West Side Story

Curve, Leicester

28^th November 2019

“You make this world lousy –
- It was like this when we got here”

Following a couple of very festive seasonal productions in 2017 (Scrooge: The Musical) and 2018 (White Christmas – now playing a limited run in the West End), Curve have changed tempo for this year’s Christmas treat with Nikolai Foster’s epic new production of Bernstein’s West Side Story. While it’s not the cheeriest of musicals for the Holiday season the production homes in on the persistently significant topics of immigration, racism, gang warfare and the disenfranchised youth. So, considering we have a general election just round the corner, you could say that, despite the lack of festive cheer, Curve’s programming has proven to be the perfect finale to a politically charged 2019.

The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is given fresh bite, with Foster placing a particular focus on the futility and brutalism consequential to the subjugation of large sections of society. Maria, Anita, Bernardo and co. arrive in the Upper West Side of New York City against a backdrop of tattered stars and stripes and are welcomed with unfettered hostility from the Polish-American Jets. A large garbage pile looms over our (anti)heroes. We are placed amidst a neighbourhood of detritus – the forgotten masses left to fend for themselves. The ensuing turf wars are somewhat inevitable, as the sole authority figures in the piece, Schrank (Darren Bennett) and Officer Krupke (Christopher Wright), are shown to be bigoted crooks, stoking the flames of hatred. Michael Taylor’s set – bar a few minor sightline issues with the upper storeys– provides an atmospheric and suitably grubby playground for the action. A huge concrete and iron tower conveys the claustrophobic sense of families – communities – living on top of each other, crammed into a city fraught with yearnings for prosperity.

Ellen Kane retains the fluidity and exuberance of Jerome Robbins’ original choreography while introducing a flair of her own, imbuing the routines with punch and machismo. In blissful contrast to the more vigorous numbers (eg. ‘Cool’ and the dance at the gym) , Kane’s choreography for Tony and Maria is beautifully simple. Their first meeting demonstrates the lilting magnetism between the two characters; their stillness a bright beacon amid the frantic, competitive strutting of their fellow Jets and Sharks.

Bernstein’s score is given the full orchestral treatment and rightfully shines. There’s a reason that so many of the songs from West Side Story have become standards – I still marvel at Bernstein’s menacing horns and irregular beats, which, coupled with Sondheim’s extraordinary lyrical wit, are the epitome of musical theatre class. There’s not a dud number in the entire show, but standouts include Jamie Muscato’s soulful rendition of ‘Maria’ and an ecstatic and timeless ‘America’ – minimal staging, three performers, Kane’s energetic choreography, and a rousing song prove that crowd-pleasers needn’t rely on large-scale spectacle.

I also commend Foster for his neat take of my favourite number in the score, the show-stopping ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’. Placing the remaining Jet’s whimsical rebuke of the ‘system’ within a vaudevillian arena offsets the structural complexities resulting from having such an upbeat song feature in the aftermath of the fatal rumble. It also paves the way for some nice comedic staging which underpins Sondheim’s razor-sharp satirical lyrics. As the ensemble of wide-eyed young men tramp and play the fool, a sense of desperation emanates from the stage, despite the outward display of ‘stick-it-to-the-man’ bravado. Foster’s production demands we acknowledge these characters for what they are: naïve kids, let down by a society that places ultimate emphasis on the self. That’s why the refrain from ‘Somewhere’ resonates so deeply; the stress is not on the individual, but the collective – ‘we’, ‘us’ – and Kane’s dream ballet sequence, in which the stage brims with an amplified cast of young people dancing, hugging and smiling together, is a utopian depiction of what could be. That is, until the dream dissipates and Tony and Maria are, in fact, alone; isolated upon a bare stage.

The performances are uniformly excellent, with Jamie Muscato’s likeable Tony leading the young cast. However, the stars for me are Adriana Ivelisse and Carly Mercedes Dyer as Maria and Anita, respectively. Ivelisse’s Maria is utterly charming, her smile lights up the room, and she radiates with sweetness and childlike mischief. In contrast, Dyer’s unbridled spirit is unleashed in her tour-de-force performance of ‘America’. Dyer’s Anita is warm, brazen, but brittle, and when she finally breaks the consequences are heart-wrenching.

Foster and co. have wrung the musical for every last drop of emotion, intellect and topicality. West Side Story has been given the full blooded revival it merits and I would love to see this production have further life beyond this initial run.

West Side Story plays at Curve until 11^th January 2020.

Jamie Muscato and Adriana Ivelisse in West Side Story.
Credit: Ellie Kurttz.

#ReadaPlayaWeek - October

Family Voices (1981), by Harold Pinter

‘Tell me one last thing. Do you think the word love means anything?’

Pinter’s one act play (first heard on BBC Radio 3 and then performed at the National, followed by another run as part of a triple bill in 1982) is something of an oddity. Three voices (Voice 1, Voice 2, and Voice 3) communicate to each other in what seems like an epistolary form. This isn’t obvious but there’s certainly distance conveyed between them in what they’re saying: ‘The weather is up and down’, ‘Have you changed your address?’. It becomes clear that these exchanges are between a mother and son, with the dad (who may or may not be dead) coming in as a late third voice. It reads like a radio play, and it posts questions about how it may be performed. Do we see the other lodgers on stage? Where are the three speakers placed in relation to each other?

We can speculate that the letters, if that is how they’re communicating, are not being received, and that there is a rift between Voices 1 and 2. Has he run away? Why does she think he’s ignoring her? Why is he not bothered about an apparent lack of reply? The main point of curiosity though comes from hearing about with whom Voice 1 is living. He’s a lodger of Mrs Winters and although he initially assumes the other guests are also lodgers, he later deduces that they may all be related. Among them is a rambling nonsensical old man, and a woman who invites him into her room to eat copious amounts of buns. Her room is consumed with a sense of luxury, but in the way Voice 1 describes it, it connotes more of a sense of threat rather than comfort. It’s a proto-family in a shared space, not dissimilar to those in Pinter’s full length plays like The Birthday Party, The Homecoming and The Caretaker, in which each person assumes their own roles and peculiarities. Family Voices is an interesting, evocative ghost story.

Published by Faber

Fewer Emergencies (2005), by Martin Crimp

‘The light is improving day by day’

Fewer Emergencies is made of three acts, each a separate drama with its own title, played by three actors (joined by a fourth in the middle act). Sometimes their gender is specified in the dramatis personae but we learn little of them and their relationships other than that. It appears that they even change roles for each act. In each, the characters tell stories – however (un)reliable – in which vignettes of family life take a more sinister turn. Marriages turn sour, the routine of everyday lives is disrupted by violence, unhappiness shadows over bliss.

In the third, the story takes us inside a house where there are cupboards at the top of the spiral staircase. In them, top universities are lined up in a row, Beethoven symphonies hang on a hook, a secret draw pops open which contains the island of Manhattan, Paris is kept under a cloth to keep the dust off. There are shelves of oak trees, drawers of harpsichords, wardrobes full of cobalt. And a secret button in case of emergencies, a key hanging up to escape in an emergency. We hear that there are fewer emergencies these days, but there is a crisis at the moment, shots are being fired, and windows broken. The text is intriguing: there are parts of it which have an air of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘list poetry’ that’s in some of her dramatic work. But it’s more absurd and memorable because of that.

Published by Faber

salt. (2017), by Selina Thompson

‘Time accumulates’

I won’t try to unpack everything in Thompson’s extraordinary text, which tells the story of the writer’s journey through the Transatlantic Slave Trade Triangle. She tells the audience that she first travelled to Ghana on a cargo ship, barred from filming and isolating herself away from the racist Italian crew, before going on to Jamaica where both of her birth parents and one of her adopted parents are from. It’s made up of many short scenes that take different forms, from nursery rhymes to internalising her thoughts. It’s performative and playful and, as a text, a written document of how this clearly very visual show might have been performed.

Huge lumps of rock salt play a key role. The performer instructs the audience at the start that whenever she puts her safety goggles on, the front few rows of the audience must do the same. With a sledgehammer, she smashes these rocks into smaller and smaller pieces, timing it with particular words in the text. Salt as a rock, Europe as a rock, smashed to bits. And we are also prompted to think about salt in sea water as being a physical legacy of what’s been left behind from all of the drownings that took place in the Slave Trade era. I think it’s a typical example of how Thompson takes us from hugely physical bursts of theatre to the more poetic, achieving an articulate and theatrical experience, an example of theatre-making as part of an ongoing process, and a personal and epic exploration of home.

Published by Faber

Wild East (2005), by April De Angelis

‘Every civilisation has pursued art…

We know instinctively that it enriches our lives’

I’ll be honest, I didn’t particularly take to De Angelis’ three hander. Her play sees two anthropologist doctors (who used to be an item) interview a candidate for a high-profile job in the depths of rural Russia. Set over one scene in what seems a formless play, the male candidate acts very unorthodoxly and later reveals he stole an ancient bird from somewhere he was working. It’s a corporate-set comedy in which a power play ensues between the trio. It could be taken as a guide on how to perform well in job interviews even if you are abrasive or scrutinise the questions. But, to ask an anthropological question, what’s the point of it?

Published by Faber

 

One Under

Curve, Leicester

29^th October, 2019

‘It’s not all brutality here. There’s some tenderness’

Winsome Pinnock’s 2005 play has been revived in a co-production by Graeae and Theatre Royal, Plymouth, now touring the UK. When a young man jumps in front of a tube train, the impact is far-reaching, bringing people together to search for meaning. There is a dual time strand in One Under, showing the days leading up to Sonny’s death as well as the weeks following, leaving us with different perspectives and the gaps in between to fill.

Pinnock’s play is subtle, even if at times it feels slight. It starts with a suicide at an Underground station, something which puts a halt to the everyday rush and routine of London life and starts the introspecting of what brings someone to that point. What could have been done differently? How could you have helped? Were there any signs? A few days before, we see this man walk into a laundrette and ask the woman behind the counter on a date. This whirlwind connection remains fascinatingly opaque, especially as to the reason why how he showers her with money and luxuries. At the same time, we hear glimpses of a supposed gang he’s running from, but again, whether that’s true or not and what the exact details are elude us.

These scenes interweave with scenes after his death. Cyrus (Stanley J Browne), the driver of the train that hit him, has befriended Sonny’s adopted mum, Nella (Shenagh Govan). It is a genuine and interesting friendship which sees him doing her garden and her make him soup, but there’s also ulterior motives at play. Cyrus is convinced he’s Sonny’s birth father and so sets out to solve the riddle of why he jumped. Did he fall? Was he pushed? Is there a note? Likewise, she knows Cyrus is the train driver but seeks comfort from his connection.

Amit Sharma’s revival feels fresh and is performed with conviction by a cast committed to the story. They sit round the stage when not in a scene, an awareness that they are all playing a part in a bigger story. Reece Pantry conveys Sonny with all the breeziness of a young man enjoying life, hiding the struggles underneath. Govan is very compelling as Nell, the loving mum still coming to terms with Sonny’s death. This is the first Graeae production I’ve seen, a company which commits to the creative integration of sign language, captioning and audio description in its productions. Before the play, train station platform screens warn that a train is approaching, but they seamlessly transition to show Pinnock’s text as captions when the play begins.

But two things really stand out in Pinnock’s play. Firstly (and most optimistically), despite London being repeatedly referred to as a harsh city, kindness is mostly what’s on display. And more disquietingly, that a person’s mental health issues can hide deep under the surface.

One Under plays at Curve until 30^th October as part of a UK tour. It plays at the Arcola Theatre from 10^th-21^st December. For more information visit https://graeae.org/our-work/one-under/

Stanley J Browne and Shenagh Govan in One Under. Credit: Patrick Baldwin

 

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert

Curve, Leicester

28^th October, 2019

“That’s just what this country needs:

a cock in a frock on a rock”

My theatre-going so far this year can be aptly described as ‘My Favourite Films: The Musical’. Some of these adaptations/productions have been excellent (Amelie), and others ponderously unnecessary (Little Miss Sunshine). The latest screen-to-stage example, a new touring production of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, falls comfortably in the middle of this spangled spectrum as an enjoyable (if unoriginal) crowd-pleaser.

Ever since the camp-tastic Australian indie movie burst onto screens in the early 1990’s (launching the careers of Hugo Weaving and a young Guy Pearce) Priscilla has been a firm favourite in both the time-trodden ‘road movie’ genre, and LGBT+ cinema. The story follows drag artist, Tick (Joe McFadden), as he travels across the Australian outback in a clapped out bus to visit his young son and revive his flagging stage career. Joined by fellow performers, Adam (Nick Hayes) and Bernadette (Miles Western), the trio encounter a variety of oddballs and bigots, as well as forming some unexpected and personal bonds. A cult classic, writers Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott haven’t strayed far from the source material, simply coupling key scenes from the film with head-bopping disco standards (‘I Will Survive’, ‘Hot Stuff’ eg.) and cheeky dance numbers. While the adaptation doesn’t produce anything new, it’s a proven jukebox formula that works, and judging by the audiences’ reaction, results in a raucous, fun-filled evening of fluff.

Having seen the original West End production of Priscilla several years ago, director Ian Talbot’s downscaled touring version inevitably pales in comparison due to necessary budgetary and logistical constraints. I missed the iconic Stiletto Opera scene; choreographer Tom Jackson Greaves’ tame dream ballet sequence lacks the drama and striking imagery of the original. I also felt the sets and costumes lacked the finesse seen previously. However, if I put my analytical hat on, I could argue that the slightly ill-fitting outfits - comprised of bolts of bargain basement sequins and Styrofoam wigs - is in keeping with the makeshift pluck of the characters and their journey.

Joe McFadden is solid as everyman Tick, getting the balance of earnestness, warmth and flamboyancy just right. Yet, it comes as no surprise that Western and Hayes steal the show. As pithy old-timer, Bernadette, Western gets the best lines (‘now listen here, you mullet. Why don’t you just light your tampon and blow your box up, as that’s the only bang you’re ever gonna get sweetheart!’), while Hayes is in his element when performing the production’s most memorable numbers – his energetic yet sultry entrance to ‘Venus’ is quite something! Daniel Fletcher’s mechanic, Bob, is every bit as cuddly as you’d want, and the blossoming relationship between him and Bernadette is very sweet.

Talbot’s is not an earth-shattering production, but it was never meant to be. LGBT+ representation has progressed since the original film release in the 90’s, so while the stage adaptation can’t bring anything new to the table, Priscilla, in all its glorious manifestations remains a bastion of queer culture that is fabulously unapologetic in its sheer ostentatiousness. Director and co. have created a fun and uplifting evening of kitsch entertainment, catchy tunes and a heart-warming story. It’s just what we need as we enter the drab winter months.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert plays at Curve, Leicester until 2^nd November.

For full tour details please visit: https://priscillauktour.com/tour-dates/

Miles Western, Joe McFadden and Nick Hayes in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.
Credit: Darren Bell.

Two Ladies

Bridge Theatre, London

12^th October, 2019, matinee

“We’re just the wives, with the little handbags and the big husbands”

Almost two years after opening, I can’t help but feel that The Bridge Theatre still hasn’t quite come into its own. It’s seen a mix of some well-received Shakespeare, and big acting names counter-balanced with often under-developed and slightly odd material. Nancy Harris’ new play Two Ladies, focusing on the First Ladies of the US and French Presidents, is consistent with this. However, whilst the play occasionally borders on the ludicrous, it’s always engaging and boasts two fine central performances.

Anna Fleischle has designed a corporate conference room on the Cote-d’Azur: clean and empty, with a potted plant, stacks of chairs, and glass walls. Downstairs, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors gather for an emergency meeting. Five coordinated terrorist attacks have targeted cities across the US. America’s knee-jerk reaction is to launch an air strike to retaliate, now calling upon other world powers to show their support. But this is a side room to the main event. Here we meet two first ladies, along with their PAs, yes-men and spin doctors, in what is a blisteringly theatrical opening scene. Sirens fill the air as Sophia (Zrinka Cvitešić) is rushed in by her entourage covered in blood, her arms and designer dress caked in thick red. 

It’s established that Sophia has had animal blood thrown over her by protestors of her husband. However, after reading the programme notes about Lyndon B Johnson being sworn in as President as Jackie Kennedy stood nearby still covered in her husband’s blood, the sight is all the more shocking. They disrupt Helen (Zoe Wanamaker) who was alone, her mind occupied by her own political and personal machinations, but the two are now in lockdown together, forced to make small talk.

This play is fiction, but as we learn more about the characters, there are a number of similarities between them and their real-life counterparts. Helen is the English, older wife of France’s premier, about to play the victim in a scandal over her husband’s infidelity. Sophia is the Eastern European glamourous wife of her older husband, the US President. The result is a curious amalgamation of real-life personae, making it semi-satirical but also too far removed from reality to have much of an effect. This becomes apparent when the situation turns towards the absurd. Sophia takes out a bottle of Chanel No5, telling Helen its filled with deadly poison. That’s right, it’s Chekhov’s poison perfume bottle! As the play progresses, there is an overt mixing of the personal and political which sees the women conspire to kill their husbands for the wider good. Their initial plan of committing suicide to protest their other halves reaping havoc is changed when a well-placed maid may provide the opportunity to make a bigger protest. We don’t know if their plan succeeds, but beneath the melodrama, there’s a belief in the two women that they want to change the world for the better, something to which their power-driven, war-mongering husbands are not committed.

Harris’ play and Nicholas Hytner’s steady production are always entertaining and enjoyable, even if they do perhaps overbalance into the realms of the preposterous. I also thought Hytner’s reliance on the underscoring synth chords (music by Grant Olding) to build up the tension gave it a bit of a Murder, She Wrote vibe. The lead performances help the play from teetering over the edge. Wanamaker goes from being funny to serious with conviction. Cvitešić is stylish, collected, dignified and sharp as the US first lady, an articulate character who’s never been portrayed as she really is. Two Ladies seems to be political satire, melodrama, and women putting the world to rights all rolled into one play.

Two Ladies plays at The Bridge Theatre until 26^th October.

Zoe Wanamaker in Two Ladies.
Credit: Helen Maybanks

A Taste of Honey

Curve, Leicester

22^nd October, 2019

“And what part do you play in this little Victorian melodrama?”

I didn’t really get the significance of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey (1958) when I initially read it at university. Seeing it for the first time and hearing the rhythm in the language and Delaney’s evocation of place and character, I’m beginning to understand how this was such a ground-breaking play in 1958. What’s more is that Bijan Sheibani’s production (first seen at the National Theatre in 2014) breathes new life into it with an on-set band.

Despite being set in 1958, Sheibani’s production has a modernity carrying through it, mainly thanks to Benjamin Kwasi Burrell’s music. A pianist-bassist-drummer Jazz trio are positioned disparately across the stage, accompanying the dialogue. Although it sounds like this could be jarring or distracting, it complements the action extremely well, reminding me a bit of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014). If a character is singing joyfully or reciting a nursery rhyme, the music is jingly and playful, whereas it hints more at a sense of danger when the text delves into darker territory. Reimaginings of songs such as ‘Mad about the boy’ and ‘Nature Boy’ contribute to depth of character, and the musical transitions between scenes create a sense of fluidity.

Hildegard Bechtler’s Salford sink estate design also contributes to the overarching sense of working-class ennui. Moving concrete blocks become the walls of the flat and graffitied playgrounds. Steel girders emphasise the rusty bleakness of Industrial Manchester. The programme notes feature a letter from Delaney to Joan Littlewood, detailing a hastily written first draft of the play. What is evident, having the playwright’s words in mind, is that Delaney has taken the truth of her life and social surroundings and placed it on stage. While she isn’t the first to have shined the spotlight on working class communities, the female perspective she brings to the genre is refreshing, even to a 21^st Century audience. Delaney’s characters, particularly mother and daughter, Helen (Jodie Prenger) and Jo (Gemma Dobson), partake in trail-blazingly frank exchanges, revealing both the liberties and constraints faced by women in the 1950’s and tackling universal topics such as wealth, independence, relationships, careers and motherhood. The dialogue is wonderfully witty yet poignant, and Delaney forges a unique rhythm in her prosaic and earthy poetry that is a delight to listen to.

The performances are stellar all-round. Stuart Thompson is a warm and utterly endearing presence as Jo’s best friend Geoff, while Tom Varey excels at portraying the occasionally surreal menace of Helen’s husband, Peter. But the show belongs to Prenger and Dobson; as a double act their chemistry is electric and their timing impeccable. Dobson’s Jo is sullen and temperamental, genuinely hilarious, and displays flashes of childlike glee and dryly incongruous wisdom (‘we don’t ask for life, we have it thrust upon us!’). Having mainly known Prenger for her stints as brassy leading ladies in musical theatre, her performance here was a knockout revelation. Prenger brings all the weight and weariness of Helen’s trespasses, while dosing her droll and often scathing remarks about her daughter with a pathos that hangs in the atmosphere. She’s not a likeable character, but played by Prenger, Helen is a fully rounded character that is not without sympathy.

Sheibani’s production is entertaining without being flashy, showcasing Delaney’s text in all its humour, honesty and melancholia. Outstanding performances and an evocative design placed my thoughts and emotions directly with the characters on stage. I was invested in their lives, and it was with a heavy heart that I had to leave them behind, so engrossing was the play. A keystone in feminist theatre, having now seen A Taste of Honey I can see just why Delaney is so lauded for her work.

A Taste of Honey plays at Curve, Leicester until 26^th October as part of a UK tour. It transfers to the Trafalgar Studios in December.

Gemma Dobson, Tom Varey and Jodie Prenger in A Taste of Honey.
Credit: Marc Brenner.

Cabaret

Curve, Leicester

15^th October, 2019

“What good is sitting alone in your room?”

Liza Minnelli on stage in a slinky black playsuit, bowler hat and stockings, sporting a staccato bohemian hairdo, slouched posture and splayed limbs. It’s an image synonymous with the music of Kander and Ebb, the sensual minimalism of Fosse and the genre of musical performance itself. It’s no wonder then that all subsequent productions of Cabaret live in the shadow of the iconic 1972 film. On tour once again, Rufus Norris’ 2006 production, which itself has had several renderings, attempts to blend the seediness of the film and hyper-sexuality of the following Mendes/Marshall productions in the 90’s with the original Brechtian Epic format. While this makes for some dynamic individual moments, for me the show doesn’t quite hang together as a whole, nor does it fully accomplish the gut-punch impact that Norris and co. seem desperate to instil.

John Partridge’s excitable Emcee welcomes the audience into the underbelly of early 1930’s Berlin, alongside young American writer-cum-teacher Cliff (Charles Hagerty). The Kit Kat Klub presents a revue of satirical musical skits, striptease and broad humour, while backstage is a breeding ground for social debauchery and political unrest amid the rise to power of the Nazi party. After striking up a relationship with Cliff, down-and-out headline act, Sally Bowles (Kara Lily Hayworth), a naïve yet ruthless doll, does anything she can to survive in a changing world.

The premise of juxtaposing the socio-historical realism of Joe Masteroff’s book scenes (boarding house ennui, struggling debts, illicit trysts) with the ultra-staged synthesis of the Klub scenes is a theatre lover’s dream. We can indulge our empathetic senses in getting to know a host of characters that are flawed but likable, while also engaging our intellect via the Brechtian prism of dramatic irony and epic satire. Norris creates some memorable numbers which fulfil the Brechtian dogma – ‘If You Could See Her’ hits the right notes of uncomfortable self-consciousness, and ‘Two Ladies’ and ‘The Money Song’ are well staged so to arouse equal levels of kitsch burlesque titillation and ironic nausea induced by the intransigent doctrines at play.

Yet, the more traditional musical theatre style songs that feature in the ‘real’ (aka. Non-Kit Kat Klub) world muddy the waters and blunt the edges of a piece that has the potential to be razor-sharp. Forgettable ballads, such as the unnecessary and oddly twee duet between Sally and Cliff, ‘Perfectly Marvellous’, do little to progress the story or offer thematic insight. And although the subplot featuring landlady, Fraulein Schneider (Anita Harris) and her relationship with a Jewish Shopkeeper is a sweet antidote to the cynicism displayed elsewhere, it feels like an offcut from an entirely different play. The adjacent worlds occupied on stage refuse to cohere, and where the contrasts should enhance one another’s meaning they merely detract from the hard-hitting topics so intelligently addressed in numbers such as the titular ‘Cabaret’. It is plain to see why Fosse insisted on cutting so much for the film.

I also found some of the direction a little overstated. Cabaret will never be a show lauded for its subtlety, but, for instance, the puppet master staging of ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’ seems a lazy consequence of moralising hindsight with its knowing mockery and obvious punchline. In comparison with Fosse’s unforgettable version of the number that is bone-chilling in its earnestness, Norris’ interpretation seems somewhat of a cheap shot. Furthermore, while my partner thought the ending was effective -

*spoiler alert*

The Emcee, alongside his troupe of cabaret performers, strips fully naked and the curtain comes down on the ensemble being prepared for execution in a Nazi Concentration Camp.

*end of spoiler*

- I was unsure about the way it humanised the Emcee, removing some of the emblematic gloss from a nefariously ambivalent character. It also smacks of a director that lacks confidence in his audience. Give us a little credit, we are able to use our imaginative faculties without needing the dots joined up for us.

Of the performances, John Partridge is quite visibly having a blast, and while I found his Emcee a little too aggressive at times, he avoids the potential trappings of being a simple Joel Grey or Alan Cumming impersonation. Kara Lily Hayworth lacks some of the charm that Minnelli brought to Sally, but she can belt out the songs with great musicality. Hagerty is a likeable Cliff, and Anita Harris and James Paterson shine as doomed couple, Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz bringing an element of sympathetic fragility to proceedings. It’s just a shame that their subplot seems so removed from the rest of the show.

I’m glad to have finally seen Cabaret on stage, but for me Norris’ production is less than the sum of its parts. Funnily enough, as a revue its successful – it entertains, and individual numbers make you think and hit pertinent themes of morality – but strung together as a dramatic narrative it simply failed to click with me, which is a shame as I adore the film. Bold, but not quite gutsy enough to be truly shocking. Theatrical, but too dramatically imbalanced to be Epic. The songs, however, remain a treat.

Cabaret plays at Curve, Leicester until 19^th October 2019.

For further tour details please visit: https://www.kenwright.com/portfolio/cabaret/

The cast of Cabaret.
Credit: The Other Richard