Comedy Workshops Graduation Day 2017

Review by: Paul Towers, 05 November 2017

Graduation Day – Alex Hylton + support

Upstairs @ The Western, 5 November 2017

“an evening of new comedy.”

Upstairs at The Western has long been committed to supporting up and coming talent in comedy. Under the tutelage of local comedian Dan Nicholas the venue runs comedy workshops which culminate in a performance before a paying audience. While all levels of writers and performers are welcome it usually turns out to be aspiring comedians who sign up.

This year’s alumni of five proved to be talented enough to hold their own in their allotted stage spots.

Sarah Davis opened after Dan had warmed the audience up. Her confident manner delivered an hilarious stream of puns, mainly health related.

Next came Valter, a Portuguese/Spaniard who started off with the distinct disadvantage of English being his second language. However he used this to his advantage with tales of English confusion and Brexit bafflement.

Lisa Martin, pleasingly the second female on the course, had a very sure delivery and produced plenty of laughs.

Kevin Hudson, looking much like Terry Pratchett, was a self confessed grumpy old man and railed against all the things that us older people find perplexing, self service tills especially.

And talking of Terry Pratchett, the next act was billed as Death Itself (complete with flowing black robes) aka Gavin Pilchard, who had a very nice laid back delivery as he moaned about long working hours and the irritation of Mrs Death’s indecision.

To round off the evening we had Alex Hylton as the headline act. A Midlands based 22 yr old, Alex has a voice like ‘Marge Simpson in a blender’ (his words) and a very disarming self effacing style to his material as he apologises for not being more manly. Very charming and likeable. A great way to end an evening of new comedy.

The next comedy workshop course starts in January and culminates with a gig as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival 2018. Full details are on the Upstairs at The Western website.

 Upstairs at The Western http://upstairsatthewestern.com/

First published on Western Gazette
and PubTheatres

Jestin' at The Western November 2017

Review by: Paul Towers, 04 November 2017

Jestin’ at The Western – November 2017

Dan Nicholas hosts Tony Cowards, Alex Kealy, Bijan Barekat, Sean Morely, Danny Clives & Top Joe

Upstairs @ The Western, Saturday, 04 November 2017

“two hours of comedy for just £8”

Upstairs at The Western hosted its monthly comedy open mike night for November with Leicester’s very own Dan Nicholas as the regular compere with two headline acts and four open mike spots.

Sean Morely drew, some would say, the short straw by being allocated the first spot. Although Dan had warmed the audience up with his usual surreality, it is still difficult to be first on. Morely grabbed the experience by the throat and bravely started his spot from within the audience. It took us a few minutes to be drawn into his crazy world but he had a sure touch and played the audience well.

Next up was Bijan Barekat. His initial material trod the well worn path of the difficulties of being an Asian and travelling the world. Where he became original and quite off the wall was his take on children’s stories and how they could be updated with extreme political dogma.

The headliner for the end of the first half was Alex Kealy, a very personable posh boy with socialist political leanings.

After a quick break Dan Nicholas sprang from behind the curtains to introduce the next batch of funny men. Danny Clives had a very nice line in self deprecation, always a fertile field to mine for comedy.

Next up was Top Joe, someone I can only describe as a Welsh peculiarist. His Rob Brydon-esque ramblings jumped from subject to subject mangling his handling of English as a second language to great effect.

The final act and second headliner (remember this was all for just £8) was Tony Cowards, a master of the one-liner, Tim Vine’s slightly younger ‘brother’. The great thing about being a devotee of the one-liner is that if one doesn’t work then there are several more champing at the bit to tickle your funny bone. Coward’s material, almost completely original, hit much more than it missed.

Next month’s Jestin’ at The Western is on Saturday 2^nd December.

 Upstairs at The Western http://upstairsatthewestern.com/

First published on Western Gazette
and Pub Theatres

42nd Street

Review by: Paul Towers, 1/11/2017

42^nd Street by Michael Stewart & Mark Bramble

Music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London

“funny, musical and energetic.”

42^nd Street, taken from the Warner Brothers’ film which in turn is based on the book by Bradford Ropes, is the ultimate backstage musical to end all backstage musicals.

The tenuous story is of an inexperienced hoofer, Betty Sawyer (here played by the incredibly talented Clare Halse), who gets to go on for the star, Dorothy Brock (surprisingly played by ex-pop star Sheen Easton), when she breaks her ankle. In the words of director Julian Marsh (Norman Bowman in this performance) she has to go out a girl and come back a star! And boy does she!

Although Sheena Easton is top billed as the ‘name’ it is Clare Halse who steals the show. This girl can sing, she can dance, she can tap faster than a machine gun! Her comic timing is spot on and she looks great as well.

As befits a West End show money has been spent on the production. There is more sparkle than an entire season of Strictly, more costume changes than a Kardashian photoshoot and a whole slew of standard, hum-along songs.

This show is topped and tailed with two amazing routines. The opening, as the curtain rises, of the entire chorus line tapping is awe inspiring. While the almost finale where a huge staircase slides forward and the dancers, clad in sparkly suits, tap their way down in formation is breath taking.

Along the way there is a great routine that is akin to the opening of the Muppet show, a large bank of rooms each containing a girl. As they  sing their lights go on and off in time to their voices. A tribute to the lighting engineer!

Another stand out visual moment is the routine where Dorothy Brock, in shadow behind a huge back cloth, shadow dances with Pat Denning, the squeeze she is cheating with behind sugar daddy Abner Dillon’s back.

On top of this there is a great moment in Keep Young and Beautiful when a large mirror comes down and we are treated to a Busby Berkley homage. Berkley, of course, was the film’s choreographer.

If you are a fan of big, bold, sparkly musicals (and who isn’t?) go see 42^nd Street before it closes

The Leftovers

Review by: Paul Towers, 26 October 2017

The Leftovers by Nic Harvey and Rob Green

Sheep Soup Productions & Curve presentation

Curve 26 – 28th October 2017

“The Leftovers. I am unimpressed”

According to the promotional programme handed out The Leftovers ‘in the confines of a community recording studio, friends of the late Jodie gather to record .. something. What would she have wanted? What kind of music best represents her, honours her? The boundaries of artistic license and ‘appropriate’ responses to grief are tested, as The Leftovers search for their own roads towards moving on’.

What we got was a directionless text linking some original songs which, in another context, would have been noteworthy. The title, The Leftovers, is entirely appropriate. This is a collection of leftover songs strung together with a lacklustre script.

A play or musical should grab the audience’s attention and connect with  them within the first ten minutes. By the time the interval came round I still couldn’t have cared less about the characters or the story.

There is a line early on spoken by one of the actors about a song which says ‘the writer should know what it is trying to say’. I concur.

I felt like I was eavesdropping on a group of friends but I don’t know any of them. They are chatting in that shorthand that long time friends have which excludes strangers to a greater degree because you don’t know the back story. Throughout the narrative a certain section of the audience, probably friends and families, was laughing uproariously while the rest of us sat in silence, once again reinforcing the feeling that we were on the outside looking in and not understanding what was going on.

Right from the start we are expected to empathise with the loss of someone we don’t know. By the time we have been let into enough aspects of her character it is too late. Apathy has set in.

The actors’ voices are great. They can certainly sing. There is no doubt about that. And they can deliver lines. Ben Welch as Jim, the sound engineer is the strongest actor and singer but they all have very little to work with when they are not singing. It is such a waste of talent.

I saw their previous production, Mrs Green, in 2015 and that was infinitely better.

The Leftovers is at Curve until Saturday 28^th October www.curveonline.co.uk

First published on Western Gazette

Burning Books

Review by: Paul Towers, 25 October 2017

Burning Books by Jess Green

Directed by Julia Thomas

Curve 25 – 28 October 2017

“a savage indictment of the failure of our children by the current education system”

Sometimes the promotional material for a play does not do the production full justice. Such is the case with Jess Green’s Burning Books. On a fact sheet handed to all the audience members as they trouped into Curve’s pop-up performance space, RR2, there was loads of  background blurb about how the piece has morphed from some poetry into a music show and thence into a stage show. She garnered lots of response from the public after her poetry readings and those stories of people’s experiences within the education system have given birth to this show. It all seemed very worthy, dry and unexciting to my eyes.

Then the lights went down, the soundtrack (composed by Tasha Leggatt) came up and we were treated to a peek into the lives of 3 disillusioned teachers, by turns funny and achingly frustrating. This is a tale of four members of  a failing school in special measures and how they are thwareted at every turn by Government cut-backs and pen pushing money men as they try to instil a tiny bit of  motivation into classes of couldn’t-care-less kids from a sink estate. How they manage to cope, just, with the stresses and strains of trying desperately to keep their heads above water is a lesson in survival within a lackadaisical education system.

While Jess Green’s script is sharp and spot on (so my teacher friends tell me) it is the acting that brings the story into sharp relief.

Kat (Rebecca Newman) is the new First Teach student who tries to team up with union stalwart Janine (Erin Geraghty) to fight the forced conversion to an Academy. Scott (Conor Deane) is the PE teacher, all track suits and misogyny, and is as much use as a chocolate teapot and Mrs Sizzly (Mary Jo Randel), the school librarian with aspirations above her abilities and is blindly in love with Head Master Dom (Jasper Cook), never seen but omnipresent via the tannoy system..

This is a savage indictment of the failure of our children by the current education system

Burning Books is at Curve until Saturday 28^th October as part of the Inside Out Festival

First published on Western Gazette

http://ptheatre.blogspot.co.uk/

Hedda Gabler

Review by: Paul Towers, 23 October 2017

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen rewritten by Patrick Marber

A National Theatre production

Curve 23 – 28 October 2017

“is Hedda bad or bored?”

Originally written by Ibsen in 1890 this is basically a tragedy about a woman who has sold herself short in the marriage stakes. She thought herself to be on the shelf and grabbed the ring proffered by Tesman, an acedemic, on the understanding that his current penury would be alleviated upon his elevation to professorship. Closeted in a large barren apartment that they can’t afford to furnish (but somehow do manage to employ a maid) upon their return from honeymoon the cracks in their marriage quickly materialise.

The big question for the audience is to wonder whether Hedda is bad or simply bored as she unravels before our eyes.

The beautifully stark white set is designed by Jan Versweyveld and dwarfs the actors highlighting the isolation and neurosis of Hedda. He also designed the lighting which is used to good effect to show the passing of time.

The story will particularly appeal to fans of Scandi-detective and Nordic Noir stories. Things move slowly but inexorably to a climax while lives intermingle and old loves are revealed.

Lizzy Watts as Hedda Gabler is a finely tuned portrait of suppressed emotions, social frustration and machiavellian string pulling. Tesman (Abhin Galeya), her husband, is permanently diverted by his academic aspirations. A fine supporting cast make good use of Curve’s very adaptable auditorium for entrances and exits through the audience thus signalling their arrivals and adding to the tension.

This is a National Theatre production so the acting is top notch and the production values are very high.

Patrick Marber has cleverly inserted little laughs in the story to alleviate the intense emotions and allow the audience the breathe. His adaptation has also updated the language to the modern idiom which makes the story very easy to follow.

Directed by Ivo van Howe there are plenty of Pinter-esqe silences as we are invited to follow the thought processes of the characters.

Sound designer Tom Gibbons has created a very subtle soundtrack with some surprising vocals.

Hedda Gabler is at Curve until 28 October. Full details at www.curveonline.co..uk
First published on Western Gazette

The Bedtime Project

Review by: Paul Towers, 21 October 2017

The Bedtime Project by Lamphouse Theatre

Upstairs @ The Western, 21 October 2017

“hilariously bonkers.”

Sometimes a show is so hilariously bonkers it is difficult to know how to describe it.

Bedtime Projects is described thus by themselves: “Improvised bedtime stories for adults - Join our raucous, musical, storytelling duo in the land of nod, for an evening of ridiculous bedtime stories inspired by your ideas and suggestions (yes, it’s an audience participation show!). Grab a tipple and come have some fun. Prepare yourself for an evening of hilarious improvised entertainment before lights out. Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite!”
But let’s be honest, this doesn’t go anywhere near describing what Bedtime Projects is. Calling it improvised fairy tales for adults sort of gives you a flavour for it but that doesn’t encompass the lunacy that ensues when we, the audience, steer them towards the tale of how Sydney the Magic Unicorn saved Poundland. I know, surreal beyond words. Intermingled with that well known fairy tale are various digressions that have absolutely nothing to do with anything but are hilarious anyway.
With improvised songs, looped electronic sound effects and very few props this talented two-some kept us in fits for 90 minutes in Upstairs at The Western’s intimate space.
“Lamphouse Theatre is a vibrant fringe theatre company based in Peterborough. Their previous work has toured to Theatre 503 in London, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and regular tours around the East of England.”
The company’s touring production of Peter Pan will be back at Upstairs on 10 December 2017 for shows at 1pm and 4pm. Suitable for ages 6+. More details can be found at www.lamphousetheatre.co.uk

http://upstairsatthewestern.com/
First published on Western Gazette and Pub Theatre Blog