night by a mysterious old man known as “Lob” – in fact, a Shakespearean trickster figure. They are persuaded to venture into the woods, where they each encounter a form of enchantment that provides them with a second chance in life. The implications of this “What if?” parallel reality vary for each person and the consequences are amusing, emotional and profound.

There’s a lengthy and deeply moving scene in which the painter Will Dearth speaks with his daughter Margaret (masterfully played by Miles Richardson and Venice van Someren respectively). Because of the magical spell that’s upon them, Will is no longer a desperate, defeated alcoholic and is instead full of kindness and creativity, life and love. Margaret is the delightful daughter he always wanted. It’s heartbreaking when you realise that all this must fade as he returns to the house and his enchantment wears off. And when he awakens, as if from a dream, what will be the fate of the idealised child he so adores but who never really existed?

Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, Dear Brutus makes great use of the small space in the Playhouse’s Little Theatre with a simple but effective set. The music and sound mix are especially well-judged, with ambient tones that perfectly convey other-wordly states. I was transported to the enchanted wood and left with plenty to think about.

Compellingly brought to life by the Troupe production company, Dear Brutus remains a potent piece of work 100 years on. I feel lucky to have seen it.

30/08/17: 9 to 5: The Musical, Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate

Nine to Five was a 1980 film starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Dolly wrote the theme song and then contributed additional lyrics for a theatrical version of the story, which became a Broadway musical in 2009 and now comes to Highgate. This was the debut performance – a preview night – but aside from a few sound glitches there were no signs of any first-night problems. The plot is straightforward: three female office workers seek revenge on their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss.

Produced by Joseph Hodges, who also produced Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (which I enjoyed at the same theatre in April of this year), the show is funny and sharp. The simple but ingenious staging makes the most of "office furniture". Three desks (on wheels) are constantly moved around, rotated and realigned to suit whatever structure the set requires – from a dancing platform to a mortuary slab.

The three female leads – Amanda Coutts (Judy), Louise Olley (Doralee) and Pippa Winslow (Violet) – are entirely convincing and have powerful voices. They needed them, too, as the band was so loud that it often threatened to drown out the singing. Also superb was Samantha Giffard playing the bafflingly lovestruck Roz.

The songs by Dolly Parton really make the show, from the classic title track to the perfectly judged "Backwoods Barbie". Turning things on their head there's also a clever composition called "5 to 9", about the emotions felt between work hours.

All this, and a positive message about gender equality and realising your potential. Sadly, in 2017 (with the BBC pay gap scandal still fresh in people’s minds) the theme of sexism in the workplace is every bit as relevant as it was in 1980. It's a credit to this show that it tackles this "issue" with such humour and intelligence.

08/07/17: Wendy & Peter Pan, Dame Alice Owen's School, Hertfordshire

It’s only six months since I last saw Peter Pan, or rather Peter Pan: A New Adventure – writer/director/dame Andrew Pollard’s hilarious pantomime staged at Greenwich Theatre last Christmas, starring himself as Long “Joan” Silver and Anthony Spargo as Captain Hook.

This school production of Ella Hickson’s Wendy & Peter Pan by year sevens, eights and nines (11–14-year-olds) was fairly different, as you might imagine, although surprisingly it was just as full of irreverent humour. Presumably in the interests of letting everyone have a go, there were four Peters and 10 Wendys. The young actors multi-tasked, with girls often playing boys (but no boys playing girls). Especially charismatic were Luka Shaw as one of the Hooks and – an absolute natural – Amber Gerathy as the streetwise, full-of-attitude fairy Tink.

There’s an exhilarating soundtrack, too, with the ensemble "shadows", pirates, Lost Boys and Lost Girls dancing to Beyoncé, Duran Duran, Jesse J, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Meghan Trainor and songs from Yann Tiersen’s Amelie. What would J. M. Barrie have made of that? The opening segment, set to Emily Browning’s cover version of The Eurythmics’ "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" was powerful indeed. They even found space for a snippet of "Careless Whisper" by George Michael, based around a saxophone joke. The show was full of laugh-out-loud moments like that.

The story is too well-known to bother detailing here, but from the fairly straightforward plot the actors managed to draw out themes of youth and ageing, innocence and experience, family, gender inequality and bereavement – weighty matters treated with enough humour to stop it all from becoming po-faced.

A ticking-clock sound effect between scenes allowed for changes in the stage set-up and also added an ominous quality. Simple-but-clever back projections allowed for the illusion of flying, and also made it clear when we were in the Darling family home, in the Neverland forest or on the deck of the Jolly Roger.

At the end. the entire cast came back to bow to the delighted crowd and say some emotional thank-yous to the tech crew, teachers and so on. There was a moving moment when the PA sound broke down and Ariande Grande’s "One Last Time" cut out. The kids spontaneously just started singing it themselves. You could feel how much they had loved performing and how much goodwill they had generated. 

17/06/17: Miss Kiddy and the Cads, Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate

On the way up the hill to the Gatehouse pub, we saw Ray Davies and a lady friend walk past us: a good omen for the night ahead. 



This show was on for just one evening in Highgate, so I was pleased to catch it. The premise was that the band are a 1945 group of American small-time crooks and lowlifes. They perform entirely in character with the singer, Miss Kiddy, linking the songs with wisecracks and brief observations regarding her life and her band. The twist is that the Cads play radically reinvented 1940s jazz-swing versions of pop songs including "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson), "Call Me Maybe" (Carly Rae Jepsen), "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (Kylie Minogue), "Honky Tonk Women" (Rolling Stones), "Let’s Dance" (David Bowie), "Song 2" (Blur), 'Wannabe" (Spice Girls) and "Wonderwall" (Oasis). Improbable, but it works.



It's impressive that Miss Kiddy sings all-out for nearly two hours, not even pausing once to sip a drink on this swelteringly hot June night. The Cads are joined on stage by "Little Missy", a tap dancer whose feet kept to and enhanced the rhythms. (I have a pet cat called Missy, so they won me over immediately with that name.) 



I liked the way they played with the retro angle – sometimes they were consistent with it; other times they didn't bother. So Prince's "1999" was reworked to have them "party like it's 1945", while "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus ended up as "Vintage Dirtbag" (with Iron Maiden replaced by Frank Sinatra). But when they played “The Power of Love" (Huey Lewis and The News), they left in the "don't need no credit card" line and retained the lyric about "listening to Marvin all night long" in "True" (Spandau Ballet), even though Marvin Gaye would have only been six years old at that time. Clearly none of it was to be taken too seriously, especially as Miss Kiddy took the opportunity to advertise their Facebook and Instagram pages long before social media could be invented.

The group's website describes "Show stopping vocals, stunning authentic costumes, spectacular tap dancing routines, and a story of suspense". All of this was spot-on except for the "story of suspense". The only narrative element came from Miss Kiddy's between-song chatter. The lack of a plot wasn't a problem at all – the music, costumes and tap dancing offer more than enough to sustain interest – but it was a bit misleading. This is a musical revue rather than a musical. That point aside, the show is hugely entertaining. Whoever arranged the songs deserves a great deal of credit: these imaginative new (but old) versions are playful, sophisticated and witty. They are performed with some real force behind them. It would all have fallen flat if the band didn't play so well, but they are note-perfect and tightly drilled – with a singer who never flags. The venue was packed and the crowd loved it.

04/06/16: Notes from Underground, Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate

In this dazzling production by Traffic of the Stage, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella is updated from St. Petersburg in 1864 to London in 2017, in a way that makes perfect sense. John Cooper’s play, directed by Harry Meacher, tackles big themes including commerce, social status, identity and what it means to be a member of a society that dismisses you as a “loser” or a “weirdo”. The company put on a draining and exhilarating performance that, ultimately, is desperately sad. 

Giorgio Galassi is absolutely wonderful as the existentialist narrator/protagonist (named simply "man" in the programme credits), a semi-reclusive intellectual who struggles to communicate with his peers and work colleagues. His simmering rage and frustration is articulated so convincingly that you simultaneously relate to his suffering while feeling a growing sense of revulsion at his self-absorption and verbal violence (warning: there is some very “strong” language in the show).

Anna Danshina is utterly convincing as the earnest, well-meaning and misunderstood Russian call girl Liza, who identifies with the man’s pain while battling to find a way through it. Her companion Ylenia is pitched spot-on by Olga Starpovich, especially as the night’s booze takes hold and she begins to stagger around in her high heels. Wealthy toffs Roger (Matthew Duckett) and Simon (Callum John Hill) are all too believable as the ghastly posh guys who order women like others order pizza. Finally, there’s Robert Artlett, who is versatile and believable as various waiters and barman. In fact, all but two members of the highly skilled cast effortlessly double up on smaller roles.

In today’s Sunday afternoon performance, the six actors on stage played to an audience of only 11. That’s a huge shame because this is a terrific show – one of the most emotionally involving I’ve ever seen – that's deeply intense and yet surprisingly funny. It deserves to be experienced by more people.