LONDON CITY NIGHTS: Landor theatre

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

'Devilish!' at The Landor Theatre, 10th May 2016

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Devilish! is bad. The plot is cliched rubbish, the dialogue is tin-eared, the jokes aren't funny, the music is forgettable pap, the lyrics are risible and the performances are, at best, of mixed quality. From minute one I was wishing I was somewhere - anywhere - else. It is bad, bad, bad.

Okay! That's that settled - and much quicker than usual! What.. you want more? Do I have to...? Eesh. Fine.

So Devilish is a musical comedy about an angel named Angel (Alex Green) falling to earth in South London. He lands in the greenhouse of Ruth (Victoria Hope), who introduces him to her boss Nick Brimstone (Gareth James). Nick is the head of the BBC (Brimstone Broadcasting Corporation) who realises Angel is a potential ratings winner. As Angel is propelled to a celebrity, he becomes vain and egotistical. Later he goes back to being nice. Drop curtain.

First off, there are some things I'd like to single out as not completely awful. Performers Katie Ann Dolling, Louie Westwood and George Longworth try their level best to wring as much from their characters as they can. They have precious little to work with, but come at the show with gritted teeth professionalism and are thus largely responsible for any rare glimmers of enjoyment. Also, David Shield's comic-book inspired set design is up to Landor's usual high aesthetic standards.

Now the bad stuff.

First and foremost, Devilish! objectively isn't very funny, something made obvious by the fact that punchlines are generally met with an excruciating sullen silence from the audience. An unfunny comedy is that most crippling of theatrical experience, hen you're only producing the occasional embarrassed titter, it's painfully obvious too all present, performer and audience alike, that the show is failing.

Much of the blame lands with Alex Green's woeful lead performance. Angel is written as naive, good-hearted and immature, on a sweet-natured quest for humanity which reflects our own deficiencies. Instead, Green plays him as a creepy, perma-grinning moron. This Tony Blair-esque rictus grin is like something from a nightmare, exacerbated by him smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. It's a fake smile that sets off danger signals in the primordial parts of the brain, signals that tell you run to away extremely fast in the opposite direction from a predator. If they ever stage a fringe production of the American Psycho musical Green is a shoe-in for the Patrick Bateman part, but an angel he is not.

Victoria Hope isn't so bad in comparison, but she's lumbered with the thankless role of having to fall in love with Angel. Fair play, she tries really, really hard - but making this relationship work is a task of Sisiphyean proportions. For all her efforts Ruth and Angel end up as much romantic chemistry as a pair of plastic mannequins, their big kiss engendering the same shivers of discomfort you'd get watching on-stage incest.

In the programme playwright/lyricist Chris Burgess and composer BB Cooper claim John Ruskin, H.G. Wells, Pieter Breugel, W.H. Auden, Oscar Wilde and Gustav Mahler as inspirations. Mentioning those luminaries in the same breath as Devilish! is just perverse. This is a show aimed at the lowest common denominator that somehow manages to fall short of that. It should be dragged out back and put out of its misery.

★

Devilish is at The Landor Theatre until the 29th of May 2015. Tickets here.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

'Thoroughly Modern Millie' at the Landor Theatre, 26th August 2015

Thursday, August 27, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

At first glance Thoroughly Modern Millie looks like it's onto a winner. This is a sugar-sweet trifle of a musical packed with vigorously Charlestoning flappers, toe-tapping tunes, ultrachic Roaring Twenties fashion and snappy screwball dialogue. It boasts a bevvy of high octane, charismatic performers and is generally suffused with an air of good cheer. This is a show with many arrows in its quiver - so how does it miss the target by a mile?

Adapted from the cult 1967 Julie Andrews-starring musical of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie was revived in the early 2000s to broad acclaim. It tells the tale of new-girl-in-New-York Millie Dillmount (Francesca Lara Gordon). Sick of her podunk Kansas town, she arrives in the Big Apple with starry eyes and a head full of Vogue lifestyle columns. Her ambitions are fairly straightforward: to snare a rich husband and lead a life of easy luxury. If she has a bit of fun in speakeasies, society parties and fashionable clubs along the way, then so be it.

Complicating matters are a cold fish of a boss that ignores Millie's advances, an annoyingly persistent sweet young man who won't leave her alone, various money woes and dodging the prohibition enforcing cops. Unbeknownst to Millie, she's also got to tangle with her landlord Mrs Meers who's running a 'white slavery' ring that sells young girls to Hong Kong brothels.

This is cool.

First things first. Francesca Lara Gordon, in her debut professional performance, is an excellent Millie. Intelligent eyes sparkle under her Louise Brooks bob, giving a cartoonish character a tangibly human dimension. Physically she's all sharp angles, coquettishly posing as if she's spotted a fashion photographer secreted in the audience. Gordon also makes the most of some marvellously tasselled dresses which nicely accentuate her movements as she throws herself into the dance numbers with gusto. She isn't the greatest singer I've ever heard, but imbues all her numbers with personality - which goes a long way.

Similarly fun are Samuel Harris' stuffshirt boss, a stock role but played almost to perfection, getting some of the biggest laughs of the night. Christine Meehan also impresses in her various roles, wringing every comedic drop out of her lines and body language. All that, in combination with some neat dancing, a nice sense of energy and a decently malleable set should make for a basic success. Thoroughly Modern Millie isn't going to rewrite the musical playbook, but this sounds decent enough, right?

Well there's a fly in the ointment. An massively racist fly. Being previously unfamiliar with the story I was sat there basically enjoying myself until the arrival of the villain, Mrs Meers. She's a straight-up racist caricature; a woman in yellowface with a black bun hairdo, geisha makeup and cheongsam whose catchphrase is "so sad to be arr arone in the worrd". Compounding this is her slavery scheme, which derives from racist conspiracy theories of innocent white girls being preyed upon by secret and powerful foreign criminal organisations bent on defiling them.

This ain't cool.

Very slightly ameliorating things is Mrs Meers quickly reveals herself as a white woman disguising herself as Chinese. I suppose there's an argument that what we're seeing is the racism of the villain character, but imagine if the Mrs Meers character was in blackface and talking with a comedy 'Mammy' accent? After all, deep down the 'joke' here is making fun of the Chinese accent. This shit is unacceptable in 2015, bringing to mind Mickey Rooney's deeply regrettable Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast in Tiffany's.

Compounding matters are that supporting character Ching Ho is played by a non-Chinese actor. Alex Codd does a decent job in the role, but you have to wonder how hard it would be to find a London based Chinese actor to play a Chinese role (especially given that the show's already on some pretty thin ice), and not have someone trying very, very hard to talk in accented broken English without being massively offensive.

It boggles the mind that someone, sometime during production didn't point out that maybe this could come across as a teeny-weeny bit racist, and that perhaps the script could be altered to remove it. For me it spoiled what would otherwise have been a reasonably enjoyable production. Sadly, Millie proves to be anything but 'modern'.

★★

'Thoroughly Modern Millie' is at The Landor Theatre until 13 September. Tickets here.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

'The Clockmaker's Daughter' at the Landor Theatre, 1st June 2015

Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

The Landor is an awfully dusty theatre. So dusty that, at the end of The Clockmaker's Daughter, a mote got in my eye, producing a few involuntary tears. Now, don't think for a second that this musical made this stony-hearted, cynical theatre critic cry - perish the thought!

....Oh who am I kidding? Anyway, judging from the sniffles going around the theatre I was far from alone in getting all teary-eyed and wobbly-lipped at the climax of this wonderful new musical by Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn.

This is a very rare thing; a brand new fairytale that somehow feels as if it's been with us all along. Set sometime in the 18th century, we meet the residents of the bucolic village of Spindlewoode. Renowned local clockmaker Abraham (Lawrence Carmichael) is at a loss following the tragic death of his beloved wife. Wracked by grief he creates a clockwork replacement that, by some miracle, comes to life.

Shocked and amazed at what he's accomplished, he names her Constance (Jennifer Harding) and treats her as if she's his own daughter. Yet all too soon the bright lights of the nearby village draw the curious Constance towards them like a moth to a flame. After an innocent accident results in a prized wedding dress falling into a well, Constance resolves to replace it - turning out an exquisite dress in a matter of hours.

Now she's the toast of the town, providing beautiful dresses to all and sundry. This draws the ire of egotistical local seamstress Ma Riley (Jo Wickham), who's understandably paranoid that Constance's generosity will wreck her business. Matters are further complicated when her son Will (Alan McHale), begins to fall for this mysteriously talented newcomer. But dark clouds soon gather on the horizon. After all, how will this superstitious village react when they discover that no heart beats under Constance's skin, just the metronomic tick-tock of clockwork?

There's chunks of Edward Scissorhands here, combined with the atmosphere of Beauty and the Beast, a touch of Blade Runner philosophy and myriad tiny elements plucked from the folklore canon (Pinocchio, Frankenstein et al). Despite these influences, there's a core of originality that makes The Clockmaker's Daughter firmly its own story, one that can just about stand alongside the classics of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

More than anything, the specific sense I got was that I was watching some forgotten Disney animated classic. Not some winks-to-the-parents, postmodern money churner, but one of those old-school solid gold animation classics - a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella or The Little Mermaid. Comparing something to Disney feels like a backhanded compliment, the House of Mouse rapaciously mining, sanitising and commodifying the fairytale. But this is like Disney at it's best, that unmistakable style running right through the core of this show: from the scheming, extravagant villain, to the characterful supporting cast, to the effortless switches in tone between comedy, tragedy and romance, right down to the simple purity of the heroine's soul.

It's all buoyed up by an impressive book that had me tapping my toe throughout. Most obviously impressive are the bombastic numbers featuring the entire town. Market Day is an explosion of exuberant energy, with the various villagers dancing around each other proffering their wares. A darker energy is present in the ominous A Town Meeting, the music perfectly conveying hysteria and building malevolent.

But my favourite moments came in Jennifer Harding's solo performances. A Story of My Own is a fantastic summation of Constance's desires, peppered with sincerity and recognisable desire. The real virtuoso moment comes in the climactic Clockwork. The show has been great up to this point, but things get kicked up a notch here - Harding stunning the audience with a visceral vocal performance that takes the show to unexpected emotional heights.

All that is built on a bedrock of smart, solid and confident direction of Robert McWhir. The Landor Theatre's performance space isn't particularly huge, yet even with this large cast things never feel cramped. In the crowd scenes he gives each character has something to do, their stories being quietly woven into the village backdrop. This is further elevated by David Shield's impressively detailed and versatile set, able to be reconfigured in many different ways. The Landor has a reputation for it's production values, this is up there with the most impressive I've seen in fringe theatre.

The Clockmaker's Daughter is a hugely impressive achievement from top to bottom. It's got gigantic success written all over it, of all the productions I've seen lately it's the one I can most easily imagine making a jump to the West End stage. This is the kind of thing audiences go bananas for, a classically tinged original fairytale with top-notch songs, universally excellent performances and expert and intelligent direction.

And it made me cry! Me! Cry! Who would have thought?! Take your children! Take your girlfriend! Go on your own if you have to!

★★★★★

The Clockmaker's Daughter is at the Landor Theatre until 4th July. Tickets here.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

'She Loves Me' at the Landor Theatre, 9th February 2015

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Arriving strewn with hearts, roses and pastel hues of all shades, She Loves Me couldn't be more targeted at Valentine's Day romantics unless it was reciting soppy poetry and shoving a box of chocolates under your nose. This musical, based on the 1937 play Parfumerie by Hungarian author Miklós László, first sprung onto the Broadway stage in 1963 and has experienced intermittent revivals ever since.

She Loves Me is a romance stymied by farcical misunderstandings and comedic coincidences. The setting is interwar Budapest (though confusingly everyone speaks with American accents), specifically 'Maraczek's Parfumerie'. This is an upscale cosmetics boutique that prides itself on the quality of its products and the happiness of their customers. Run by the curmudgeonly Mr Maraczek (Ian Dring), the staff comprises of a slick, mint-aproned gang of salesmen; Georg (John Sandberg), Ladislav (David Herzog) and Kodaly (Matthew Wellman). Assisting this crack team are the ditzy Ilona (Emily Lynne) and chipper young delivery boy Arpad (Joshua LeClair).

Things are bobbling along like clockwork as the play opens, the happy customers dealt with in a flurry of perfume spritzes, squirts of cold cream and buttery compliments. But all too soon a spanner is thrown into the works - a spanner named Amalia Balash (Charlotte Jaconelli). She's an excellent saleswoman who we soon learn is wrapped up in an epic romance with her penpal - a man she only knows as 'Dear Friend'. She immediately rubs the stressed Georg the wrong way, the two becoming instant enemies.

John Sandberg as Georg

But here's the twist! You see Georg is also engaged in some steamily intellectual correspondence with a mystery woman. You don't have to be Nostradamus to tell where this is going. So we have a couple that are in love with each other on paper, yet hate each other in the flesh. Are there more potent recipes for hilarity than this? Will this unlikely couple ever hit it off? Isn't this a bit like the 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romcom You've Got Mail? (Yes, yes and yes).

We're firmly in old school farce territory, the plot happily bumbling away and the script supplying a constant stream of lightly funny gags. If I was feeling charitable I'd describe this tone as 'classic', but frankly 'old-fashioned' is a better fit. I suspect even on its 1963 premiere it was considered slightly quaint, delighting those with rosy memories of the Cary Grant/Jean Harlow/Katherine Hepburn era of 1930s screwball comedies.

So why revive it now? Well, in the ornate, pastel coloured set, fussily designed costumes and mannered characters behaviour I detected a more than a smidge of Wes Anderson's excellent The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson's 2014 film marked his first unalloyed mainstream success, audiences going wild for his gossamer light, aesthetically precise tale of oldschool class and exotic peril. She Loves Me hungrily eyes it, hoping to bottle some of the same lightning.

Sadly it doesn't quite manage it. Though well-performed by a talented cast, the show is hobbled by a bloated script that gets bogged down in giving practically every character lengthy subplots. For example, large chunks of the show are devoted to the romantic travails of the unlucky Ilona or the ambitions of delivery boy Arpad. There's nothing wrong with the way those characters are played, but the constant narrative digressions only distract from the central romance.

Emily Lynne as Ilona (l) and Charlotte Jaconelli as Amalia (r)

This adds up to a tiring experience. Heading in at half 7, a notice on the door promised a 10pm finish, but we wrapped up sometime between quarter and twenty past. Close to three hours (including an interval) is an awfully long time to devote to a fluffy romance musical. I can't help but think the whole thing would be much more palatable if the unnecessary subplots were shorn away to leave a lean, fast paced 90 minutes. As it stands the length makes the constant romantic confusion annoying rather than cute; I found myself having to resist the urge to yell "he's the guy you're writing to you idiot!" at the dippy heroine.

She Loves Me is a rather frustrating show to review; other than the length there's nothing obviously wrong with it. The principles all give decent turns, with the stand-outs the eminently impish Ian Dring, the likeable naïvety of Emily Lynne and Charlotte Jaconelli's impressive set of lungs. Conversely the show is lacking in 'sit up and pay attention' moments; the romantic chemistry passable rather than electric; the music tolerable rather than catchy; the gags permanently stuck in the gear of mildly amusing.

There's undoubtedly a place in theatre for easy-to-digest, productions that make no demands of the audience and unchallengingly rumble towards obvious conclusions. But this deeply conservative style leaves me bored as hell. She Loves Me isn't an awful experience, but it's difficult to find anything particularly praiseworthy here either.

★★

She Loves Me is at the Landor Theatre until 7th March. Tickets £20, available here.

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