Maggie May

 Curve, Leicester

7^th June, 2022

“Pretending everything’s normal”

Two years after its scheduled run at Curve was cancelled due to Covid-19, Frances Poet’s play, co-produced by Curve, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch and Leeds Playhouse, opened last night. A finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Maggie May is a quietly devastating, often very funny, and surprisingly uplifting play about a woman living with dementia. Led by an exceptional central performance from Eithne Browne, Poet’s play doesn’t shy away from exploring the upsetting parts of the illness, whilst confidently showing that moments of joy, love and independence still exist after diagnosis.

Maggie May follows the story of a feisty woman from Leeds who tries to keep her Alzheimer’s diagnosis a secret from the world. She withdraws from friends and leaves notes for everything around the house. When her son and his new girlfriend visit, it’s clear she can no longer hide it from them. What I really liked about the play is that Poet makes the topic of dementia accessible. We see Maggie’s thought processes when she’s in a new situation: ‘I send signal to brain. Recognition’. We also hear her liken it to fog or a head full of treacle. Whereas Florian Zeller’s The Father has a clear trajectory of showing the title character’s illness decline, I really admire Poet’s more mature approach to portraying dementia on stage. Along with moments of confusion, there are also moments of lucidity. Late in the play, Maggie is still someone who is autonomous, pragmatic and even pro-active with her illness, having taken on a job as a dementia ambassador. And the darker moments are explained in an accessible way which make them less daunting. For example, when Maggie experiences delirium caused by a water infection, she likens it to her body trying to juggle two balls in one hand and it can’t cope when another one is thrown in. Eithne Browne in the title role gives a really touching performance as Maggie. We fully believe this is a strong Leeds woman who’s led a full life (running a kitchen, doing her son’s accounts, caring for her husband following a stroke), and Browne captures Maggie’s fears, determination and humour beautifully. Maggie is a character with dementia, not defined by it.

In 2021, it’s estimated that over 1 million people in the UK were living with a form of dementia. The arts have a vital part to play, from delaying its onset and diminishing its severity, to improving the quality of life for those with the condition and their carers. Gemima Levick’s excellent production is therefore doing crucial work in ensuring that the play has been conceived to be accessible for people living with dementia. Characters wear the same colour scheme throughout (Gordon in brown, Claire in purple, Maggie in grey); and captions highlighting Maggie’s thought processes accompany each scene to help audiences follow the narrative. It is a remarkable achievement that all areas of the production (writing, direction, design, front of house) are involved in making the play as accessible as possible. Nicky Taylor’s team at Leeds Playhouse (formerly West Yorkshire Playhouse) have done ground-breaking work to make theatre inclusive for people living with dementia. Their 2014 production of White Christmas (directed by Nikolai Foster) held the UK’s first dementia friendly performance, and they have since produced a practical guide to adapting productions to create a safe space for those living with the illness. Foster has continued to champion this work as Artistic Director of Curve and dementia friendly performances are now a frequent fixture of its calendar. They increase opportunities for people with dementia to access life-enhancing shows, reconnect them to their local theatres and reaffirm theatre’s role in society through connecting communities. A shout out must also go to the front of house team at Curve. They’re always friendly and helpful, but they’ve gone the extra mile to ensure a safe space has been created. A booth in the foyer highlights the many local resources available and acts as a quiet space for visitors to reflect on the play. Leaflets from the Alzheimer's Society have also been placed in the bar to provide further information. This is a brilliant example of how theatres are a central hub in a community, forging partnerships with purpose in the local area and ensuring everyone’s included.

Francis O’Connor’s design creates Maggie’s world with furniture coming on stage on tracks. The way the dining table and bed move are particularly clever in showing how the illness can fragment parts of the home life. The supporting cast all do a fine job, especially Shireen Farkhoy’s ever-optimistic Claire and Tony Timberlake as Maggie’s husband Gordon, singing songs and seeing the bright side to help her through. I also really liked the play’s use of Harry Potter and how Maggie’s relationship with the books changes throughout the play. We all know Harry Potter and I think its inclusion helps to further root the play in a recognisable world. Really inspiring work!

Maggie May plays at Curve, Leicester until 11^th June. All performances are dementia friendly. For further information, please visit https://www.curveonline.co.uk/whats-on/shows/maggie-may-2/

The Dementia Friendly performance of Billy Elliot at Curve is scheduled for 11th August, 2.15pm and of The Wizard of Oz is on 4th January 2023, 2.15pm.

Tony Timberlake and Eithne Browne in Maggie May. Credit: Zoe Martin

Cluedo

 Curve, Leicester

6^th June, 2022

“Let the game begin”

Mark Bell’s production of Cluedo, adapted from Sandy Rustin’s US play which itself is based on Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay of the 1985 film Clue, has been transposed to 1940s England. Based on the classic British boardgame, the play is a mashup of an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery crossed with a farce in the style of Mischief Theatre. Whilst there are plenty of twists and turns in this whodunnit, loosely set upon a backdrop of scandal and corruption, the main thing I was left scratching my head at was where did the whole thing go wrong? Rustin’s play is apparently one of the most performed in the US at the moment (there are productions in 13 different states in June alone!). Whereas her play is set in McCarthy era Washington DC, she does have form writing plays in the style of English farces with her play The Cottage (2014). Likewise, Bell comes with a string of successful comedies under his name having previously directed The Play that Goes Wrong (seen here last month) and The Comedy About a BankRobbery. It’s a shame, then, that Cluedo, in trying to be both a murder mystery and a farce, doesn’t live up to the expectations of either.

As Tory MPs lined up to vote in a confidence vote in Westminster last night, corruption at the heart of government and British society is also at the centre of Cluedo’s plot. Six strangers are invited to a country manor one stormy evening, all of whom are being blackmailed by their host for various ‘indiscretions’. Inspired by the events of the Lynskey Tribunal which found criminal activities happening in the upper echelons of British society, the play exposes the hypocrisies of those upholding a charade of decency. One character’s proclamation of ‘I’m not involved in any corruption. I’m a Conservative’ certainly strikes a chord. But the play’s pertinence ends there. The host is murdered during a blackout and the body count quickly rises. What follows is a murder mystery romp in which the only form of tension is from a loud thunderclap sound effect.

The characters, as you’d expect from those in the boardgame, are mostly stereotypes. Colonel Mustard, for instance, is reduced to spoonerisms and cheap puns: ‘You’ve all been given pseudonyms tonight’, ‘It’s OK, I took something for my hay fever before I got here’; ‘Do you like Kipling?’, ‘Oh, I’ll eat anything’. But it is typical of the play’s inconsistencies and missed opportunities that at one point, having spent all of act one punning, that he asks ‘how can you joke at a time like this?’ without a hint of irony or humour. But because of their two-dimensional nature, it’s difficult to really care about any of them. Daniel Casey is having a good time as the plummy stiff upper-lipped Professor Plum, and Meg Travers (on for Michelle Collins) nicely portrays the cunning side of the femme fatale Miss Scarlett. Overall, I appreciate the characters are supposed to be stereotypes but I think more could have been done to play up the cartoonish caricatures which push the boundaries of the play’s faithfulness to the boardgame. Mostly, the cast don’t have much to play with resulting in weak characterisations.

If there are any saving graces, the production runs along at a nice pace and there’s an amusing moment in the second act involving a slow-motion falling chandelier. But apart from that it feels like the play gives up in the second half. A random singing telegram arrives, there’s an excruciating moment of fake corpsing, and the jokes start to feel repetitive. Successful farces are often best played naturistically and work because you feel none of the characters want to be there, but I never really felt that the stakes were particularly high here. They also tend to find their own groove from which the momentum builds. If a singing telegram turned up in a Mischief Theatre production, which tend to reach the delirious heights of hilarity, it would probably work. But in Cluedo, it just felt flat.

David Farley’s design is enjoyably playful. Seven doors line the edge of the set in a nod to Marc Camoletti’s Boeing Boeing. These fold out to reveal inner rooms you’d expect to find in the boardgame and complement Anna Healey’s movement rather well to give the effect that the cast are roaming around a country mansion. But, overall, I can’t help but think this is best kept on the shelf.

Cluedo plays at Curve, Leicester until 11^th June as part of a UK tour. For further information, please visit https://www.cluedostageplay.com/

Daniel Casey and Michelle Collins in Cluedo. Credit: Craig Sugden.

School of Rock

 Curve, Leicester

30^th May, 2022

 

‘Do it just as loudly as you can

Stick it to the man!’

 

School of Rock presents the recipe for a perfect 21^st Century family musical. A simple story with likeable characters and a heart-warming message, played out to a soundtrack of bombastic, foot-tapping tunes. I’ve previously described it as being as if Matilda and Rock of Ages have been chucked in a blender, and the result is just as electric as you’d imagine. It’s no wonder then, that School of Rock has provided Andrew Lloyd Webber with that elusive, bankable ‘hit’ he’s been seeking for the past couple of decades.

If you’ve seen the 2003 film the musical is pretty familiar fare which sticks closely to the source material, which is a plus, as Julian Fellows’s book succeeds in its modest structure which lets the laugh out loud humour and touching moments of sentiment shine. Among the most enjoyable scenes are those taking place in the classroom. The chemistry and interplay between lovable loser turned substitute teacher, Dewey Finn, and the straight-laced kids of Horace Green prep school is sharp, often surprising and genuinely funny. The kids’ backstories are further developed by Fellows, leading to the incredibly sweet ‘If Only You Would Listen’; a plea for acceptance from parents that either can’t or won’t have time for their children’s growing independence and desire for connection.

Lloyd Webber’s songs (with lyrics by Glenn Slater) fit well alongside the existing songs from the film (‘School of Rock (Teacher’s Pet)’; ‘In the End of Time’). ‘You’re In The Band’ is a rocking sequence, showcasing the kids’ individual talents with gleeful enthusiasm, while the eleven o’clock number, ‘Where Did The Rock Go?’ gets the balance between elegy and pastiche just right, humanising the stuffy Head Teacher, Miss Mullins. But the standout number is the anarchic anthem, ‘Stick It To The Man’, children and adults alike can’t help but want to be up on that stage with the band, ‘kicking ass’! The song is a thunderous wall of sound and the rebellious message has unsurprisingly become the global motif for the show.

The cast work their socks off; the talent displayed by the young actors is undeniably impressive – quadruple threats at the age of 10! – and the thrilling live music elevates the musical further by recreating the buzzing atmosphere of a rock concert. The children also display impeccable comic timing, the young actors playing Billy and Lawrence in particular are absolute scene stealers. Rebecca Lock is endearing as the high-strung Miss Mullins, her voice soaring whether singing in crystalline soprano or belting out a power ballad. Jake Sharp gives a star-making performance as big kid, Dewey Finn, endowing the role with charisma and wit while avoiding turning the part into a Jack Black impersonation. Sharp’s relentless energy and palpable joy really hold the show together, and his searing vocals are authentically rock’n’roll.

School of Rock is the feel-good musical that we need right now, and it was lovely to see such a varied audience on a Monday evening at Curve. From young families to veteran rockers sporting their favourite band tour t-shirts; Lloyd Webber, Slater and Fellows have crafted a musical for everyone to enjoy. The message conferring the transformative benefits of musical and artistic education is a very worthy one, but that aside, School of Rock is simply a rollicking, gleeful night of fun!

School of Rock plays at Curve, Leicester until 4^th June 2022.

For full tour dates please visit: https://uktour.schoolofrockthemusical.com/tour-dates/

Jake Sharp and the company of School of Rock. Credit: Paul Coltas

The Play that Goes Wrong

 Curve, Leicester

9^th May, 2022

“The snow’s coming down thick”

The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society are back again with their production of the classic thriller The Murder at Haversham Manor, which we last reviewed on tour in 2017. You’d think the society would have had a lot of time to sort their act out since then. But I’m delighted to say that, in the time that’s passed, it’s still an utterly calamitous affair: two hours of under-rehearsed amateurs upstaging each other on a dangerous set in a rickety war-horse of a play. But of course, it isn’t really! This is The Play that Goes Wrong, a farce that’s hilarious from start to set-crashing finish in which a terrible amateur drama society attempts to stage a 1920s’ murder mystery.

The Mousetrap was one of the last plays we saw before the pandemic. It was the first time my wife had seen it but she had seen The Play that Goes Wrong. I admit there were parts of it where we found ourselves holding back laughing which reminded us of The Murder at Haversham Manor. In The Play that Goes Wrong, every element of a theatrical farce is wrung to its full potential: Actors wrestle with bits of the set falling apart, doors become stuck, characters mistime their entrances and get lost in the script. Colin Burnicle is particularly impressive as the Director-cum-Inspector. He has the farceur’s knack of trying to keep everything together when it’s clearly falling apart, and is especially funny in a 10 minute side-track dealing with hecklers in the audience. Aisha Numah and Beth Lilly also play off each other really nicely as the stagey actress Sandra and the ASM who gets a taste of her limelight. Kazeem Tosin Amore is also very funny as Robert, an actor who’s love for the game is tested to the limit when forced to drink numerous glasses of white spirit and is almost crushed by furniture on a collapsing platform. But this is an ensemble piece and the whole company make it look effortless. Mischief Theatre’s original show remains an unstoppable sensation ten years on from its premiere in a pub theatre. Now a global hit and having spawned a BBC series and other Goes Wrong spin offs, this latest tour maintains its breathless energy. It’s also great to see it flourish at a time when the mid-large scale touring market is struggling.

When I first saw the West End production, I noted that what really drives the play’s momentum is the notion of carrying on, something which many amateur or student drama groups have enjoyed (perhaps endured!). In farce, no one particularly wants to be in the position that they’re in. But what makes The Play that Goes Wrong special is that, as hapless as the characters might be, they are doing it for the love of theatre. The idea of carrying on, that the show must go on, has gained new relevance in the past couple of years, and this show is all the more joyous for it!

The Play that Goes Wrong plays at Curve, Leicester, until 14^th May as part of a UK tour. For further dates, please visit https://www.mischiefcomedy.com/theplaythatgoeswrong-uk-tour/uk-tour/tour-dates

Members from the original cast are returning to the production in Manchester (30^th May-4^th June) and Newcastle (6^th-11^th June).

Colin Burnicle in The Play that Goes Wrong. Credit: Robert Day

Jerusalem

Apollo, London

23^rd April, 2022, matinee

‘Mother, what is this dark place?’

And she replies ‘‘Tis England, my boy, England’

I was 19 when I first saw Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009) at the Apollo in 2011. For me, it was the play that sparked a love for going to see plays and in particular a fondness of Butterworth’s work. I was lucky to get a £10 ticket fairly easily that day but it didn’t surprise me to hear that people were queuing around the block and camping overnight to get tickets. Jerusalem captured a sense of urgency I hadn’t seen reflected elsewhere and hadn’t been able to articulate myself until that point. It struck a chord for me and a generation of other young audience members hungry to see it. Ian Rickson’s production now returns to the Apollo Theatre with all the vitality and urgency it had first time round.

It’s St George’s Day and Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron is facing imminent eviction from his caravan on the edge of a Wiltshire forest. What has been a hangout spot for local teenagers, a sort of coming-of-age ritual through the generations, is now under threat following complaints from the nearby housing estate. It’s also the day of the Flintock county fair and the reigning May Queen has gone missing. It’s a magnificent play, one which touches on insecurities about Englishness, brings together the ancient and the contemporary, and contrasts the mythical with the tangible.

I’d forgotten how much of the action is taken up by characters telling and listening to stories about Rooster: tales of him being a daredevil motorcyclist, his miraculous conception, being born with his own teeth and a cloak, meeting a giant who built Stonehenge. Stories give Rooster his legendary status and you can often see through the bullshit to see Rooster for nothing more than a wastrel who lives in a caravan and is laughed at behind his back. As Davey puts it, ‘you’re sat in your brand-new house you’ve sweat your bollocks off to buy, and find out four hundred yards away there’s some ogre living in a wood’. But there are other times when audience and hangers-on alike can’t resist the allure of his storytelling. And they’re not all completely unbelievable. The story where Rooster recounts a recent kidnapping by four Nigerian traffic wardens from Swindon mixes the bizarre with such peculiar detail that you wonder why he would make something like that up. And even the utterly fantastical ones are backed up with tangible proof: the Mars Bar from his sexual encounter with the Spice Girls; the drum that the giant wore as an ear-ring. By the end Butterworth has the audience believing in giants too.

Questionable storytelling has been especially pertinent in the past ten years. After the coalition government of 2010, I seem to recall commentators saying that politics was no longer a two-horse race. I can’t help but lament we’ve gone backwards since then. Everything is so divisive now: you’re either left or right, leave or remain. In politics and in culture it seems there’s barely any room for nuance. And storytelling has been crucial to politics in that time. Brexit and political discourse have been dominated by stories relating to national identity, often imagined, romanticised and polarising. The stories told in Jerusalem feel more like a warning now about the stories we tell ourselves as a nation. Even earlier this year, Tory party chair Oliver Dowden told a conference:

As I walk with my children through the calm suburbia of Hertfordshire… I actually reflect on the great fortune we have to live in a nation defined by stability, security… and, yes, Conservatism.

Dowden’s implied vision of England – suburban, white, middle-class – is nightmarish. It implies a rigidity which is probably not too far off the seventy-eight new houses on the new estate in Jerusalem and which also feature in its sister play Parlour Song (also 2009). It’s this uniformity that Rooster protests: ‘Them houses is lovely, clean and spanking now. But come two, three summers, couple hard winters, those windows’ll peel’.

The play has gained a new-found relevance since its last London run. It also remains just as funny, exciting and heart-breaking as ever. The opening, arguably the best opening ten minutes of any play, is brilliantly theatrical. A midnight rave with the blasting of The Prodigy crashing against the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ is soon followed by Rylance sauntering out of the caravan, doing a handstand in a trough of water and downing a cocktail of milk, vodka and raw egg. Ultz’s set is wondrous: an American airstream caravan, real chickens in a pen beneath it, surrounded by real trees towering up into the rafters and a clearing made up of Coca-Cola chairs and other detritus. One slight difference I noticed since the last time was that there’s much more green algae on top of the caravan. Is the intention that it’s aged with the play? It’s as if Rooster never got evicted ten years ago and the caravan has sat in the clearing ever since. A new set of kids are hanging around Rooster, Ginger’s still there clinging on, and history’s repeating itself. Fascinating and all the more poignant if so.

Rylance and Crook are on top form reprising their roles, along with Alan David who is also back as The Professor. The new members of the cast, particularly the kids, all provide excellent support making the roles their own. Rylance’s performance is so physical but there are also moments of stillness which are just as memorable. One of them is where he’s recounting the story of meeting the 90-foot giant. Rooster comes quite far downstage and looks out into the audience and ends the story so softly: ‘I watched him walk clean across the land, north towards the motorway, until he was off in the distance like a pylon’. It’s a line which has gained new resonance since the production’s last outing. There’s a moment in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG (2016), starring Rylance in the title role, where the giant runs across the countryside alongside a line of pylons, itself probably echoing this line in the play. It’s testament to the greatness of the play, so full of cultural and literary allusions that it has brought about other reference points and gained new meanings since it was first produced.

We saw a preview performance on St George’s Day no less, and were delighted to get an extra Morris dance from Gerard Horan (Wesley) at the curtain call.

Jerusalem plays at the Apollo Theatre until 7^th August.

Kemi Awoderu (Pea), Mark Rylance (Johnny "Rooster" Byron), Charlotte O'Leary (Tanya), Ed Kear (Davey) and Mackenzie Crook (Ginger)
© Simon Annand

The Homecoming

 

Curve, Leicester

27^th April 2022

“I decided she was”

I could be wrong but I think this is the first time Pinter’s Tony award winning The Homecoming (1965) has been professionally performed in Leicester since a production at the Haymarket in 1996. It seems odd to me that, outside of London, Pinter revivals are few and far between. It’s pleasing to see, then, that Theatre Royal Bath has revived the play for a UK tour. Jamie Glover’s production, starring Keith Allen and Mathew Horne, nicely balances the surface realism with an underlying sense of threat.

We get a sense that the usual trappings of a domestic drama are being skewed from the off. Liz Ashcroft’s design is a 1960s house in the East End: period wallpaper, a staircase, a living room, a window. On its own, it could be the setting for the sort of family drama that Pinter started his career acting in. But Ashcroft subtly subverts this. The walls loom into the rafters as if dwarfing the characters below and even the large staircase creates a sense of unease with the landing light casting shadows behind it. We meet Max, the cantankerous, misogynistic patriarch of the family, pitched perfectly in Keith Allen’s performance, the third time he’s been in this play. His language is coarse, he boasts about his son Joey’s sexual scruples, and he antagonises his chauffeur brother (who I saw Allen play in Jamie Lloyd’s production in 2015). What’s interesting is that some plays have pseudo families made of strangers taking on familial roles. Here, we have a real family where the roles and relationships are distorted. When Max’s other son Teddy returns from a long break working in America with his wife Ruth, the turf war escalates.

Mathew Horne excels as Lenny. Underneath the banal language, he’s poised with an ambiguous danger which makes him unpredictable. This is most explicit in the scene where he first meets Ruth. But somehow, despite Lenny’s intimidating language and running rings around his prey, his new-found sister-in-law holds her own. Played with careful stillness by Shanaya Rafaat, the power play culminates in a battle over a glass of water which she wins. In the second act, Teddy watches on powerless as Ruth is kissed by his brothers. By the end, Teddy returns to America while Ruth stays with his family and has agreed for them to pimp her out. But, ultimately, who is in control here?

Glover’s production is certainly less stylised than Lloyd’s 60^th anniversary revival. However, I questioned whether that stripped back production swamped some of the play’s subtleties. Here, the menace is subtler and I think Glover (himself an actor) gives the cast space to let the text come first. I felt we were really given a chance to enjoy Pinter’s language, its comedic contradictions and dark subtext. I personally prefer some of Pinter’s later plays, but this is a fine example of an early work which draws on the naturalistic tradition but to unleash what Michael Billington called a ‘startling territorial takeover’

The Homecoming plays at Curve, Leicester until 30^th April and then tours until 21^st May.

Sam Alexander, Keith Allen and Mathew Horne in The Homecoming
Credit: Manuel Harlan

Secret Blog: “The world turns. And it turns. And it moves and you don't. You're still here.”

15^th October 2011. The day after my 19^th birthday, I queued up on Shaftesbury Avenue for a day seat to see Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre. The play was still in previews for its second West End run and had just returned from a Tony-winning engagement in New York.

I wasn’t too familiar with what the play was about but was aware of the hype that surrounded Mark Rylance’s performance as Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron and the play itself. For me, it was the play that sparked a love for drama and new writing, and an interest in Butterworth’s plays which later became the subject of my Masters dissertation. When I heard that people had been queuing around the block and camping out overnight to get tickets, it didn’t surprise me. Jerusalem captured a sense of urgency I hadn’t seen reflected elsewhere and hadn’t been able to articulate myself until that point. As a coming of age play, as a political play (which was particularly heightened following the English riots that summer), and as a play about Englishness, it struck a chord for me and a generation of other young audience members hungry to see it.

Tomorrow, 23^rd April 2022 – St. George’s Day no less – I’m seeing the play again back at the Apollo where Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook have returned to their original roles. I’d just started my first year of university back in 2011. I’m now graduated, married and a home owner. I wonder how the play has also changed since then.

“Come, you giants!”