Month: March 2020

DING-DONG, Hello-Hello, those Elders are in town and guess what? In my opinion this production at the Hippodrome is bigger, brasher and better than when I saw it in London.

I refer of course to the phenomenon that is the multi-award winning ‘The Book of Mormon’.

Picture by Paul Coltas. s

This deliciously disgraceful musical comedy from the creators of the South Park TV comedy series, Matt Stone and Trey Parker and writer of Avenue Q Bobby Lopez, has tears of laughter flooding communally from the moment an Elder rings the first doorbell.

Two by two, the suited-and-booted Latter Day Saints missionaries (known as ‘Elders’) are sent in pairs to bring the Mormon word to every corner of the world.

Picture by Paul Coltas. s

The two we follow are the tall, clean cut, all teeth ‘n’ smiles Elder Price – a brilliant outing by Robert Colvin and ‘hapless geekism’ personified in Conner Peirson’s awesome Elder Cunningham.

Together our twosome set off from the sanctuary of the milk and cookie capital of Utah, Salt Lake City, to Africa’s Uganda where warlords, famine, an Aids epidemic and female mutilation await them. If that doesn’t sound like the recipe for a bundle of laughs you couldn’t be further away from the truth.

Yes this show is way beyond risqué with songs and jokes about things that are taboo – but it is oh-so-clever, relevant and in a perverse sort of way, moralistic.

Love will out and in the end it does – leaving you not only laughing at the Mormons but also with them and feeling that though they may be nuts, they are certainly nice nuts and mean well in their missionary nuttiness.

Picture by Paul Coltas. s

There are some amazing numbers including the jolly calypso  ‘Hasa Diga Eebowai!’  where the villagers sing about their impoverished everyday lives – no food, no rain, bandits bullying them, women getting abused – and the translation of the song title is?  Urm… not printable here.

There are also tap dancing, high kickin’ routines and huge spectacles, the daddy of which has to be the outrageous ‘Spooky Mormon Hell Dream’ where Elder Price gets visited by imps, demons, witchdoctors and even Old Nick himself.

The Book of Mormon is not I suppose a show for the faint- hearted but it has fans all over the world who’ll travel vast distances – just like the elders from Salt Lake City – to see it again and again.  I was baptised a few years ago in the West End, my confirmation took place on press night at the Hippodrome.

Book of Mormon runs until March 28.

Click here for times, tickets and more information.

*****

Review by Euan Rose.

LOUIS Sachar is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author.

He is best known for the ‘Wayside School’ series and the award-winning novel ‘Holes’.

In 2003, Holes was made into a movie by Disney with Sachar writing the screenplay himself. It’s probably the movie that is best known and this stage version (again by Sachar) is destined to bring in whole new audiences to the theatre – if the first night of the UK tour is anything to go by.

Picture by Manuel Harlan. s

I came new to the party but Bobby – the young man I took along for an expert opinion – was familiar with the story of life on an American prison farm. Here, a wrongly incarcerated boy called Stanley (a charismatic and engaging outing from James Backway), has to dig the same sized hole every day whilst a tyrannical warden looks on.

It’s a humdinger of a tale and director Adam Penford has used every form of theatre from the musical to the physical by way of the practical to tell it. The young ‘orange is the new cool’ clothed cons shovel spade loads of sand from one giant hole to another whilst engaging in banter, barracking and battles under the blistering sun at this, their sad ‘university of life’.

The Warden, a cracking performance by Rhona Croker, is definitely hiding something and has her charges digging holes on the hunt more for buried treasure than rebuilding broken characters.

Picture by Manuel Harlan. s

All of the company were well-cast, many doing a multiplicity of roles. They operated beautifully as a team as they interjected ‘life in the camp’ with vignettes about ancient outlaws, curses and pioneers.

My favourite con was Leona Allen as Zero, who was lump-in-the-throat appealing in vulnerability as an uneducated street kid with aspirations – Bobby’s was definitely ‘Armpit’ played by Henry Mettle with his stand-up comic appeal looming as large as his physique.

Simon Kenny is a designer with a massive pedigree and ‘Holes’ is one more triumph to add to his list. Must have been quite a challenge to bring a dried-out lake full of holes to the stage – he’s made it look simple and that’s the sign of creative genius.

The other stars of the show are the critters and the critter director in the form of master puppeteer Mathew Forbes.

His rattlesnakes and yellow spotted lizards are indeed the stuff of nightmares.

Strangely on refection I think Holes is a morality play along the same lines as Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies – ‘do as you would be done by’ being the common message.

Nottingham Playhouse created this production originally and this 2020  tour is a co-production by the Children’s Theatre Partnership and the Royal and Derngate Northampton.

Excellent stuff – Bobby says go see it and he’s a tough critic!

The show runs until Saturday, March 7.

Click here for times, ticket prices and more information.

****

Review by Euan Rose.

HAMLET is probably Shakespeare’s most performed play – I’ve lost count of the number of productions I’ve seen over the years and – as I read in his programme notes – this is Michael Barry’s third trip to Denmark as director.

Picture by Jack Kirby. s

As it is also Shakespeare’s most quoted play, let me start with a misquote: ‘There’s nothing rotten about this Barry Film-Noir vision’. It works well and mainly because his Hamlet, a pulled back, thoughtful performance from one of the Crescent’s top guns Jack Hobbis, bares quite a resemblance to 50s iconic bad boy James Dean.

I was truly expecting him to appear in a turned-up collared leather jacket with a Marlborough cigarette hanging from his lower lip at some point. Like in Dean’s ‘Rebel Without a Cause’, Hobbis’s ‘less-is-more’ approach makes for a real-deal charismatic Prince.

There is no set designer to credit as there is just an open nebulous space in a traverse setting where the audience sit facing each other like opposing fans. Pre-curtain I was tempted to shout: “Come on everybody let’s storm the castle” but resisted.

Picture by Jack Kirby. s

Lighting designer John Gray uses the void to create clever, often mysterious, sometimes luscious spaces in which the company unfold the story of this doomed Scandi-dynasty.

Jennet Marshall’s frocks are a joy, capturing bitter cold nights with trench coats, ski masks, boots and jumpers then jumping to the subdued elegance of Nordic courtly attire.

Barry’s vision, embraced by his creatives is not of a country at war – whilst it may certainly not be at peace, it calls for the psychiatrist’s chair more than the executioners axe. Quite rightly – for as well as having the highest suicide rate in Europe, the Scandinavians are renowned for self-flagellation.

Picture by Jack Kirby. s

The company gives all-round competent performances and there are some excellent outings. Femke Witney is the best Ophelia I have ever seen and her final descent into madness is a jaw-dropper. Isabel Swift as Hamlet’s best mate Horatio has a clever female-football-pundit feel about it – bringing a smile amidst the darkness, Skye Witney skillfully delivers dignity first and majesty second as Gertrude and Robert Laird is both commanding and riveting as a rightly one-dimensional Claudius.

There was some clumsy staging – it was frustrating to have Hamlets first entrance and speech completely masked – however, the closeness of the action from that point on was all embracing and we became more participants than observers.

In this reduction, every classic line is still there and well delivered.  Thanks to some excellent scissor work on the text by the talented Mr. Barry the story is cleared of clutter.

‘Brevity is the source of wit’ indeed but it also brings us to the walkdown before numbness in the nether regions has set in.

A ‘good night’ indeed, sweet prince.

The show runs until Saturday, March 7.

Click here for times, tickets and more information.

****Review by Euan Rose.