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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The Summer Book – grief(s) observed and anticipated (Queens Film Theatre from 7 August)

Fans of Tove Jansson will be aware that her writing extends beyond the Moonins. Her novel The Summer Book has been adapted into a film by Robert Jones and directed by Charlie McDowell.

Three surviving generations of a family have decamped to a wooden holiday hut on the shore of a Finnish island. They are mourning. A daughter (Sophia played by Emily Matthews) grieving for her mum. A recently widowed husband and father (Anders Danielsen Lie) throwing himself into his work as an illustrator. A grandmother (hunched-over fragile Glenn Close with dentures) is also coming to terms with her memories slipping away.

The tranquillity provides space to grieve. But the inner pain each person is experiencing is almost deafening in the silence. A gentle sepia tone places the action in the 1970s. Red clothing contrasts with the beige rocks and dark seaweed. Knitted cardigans add cosiness. When the father sits in front of a broken weathervane, it’s as if an arrow has pierced his heart. We learn that even the moss can die.

Sophia longs to rediscover some semblance of security through the adults. Her grandmother wants to grasp hold of important moments from the past. The father is struggling to process his feelings and support the emotional needs of his daughter. While the story is framed around Matthews’ Sophia, Close’s masterful portrayal of an increasingly frail grandmother provides the most stunning moments. The island idyll is their first opportunity to reconnect with each other.

It’s a gentle film – perhaps too gentle – with the landscape given long sequences to speak without the interference of characters’ dialogue (which is all in English rather than Finnish … even a wooden sign on a neighbouring island is rendered in English).

Grief is observed. Further types of loss are anticipated. But there’s also healing. Though if they keep watering that poplar tree with salt water, they’ll be holding a funeral for it too.

The Summer Book honours the original text though the process of condensing the story into 90 minutes takes away some of the thrills and spills. Instead, we watch great acting matched by superb cinematography (Sturla Brandth Grøvlen) and a score that supports but never overwhelms (Hania Rani). It’s being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 7 August.

 

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Waitress – serving up an empowering slice of slapstick pie (Grand Opera House until Saturday 1 August)

Joe’s Pie Diner serves up delicious savoury and sweet pies, all baked by Jenna. Work is her daily distraction from an abusive husband. An unexpected pregnancy means that the walls close in on Jenna’s wellbeing. She saves up her tips to be able to enter a regional pie-making contest with a large prize fund. But can trying to win the contest really save her from misery and distress?

Fear not: if all that sounds a bit negative, the stage musical Waitress – which celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year – is a comedy delight as Jenna and her work mates Becky and Dawn navigate new relationships, figure out how to deal with their menfolk (or lack thereof), and watch each other’s backs.

Carrie Hope Fletcher plays Jenna, navigating the emotional ups and downs of the character arc, and really demonstrates her huge vocal range and impressive control during the second act She Used To Be Mine, with a delicate start building to a powerful crescendo as the wings slide back to open up the sky and physically reflect Jenna’s possible escape route from her thoroughly evil husband Earl (Mark Willshire).

Evie Hoskins and Sandra Marvin from the 2022 tour (reviewed) have returned to the roles of waitresses Dawn and Becky. Sniggering Dawn is a ditzy klutz who hooks up with an even more socially awkward historical reenactment fan Ogie (watch out for Mark Anderson’s exit stage right with a cartwheel) while caregiver Becky’s cheeky banter with diner manager Cal (Dan O’Brien) disguises the real friction they’re generating in the kitchen after hours. Less well cast is the diner’s owner Joe, played by an underpowered Les Dennis who fails to deliver the punchy potential of the crucial second act song Take It From An Old Man. [Update - Feedback suggests I’m the only person in the world to have ever bothered about Take It From An Old Man ... but it was a stand out moment in the previous tour!]

Performative baking with ingredients strewn all over the floor. An on stage cello (Siobhan Wilson) which adds gorgeous mellow tones to It Only Takes A Taste as part of the house band (led by Francesca Warren) who live in the corner of diner (and don tricorn hats at a historically appropriate moment). A flirty gynaecologist (Dan Partridge) who perhaps most hams up the slapstick physicality of the production. So many witty lines in Jessie Nelson’s dialogue and Sara Bareilles lyrics. There’s a lot to like in this confident and fan favourite show. 

Waitress continues to serve up its empowering slices of musical pie at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 1 August. The standard of singing is is high, though the emotional heft is flatter than the previous touring production. But spare a thought for the stage management team prepping all the pastry dough and ingredients that get used every night! 

Photo credits: Matt Crockett and Johan Persson

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Legally Blonde – a classy production that lets the story shine through the pinkness (Grand Opera House until Saturday 25 July)

When UCLA student and sorority president Elle Woods is unexpectedly dumped by her boyfriend for what he perceives to be her lack of seriousness, she studies her socks off and successfully applies to the same course at Harvard Law School. Her fondness of pink and lack of gravitas impress neither her professor nor most of the other students. But her improving albeit rudimentary knowledge of law combined with her street smarts begin to impact people who need legal help.

The screen-to-stage musical Legally Blonde begins with a shrill riot of excitement and never really lets up. A previous UK tour in 2018 massively leaned into the pinkness and hammed up the more outrageous aspects of the story. This new touring production directed by Nikoali Foster has dialled back the craziness and is all the better for it with the strong backbone of empowerment and sisterhood allowed to hold the show together in a classy way without quite so much garish distraction and “trashy carrying on”.

Amber Davies’ musical theatre background and pedigree is proven with strong vocals, sharp dancing and a portrayal of Elle that commands attention every time she bursts onto in a scene and sashays her way downstage. A Greek chorus (trio) encourages Elle in her moments of self-doubt, though after their first entrance there’s always some confusion whether they’re still imagined or there in person in subsequent entrances.

Boyfriend-soon-ex-boyfriend Warner (Jamie Chatterton) is ambitious to the point of self-importance. His new love interest Vivienne (the early villain until she witnesses a sexual assault and stands up for her ‘sister’ intern) is played by Annabelle Terry who gets many of the best melodies of the show and uses her impressive vocals to brilliantly lift the show’s finale. Uncool teaching assistant Emmet (George Crawford) falls into Elle’s orbit when he offers her advice and is himself soon being groomed for success, in the courtroom and with an eye to his fashion choices.

A first act highlight is when hairdresser Paulette opens up to Elle about her dreams. While this production’s version of Ireland shuns the exaggerated ‘Oirish’ buffoonery of 2018 – there’s no hilariously large tricolour and the nods to Riverdance are really toned down – Karen Mavundukure’s performance of the narrative-setting song tees her character up to be loved every time she comes back on stage. This pays dividends when ‘hot’ UPS courier Kyle (Ty-Reece Stewart) delivers a parcel to the salon. After the interval, it’s a hop, a skip, and a lot of jumping as Jocasta Almgill (playing fitness influencer Brooke who’s in court accused of murder) sings while skipping without missing a beat or sounding breathless.

Everything stops the first time that Sprout comes on stage as Elle’s dog, Bruiser Woods. (His wardrobe of costumes is a glorious detail in Elle’s college bedroom.) Later in the show, it’s the turn of another canine cast member – treat-guzzling Rocco, playing Rufus – to dander on stage and show off to the adoring crowd.

Colin Richmond’s curved set with Ben Cracknell’s neatly embedded window lighting focuses the audience attention on the centre of the stage while walls fly down to transform the space into Elle’s classroom and the hair salon. Following a politically incorrect but very fond rendition of There! Right There! (“Gay or European?”), the second act quick set change between elevated courtroom and a witness’s bathroom is visually hilarious.

Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s score isn’t particularly hummable. But their lyrics – unusually for many modern musicals – really drive the story forward (rather than just remarking on the mood or situation) along with Heather Hach’s snappy dialogue. The confident cast deliver an energetic tale of empowerment, confidence-building, and friendship.

Legally Blonde continues its run in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 25 July.

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – huge cast prove that ‘teamwork can make a dream work’ (Grand Opera House Trust summer youth production until Saturday 18 July)

An old racing car in bad nick but with an intriguing backstory of sabotage is found in a junk yard. Two excitable children and their eccentric inventor dad who is a grieving widower. Camp spies sent from the far away land of Vulgaria by an evil leader and his lecherous wife. The daughter of a candy tycoon. And a scary childcatcher.

This year’s Grand Opera House Trust summer youth production is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Two years ago, at the end of July 2024, the UK touring production landed on the Grand Opera House Stage. This week, it’s the turn of the 122 young people who have spent the last two weeks under the tutelage of director Tony Finnegan, choreographer Rebecca Leonard and musical supremo Wilson Shields. And they’ve achieved a lot in a fortnight.

The two lead roles are a great advert for Belvoir Players Academy, with Meghan McSorley back playing Truly Scrumptious (Sandy in last summer’s production of Grease) and Ronan McGoldrick as Caractacus Potts. With a warm tenor voice, McGoldrick’s charismatic presence on stage makes him a believable fixer of problems (with just a hint of twinkly eyed Dick Van Dyke) while McSorley’s solid soprano vocals bring a richness to many of the show’s songs. Young Jemima and Jeremy Potts were played on opening night by Sophia Travers and Finley Bell (alternating with Anna Mitchell and Matthew Loughrey).

Comedic input comes in the form of Granda Potts (spoon spanner-playing Toby Ferguson who steals the second act with The Roses of Success performed alongside the brilliantly Tefal egg-headed engineers), the man-child tantrum-throwing sexually-ambiguous Baron (Liam Johnson) and the flirtatious paedophobic Baroness (Emma McLean who totally owns Chu-Chi Face and gets a great laugh from the adults in the audience when she quips “I never should have allowed toys into the marriage”). Hats off to the choreographer for her work to get the ensemble to burst into life for the toe-tapping Bombie Samba.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a story which has stamped its cultural footprint over generations of children and parents through the much-loved 1968 film. The musical legacy of the Sherman Brothers lives on with a big song that every child who’s been in a primary school choir will remember being trained to spit the words out with good diction. But there’s more to the score and lyrics than one ear worm of a song. The overture hints at a sizeable orchestra down in the pit – fourteen in total – with the oboe (Bryan Barr) regularly featuring in songs (notably in You Two) and a strong percussion section. Toot Sweets brings the full cast – visibly – on stage for the first time with a well animated scene in The Scrumptious Sweet Company.

Two bumbling Vulgarian spies (Colby Scott-Baillie and Jude McClelland with Germanic accents) only get one first act song to introduce their characters – Act English which sends up English eccentricities – but bring much mirth to later scenes. A victim of mistaken identity, Grandpa memorably shouts “Help! I'm being abducted by foreigners”: a line that could have been written for 2026 sensibilities but is straight out of the 1968 film.

Neal Mullan’s childcatcher (with winklepickers almost as long as his youngster-sniffing nose) is dark and immediately evil, but the part is woefully underwritten in the original script. Similarly, the Toymaker (Charlie Adams) is quickly relegated to guiding Caractacus and Truly through the castle. And let’s not get started on the book’s convenient off-stage rescue of a Grandpa and his grandchildren to hurry along the finale!

While there are few emotional hooks in the story, there are big political themes at play in Jeremy Sams’ stage version of Ken Hughes’ and Roald Dahl’s screenplay based on Ian Fleming’s novel. The Potts family must face up to the capitalism of the junk yard owner Coggins and Lord Scrumptious. A toy-obsessed self-indulgent Baron is running a Nazi-adjacent country with forced juvenile labour. But none of that is important to the audience’s love of the story! What we really care about is an heiress-in-waiting falling for a hard-working and ingenious inventor … and a car that flies.

One of the dangers of any Chitty Chitty Bang Bang production is that the elaborate props overshadow the characters. Full scale touring productions tend to use hydraulics and controlled lighting to (spoiler alert) make the eponymous car appear to fly as it drives off a cliff at the end of act one. And it turns out that ambitious engineering is also available to less well financed productions. Thankfully, the effort to make the magic happen doesn’t overly slow down the action, though the huge number of bodies on stage does constrain the car’s lateral movement in its final scenes. Another complex prop disappoints with Truly’s motorbike making several underwhelming entrances onto the stage, while Caractacus’ interactions with some of his elaborate machines will hopefully become less hesitant and more charming as the run progresses.

Costuming, chaperoning, line-running, song-teaching, choreographing, blocking, set-building … the list of work to be completed in such a short time is breathtaking. While the principal cast members had a three-day start, the ensemble only began rehearsals on Saturday 4 July! Those leading the production must have nerves of steel.

Since 2011, the Grand Opera House’s summer youth production has been a great testbed for emerging talent. For a period there were even two summer schemes – junior and senior – though in recent years it’s just been a single all-age show. The rehearsals and performances form an important part of the venue’s outreach and investment in the people who make the theatre of tomorrow. Hurray for getting the youth musicians and tech crew on stage to join the cast for the curtain call bows.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 18 July with matinee and evening performances on both days. Note that the evening performances begin at 7pm and not the venue’s usual 7.30pm.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison Photography 

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Steel Magnolias – a warm welcome and a listening ear for the regulars in Truvy’s salon sanctuary every Saturday morning (Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July)

Hair salons can be a bit of a go to setting in theatre for safe ‘third’ spaces where women can gather and support each other. They’re places of community, of conversation and pampering aimed at boosting wellbeing across the sisterhood.

In Robert Harling’s 1987 play Steel Magnolias, chatty Truvy opens up the Louisiana salon attached to her home every Saturday morning, a precious time reserved for just her most regular customers. The audience watch six women spend four mornings in each other’s company.

The chairs in Truvy’s salon create a confessional environment, and she can sense what’s written in your heart by staring at your scalp, although the hairdresser offers polished nails and well-coiffed hair rather than psychoanalysis. Orla Mullan brings warmth and wit to the stylish mother hen whose own family have detached themselves from her love, Truvy’s heart has space for everyone’s complicated lives, particularly if she detects a whiff of romance.

The door onto the street opens and in walks M’Lynn who is long past even trying to temper the activities of her gun-toting husband. She pours all her concern into wanting the best for her daughter Shelby. The mental health counsellor carries so many people’s secrets and weaknesses. Janet Moran plays the character who most externalises her emotions with a quiet dignity and gravitas.

Pink-obsessed but never Barbie-like, Shelby is in her mid-20s. She lives with type 1 diabetes and is reluctant to let it dictate her life choices. Her first entrance into the salon is on the morning of her wedding. She’s finally on the cusp of cutting ties and claiming her independent. Simone Collins gives Shelby grit and determination as she lives with the consequences of her actions.

Meanwhile, town grandee Clairee is searching for meaning and identity amongst the busyness of life following the death of her husband who was the Mayor. Marion O’Dwyer’s Clairee lounges on the salon’s sofa and throws pithy one-liners into the mix, breaking up tension with hilarity.

Ouiser is never first on the scene but the twice-married moaning widow disrupts whatever’s happening anytime she storms through the salon door. Carol Moore is almost (and quite perfectly) typecast in this outspoken role, a spirited presence on stage when playwright Harling finally deems it necessary to deploy the unfiltered Ouiser into a scene. At times, the interactions between Clairee and Ouiser feel like something out of The Golden Girls, a US TV series that playwright Harling could well have been familiar with.

New to the town, Annelle is hired as a junior stylist and Truvy quickly adopts her almost as a daughter. Annelle’s reticence to talk about herself is gradually replaced with a boldness to speak about her flourishing faith as she tries to turn her life around. Early on in the play, Truvy opines to Clairee about Annelle “I think there’s a story here” remarks” … seeding a complete red herring in the dramatic thrust of the piece! Eímhear Jackson blends the slight Annelle into the background as she washes the hair and sets the rollers of customers before Annelle’s confidence rises and she starts sharing her uncompromising opinions.

Costume designer Catherine Kodicek has had great fun dressing the characters in bright colours and busy patterns. There’s a consistency to the Southern accents drilled into the cast by dialect coach Megan McDonnell. While working scissors are out of the question for a show that plays eight times a week, Mullan and Jackson confidently wash and style the salon’s customers in real time as the drama unfolds. Set designer Ronán Duffy sneaks in a couple of levels to the car port extension, using steps up to doors to give characters’ entrances a bit of a lift.

Walking into the main theatre, it was heartening to spot two fans gently spinning above the salon set. Outside the Lyric Theatre, the wind had finally picked up and the temperature noticeably dropped from a very muggy afternoon spent in its café celebrating the launch of arts critic Jane Coyle’s new book – A Better Locksmith – revisiting productions, personalities and turning points that have shaped stages across Northern Ireland.

Steel Magnolias is the latest in what has almost become a 2026 season of shows about strong women – The Human Voice (Prime Cut), Consumed (Paines Plough), Tea In A China Cup, Bold Girls (Centre Stage) – that will finish with a revival of 2024’s Little Women returning to the Lyric stage over Christmas. (Kabosh’s Cuckoo-Land, Tinderbox’s Animal Farm (both in The MAC) and Kabosh’s Mary Ann, The Forgotten Sister which returned recently over at Clifton House also deserve nods.)

After decades of men dominating writing, directing and acting the big roles, it’s good to see a rebalancing. Women in last night’s audience outnumbered men by about 10 to 1 which makes me wonder about whether audiences are driving programming or vice versa. Is the reliance on well-recognised titles (there’s a starry 1989 film version of Steel Magnolias) and dipping into the back catalogue of female playwrights’ older work about bringing commercially viable audiences into theatres? Contemporary theatre seems to be taking an even bigger back seat in these challenging times. Is this the new reality of theatregoing for larger venues in Northern Ireland?

What does an evening spent in a Louisiana hairdressers offer with six white women, talk of shrimp boils (the fishy equivalent of a meaty BBQ), and no mention of racial tensions? There’s a lot of references to acceptance in the play’s second act but the types of diversity are limited.

To be sure, after lots of per-interval exposition, and post-interval jeopardy, the final scene is an emotional roller-coaster that had ugly tears streaming down my face as the women form deeper perspectives on each other’s lives. Hats off to director Emily Foran for avoiding the earlier opportunities to introduce hysteria into the simmering ensemble and only letting things go properly wild at the denouement.

These six women rely on their inner steel to overcome personal and family adversity. They have learned that they can lean on each other through thick and thin. The relationships that they built in Truvy’s salon are not delicate. Once inducted into the Saturday morning club, they’re sure of companionship throughout any storms that hit their lives.

Steel Magnolias continues at the Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport 

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The Last Viking – Mads Mikkelsen delights in this brutal comedy Nordic noir (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 26 June)

Part horror, part comedy, part Nordic noir, The Last Viking is a hard to pigeonhole film from Danish screenwriter and director Anders Thomas Jensen.

The premise is that when Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) gets parole after 15 years in prison for his part in a heist, he takes his dognapping younger brother Manfred (brilliantly played by Mads Mikkelsen) back to the family’s old rural home to dig up the loot. The property is now run as an AirBnB by Margrethe (Sofie Gråbøl minus her Sarah Lund sweater) and her insufferable jazz bore husband Werner (Søren Malling). But an old gang member (an abruptly menacing Nicolas Bro) is willing to torture anyone who gets in his way of getting his hands on the missing money.

On-screen violence veers between cartoonish and horrifying. Anker’s spotless white shirts are inevitable ruined by blood. Then there’s the part where the Beatles is reformed by Anker’s new associate (Lars Brygmann), and some great ABBA covers are thrown in for good measure.

The cast is a Who’s Who of Danish acting royalty. A short opening animation with its tale of false equality sets the bloody tone for the rest of the film. Despite many characters having serious mental health problems – you’ll be an expert in dissociative identity disorder by the end of this two-hour film – no one is as “stupid” as they’re made out to be by the others.

The delightful script casually explores the notion that “everyone is entitled to their unique identity”. It sometimes asks how far any of us would go to protect someone. But mostly it lights a blazing fire and then throws fuel on it in the shape of trauma and greed to see who will get scorched.

There’s a reason that Jensen keeps returning to work with some of these actors: they aren’t afraid to fully immerse themselves in his madness. This will be one of the most memorable films you’ll see in 2026! The Last Viking is being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 26 June.

 

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Heart of Hamelin – a well-told musical lesson about paying the piper or else he’ll call the tune (Market Place Theatre until Wednesday 24 June)

The tale of the colourfully dressed piper who lures the rats away from an infested town and then takes revenge when the town renege on their promise to pay him is well known and no stranger to theatrical adaptations. Belfast Ensemble’s operatic take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin with The Musician during Belfast Children’s Festival in 2019 stands out as a good example.

Another new musical version has hit the stage in the form of Heart of Hamelin. Down in Armagh this week, writer/director Pamela Cassells-Totton and composer Jonny McGuinness take audiences back to 1284 with a talented youth cast who sing and act out the tale of local government mismanagement and child kidnapping.

The staging is simple but effective, with good use of widescreen projected backdrops and props that wheel on in swift scene changes that never slow down the storytelling. Pushing some of the sound effects and the piper’s melodies through speakers at the back of the auditorium gives a creepy, other-worldly feel to the emerging nightmare, alongside the long-tailed velvety rat costumes. The ensemble’s collective eyeline is used to steer the audience to focus on areas of stage.

A clever modern epilogue asks if we still find ourselves caught in the snare of the piper … although the contemporary snake oil salesman feels less likely to deliver on his expensive promises than the 1284 rat catcher.

There are strong performances across the talented cast. Eamonn Fleming is a commanding presence as the domineering Mayor, overruling a minority of council colleagues – particularly Elena (Katy Hazard) – who sense that not paying the rat catcher will be a mistake. The council meetings are passionate, and the machine gun dialogue has great rhythm. The townsfolk are suitably weary, then celebratory, then distraught as the rats vanish and an unexpected penalty is paid. Sam Anderson narrates (spoken and sung) aspects of the show playing the old man who can tell a suspiciously good tale!

Musical highlights include Mayor Jacob, wife Miriam (Emma McLean) and wanderlusting daughter Eliza (Sofia Cassells) singing Three World’s Apart. Hans and Ada (Shea Fox and Sarah Reynolds) are a great pairing, offering warm harmonies and joyful choreography in the first act Together and then Nothing Left to Say after the interval. Lame Tomas (Aodhan Fleming) and his mother Adele (Sophie McCullough) are well matched in The Memory Bench which feeds an earlier loss into the growing sense of doom.

“We need to act now to protect our town and our townspeople.”

Reviewing the performance on the tenth anniversary of the EU Referendum vote, there was more than a hint of Brexit woven through the script. Maybe my strong memories of a long sultry night at the Titanic count centre mean that I’m seeing something that isn’t intentionally there. But lines like “we’re always stronger when we’re together” echo campaign slogans. And picking out some snippets from an exchange in a fraught council chamber do sum up some people’s views of the referendum and what followed: “I warned you … no one could have predicted that … I predicted this … we hadn’t signed a contract .. can’t you see this is all of our faults … punishing us to teach us a lesson.”

The well-constructed plotting of the central family groups and council meetings, together with Jonny’s McGuinness’s collection of catchy and lamentful tunes, and the confident cast of 36 drawn from the Pamela Cassells School of Performance (now in its 25th year) who make it look almost effortless, all contribute to making Heart of Hamelin a production that achieves high standards. Heart of Hamelin premiered at Theatre at the Mill back in March, and is being performed in Armagh’s Market Place Theatre until Wednesday 24 June.

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