Barnum – aerial routines, live music by the cast, and the spectacle of PT Barnum’s undulating career and private life (Grand Opera House until Saturday 17 October)

The name Phineas Taylor Barnum conjures up the image of showmanship and spectacle, and the musical playing at the Grand Opera House this week certainly delivers on that promise with colourful entertainment that fills the height and width of the stage, live music, and the entwined stories of Barnum’s marriage and his most noteworthy productions.

To use the showman’s own words, Barnum is a story of hype and humbug. Matt Rawle reprises the lead role, starting out as a shabby looking entrepreneur with stacks of ambition and the chutzpah to pull off regular miracles. He has an easy rapport with the audience, and is an energetic presence throughout.

Monique Young impresses as Barnum’s straight-talking wife, Charity (usually shortened to ‘Chairy’ which sounds like ‘Cherry’), a woman of substance who ribs her braggart husband (she calls him ‘Taylor’) while gently steering his path towards more realistic goals. Young’s smooth voice lights up three first act numbers before Barnum’s layers upon layers of deceit threaten to jump from his work to his private life with the appearance of Swedish siren soprano Jenny Lind (Penny Ashmore) who at one point exits stage left on the shoulders of a strongman wearing a leopard print leotard!

The plot takes in key moments in the Barnum journey: reframing freakish performers as people with special talents, his successful curation of an American Museum (until its fiery end), a spell as tour manager for the aforementioned Jenny Lind (“Phineas, I'm a soprano, and we flirt!”), a thwarted political career, and a return to his circus roots.

Dominique Planter plays the world’s oldest woman (who is knowingly far too nimble) before her powerful voice returns in the second act song Black and White that’s sees a subdued Barnum lose his sparkle. Fergus Rattigan shows off his fine tenor voice as the diminutive General Tom Thumb blasts out Bigger Isn’t Better.

Have I mentioned the contortion, juggling, close magic, stilts, tightrope walking, and a giant elephant? Bill Kenwright’s presentation of this Watermill Theatre’s production throws everything at the show and the careful direction (Jonathan O’Boyle), choreography (Oti Mabuse and Matt Nicholson) and circus routines (Amy Panter) bring some control to the boisterous piece of musical theatre.

You can spot a consistent look of glee in cast members’ faces throughout the show. This ten-month tour finishes at the end of October. Their continued visible enthusiasm is heartwarming and infectious. The show’s subdued finale is anticlimactic in wake of the exuberant 11 o’clock number Join The Circus which creates the biggest sound of the evening, with almost discordant notes hinting that Barnum’s is still grieving and his soul is in turmoil.

Lee Newby’s set creates a circus tent with a proscenium arch which allows a couple of plush on-stage boxes to be shoehorned in to look down on proceedings in the ring below. Musical director Ben Scott mostly plays drums off stage before donning his peaked cap and jacket and appearing in some numbers alongside the talented multi-instrumental musicians. At one point six hands are playing two pianos, while the barnstorming post-interval number Come Follow The Band fills the auditorium with rich brass and rhythm.

Musicians gather on the balcony at the back of the big top and down at floor level. Instruments are swapped mid-song. Soaring above the singers, the six-strong muscly circus troupe perform aerial routines (with no safety wires). Good to see local lad Lennin Nelson-McClure shimmying up ropes and hanging upside down from the trapeze. The seesaw routine with performers flying up towards the lights is visually arresting and unlike anything you’ll see on the Grand Opera Stage again, even during panto season.

While Barnum undeniably takes advantage of the paying public, this production’s portrayal gently nods to his exploitation of performers without emphasising the showman’s darker side (which always seems to be sanitised). With The Greatest Showman Musical heading to the London West End in spring 2027 after an eight-week try-out in Bristol, this may the final outing for the 1980 musical Barnum before it is overshadowed by the toe-tapping songs of the hugely popular film. Yet Cy Coleman’s music, Michael Stewart’s lyrics and Mark Bramble’s book feel fresh and set the bar high for other theatrical Barnum shows.

Barnum is a big, brash musical that had me humming some of the shows soaring themes as I headed up Great Victoria Street towards the car. The show continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 17 October, before heading to Eastbourne and Malvern. Roll up, roll up. Catch it while you still can.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith Photography

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Hello Charlie – Derry wans processing their past and grasping for future hope (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 18 October)

Hello Charlie is a vibrant play seasoned with equal measures of hilarity and heartbreak. It eavesdrops on two periods of Maeve’s life, exactly a year apart. She’s an actress from Derry who is living in London. She loves a good time, but when Maeve drinks to excess, her fun-loving danger-dodging alter ego ‘Charlie’ takes over. Maeve’s out of work, out of sorts, and life has almost become one permanent bender. All of this is set against a backdrop of alcoholism in the home she grew up in, as well as the trauma and guilt that consumes her immediate family over the circumstances of her mother’s death.

Originally developed as part of the Lyric Theatre’s New Playwrights Programme, Caoimhe Farren’s script is fast-paced, edgy, full of banter and cutting asides, and manages to set up and sustain several jokes that deliver larger and larger laughs as the punchlines are revisited at half hourly intervals.

Farren’s Maeve is agitated, a hair-fiddler who drowns out the world with soul music pumping through her noise-cancelling headphones. Coming out of a seven-year relationship, she’s spending time with Alan (Callum Payne), many years her junior. The young diffident film buff’s uncertainty about Maeve’s desire for violent sexual roleplay creates comedic moments. What’s uneasy for the big teddy bear of a former squaddie is simply a “run of the mill Provo rape fantasy” for Maeve.

Older sister Kate (Clare Monnelly) grew up in the same household and has been touched by the same family trauma. But the expression of its impact is less overt in her life. Kate and Maeve are well-practised at sibling bickering, and anytime they appear in the front room together, there’s a wonderful (and cruel) sense of anticipation that one of the pair will ultimately explode.

Maeve’s language (and Farren’s pen) is full of colourful simile and witty retorts. After the interval the lights go down and instead of immediately returning to the flat’s sofa, Farren delivers an extended monologue that reveals a more sober Maeve who is grieving the absence of good time Charlie and is struggling with being estranged from so many of her family members and old drinking buddies.

The arrival of the sisters’ father (played by Vincent Higgins) brings the audience back to Charlie’s genesis, and offers the hope that one generation doesn’t have to follow in the exact footsteps of past ones.

Sinéad Owens’ set starts out as a front room in disarray. Bottles and left over carryouts litter the floor. Even the patron saint of a good night out traffic cone is lying prone, resting its head on a pizza box. A pair of Chekhov’s white wooden doors – crying out to be slammed (spoiler: they are) – lead off into the wings.

Having heard a rehearsed reading of an earlier version of the work a couple of years ago, it was a delight to see a full production of Hello Charlie at the Lyric last night. Few plays make it out of early development and into a full production.

Hello Charlie is being produced by SkelpieLimmer, Front & Centre, and An Grianán Theatre and is presented in association with Pavilion Theatre, Fishamble: The New Play Company, and the Lyric Theatre Belfast. The show’s Irish tour began in the Pavilion Theatre (Dún Laoghaire) for one night in September, before a brief run in An Grianán Theatre (Letterkenny) and now on stage in the Belfast Lyric from 7-18 October (part of Belfast International Arts Festival).

Those last two sentences reinforce how it takes a village of funders and supporters in order to stage new writing in the current precarious cultural economy. More power to the many elbows that have made this happen for Hello Charlie.

Farren’s work is written from her own experience of alcohol and sobriety, and the authenticity screams out even during the most extreme moments of heightened drama. Her performance in the central role of Maeve is phenomenal and mesmerising. Faced with such a big character to act opposite, Monnelly keeps pace during the intense sisterly sparring.

Co-directed by Gina Donnelly and Seón Simpson, Hello Charlie plays up a succession of unexpected entrances. The material is dark and the language holds no bars. The themes are relevant but never set on a worthy pedestal. Expect to hear gasps from the audience as Maeve makes shocked utterances and goes where most playwrights would fear to tread. Maeve’s profession also throws in some delicious jokes about acting that won’t alienate the general theatre-going audience. The sisters and their dad are incredibly Derry without laying it on too thick. A wee joke about Strabane is perfectly judged.

The 70-minute first act can function as a standalone play (albeit without the examination of sobriety). The hour-long second act brings a lot more depth to the characters (although my inner editor would chop off its beautiful opening monologue for sake of shortening the runtime).

A number of local plays have tackled the issue of consent while drunk (Wasted, Belfast Boy and Myra’s Story) but Caoimhe Farren’s nuanced tale of a woman on the road towards sobriety takes a different tack. Hello Charlie is a real treat and continues at the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 18 October. 

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Extra Geography – simmering inferiority complexes, co-dependency laced with envy and betrayal (QFT from Friday 2 October)

Flic and Minna are two best friends at a north of England boarding school, the kind of rural establishment where PE includes lacrosse. One comes from a privileged background (Minna played by Galaxie Clear), the other (Flic played by Marni Duggan) is a scholarship student with working class roots. They’re normally as thick as thieves and we join them as they begin to search for a new summer project. Classmates beware: their peers don’t always benefit from these side quests.

Extra Geography is set in simpler times and some suspension of disbelief is required. Mobile phones and social media aren’t available. The delights of the internet haven’t begun to sully all-too-young minds. The pair of 15-year-old BFFs are worried about not getting into Oxbridge. They think boys are horrid and adults are boring. They’re adolescents but still very naïve. Sex ed advice is provided by a girl from the year above.

Falling in love as a means to be more “worldly” becomes their self-appointed challenge: “I want to be as good at love as I am at maths”. At one level it’s almost a pre-pubescent fever dream, but the pair’s charisma and earnest striving towards their goal in the face of potential humiliation is quite endearing. (And the unspoken question of whether they’ll ultimately realise they could conceivably already be in love with each other is left hanging.)

Miriam Battye’s screenplay – adapted from Rose Tremain’s short story and directed by Molly Manners – digs into the girls’ anxieties, their craving of attention, and introduces a sense of competition to see how they will react.

One external threat to their joinedness-at-the-hip is a production of Midsummers Nights Dream (which is almost a tiresome go-to play to add drama within another drama). This device also adds a supply of boys (and their attitudes towards each other and women) from another school into the equation … though the girls’ summer project longings are aimed elsewhere. Casting decisions expand the wedge that has already been created by their shared object of desire.

Minna and Flic’s girlhood almost lives in its own bubble. We rarely see how other girls judge their crazy BNOC-lite behaviour. Classmate Phoebe (Aoife Riddell making her debut) is a consistent third wheel, the unknowing victim of a previous project who tries desperately hard to befriend the pair. Geography teacher Miss Delavigne (Alice Englert) becomes entwined in the ‘project’.

Girls’ boarding schools are ripe for rarefied cinematic studies of friendship, bad behaviour and lesbian activity. But this is no St Trinian’s. Minna and Flic’s bitchiness has limits. A US-produced version of this film would surely have sexed the whole thing up, ending with blood dripping down the dormitory walls? But Extra Geography settles for something more subtle with simmering inferiority complexes, co-dependency laced with envy, and a lip-trembling episode of betrayal as tiny molehills are made into mountains in the teenagers’ minds. The strong and unshowy performances make this all about friendship with feelings turned up to eleven.

Extra Geography opens today at Queen’s Film Theatre, and there’s a Q&A with local actor Aoife Riddell after this evening’s screening.

 

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Judy: End of the Rainbow – the final months of a tortured star (Grand Opera House until Saturday 26 September)

Judy: End of the Rainbow tells the story of Judy Garland’s final months in 1969. After a life in which so many aspects had been controlled by men, the fragile star is long past her glorious heyday. Her fans may still adore her Vaudeville act, but her spirit is broken. Garland’s latest fiancé, Mickey Deans, has organised a six-week residency in London to tackle her debt. But the ‘Talk of the Town’ threatens to be about negative comments on Garland’s wellbeing and lack of financial liquidity rather than praise of her starry singing.

Anna-Jane Casey is back on the Grand Opera House stage having played Sally Durrant last year in NI Opera’s Follies. Casey captures Garland’s mannerisms and exquisite vocals. The play’s script is dense, lit up by occasional moments of music. There’s an amazing stand-up row in the first act with Mickey Deans (a tall and youthful Darragh Shannon) whimsically accompanied by Anthony (Will O’Connell) on the piano.

The sporadic songs make Casey flit between upbeat Judy (pepped up by pills first foisted upon the teenage actress by film studio executives) and a downbeat woman who wants to go clean but feels she needs more prescription medication washed down by booze merely to keep going. She’s both a master manipulator and much manipulated by the men around her.

While watching the talented star wither in front of their eyes, the audience must decide whether Deans is just the latest in a succession of men who have used and abused Garland’s talent, or whether he’s just failing to keep control of her excesses. The pair’s dependency swings both ways. The difficulty is that other than a lot of early act one kissing, Peter Quilter’s script doesn’t leave much room for their relationship to be portrayed as anything other than fractious and almost completely loveless.

The character imbued with most empathy is Anthony. He has accompanied Garland – on the piano and through his loyal friendship – for years. Anthony can sweet-talk her into getting ready for a show, patiently applying her make-up, and can also recognise when performing on stage is the last thing she needs. Quilter crafts a precious and very loving second act conclusion to their friendship.

William Morgan also appears on stage as a hotel porter, a BBC radio interviewer, and a frustrated stage manager.

Ciarán Bagnall’s intimate set with gilded furniture combines Garland’s hotel room and a performance space. The raised wooden floor creaks, and every noisy footstep – particularly as Judy walks across the stage in heels – feels amplified. (The absence of legs – floor to ceiling black drapes – oddly leaves parts of the backstage visible to the audience.)

Casey/Judy is micced continuously, not just when she’s singing. However, the men aren’t. This creates a very strange sound mix of Judy coming through the side speakers while the men’s voices radiate from wherever they’re standing on the stage with no discernible reinforcement. As a result, at times not everything is distinct.

Fans of live music will also decry the lack of a live band in the pit. O’Connell plays some songs live, and theatrically conducts the prerecorded musicians in at key moments. Very synthy string pads lie underneath the more authentic brass in the backing tracks. This all contributes to the overall lack of spectacle.

After the interval, the faltering execution of When You’re Smiling extinguishes any remaining hope audience members will enjoy a happily ever after ending .

There’s no way to disguise that this is a distressingly sad story: a cautionary tale that unfortunately is one of many back then and still today in the entertainment industry. Garland’s dialogue throws up some great one-liners, but the inclusion of Over the Rainbow at the end couldn’t quite overcome the grim mood that settled over me during the previous two hours.

This Irish production of Judy: End of the Rainbow continues at the Grand Opera House until until Saturday 26 September.

Photo credit: Marcin Lewandowski

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Looking back at Belfast International Ballet Festival’s gala performance (The MAC)

The traffic management changes for the Fleadh were just coming into effect as I walked down through Belfast city centre to The MAC on Saturday 1 August. The streets were already more animated than usual, tourists looked relaxed, and there was a lilt of fiddles on the air, not yet tinged with the hum of outdoor generators.

Tucked in before the larger cultural extravaganza began was the Belfast International Ballet Festival. I’ve never made it along to review one of the big ballet shows at the Grand Opera House (though the news that they don’t always use a live orchestra these days also puts me off).

My last foray into the world of ballet was attending the annual performance of Amber Gordon’s School of Dance in Hillsborough around 15 years ago as a parent. Ballet is a form of dance that rarely makes it into musical theatre, not even as contemporary ballet, even though many of the dancers will have studied ballet at some point.

Normally, unless you’re taking part and attending classes, there’s little public evidence in venue programmes that ballet is an artform that anyone continues beyond primary school. But on that mid-summer weekend there was plenty of evidence on The MAC’s main stage that ballet is alive and well.  

I’m an irregular and uneducated reviewer of dance shows, mainly dropping into performances staged during Belfast International Arts Festival, the national dance company Luail, or work that Eileen McCrory or Dylan Quinn have choreographed. RIP ponydance and their legendary Pony Panto Christmas Show and an unforgettable Ponies Don’t Play Football production in 2016).

The short Belfast International Ballet Festival shone a light on local talent, as well as featuring dancers from elsewhere in the island. The final performance of the weekend was a gala night that included dancers from the High Points Youth Ballet and S-MB.

The first act danced along to traditional classical music, dominated by Russian composers. While I might not know a plié from a tendu, it was obvious that there was much strength, poise and grace on show. Powerful moves yet delicate and so well balanced.

While hair tied back in a bun was the order of the day, it was good to see that the somewhat austere, disciplinarian vibe of professional ballet could adapt at this level so wearing glasses was possible, and one dancer totally rocked a fringe … apparently Anna McCoy’s trademark perk of being a professional ballet dancer according to an audience member in the know!

After the interval stunning pieces of contemporary ballet by older dancers (neon costumes and hair worn down in Reflections, choreographed by Luc Burns) demonstrating emotional intensity as well as the precision of their movements, interwoven with more classical fare from larger groups of dancers.

While ballet is regularly be portrayed on film as elitist and upper class, what was on show on the MAC stage was athletic, graceful, with the ensemble dancers creating beautiful visual backdrops against which the principal performers could move. Professional dancers Luc Burns (Andersonstown) and Leigh Alderson (Portadown) joined in after the interval, adding lifts and a hint of romance to the storytelling. Zara Turpie with her high kicking tambourine work added a new twist to ballet musicianship!

Interval conversations took in the difference in arts funding north and south of the border (about four times more government investment in the south) and how that affects the ballet scene.

While the Northern Ireland audience demand for dance of any kind has been nurtured and grown a lot over the last decade, it is still small. One of the joys of the ballet festival’s gala evening was to see the joy and respect light up the faces of the people sitting near me: many of them ballet teachers and students from across the island, revelling in being able to watch their peers perform. 

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Paddy: The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong – a well-crafted and brilliantly performed study of a man who was caught in a miscarriage of justice (Wooden Bridge Productions at Lyric Theatre until Sunday 13 September)

Actor Don Wycherley’s eyes dart across the audience and if he delivers a line staring at you, it’s as if your soul is being interrogated. Walking around the stage in this one man show, Wycherley is as comfortable with the complex pattern of the script as the character Paddy Armstrong is cozy in his nursing home dressing gown.

It’s a genuine tour de force by Wycherley (who played local Irish language newspaper editor Rob Cullan in Scúp) as he imagines Armstrong in old age, living in a foggy world where words start to disappear between his brain and his tongue, uttering a chain of recollections that switch mid-sentence from one thing to t’other. Even before the tale of coerced confessions and unsafe convictions has begun, the audience are collectively rivetted by the actor’s characterisation, shuffling around the stage, switching accents, pulling faces and running in slow motion.

Paddy: The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong is no random selection of anecdotes from an autobiography (written with Mary-Elaine Tynan). Tynan together with Wycherley and Niamh Gleeson have crafted a 75-minute narrative that circles around but still gently moves forward in time.

So early on we get a sense of how young Armstrong was when he became hooked on gambling. The local priest suggested Armstrong would be safer living in England away from the Troubles. How Armstrong met Carole Richardson and lived together in a squat. Soon we’ve jumped forward to Armstrong’s interrogation in 1974 and how torture fed into the capture of his so-called confession. Then it’s 1975 and we’re in court as Armstrong is given a life sentence and the judge remarks that he wishes they had been indicted for high treason, which still carried the death penalty. Behind bars in HMP Wormwood Scrubs and HMP Hull the threat has swapped from bent coppers to bent screws and menacing prisoners.

Armstrong was arrested along with two other men (Paul Hill and Gerry Conlon) and a woman (Carole Richardson) – the Guildford Four – and accused of planting bombs in Guildford pubs frequented by British Army personnel. On the evening of 5 October 1974, explosions killed four soldiers and one civilian, with a further 65 people wounded. A couple of years later, members of the IRA’s Balcombe Street Gang would admit responsibility for the Guildford pub bombings, confessions that were suppressed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. (A line in the play almost casually remembers “the man I’m doing time for shakes my hand and walks off, leaving me [in the prison wing]”.)

The Guildford Four’s convictions were eventually quashed in October 1989 and a subsequent inquiry criticised the trial judge. Solicitor Alistair Logan commented that “four people spent 15 years in jail for an offence they didn’t commit and no one really knows after reading that report why that happened”.

Music and sound effects pepper the action. Wycherley’s timing synchronises key lines of dialogue with moments in songs, though the fast fades are very abrupt and a more complicated sound design might have extended some low-level sound effects to match the lighting states that accompany scenes (like those played out in prison).

Paddy: The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong doesn’t overly dwell on the what if questions, but instead explores how Paddy Armstrong’s life and personality persevered despite – or in spite of – attempts to derail it. You can catch it on the Lyric Theatre’s main stage until Sunday 13 September (there’s a Q&A with Paddy Armstrong and Audrey Carville after the Saturday matinee) before heading back to Clontarf and the Liverpool Irish Festival in October. There are also opportunities to catch it in Derry (26 February) and Cookstown (13 March) next year.

Photo credit: Ciaran Dolan

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Six: Teen Edition – a wunderbar production of the popular dive into history and herstory (East Broadway Theatre Company at Belvoir Studio Theatre until Saturday 5 September)

Welcome to Six: Teen Edition, the musical that reclaims the history of the six wives of King Henry VIII. It’s a summer production from East Broadway Theatre Company directed by Katie-Rose Spence.

By the end of the opening number Ex-wives the six actors have settled into the roles and the Queens are in competition to see which suffered the most begins. Alana plays Catherine of Aragon, whose marriage to Henry overlapped with his interest in Anne Boleyn (Matilda). Ella’s Jane Seymour claims to have been Henry’s true love. Soon Anna of Cleaves (Sophie) is wife number four, before Nell’s Katherine Howard enters the fray. The fight to be the most oppressed is halted by Catherine Parr (Julia), who as a survivor resets the women’s source of identity and they stop soloing and begin to sing in harmony.

As well as toning down a few of the most suggestive elements in the script – but not all! – the Teen Edition comes with the freedom to introduce extra performers. So in this production, the six colourful queens are joined by five performers (Alex, Charlie, Faith, Felix and Tia) dressed in shimmering black. They add to the spectacle of some of the dances, execute a gorgeous piece of interpretive dance during Heart of Stone, and are brilliantly over the top in a wunderbar version of Haus of Holbein, performed for once with the six Queens off-stage. Hats off to assistant choreographer Alex who throws brilliant shapes like a Club 18-30 rep on commission and is fleetingly allowed to realise Henry VIII on stage during a handful of songs.

The live four-piece band (led by Alex McKelvey) are crammed onto risers split between a staircase which allows individual Queens to ascend and sing over heads of the ensemble below. While the staging was simple, giving each Queen their own themed lighting added depth to the visuals.

Alana sets the pace with the first queen’s No Way, while Matilda turns heads before Anne Boleyn loses hers. Ella absolutely slays the key change in Jane Seymour’s Heart of Stone. Right from the start, Sophie imbues Anna of Cleaves with stacks of attitude, only for the pink Barbie Queen to up the stakes as Nell’s Katherine Howard brings her pop diva voice to All You Wanna Do. When the surviving Catherine Parr emerges from the sidelines, Julia pours lots of soul into the show’s quietest ballad I Don’t Need Your Love.

Six is a pretty full-on 75-minute show with little time for performers – or the cue-laden tech team – to catch their breath. The six queens were on top of their characters and Amy Smyth’s choreography. The wobbliest moment came when a lengthy stretch of dialogue leading up to the Remix wasn’t quite quick fire enough and threatened to sap some of the energy. The enthusiastic audience who had been clapping along to many of the songs rose to their feet for the closing mashup Megamix Megasix.

Groups licensing the show are not allowed to copy the costumes or choreography of the professional version of the show. So with the familiar costume designs and dance routines deliberately absent, there’s a sense that Six: Teen Edition is closer to the original 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe production. Hard to believe that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss hadn’t begun to write Six this time ten years old. It’s a great 

East Broadway’s fabulous production of Six: Teen Edition continues at Belvoir Studio Theatre until Saturday 5 September. Get booking while tickets remain.

Photo credit: Michael McCrystal Photography

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Wonderland – a poppy dive into Carroll’s bewildering world where identity is called into question (Ravara Productions at The MAC until Sunday 30 August)

Frank Wildhorn’s 2009 musical Wonderland (with significant book updates by Gabriel Barre and Jennifer Paulson-Lee) captures the logical illogicality and nonsensical nature of Lewis Carroll’s worldbuilding while framing the action through the eyes of a very modern-day Alice who is struggling to face up to the challenges she faces at home and in work. With just 24 hours to pitch a new concept of video game to win a big promotion, Alice goes on quite the adventure as her understanding of identify is shaken to its core.

Ravara Productions’ latest summer show sets off on its wild rollercoaster ride with scenes and songs that establish Alice’s personal and professional angst. In Home we meet Ally (played confidently on the night I reviewed by Sophie Toal; Rachel Smith also stars in the role) at loggerheads with her husband (Jake Bennett who displays the vocal and acting smoothness of a boy band soloist) while getting their daughter Chloe (young Lily Rafferty with such a clear and sweet voice) ready for school. Then it’s off to work where Ally has the Worst Day Of My Life.

Next we’re headed Down the Rabbit Hole with a big song and suitably nutty choreography (Conor Anderson). Amongst the menagerie of cats, caterpillars and Tweedle brothers brought to life by director Kerry Rodgers, a favourite character quickly emerges: the hyperventilating White Rabbit wearing a furry-weared top hat (played with Matilda Gibson) who later correctly breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge the absolute tragedy that she doesn’t get her own solo number in the show.

Alice and her mini-me (Rafferty) find themselves on a path that leads to the Mad Hatter’s tea party (Eva McColgan) which creates a Last Supper tableau as the colourful characters await the arrival of the Queen of Hearts (Hanna Greenway, with alternate Serena Smart). Greenway’s Queen has no problem holding a long note, and is quite ruthless in wanting everyone to agree with her. Through the Looking Glass is a big poppy first act finale.

After the interval, jolly cabaret number Off With Their Heard turns out to be another Wildhorn earworm, with a kick line about the only thing missing from the stylish routine. Toal and Rafferty’s share a beautiful duet in Once More I Can See, demonstrating their vocal prowess. The theme park ride through Womderland eventually returns to its starting point and Ally wakes up to what she really wants out of life. While not the most compelling song in the two-and-a-half-hour show, you’ll be humming Finding Wonderland all the way home from The MAC.

Part of the fun of the script is that not everything is spelt out from the beginning, so as an audience member you feel quite clever later on in the show when you suddenly realise which office worker is which character down in Wonderland, or spot the significance of earlier foreshadowing.

An eight-piece band under the direction of Adam Darcy are hidden at the back of the stage, pumping out the almost continuous score. With a cast of more than 30 and so many different characters to cover, the costume department have done an amazing job, particularly with the stylish black and white striped outfits for the modern-day office workers.

A few things work less well. Spotlights hitting the horizontal bars in the trolleyed platforms had a tendency to cast shadows across cast members’ faces. While the wheeled set can switch from a neon skyline to a barred prison in a couple of twists, manoeuvring it about sometimes gets in the way of cast movements. The Mad Hatter’s purple tartan costume is detailed but terribly subdued compared with the dayglo tones of other characters. And the arrival of a familiar Victorian author (for the song I Am My Own Invention) feels like a stretch too far even for the Alice-verse.

Ravara Productions’ energetic performances of Wonderland continue at The MAC until Sunday 30 August. Be sure not to miss your chance to see the young talent in action with a novel take on an old story.

Photo credit: Melissa Gordon/Gorgeous Photography NI

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Hadestown – heavenly performances from a young cast telling the story of a descent into hell (BSPA at The MAC until Saturday 22)

Unless they’d caught the show at the West End or Broadway, I expect that most of the audience weren’t very familiar with the story of Hadestown. So it’s a credit to the BSPA creative team and cast that they kept the storytelling – whether by way of action, word or song – clear and made it easy to follow. It’s a story of love, triumph and tragedy in a world where gods and mortals mix.

Like the junior production last week, BSPA have rehearsed and costumed two separate casts to perform this weekend in The MAC. I attended Thursday evening’s performance by ‘team Olympus’.

A sharp-suited Hermes watches over and narrates proceedings as (in this case) her ward, songwriting Orpheus falls hook, line and sinker for Eurydice. Hermes goes on to relate the story of the king and queen of the underworld. And soon we find that the two love-stories collide when Hades brings Eurydice to Hadestown on the railroad on the road to hell, and Orpheus must travel by dangerous backroads to try to rescue her.

New Orleans blues number Road to Hell introduces Hermes (played by Hannah McAlister-Colacio) and sets the lyrical tone for the rest of the two-hour musical. She’s confident, a captivating storyteller, and emotionally detached, standing above the sorry tale that will play out.

Brody Elliott’s Orpheus is sweet and naïve while Caitriona McCloskey’s Eurydice is cynical and wary. Orpheus has a vision of a better future; Eurydice has a better grasp of reality. Elliott deploys ethereal vocals in Come Home With Me as he almost bewitches a by-now dewy-eyed Eurydice which is a brilliant introduction to his character with the disciplined Workers ensemble singing in fifths behind him.

Michael McEvoy’s choreography creates a memorable tree tableau at the conclusion of Wedding Song. Elliott and McCloskey’s chemistry and constant eye contact seals the deal that these characters have quickly reached coupledom as they sing All I’ve Ever Known. Yet as soon as someone in a musical speaks about “never changing and being like this forever” you know doom is only around the corner.

The rulers of the underworld make big entrances. Amy Nelson makes quite an entrance, staggering on stage in a white fur coat as Persephone, the goddess of the seasons who could be politely described as “a lush”. Her big cabaret voice brings to life Livin’ it Up on Top, a song which is again marked by complex but visually pleasing choreography and a spot of breakdancing.

Doom then arrives! Dressed in a long trenchcoat and shares, Alex Johnston’s Hades looks like a mashup of Trump and Musk, a hard taskmaster and someone not to be messed with. Johnston’s bass voice devours Hey, Little Songbird and the long-expected descent into hell begins.

The coordinated costuming helps distinguish different subgroups of characters amongst the wider ensemble. The Fates (Betsy Andrews, Nina Rodrigues, and Ruby Donaldson) are particularly effective as they taunt everyone and plant doubt in their heads. The trio’s a cappella Nothing Changes is a beautiful moment in the second half.

After the interval, we see Persephone under the influence of the devil and his buttermilk, and a run of songs confirm the strength of the principal cast’s vocals. Nelson and Johnston’s tug of war song How Long sees Persephone push back on Hades, but can anyone really fight back when the king wields such power.

A seven-strong band led by Matthew Campbell are located at the back of the stage behind a wire fence (occasionally playing in cloudy conditions when the stage fog gets heavy!), with featured brass instrumentalists standing in the archway at the top of the central steps. Older classic musicals have lots of lots of moments when the band will vamp while the action catches up, but Hadestown seems less forgiving. This cast were totally on top of the rapid lyrics and movement.

Despite the short rehearsal period, the young and talented cast of 42 together with Peter Corry’s direction ably sold the story of Hadestown to me. Together they have created something that could run longer in a larger venue and delight audiences. If you’re fast, there are still seven tickets left this this evening’s final performance.

Photo credit: Toby Watson Photos 

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Matilda Jr – cheeky children make short work of Miss Trunchbull (BSPA at The MAC, Friday 14–Saturday 15 August)

Young Matilda is the bookish daughter of parents who value appearance and money. While her new schoolteacher recognises her precocious intelligence, the vile headmistress has no place for talent amongst the ‘maggots’.

For more than a decade, Matilda the Musical was the unexpected goose that laid golden eggs for the Royal Shakespeare Company. It remains a popular show with youth musical theatre and Matilda Jr is one of this summer’s BSPA productions, so oversubscribed that they have two full casts alternating during the short run. (I attended a performance by the ‘Wormwood’ cast.)

A veteran of BSPA since the age of three, 11-year-old Maisie Armstrong is a relaxed and mature presence, with big stage-filling gestures during her first song (Naughty), great vocals and stacks of attitude befitting the learned child with a keen sense of justice and a smidgeon of mischief. Fern Mellor and Abigail Reid become delightfully neglectful parents, Mr and Mrs Wormwood, with Mellor zeroing in on the father’s absurd Del Boy schemes, and Reid delighting in the post-interval performance of Loud before act two began.

The cast of fifty adopt English accents, except librarian Mrs Phelps (Chloe Anderson) who is gifted a broad Norn Iron twang as she listens to each episode of Matilda’s tragic escapologist serial. Eliana Lamberton captures the vicious side to Principal Trunchbull, barking orders and dispensing summary justice with cruel punishments. Emma Fitzsimons brings a warmth to Miss Honey, quickly establishing her character’s connection with Matilda.

Jett Dawson makes short work of the chocolate cake in his role of Bruce, with impressive vocals that cut through in the Revolting Children finale. One to watch in future productions.

Director Mimi Burns gets a lot out of her youthful cast. When I Grow Up is a particularly well-executed piece of choreography (Sean O’Neill) and singing (Ryan Greer), with rich harmonies and counterpoint. Miss Trunchbull swinging Amanda around by the pigtails is a simple but rather pleasing practical effect (and justifies the whole hammer throwing backstory).

Sewing a BSPA badge onto Matilda’s school pinafore is a nice touch. The ensemble’s diction was unsure in the full cast opening number (Miracle) but quickly improved. The official licensed script for Matilda Jr makes so many cuts that Matilda’s late second act discovery of her gift of telekinesis is a real weakness in the storytelling that’s hard to overcome given the lack of foreshadowing. While projection is needed for the blackboard scene towards the end, earlier use of the screen was hampered by the stage lighting and could probably have been dropped.

It’s a credit to the creative team that the times by during the performance. With minimal staging and simple props, the energy of the performers shines through and carries the drama. As always, it’s good to spot students returning from previous summer shows, and no doubt some formerly junior performers will be on stage in next week’s senior BSPA production of Hadestown: Teen Edition (Thursday 20–Saturday 22 August).

Photo credit: Toby Watson Photos

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High Society – A swellegant night of song and pleasing farce (Grand Opera House until Saturday 15 August)

Cole Porter really knew how to write a song. And the stage musical version of the 1956 film (Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra), that premiered three decades after Porter’s death, is ever so ‘swellegant’ with his backbone of music that stitches High Society together.

On the eve of Tracy’s marriage to dull accountant George, the glamorous Long Island socialite finds herself being orbited by three wooing satellites: her fiancé, her now teetotal ex-husband Dexter, and an undercover tabloid reporter Mike. Meanwhile, the bride’s mother must face up to the unexpected arrival of her philandering husband. Young sister Dinah is the single truthteller of the family.

Arthur Kopit’s book is stacked full of truisms and creates plenty of farcical moments (mistaken identities and a Jenga-sized tower of lies) that director Rachel Kavanaugh leans into with slapstick moments. The dialogue is riddled with insults, mostly aimed at “forgettable” George, though he has the measure of “the shallow elite”.

Tom Rogers’ hefty mansion set design has mirrored staircases leading up to a balcony. If the swimming pool with rippling water light effect impresses in act one, just wait until act two when the action steps out into the garden and a giant tree appears. (Though its troublesome ascent back into the fly tower caused a brief but perfectly handled show stop on Wednesday evening.)

Helen George’s Tracy (“money isn’t everything … so I’m told”) maintains a modicum of grace even when drunk on champagne. Understudy George Bray was delightfully clumsy as fiancé George, his wedding guest welcome stand-up routine getting plenty of laughs from this maths graduate in row K, and his growing animation in the hungover morning after his bride’s boozy night of skinny dipping was superb to watch. Unfortunately, the story’s requirement (spoiler!) for him to flounce off into the sunset dispatches the character with a brutal swiftness.

Tracy and George’s chemistry always feels forced (though that’s rather the point) while Dexter (Julian Ovenden who proves to be a gifted jazz pianist in his own right) makes Tracy’s eyes light up from the moment he steps on stage. The most interesting pairing though is the two reporters, Liz (played by Carly Mercedes Dyer with sarcasm that could cut through a champagne glass) and Mike (Freddie Fox who turns full lush in the pool scene) whose long-time professional relationship drops early hints that there could be something more. Liz’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin (sung to Dexter pretending to be Mike) showed off Dyer’s great vocals.

While the lyrics of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire are clever, the first act builds up to arguably the sweetest tune of the show, the True Love duet between Dexter and Tracy. Bray and Ovenden’s Well Did You Evah! is a superb set piece with the choreography evoking the cinematic heritage. Naomi Pacquette brings a keen wit to Tracy’s younger sister Dinah, although her character is relegated to the sidelines in act two.

Nothing about High Society is small scale. A dozen musicians fill the orchestra pit with six popping up on stage for a jazz number backing Uncle Willie (Nigel Lindsay in top form) before the curtain comes down for the interval. The 14-strong ensemble add rich vocals to numbers like Let’s Do It and the droll reprise by the household staff of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. There’s an amazing set of wigs worn by the cast to pin the action in posh post-war America. Whether measured by the size of the cast, crew or the trucks required to tour the production around Britain and Ireland, this must be one of the largest – and most expensive to run – shows in recent years.

High Society’s storyline of privilege and glamour is dated but very well executed in this touring production. The cast’s commitment to frivolity together with the jazz soundtrack keeps the audience amused. But it’s Cole Porter’s music and the cast’s ability to bring it to life that make the musical work.

You can catch High Society on stage in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 15 August. PS: the line (taken from the film) “It’s like Grand Central Station … Is it full of drunks?” deserved a much bigger laugh in Belfast. Make an effort if you’re in the audience later this week!

Photo credit: Pamela Raith Photography

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Lady – mid-life crisis as a lonely aristocrat descends into nothingness (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August)

Lady Isabella is a woman of a certain age who knows that her public profile – even as a low-level aristocrat – is fading fast. She cuts a lonely figure, rattling around a stately home set on a huge rural estate. Her husband is awol. A housekeeper cooks and cleans but companionship isn’t in her job description.

In a vain attempt to restore her relevance, Lady Isabella hatches a nonsensical plan to win a contest. And she’s hired a documentary team, under false pretences, to profile her attempt at gaining the top prize.

The film Lady begins with director Sam (Laurie Kynaston) arriving up the long driveway to greet Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford, Fleabag’s older sister). The audience watch what’s happening through the documentary’s crew’s camera angles, picking up audio from the lady of the manor and the director who have almost forgotten that they are both micced up. So much of the Lady’s day is spent pouring and slurping alcoholic beverages: soon we’re running through rooms like Anneka Rice on an ice bucket challenge.

Over the 95-minute film, there’s never a moment that Lady Isabella is on screen and she isn’t acting up to the camera. Clifford portrays an exhausted woman who is at her wit’s end. She’s manic and creatively unrestrained, though somewhat unexpectedly, given the large abode, financial worries aren’t on her list of woes. Can her passionate attempt to be seen to matter pay off? And at what cost?

I’ll not spoil the surprise, but a physical manifestation of Lady’s identity concerns soon reveals itself. Samuel Abraham’s feature debut screams out like a giant metaphor but the movie veers off course and explodes without properly hitting this ambitious target.

With Lady Isabella losing her grip on reality, thinly-written director Sam is becoming obsessed with the strain that this vanity documentary project is placing on his reputation. The director’s bonce is permanently adorned with a woolly hat. We quickly learn that it’s keeping his woolly head warm.

As we’re frequently reminded, he was Bafta-nominated but didn’t win. Chronically shy, Sam mostly communicates with his agent via irritating voice notes. The crew’s esprit de corps wears thin and they begin to turn their cameras to capture Sam’s unravelling in parallel with the Lady’s. And it’s hard to feel any empathy towards this second troubled character.

Samuel Abrahams’ script leaves little room for housekeeper Becky (Juliet Cowan, Nikki in This Life) to interrupt the otherwise two-handed scenes between Lady Isabella and her film director muse. Which is a great pity. Meanwhile Ricky the Raven watches over everything that’s happening at Ravenhyde Hall. His presence seems laden with a significance that is never exploited.

The film ends up being an exhausting not-quite-mockumentary rather than a poignant satire about a mid-life crisis. As a piece of cinematic art, Lady is saved by the quality of Clifford’s portrayal of a deranged woman who is not getting the professional help she needs and deserves, and her ability to make you giggle despite the farfetched on-screen hokum.

Lady is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August.

 

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Tony – a queasy insight into Anthony Bourdain’s entry into chefdom cooking a soufflé of lies (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August)

A new film from Matt Johnson, Tony, charts how 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain spent the summer of 1975. Telling his parents and anyone else who asks that he has won a writing fellowship, the clumsy, lying, penniless, disrespectful fantasist travels to the Provincetown, Massachusetts summer resort in pursuit of Nancy, an out-of-his-league girl in the year above him at college.

What follows is a very troubling coming of age tale.

A continuing act of grace – or gullibility – by a Brazilian fish restaurant owner (played by a magnificent Antonio Banderas) lifts young Tony (Dominic Sess, The Holdovers) out off immediate destitution. The big chef takes Tony under his wing and makes him wash dishes in the busy diner. But it places Tony – nicknamed ‘flaco’ (skinny) – in a kitchen of misfits, including drugged-up sex pest Sal (Leo Woodall). As the summer progresses, the newest recruit cooks up a soufflé of lies that threaten to come crashing down.

All the while, Tony chases after Nancy (Emilia Jones) who is portrayed as superficially clean cut with the hint of an edgy undertone. “I want you to take my photo because I like the way you look at me” is just one of a number of lines of dialogue which feel like they could have been directly lifted from Bourdain’s early memoir.

All of this leads up to a climatic evening of fleeting honesty when the heat gets too much in the kitchen, and Tony faces up to the people who have given him a second chance.

In real life, Anthony Bourdain went on to become a famous chef with a significant TV career in the US. He died by suicide in 2018, aged 61.

The feeling that some parts of this posthumous biopic might be true left me feeling like I’d eaten a bad oyster. It’s deeply troubling in terms of Tony’s actions and those around him in the kitchen. (Spoiler alert: while some elements have been rearranged to better suit the flow of the film – the scene with the bride is really the head chef and not Sal – much of it is based on his public recollections of his first summer of two in Provincetown.)

Ultimately, one lad’s lack of self-esteem and unfamiliarity with the truth causes injury – physical, financial and emotional – to so many people, that it feels almost unethical to celebrate or commemorate his entry onto the path to becoming a talented chef. Yet the romanticisation is still enormously watchable.

Tony is being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August. Avoid eating oysters beforehand! (It’s also this week’s Baby Picture screening on Friday morning!)

 

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The Ballad of Johnny & June – ambitious musical goes behind the scenes of country music power couple (Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August)

The only son of Country music legends June Carter and Johnny Cash narrates the story of his parent’s journey through the music business, into each other’s arms, and into their graves. Along the way we meet family members, divorced spouses, record producers and band members, all played by a six-strong ensemble.

The Ballad of Johnny & June is far more complex than the simple label of jukebox musical would suggest, with as many narrative-led songs as big numbers that the audience can’t help sing and clap along to.

The tale of showbiz success, marriage failures, and a coming together of the Carter and Cash families is told by son John (Ryan O’Donnell) from the side of the stage, with a neat sequence of first act flashbacks filling in older family details. O’Donnell is an accomplished guitar player and holds the show together. His regular breaking of the fourth wall increases the intimacy of the account he’s telling.

Christopher Ryan Grant has perfected Johnny Cash’s mannerisms, his gait, the shoe shuffle, as well as the way he holds and strums his guitar. His deep voice powers through the songs. Johnny’s string of affairs make a mockery of the lyrics to his first number one song I Walk The Line. But it’s his drug addiction that threatens his health.

Christina Bianco is a fire rocket on stage, demonstrating mighty breath control, and capturing the lust and love June had for Johnny along with the accompanying trials and tribulations. Acting beside Grant, Bianco flits between being cheeky, flirty, angry and distressed.

The show’s opening number quickly establishes that the actors are also musicians, with song after song showing off their skill at close harmonies. Given the ease with which the audience join in the songs – mostly when they are invited to – much of the storyline sticks to the facts, with the narrator even acknowledging when one scene has taken particular license. Elvis is name-checked, along with a fun mention of Patsy Cline. With so much packed into the dense script, for the cast it must be like stepping onto a roller-coaster, with very little time to breath, but they never flinch or hesitate, taking the non-stop action in their stride. 

The long first half feels like it will climax with Ring of Fire (after alluding to the song’s ambiguous and contested genesis), but keeps going, taking in a divorce or two, and a rather coercive marriage proposal, before finally breaking.

After the interval, a full rendition of A Boy Named Sue resets the energy levels, and a frenzied version of I’ve Been Everywhere gets the largest applause of the evening from the Grand Opera House audience. We witness the destructive behaviour on both sides of the marriage. And we watch as John challenges his mother about her own use of amphetamines. June saves Johnny, but can anyone save her?

Tragedies mount as the story concludes. It’s at this late point that director Des McAnuff and Robert Cary’s book feels like it almost veers off the road. Unless some of the dialogue went over my head, the explanations of the couple’s deaths are perhaps the least canonical aspects of the musical. While the transition from sadness to a song is logical, the execution feels clumsy and the production’s well-oiled gears are almost stripped in what unexpectedly turns out to be the best duet of the show, an emotionally charged rendition of Always On My Mind (though I’m not sure Johnny ever sang this with June in real life).

Performed in a heavy wooden set (designed by Robert Brill) with most of the stage lighting (Amanda Zieve) hidden in the rafters, the house band hide up high at the back, with trumpeter Morgan Rees enriching many of the arrangements. By the close, I’m still not sure why the set is a barn, and even less certain why a rocking chair has been lurking all this time on a shelf stage left.

The Ballad of Johnny & June continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August. It’s a hugely ambitious musical that confidently paints a picture of two hugely successful country music stars.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

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