theatre

Ballet Shoes – National Theatre At Home

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  I’m disappointed that this hasn’t been taken round the country – and, on that subject, when is the Paddington musical being taken round the country?! – but was very pleased to have the chance to watch it online.  It was made available for viewers in the UK yesterday, and you can rent it for £7.99.    It’s a lovely way to spend two and a half hours.  Obviously the book’s had to be cut down to fit the story into a stage show; but the gist of the story’s there, especially the characters of the three Fossil girls, and their vow to stick together and be known for their own achievements and not “because of our grandfathers”.

I do not get this obsession with “updating” things, though.   Why do people seem to think that kids today can’t relate to anything that isn’t set in their own time?   Is that not rather insulting to kids?!   And no-one seems to think that kids might have a problem relating to, say, Hogwarts or Narnia, so why on earth would they have a problem relating to something set in the 1920s?   Was it really necessary to have Sylvia wandering around in dungarees (which actually looked more 1980s than 2020s)?  It was particularly daft as most of the music and dancing clearly *were* 1920s.

Does this happen anywhere else?   I somehow can’t imagine, for example, a Canadian theatre company showing Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde wearing dungarees.

The dungarees irritated me.  As you may have gathered.  But Nana, GUM and the three girls all came across much more as they were in the books.

Which Fossil are you?  I usually say Petrova (despite my annoyance at the fact that she’s given a surname for a first name).  I’m worse than useless at anything practical and haven’t got a clue about cars and aeroplanes, but I like the fact that she’s different.

Posy is irritating.  She’s realistic enough, because you do have to have a streak of selfishness to succeed in any sort of showbusiness.  But Streatfeild seems to like showing her ballerinas as being exceptionally self-centred: don’t get me started on Lydia Robinson in the Gemma books.  But, still, like most little girls in the 1980s, I did imagine myself being a ballerina.  More of a Veronica Weston than a Posy or Lydia, though.  Or maybe a Caroline Scott: I waited hopefully to “lose my puppy fat” and magically blossom into a beauty at the age of 15 or so.  Still waiting!   *And* Caroline got to be swept off her feet by a handsome Spaniard (hooray for the start of the European clay court season!!).  Anyway.  Unfortunately, my ballet teacher, like a lot of school PE teachers, was only interested in people who were any good.  Clumsy fat kids like me got shoved in the back row and weren’t allowed to do anything other than walk in a straight line, leaving most of the dance floor free for the “good” kids to do the polka.  I so wanted to do the polka!  I never got to do the polka.  I gave ballet up after a year or so.  Oh well.   But I never, ever, identified with Posy!

But then there’s Pauline.  She did come across really well in this adaptation, overcoming her early brattish behaviour and becoming the responsible one whose work ended up being the family’s main source of income.   The scriptwriters/producers rather tied themselves in knots with the financial issues.  Heaven forfend that they should say that the girls were at a fee-paying school, so the reason given for them going to Madame Fidolia’s school was that they’d been expelled from several previous schools due to bad behaviour!  (No, me neither.)   And they also played down all the stuff with the Devoted Servants working for nothing: we just got Nana saying that she hadn’t been paid but that she was really one of the family.  Also, Sylvia’s wussiness was played down.  Sorry, I know that it wasn’t Sylvia’s fault that her great uncle dumped three kids on her and then disappeared, but could she (in the book) not have at least tried to get a job?!   But, despite all that, they made the point that it was Pauline’s earnings that were keeping things going.

On the subject of finances, what about the lodgers?  Well, they’d been “updated” as well.  Theo had become an American jazz artist.  Mr Simpson had become an Indian man called Mr Saran – and he got together with Sylvia.  No Mrs Simpson, and no Dr Smith either.  However, we were told that Dr Jakes was there because she’d been evicted from her previous home after her female partner died and the house passed to her partner’s brother … who got her sacked from her teaching job by telling her headmistress that she was a lesbian.  A sadder story than the two female doctors living happily together, but one that certainly could have happened.   Pauline immediately twigged that Dr Jakes was a lesbian.  That is *not* shown in the book, but I’m sure she did.  Most readers do.  And the way in which the lodgers helped the girls was portrayed very well.

Some of it was a bit exaggerated and pantomimish, and adding to the pantomime feeling was Madame Fidolia being played by a man (er, and then dropping dead), but it was originally intended as a Christmas show.   And there was plenty of music and dancing, which added to the entertainment.  All in all, it was very enjoyable.   “Updating” notwithstanding!

 

 

 

Operation Mincemeat – Lowry Theatre, Salford

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  Following the success of the film of the same name, the crazy, incredible true story of how the body of William Martin, “the man who never was”, tricked the Nazis into pulling out of Sicily and leaving the way clear for the Allies to land there is now pretty well-known.   This is a musical version of it – but it’s a send-up.  Like Daisy Pulls It Off sent up girls’ school stories, this sends up spy stories and the entire British intelligence system, to music.

Is it OK to send up the Second World War?   Well, yes, of course it is – within certain boundaries, obviously.   Those of us who grew up in the ’80s still use the catchphrases from the wonderful ‘Allo ‘Allo.   Even earlier than that, there was the famous “Don’t Mention The War” episode of Fawlty Towers.  The idiots who object to both of those would probably love this, because it’s the British, in particular the upper-crust British, and occasionally the Americans, who are being sent up!

It has its serious side, though.   There’s a poignant song about how one of the older team members lost her sweetheart in he First World War.   We’re frequently reminded that, however daft the plan is, hundreds of thousands of lives may depend on it.  We’re also reminded how credit often goes to those at the top of the food chain, not the ones who’ve actually done most of the work, especially if those who’ve done most of the work are female.  And, at the end, we’re told about the homeless ,man who died alone, many miles from home, and whose body was used.  There’s now a memorial to him in Spain, where he was washed ashore.

There’s a cast of only five people, all playing several roles – including a man whose main role is that of a woman, and two women whose main roles are that of men.  They do amazingly well: doing all that, twice a day, must be exhausting!

Are any of the songs memorable?   Well, I don’t think they’ll be joining the ranks of those musicals’ songs which everyone knows.   But it’s lively and it’s funny.  And it was a sell-out, even on a Wednesday night.  That’s some achievement for the first production by SplitLip, who wrote both the music and the words.   It’s been to the West End and to Broadway, and is now going on a world tour.   Don’t be expecting Rodgers and Hammerstein or Andrew Lloyd Webber, but expect a good night out, and you’ll get one!

Barnum – Palace Theatre, Manchester

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  What the musical doesn’t tell you – shortly after Charity Barnum’s death, P T Barnum married the daughter of a Manchester millowner.  He even missed Charity’s funeral, because he was with his future second wife, by then living in Southport.  When I first saw this musical, as a kid in the early ’80s, slightly bemused as to why Frank Spencer was on the stage 🙂 , I had no idea about that.   I bought all the story about him being involved with Jenny Lind, which is actually a load of rubbish. Oh well!

Barnum isn’t exactly Les Miserables, but it’s lively and entertaining – and huge kudos to Lee Mead for doing that tightrope walk.  And also to whomever was responsible for making the elephant: it looks very convincing.   It’s not particularly one for historians, because it doesn’t even mention the Civil War, and it makes it look as if everyone’s having a brilliant time – poor Joice Heth is singing and dancing – but the circus scenes are good, and Lee Mead is fantastic.   Nice to see this again.   It’s been a while!

 

Singin’ In The Rain – Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

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  I got splashed!   I wasn’t sure how this was going to work on the small, circular stage at the Royal Exchange Theatre, but it actually worked brilliantly, and splashing the audience and handing an umbrella to someone in the front row fitted in rather well with panto season!   OK, it’s a rather daft plot, and the iconic Singin’ In The Rain scene doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story, but it was very entertaining and a very good January afternoon out.

Giving Lina a very broad Noo Yoik accent worked better than just saying that her voice was annoying, and the actors and actresses in all the other main parts were great as well.  And we have had clear blue sky and glorious sunshine today, so no jokes about this suiting the Manchester weather!  It’s a shame that the Royal Exchange Theatre cafe *still* doesn’t have scones, but the show itself was superb!

Robin Hood – Manchester Opera House

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  I love that we still have pantomimes, and that the generation(s) brought up with the internet and smartphones enjoy them as much as older generations do.  I love that a story with its origins in medieval ballads can be used for a show in 2025 – er, OK, I don’t think the original Robin Hood stories involved a ghost playing the Coronation Street theme tune on a fake trumpet, but the general idea was there!   I love that no virtue-signalling idiot has tried to ban pantomimes on the grounds that they’re this-ist or that-ist (well, they probably have, but they didn’t succeed).   I love that it’s a daft British tradiition, which goes on and on.  And I love how much this made me laugh, on the Shortest Day of the year, with three working days still to get through.

I also love the fact that United have just equalised.

Merry Christmas, one and all.   Eat, drink and be merry xxx.

Top Hat – Manchester Opera House

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  I’d never seen this on stage before, and it was lively, light-hearted entertainment on an extremely wet Saturday afternoon!   The plot, involving mistaken identity, unconvincing disguises and Italian stereotypes, was beyond silly, but the dancing was impressive, and there were several songs in there which, even nearly a century after they were written, everyone knows – Cheek to Cheek, Let’s Face the Music and Dance and Puttin’ on the Ritz, amongst others.  I’m sure that those weren’t originally meant to be in Top Hat, but never mind!  All the Fred and Ginger storylines were a bit daft, but people still talk about them.  A good afternoon’s entertainment!

 

 

Miss Saigon – Palace Theatre, Manchester

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Is it my imagination, or have they tried to lighten this up a bit?   I felt as if The Engineer, who rather stole the show, had been camped up and given some comedy value.  And there were some other light touches, like the very cute little boy scrubbing his face after The Engineer kissed him.  It remained a very sad story in essence, though – the tragic romance, the tragic ending, the plight of the mixed race “Bui Doi” children, the girls forced into sex work in Saigon, the GIs who were traumatised by the war, the refugees, the repressive regime epitomised by Kim’s former fiance … and yet sad stories often make for excellent musicals, and this one did just that.

Superb performances all round.  There are a lot of big parts in this – Chris and Kim and The Engineer, obviously, but also Chris’s wife Ellen, and his friend John, and little Tam, and the original “Miss Saigon” girl.  And they were all great.   Superb songs.  It’d been years since I saw it, but I remembered most of the songs so well.

There’s never been a film version of this.   I’m not sure why not.  Maybe because it’s a difficult subject.  But in some ways, that’s quite nice, because it means that you’re not comparing the film and the stage show.

Anyway, the singing and the orchestra were superb, and the special effects were superb without distracting the audience’s attention from the actors and actresses.   Very, very good.

Fiddler on the Roof – Palace Theatre, Manchester

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  What a superb production this was!   Not only the singing, but the dancing and the instrumental music as well.   The Bottle Dance was amazing.   Like the Landler in The Sound of Music, it’s not a genuine folk dance, but it doesn’t half look good.  The fiddle-playing was excellent.  And there was a haunting solo at the end of the “Chavale” song (by a woodwind instrument, I think), which was stunning.

The story is very well-known, although the stage show isn’t exactly the same as the film.  I liked the way that Golde was portrayed here, though.  She’s often shown as a bit of a shrew.  Here, she came across as the heart of the family.   And there was one thing which was different from usual – instead of people talking about “Kiev”, they talked about “Kyiv”.  Well, except where the songs needed two syllables so “Kyiv” wouldn’t fit.  But the effort was made.  Now there’s a sign of the times.

Interesting range of accents!   All the actors and actresses spoke in their own accents.  So Tevye had a strong Welsh accent.  I wasn’t expecting that – because Matthew Woodyatt is the cousin of Adam Woodyatt (Ian Beale), I thought he was a Cockney.  But he’s from Llanidloes.  Golde and Yente both did have London accents, Fyedka was Scottish, and Lazar Wolf was American.   Maybe Tevye having a Welsh accent is quite fitting, given that both Welsh and Yiddish have been victims of both politics and snobbery.   Sholom Aleichem was a great supporter and promoter of the Yiddish language.  And his books are set in Ukraine, OK?!  Not Russia, Ukraine.  Yes, it was part of the Russian Empire at the time, but it does annoy me when people talk about Fiddler on the Roof being set in “Russia”!

To some extent, this was a sanitised version of events.  Broadway in the 1960s was only ready for so much.  The pogrom would have been far, far worse than the way it’s shown, and the local officer certainly wouldn’t have been friendly with Tevye.  And, whilst I haven’t read the Sholom Aleichem books, I understand that Shprintze (the fourth daughter) committed suicide, and Golde died.  The other daughters were scattered, and Tevye was left alone.

The musical ended on a bittersweet note.  The villagers were forced to leave their homes, and their community was broken up.  But Tevye, Golde and the two youngest children left to start a new life in New York, with Tzeitel, Motel and the baby planning to join them as soon as possible.  We can imagine them sailing into Ellis Island, and seeing the Statue of Liberty as they approach the land of the free.

OK, they probably ended up in a tenement block on the Lower East Side, and working in a sweatshop, but wouldn’t it be nice to think that some of their descendants ended up working in the world of musicals?   I was reading something the other day about how, with hate crime on the rise, minority groups are increasingly becoming defined by hatred from elsewhere, and the need to look at things more positively.  So how about a look at the contribution of the American Jewish community to Broadway and Hollywood musicals?   I’ve probably missed someone really obvious, but here goes!  Jerry Bock.  Sheldon Harnick.  Stephen Sondheim.  Leonard Bernstein.  Richard Rodgers.  Larry Hart.  Oscar Hammerstein.  Harold Arlen. Yip Harburg.  Sheldon Harnick George Gershwin.  Ira Gershwin.  Irving Berlin.  Jerome Kern.  Andre Previn.  Jerome Robbins.  Larry Adler.  Cy Coleman.  Dorothy Fields.  Philip Glass.  Jerry Goldsmith.  Anna Held.  Erich Korngold.  Carolyn Leigh.  Alan Jay Lerner.  Frederick Loewe.  The Shubert family.   Joseph Stein.  Mike Todd.  Abe Erlanger.  Mark Klaw.Oh, and Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil – yes, OK, they’re French, not American, but Les Mis is my favourite, so I wanted to mention them!  Lionel Bart here in the UK, come to that.  Quite an impressive list.

Maybe it’s time for a big name film about some different Jewish groups.  Preferably the Jewish communities effectively driven out of, say, Morocco, Egypt or Iraq.  Or, for something completely different, how about Georgia?  I’ve just been there.  The one in the Caucasus, not the one in the southern USA – Jewish history in Savannah goes back to the 1730s, but Jewish history in Caucasian history goes back 2,600 years.  The Great Synagogue complex on the main tourist street of Tbilisi has its doors open, and it’s fine for tourists to wander in to have a look round.  You don’t get that in the West.  You can’t.  It wouldn’t be safe.  Georgia also has, and used to have many, communities of Mountain Jews.  Doesn’t really fit the narrative of the left-wing haters, any of that, does it?   Come to that, nor does Fiddler on the Roof, where most people live in poverty.

It’s obviously a complete coincidence that this show opened in Manchester only three weeks after the horrific terrorist attack on Heaton Park Synagogue, the first fatal anti-Semitic attack in this country since the 17th century.  But it’s a coincidence that hasn’t been lost on anyone.  What’s happened has shaken Manchester badly.  The villagers of Anatevka joke about blessing and keeping the Tsar far away from us: Manchester, by contrast, is very grateful for the visit of and genuine concern shown by the King.  But some of the reactions from the haters have been horrific.  “To your health and may we live together in peace” – a wish from Fiddler on the Roof which too many people fail to share.

Great evening.  Great production.  Great music.  Great show.

Dear England – Lowry Theatre

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This was absolutely brilliant!  And full marks to the people in charge of casting and the people in charge of hair and make-up: all the actors playing the footballers and managers really did look like the people they’re playing.  As everyone probably knows, it’s about Gareth Southgate’s time as manager of England – going from the country being sceptical about his appointment and even more sceptical about his focus on psychology to the country hailing him as a hero and calling for him to be made Prime Minister!

It also brought in the political turmoil of the time, and the very difficult period of the Covid pandemic.

Early on, there were flashbacks to Southgate’s penalty miss at Euro ’96.   That was such a strange time.  We were all so excited.  Everyone was singing “Football’s Coming Home”.  I remember having a Euro ’96 T-shirt.  I went to Prague for a long weekend at the end of May, and the plane back to Manchester was full of Czech football fans!  And then, a week into the tournament, the IRA bombed town.  Thankfully, no-one was killed, but the city centre was badly damaged and we were all stunned.   But we carried on, because we had to.  And we got excited about England reaching the semis.  But it ended in tears and penalties, just like the 1990 World Cup had done.  This play went on a lot about penalties, but didn’t mention the disgraceful treatment of David Beckham in 1998.  Anyway.

There was a lot about Southgate shaking things up.  Especially bringing in a psychologist!  A lot of talk about the importance of support and teamwork.

It went on to the 2018 World Cup, when we actually won a penalty shootout before losing in the semis, and the Euro 2020 final in 2021.  And the 2022 World Cup, which ended in tears and penalties again!   That all sounds a bit negative, but it was actually really positive.  A final and a semi.   And Harry Kane got the support that Southgate, Pearce and Waddle didn’t.

And Southgate really changed the way in which England managers are viewed.  Bobby Robson was a bit like a much-loved uncle, and I don’t think anyone’s got anything against Roy Hodgson or Steve McClaren, but, in recent decades, we’ve also had Graham “Turnip” Taylor (who was a lovely man and really didn’t deserve the turnip headline), El Tel, Glenn Hoddle and his faith healers, Kevin “I will love it if we beat them” Keegan, Sven-Goran Eriksson and his headline-hitting love life, Fabio Capello and his suits, and, of course, Big Sam having to resign after only one match in charge.  Southgate really isn’t your typical blokish football manager, and a lot of the play focused on that.  You’d think people would have laughed at an England manager who wore waistcoats and went on about “feelings”.  But everyone loves him.  Sir Gareth Southgate!

It brought back a lot of memories!   Including the days when we thought that Marcus Rashford would be at United for ever and Harry Kane would be at Spurs for ever; but times change.

Will (men’s) football ever bring it home?  We live in hope.  In the meantime, this was an amazing night out!

 

 

 

Mary Poppins – Palace Theatre, Manchester

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  Be prepared to be traumatised because it’s not exactly the same as the film – but, once you get over that, this is wonderfully lively and entertaining, as well as being a serious story about what’s now called “the work-life balance”.   The Jolly Holiday, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Step In Time scenes are superb, and I don’t know how people have the energy to do all that singing and dancing at the same time!   Being the school holidays, there were people of all ages in the audience, and everyone seemed to be loving it.

I do wish that they hadn’t changed certain things from the film, though.  I appreciate that it would be pretty hard to have dancing penguins, toys running riot and Uncle Albert floating up to the ceiling on stage 🙂 – although there were plenty of special effects, including Mary Poppins flying off over the audience! – but why cut the suffragette song?  Instead of casting off the shackles of yesterday and marching shoulder to shoulder into the fray, Mrs Banks, who’s now a former actress who’s married up, sings about “being Mrs Banks” and stresses because a load of snobby women turned down her invitation to a tea party.   It seems an odd change to make.  I gather that Julian Fellowes was involved.

And Mr Banks, instead of striding around singing about how it’s grand to be an Englishman in 1910, is now obsessed with being “the sovereign of Cherry Tree Lane” and what social historians call “separate spheres” – domestic stuff is all down to his wife.   And he’s had a difficult childhood because he was neglected by his parents and terrorised by nasty nanny Miss Andrew – who, having only had a small part in the film, now has a much bigger part, as she did in the books.

I’m probably completely overthinking this 🙂 !   It was meant to be an entertaining stage show, appealing to kids – hence the A Spoonful of Sugar scene being rewritten so that it’s a pantomimish scene in the kitchen.  And Jane and Michael are really bratty until Mary Poppins reforms them, which I suppose fits in with a lot of children’s books.

Most of the songs from the film are in there, and there are some different ones as well.  The symbolism of feeding the birds and flying a kite remains strong.  And it’s a really good evening out.  I just wish that they hadn’t cut the suffragette song!