Curtains

Review by: Paul Towers, 26/02/2020

Curtains by Rupert Holmes with music & lyrics by John Kander  and Fred Ebb

Produced by Dlap Entertainment, director Paul Foster

At Royal & Derngate, Northampton – 25 – 29 February 2020

“a good hearted, undemanding evening of laughter”

Kander & Ebb are best known for such musicals as Chicago, Cabaret and New York, New York (a favourite of mine) but Curtains is less well known, probably because it is much more light hearted.

Curtains is set in 1959 Boston. A low budget theatre company are trying to stage a new musical version of Robin Hood transposed to the Wild West. When the less than competent leading lady drops dead on stage it turns out to be only the first of a series of deaths. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi (Jason Manford in fine voice), a frustrated amateur performer, sent to investigate what turns out to be a murder.

The show skips back and forth between the rehearsal room and the stage as the show’s composers (Ote Oduba and Carley Stenson) and the director (Samuel Holmes) try and whip the songs into some sort of shape. The show’s producer, Carmen (Rebecca Lock giving Ethel Merman a run for her money in the belting out a song stakes) is determined the show must go on as she has ploughed her life savings into it.

Meanwhile Lt Cioffi prowls around interviewing people while trying to inveigle himself into the show. Several murders later and, in true Agatha Christie style, the detective explains all the improbabilities and the culprit is caught.

Kander & Ebb obviously had huge fun with the musical numbers including What Kind Of Man? which pokes fun at theatre critics and It’s A Business which faces the harsh implication that show business is a business, not an art form. A couple of the numbers are deliberately bad to fit in with the story, which is hilarious and many of the lyrics have some wicked lines in them which, if you don’t listen carefully, you miss. There is also a lot of black humour, especially about the actress that drops dead on stage.

Curtains is out on tour after a successful limited run in the West End and is a good hearted, undemanding evening of laughter and spectacle from a hard working cast.

Curtains runs til Saturday 29^th Feb. Tickets still available.

Royal & Derngate https://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/
http://ptheatre.blogspot.co.uk/

Musik

Review by: Paul Towers, 19/2/2020

Musik by Jonathan Harvey & The Pet Shop Boys

A Cahoots Theatre Company presentation

Leicester Square Theatre 5^th February – 1^st March 2020

“the inevitable standing ovation was never more appropriate”

Oh my! Frances Barber, reprising her role as Billie Trix from Jonathan Harvey’s cult classic, Closer To Heaven, is sublime in the role of the disillusioned, faded cabaret star who just won’t give up. She spits out her frustration in a monologue that takes aim at notable influencers in her long and complicated life. Sharp arrows of bile are aimed at targets from Madonna (“that bitch stole my eyepatch!”) to Donald Trump (“I could have been the First Lady by now”), Andy Warhol (“I invented the soup can”) all in a deliciously acerbic aside as she prowls the stage snorting lines of coke and emptying a bottle of Jack Daniels. Imagine Patsy Stone let loose on a very adult audience only even funnier.

Inbetween her ranting and raving she brings us some songs from her past. She starts to sing Mongrel in that 40 a day throaty rasp as she walks through the auditorium and staggers on stage. From then on we are subjected to a torrent of filthy anecdotes, outrageous name dropping and the most hilarious ‘cabaret performance’ you are likely to see on any stage.

In the hands of master comedy writer Jonathan Harvey Billie Trix is a subversive portrait of degeneracy while The Pet Shop Boys have provided her with some outrageous songs that could never be in safer hands than those of the extraordinary Ms Frances Barber.

This limited run show is only on til 1^st March and I really couldn’t imagine any other performer than Ms Barber being able to pull it off. As Billie stumbled off the stage to For Every Moment the inevitable standing ovation was never more appropriate

Leicester Square Theatre - https://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/
http://ptheatre.blogspot.co.uk/

Come From Away

Review by: Paul Towers, 19/2/2020

Come From Away, book, music & lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein

At Phoenix Theatre, London: 31^st January 2019 onwards

“not the emotional sob-fest I expected”

On 11^th September 2001 hell rained down from the skies as terrorists flew planes into New York’s Twin Towers and The Pentagon. Henceforth known as 9/11 this resulted in airspace over America to be shut down. 38 international airplanes were forced to divert and they landed at the tiny town of Gander in Canada’s Newfoundland. Come From Away is the story of how this little community dropped everything and set about making almost 7,000 displaced souls as comfortable as possible for the five long days the emergency lasted. Considering that the population of Gander was barely 10,000 this was a remarkable achievement.

On a bare stage with just chairs and a few tables, the cast of  12 bring the entire population of both town and planes to life with each actor playing several roles, switching character and often accents with just a change of jacket.

Much praise has to go to Howell Binkley’s lighting design which is integral to following who is singing. The entire cast sing and move as one as the story flows from one person to another, especially when the stage revolves and you get a glimpse into the life of multiple people in quick edits.

While the back story of the terror attacks is only mentioned in passing there are still plenty of laughs to be had over the different cultures clashing.

Like so many new shows, especially musicals, social media tends to over-hype them  and this is the case with Come From Away for me. I found the story well told by very competent actor/singers, the onstage band were great as was the Celtic inspired music. The staging was imaginative use of a minimal set and the light and sound were great. However this was not the emotional sob-fest that so much online comment had me expect and I found the running time of 1 ¾ hours without an interval way too long. I enjoyed the show, it was informative and entertaining but I couldn’t emotionally connect with it. I am obviously in a minority.

Phoenix Theatre https://tinyurl.com/r2kyn67
http://ptheatre.blogspot.co.uk/