Despite it being over 100 years since Titanic slipped under the waves, the fascination with the ship and those on board hasn’t faded, as evidenced by the packed house of this revival of Moury Yeston’s musical. The story of the ships maiden voyage and, ultimately, its demise is told through a wealth of characters from all classes of passengers and from the crew on board.
The set, all sheet metal and rivets, towers above the audience instilling in them the impression of the sheer scale of the ship whilst a simple two-tier stage evoked an image of the decks and worked effectively. But from the off, the cast were on top form, as the magnificent ensemble belted out the opening numbers with such gusto that it reverberated in the chest, like the sounds of the engines of the great ship itself.
And therein lays the strength of this production. Its cast was outstanding, and whether singing alone, in small groups or as an ensemble, the whole thing was beautifully sung and more akin to an opera than a musical. The three leads Philip Rham, Simon Green and Greg Castiglioni bounced off each other nicely as the Captain, owner and designer of the ship, and Niall Sheeny impressed as the stoker Fred Barrett. Whilst the direction was fairly minimal, the cast switched between their multiple roles seamlessly, spilling out into the aisles on occasions to engage the audience; whilst on a technical level, the lighting and sound design, the costumes and the balance between actors voices and orchestra were all absolutely spot on.
Sadly, an overly long runtime, a handful of similar-sounding songs and a few too many story threads anchored down the first act to an extent, but the second act picked up the pace as the race to abandon ship took hold.
What comes out of the production is an underlying theme of love between the characters, from the newlyweds to the eloping couple to the elderly husband and wife, and it is this which packs the emotional punch and brings the human cost of the tragedy sharply into focus.
Never heard of Reuben Kaye? You will! Sick, slick, as gorgeously filthy as a pouting penis, Kay’s a living bigot’s nightmare, spunking left, right and centre over every sacred cow possible! Think a Dale Winton on acid, but – thank f*ck -one blessed with the chiselled, Greek-statue perfection of a 1950’s beefcake idol. Yes, this face, this presence, this glorious insult personified, is the joint king and queen of Australian cabaret, briefly condescending to take one awesome, comic dump on the UK’s half-starved notions of hilarity.
Bursting on stage like some Satanic, lobster-red supernova awash with sequins and buoyed on precarious platforms, Kaye immediately sucks up every fraction of potential ridicule from tonight’s blackly comic zeitgeist. Like some fantastical Shirley Bassey reincarnated as a ripped gay ninja, Kaye’s scorchingly weaponised his scattergun satire, raising it – quite effortlessly – to the status of a lethally funny martial art.
But, WTF? Let’s backtrack one moment, because frankly, context is everything, so pardon my presumption while I pump you full of backstory! In common with his closest, possible rival, the inexplicably ubiquitous but dramatically tepid Dusty Limits, our Reuben’s a gay Aussie, but – and it’s a huge butt – the comparisons stop right there. If Limits seems content to peddle mildly risque double entendres like some Poundland Julian Clary, Kaye is a living menage a trois, a one-man queer, Holy Trinity, the three queens of Priscilla compounded in one fabulously provocative presence!
No wonder, then, he’s enjoyed rapturously received residencies at London’s Savoy and Rosewood hotels, in addition to constant bookings worldwide. And tonight – fittingly – he’s on brilliantly non-PC fire. His advice on drugs? Try them on someone else first, and if they’re still alive in an hour, do them, drugs and asshole! And he skewers the pitfalls of drug-f*cked sex perfectly: ‘Doing it doggy-style? Maybe turn around once in a while, check that it’s still the same person you started with!’.
Get the picture? Yes, nothing and no one’s safe, especially the audience. ‘Ohh, I’d like you to clean my dildo’ Kaye quips to a shell-shocked punter, ‘I can literally feel your arsehole clenching in fear’. Christ, screw priests, parents and anguished, clueless counsellors- a Kaye a day keeps a gayboy at play! And forget Trump on Twitter -nothing escapes Kaye’s killer, cultural scalpel. ‘Consent? A term unknown to straight men…’. Too true, but there’s also praise for supernatural sluttishness; ‘Jesus – I love a man who can be nailed for three days straight and come back for more…’. Well, don’t we all, and Kaye’s scathing tornado of sexual surrealism is like first-time penetration – give in, and you’ll love it! Where else could a mutual love of Grace Jones and civil rights get mashed-up as ‘12 years a slave…to the rhythm?’.
Exhilarating? You bet, and sure, Reuben gleefully slaughters three furiously sacred cows – racism, sexism and homophobia. Still, unlike the far fiercer David Hoyle, Kaye never critiques or challenges the LGBT moral axis underpinning his whole act. If brash, apparently fearless and flamingly flamboyant, Kaye shrewdly avoids any lurking, intersectional minefields of identity politics. And ironically, though he spits bile, venom and shade in a virtuoso blizzard of genderqueer radicalism, Kaye’s comedy is hamstrung by the binary assumptions he conforms to, but also attacks.
So, unfortunately, in 2018, Kaye’s keynote, us and them stance is completely irrelevant to gender-fluid millennials like Cara Delavigne and St.Vincent, who see pansexuality as just another box to be ticked in today’s current, sexually unbounded pleasure menus. Oh, don’t get me wrong – Reuben is, by far, the most brilliant avatar of his chosen cul-de-sac, but his brand of oppositional comedy depends on totally punctured paradigms, and he’s been made obsolete by changes in gender discourse itself.
But, who really cares? Who the hell goes to a comedy show seeking philosophical enlightenment? Sometimes- as Sigmund Freud once said -‘a cigar is just a cigar’, not a blatant penis metaphor, and sometimes, killer comedy is f*cking hilarious, whatever the subtext! So, let’s give a big hand – with optional, rectal consent – to Reuben Kaye, the living Shakespeare of confrontational cabaret. Comedy really doesn’t get any better than being mentally masturbated by a tall, dark stranger!
At the Soho Theatre in London until the 16th June 2018
San Domino is an island off the east coast of Italy that was once an island where people of a certain ‘way’ were exiled to by the facist Benito Mussolini government. He banished prisoners there to pay for their ‘crimes’ – some of the crimes being speaking out against the government. It was also a place where homosexuals were sent as well.
A new show by the name of San Domino beautifully tells this story that very few people are aware of.
Now playing at the Tristian Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, ten men, in 1939, are having a great time in a bar in Catania, Sicily. They have not committed any crimes, but a knock on the door will change all their lives forever. According to the government, they were degenerates because it is suspected they were homosexuals and thus were sentenced to five years. These men include men from all walks of life, including older Carlo (Matthew Hendrickson) and young handsome Claudio (Alexander Hulme). San Domino tells the men’s stories, through dialogue and music, in a show that is poignant, dramatic and superbly acted, especially when the show moves from the jovial atmosphere of the bar where the men are being themselves to the camp where they share bunkbeds and are kept under careful watch of the prison guard and the very mean chief of police.
Andrew Pepper is just superb as the androgynous Pietro, sensitive and always looking for love in all the wrong place, and Pietro never holds back and says what’s on his mind. The rest of the cast really work well together in a show that really is a must see.
San Domino first previewed to an enthusiastic audience at the Courtyard Theatre in London, then played to a full house at the Arcola Theatre’s Grimeborn Festival in 2014. With Book & Lyrics by Tim Anfilogoff, and music composed by Alan Whittaker, with Direction by Matthew Gould, San Domino excellently tells the story of the one night in 1939 when many gay men were rounded up. It’s a story that should’ve been told years ago.
Photo provided by KWPR / Grant Neal & Joe Etherington
Based on the classic film of the same name, An Officer and A Gentleman tells the story of Zack Mayo, a trainee fighter pilot who is from the wrong side of the tracks and is trying to make his way through the Naval Academy. Paula is a local girl working in a factory where she and her colleagues see the only way of escaping their humdrum lives is by being swept off their feet by a pilot and whisked away. But what starts off as a little bit of fun between the two of them becomes something more, but will either of them admit their true feelings?
The show, and the first act in particular, thunders across the stage with dizzying speed and a relentless energy, in a production which is noisy, loud, bold and incredibly unsubtle; where a collision of lighting, sound, projected images, live music and a barrage of costume changes combine to be the absolute antithesis of the “less is more” school of thought.
Jonny Fines makes for an appealing enough lead as Zack Mayo, with his ridiculously ripped form and a wry smile, nestling in nicely alongside his fellow recruits who appeared to have been hand-picked primarily for their pecs and ‘ceps appeal. But despite the testosterone-fuelled world depicted in the story, the stage belonged firmly to the female ensemble, bringing some decent vocal performances to lift the broadly functional performances of the cast.
Nikolai Foster’s direction takes the scattergun approach of throwing sufficient tricks, bells and whistles at the audience in the hope that some of them will stick, with a roughly even split of hits and misses. The show is set to an eclectic mix of 80’s classics, the musical numbers varied in terms of quality and performance, with a belting rendition of Alone by Emma Williams only serving to highlight the pub circuit stylings of some of the other musical numbers. There is a mix of soft rock classics (“I Want to Know what Love is”, “The Final Countdown”), some bubble-gum pop (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “Material Girl”) and some of the lesser celebrated 80’s staples (“Hearts on Fire”, “Working for the Weekend”) compounding the scattergun feel of the show, but not necessarily in a bad way.
But that is where the show really hits its stride. It never pretends to be anything other than what it is intended to be, namely a fun, cheesy and fairly corny slice of entertaining escapism. By the time the show draws to a conclusion with its iconic ending set to a sweeping rendition of Up Where We Belong, you can’t help but be suckered in by the feel-good factor of this slice of 80’s cheese.
An Officer and A Gentleman is currently at Sheffield Theatres until the 9th June 2018 before continuing on its national tour
Despite it being over 100 years since Titanic slipped under the waves, the fascination with the ship and those on board hasn’t faded, as evidenced by the packed house of this revival of Moury Yeston’s musical. The story of the ships maiden voyage and, ultimately, its demise is told through a wealth of characters from all classes of passengers and from the crew on board.
The set, all sheet metal and rivets, towers above the audience instilling in them the impression of the sheer scale of the ship whilst a simple two-tier stage evoked an image of the decks and worked effectively. But from the off, the cast were on top form, as the magnificent ensemble belted out the opening numbers with such gusto that it reverberated in the chest, like the sounds of the engines of the great ship itself.
And therein lays the strength of this production. Its cast was outstanding, and whether singing alone, in small groups or as an ensemble, the whole thing was beautifully sung and more akin to an opera than a musical. The three leads Philip Rham, Simon Green and Greg Castiglioni bounced off each other nicely as the Captain, owner and designer of the ship, and Niall Sheeny impressed as the stoker Fred Barrett. Whilst the direction was fairly minimal, the cast switched between their multiple roles seamlessly, spilling out into the aisles on occasions to engage the audience; whilst on a technical level, the lighting and sound design, the costumes and the balance between actors voices and orchestra were all absolutely spot on.
Sadly, an overly long runtime, a handful of similar-sounding songs and a few too many story threads anchored down the first act to an extent, but the second act picked up the pace as the race to abandon ship took hold.
What comes out of the production is an underlying theme of love between the characters, from the newlyweds to the eloping couple to the elderly husband and wife, and it is this which packs the emotional punch and brings the human cost of the tragedy sharply into focus.
From the muted grey-scale colour palette of the opening act, through the smoke-filled streets of the Blitz and onto the underground dance halls of war-torn London, Matthew Bourne’s bold, vivid and visually stunning reimagining of Cinderella is an utter delight. Doting to her father, mercilessly teased by her (extended) stepfamily and berated by her stepmother, Cinderella finds love amongst the destruction, as she falls for Harry, a dashing pilot.
Bourne creates a world which is rich in characterisations, from the transformation of the mouse-like Cinderella into the belle of the ball to the Cruella de Ville style stepmother and the humorous, and deliciously creepy, foot-fetishist stepbrother. Every dancer tells an individual story, and each character has their own tale to tell. Yet despite having so much to look at, Bourne’s choreography seamlessly blends dance styles including lindy hop, jazz and ballet to create a clearly defined and easy to follow narrative; and there is a tangible sense of atmosphere permeating the theatre both within and throughout every scene. But underneath the fairy tale spectacle of it all, is a slightly darker story of love, yearning and belonging, bringing with it the power to pack an emotional punch.
In a cast of technically precise dancers, Ashley Shaw is captivating as the titular heroine, whilst Andrew Monaghan simply excelled as he cut a swathe across the floor as the dashing pilot, proving that the romanticised notion of the leading man is still very much around. Lez Brotherston’s set design is superb, reflecting the hum-drum monotony of Cinderella’s home life in Act 1 before (quite literally) exploding into a riot of colour and movement in the second act and continuing to surprise well into Act 3. The show has a cinematic quality and feel to it, and is as inventive and multi-layered as it is visually exciting.
Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella is a phenomenal breath-taking production which is absolutely sublime on every level.
The show runs at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until 19th May 2018 before continuing on its national tour. New Adventures has recently announced a new national tour for Swan Lake for 2018/19
How It Is By Samuel Beckett, Coronet Print Room Theatre
Do I have to slide cocks up my a** to write about gay theatre? Or shag up-for-it nymphomaniacs to dissect heterosexual art? By that logic, I’d have to be a practicing serial killer, a Jeffrey Dahmer in pantyhose, to appreciate Silence of the Lambs! So – having exposed and pushed the absurdities of that laughably reductive thinking waaaay to one side, let’s objectively appraise How It Is, a purgatorial, afterlife masterpiece from the fevered genius of Samuel Beckett, one of Ireland’s greatest ever writers!
Never heard of him? Oh come now, that’s barely credible. Why, Waiting for Godot, Beckett’s theatrical debut, revealed prodigious, game-changing talent, sufficient to alter the entire course of the Western world’s modes of dramatic discourse. Simply put, Beckett, most often, dramatises monologuing consciousness on either the point of death, or immediately beyond, in some utterly unknowable afterlife. And it’s that sense of psychological extremity – going where no queens have gone before – that knots his artistic DNA firmly into the fabulous beyond that defines so much LGBT theatre. Again and again – as in Alexis Gregory’s recently-staged Sex/Crime – diversity drama routinely accesses states of mind, situations and politically contested identity wholly unknown to heterosexual, mainstream audiences. To name just three, K-holes, cum lollies and sauna-house sex-orgies barely enter the dreams, or stain the yearning nightmares, of Joe and Jill Public. Frankly, considered as the ripe, luscious and shockingly perverse fruits of an entire community, LGBT artistry has charged and enlarged subject matter inconceivable to previous, genteel and sexually lobotomised, generations.
Still, Beckett – even if his work owes virtually nothing to any known form of sexual persuasion – takes us on exhilarating journeys to the limits of human consciousness. Think viciously addictive K-holes laced with severe existentialism, as we’re plunged, repeatedly, into theatrical experiences offering little more than static performers ranting in sparsely-lit spaces. How, then, can such raw, spartan materials provide riveting, arse-clenching excitement?
Easily. Take the Republic of Ireland’s Gare St. Lazare theatre company, currently unleashing Beckett’s How It Is at Notting Hill’s breathtakingly gorgeous, Art Deco Coronet Print Room theatre. This, frankly, is theatre as psychological assault course; immediately, we’re metaphorically kidnapped, trussed up, and – quite probingly – interrogated. How? Well, by deploying the dramatic equivalent of anal sex – reversing the so-called, ‘natural’ order, replacing exits with unexpected entrances. Which, here, means sitting an audience on the stage and setting the actors – and action – in the raked stalls and balcony circling that stage.
Disconcerting? As f*ck – instantly, and just as in consensual S&M, one’s constrained yet feels a paradoxical sense of liberation, of being fed carefully-rationed ecstasies that permit joy only by strictly-directed pathways. And – make no mistake – theatre rarely comes any bleaker, with such huge demands blissfully rewarding rapt attention.
Ultimately, this is theatre raw, stripped and immediate, with a narrative as brief, stark and thrillingly erotic as Christ being summarily condemned and crucified. Initially, one lone voice in the darkness – an unnamed narrator – speaks of three states of existence, being alone, with, and finally without ‘Pim’, his or her presumed companion. Three performers – Conor Lovett, Stephen Dillane and Mel Mercier – tackle Beckett’s dense, repetitive text like an overlapping, choral immersion in stately sonic tidal waves, as, gradually, a narrative – of sorts – emerges.
Naked, an unnamed soul slithers in endless mud and darkness clutching a sack inexhaustibly – and inexplicably – replenished with cans of sardines. He’s joined -again inexplicably- by another, communicating by jabbing a can-opener in the other’s buttocks, stabbing out Morse code messages. Yes, it’s a submissive, role-playing queen’s ultimate wet-dream, but – with nothing except intermittent bursts of light, dry ice, and the hoarse rubbing of actor’s voices in transfixed cadences – we’re collectively cajoled into instantaneously synthesising Beckett’s purgatorial hell inside our minds. If theatre, finally, is nothing, but voices, lights, gestures and consenting imagination, the Gare St. Lazare company take that haphazard, shockingly artistic marriage to sheer transcendence. We wait, quite simply, in delighted awe for their future liaisons with the shatteringly bleak -but dramatically irresistible- voices of Samuel Beckett.
How It Is By Samuel Beckett @ Coronet Print Room Theatre, Notting Hill Gate to May 19th. 0203-642-6606. 4 Stars!
Add a little bit of burlesque, a little bit of comedy, sprinkle a bit of singing, and add lots and lots of water, and what you have are the perfect ingredients for ‘Soap’ – now playing on the Southbank at the Underbelly Festival in the world famous Spiegeltent.
And German circus ‘Soap’ is not just about water. It’s also about the talented performances that take place right in front of our very eyes performed in the round, and have mercy for the poor people who sit in the front (and second and third) rows – there’s water water everywhere.
But it’s all good fun watching the sexy Anton Belyakov splish-splashing in the bathtub, Marie-Andrée Lemaire running around the stage as our guide and hostess for the evening. And then there is Moritz Haase, who oh so innocently is ‘plucked’ from the audience but soon enough is prancing around on stage. We’re lucky to see the sexy Daniel Leo Stern with his shirt off for most of the show, and Jennifer Lindshield, with her powerful voice providing operatic music for the spellbound crowd. There’s even a mop ballet and an amazing rain finale that will literally leave you wet. If you don’t believe me, have a look at these pictures:
SOAP – celebrating all things circus in The Spiegeltent – is just a splash away from the Thames, and the actual birthplace of circus 250 years ago!
Underbelly Festival is back for its tenth year on the Southbank.
Venue: The Spiegeltent, Underbelly Festival Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX.
Located in-between Southbank Centre, Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye.
Chess is a show about Chess……and it sort of works!
This new production is its first in London’s West End in over 30 years. With music and lyrics by Tim Rice and the two B’s in ABBA (Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, Chess, which deals with the intense chess rivalry between the U.S. and USSR in the cold war days of the 1980s, has a political message that’s just as timely now as it was back then.
But, you might ask, how exciting is a show about the game of chess? Well, the real answer is not very exciting, nor it is very sexy. Chess can easily be described as an opera, and if opera is your thing, then you’ll will love this show. For the rest of us who like catchy memorable tunes and some razzle-dazzle and great choreography ensemble dancing, i.e. Chicago and almost everything else playing in the West End, then you will be bored at ‘Chess.’ However, Chess, which specifically deals with the rivalry between Anatoly Sergievsky (an amazing Michael Ball) and an inappropriately named Freddie Trumpier (Tim Howar) – both fictional characters – is slow to build, very slow. I was actually quite bored in the first half, but by the end of the show, I was standing on my feet.
This is not because the storyline is great or the ensemble dancing was amazing (it wasn’t), it’s because of the truly talented singers on stage. Ball, who was the original Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, commands the stage in every song he sings. Cassidy Johnson, who plays Florence, Freddie’s agent who happens to fall in love with Anatoly, is almost as good. Johnson, who most recently played Carole King in ‘Beautiful,’ has quite a few showstoppers, including the famous hit ‘I Know Him So Well.’ Also included in the cast is X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke, who shows up in the second half, and makes a great effort in playing Anatoly’s suffering wife.
Chess starts out as Freddie arrives in Russia on a plane, cleverly staged, to take on Anatoly in a chess match to determine who is the world champion. But besides the match, Chess is, as previously mentioned, about the cold war, and the longstanding chess rivalry between both countries. It’s cleverly staged, with cutting edges to resemble a chess board, with video screens that show close up the actor’s facial emotions while they sing. And while some of the musical numbers don’t seem to work (’One Night in Bangkok’ is a bit out of place as well as an over-the-top American cheerleader sequence, and a video tribute to former chess champions has no impact), Sergievsky and Trumpier’s chess rivalry is just as intense as is the political situation between both countries then and now. Would I recommend you taking a gamble to go see Chess? The answer is yes!
Falling somewhere between a tribute act and a musical revue, The Rat Pack – Live From Las Vegas, brings together the kings of cool, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davies Jr, as they play a fictional night of variety on the stage of the Sands Hotel. Renowned for their old boy’s club style of camaraderie and songs that defined a generation, the three leads rattle their way through their classics, including You Make Me Feel So Young, That’s Amore, Mack The Knife and My Way.
With a sparse set and little changing visually throughout the show, there is a reliance on the songs and performances to carry the production. The aces in the pack here are Stephen Triffitt with an intonation and vocal style which is undeniably Sinatra and Nicola Emmanuel with a naturally soulful, jazz infused voice as Ella Fitzgerald. But the show’s greatest strengths lies is in its musical numbers, and whilst the classic status of the songs is undeniable, the real joy was to hear them accompanied by a live orchestra creating a sound which reverberated in your chest, and with not a synthesizer or drum machine in sight.
Despite its musical prowess, the show stumbles with an over indulgence of on stage banter which grows old and tiresome towards the end, whilst the portrayal of Dean Martin’s alcohol use descended from witty observation into comedic parody; but it was the racist, misogynistic and homophobic jokes which sat the most uncomfortably, and whilst they may have been reflective of the time, there doesn’t feel any reason why they should have been included for a modern audience.
But there is still plenty of pleasure to be found here, with a barrage of songs, toe-tapping beats and singalong classics coming together to form a fairly undemanding evening of entertainment.
The Rat Pack – Live From Las Vegas is currently at Sheffield Theatres until 5th May 2018 before continuing on its national tour.
Bat Out of Hell returns – and it’s just as rocked up and fantastic as it was when it played in London its first time around.
Bat Out of Hell had a sold out run at the London Coliseum last year, and it was practically begging to open again – and it has – this time in a bigger venue (Dominion Theatre). It’s the same story – a musical set to Meat Loaf’s mega-selling 1977 album of the same name. While some of the actors have not returned from it’s original run, it’s still a rocktastic, fun and mega exciting ride.
Raven (Christina Bennington – returning from the original show) is literally locked up in a mega mansion in the sky by her parents Falco (Rob Fowler) and Sloane (Sharon Sexton). Raven is a lonely girl – she’s not allowed outside at all – but she really wants to experience the outside world, to ride the subway, to meet a boy. In the outside world Strat (Andrew Polec) leads a gang of nomads and hangers on, and he’s always dreamt of catching the girl – particularly Raven, but she’s not available. So all sorts of musical mayhem takes place including Strat trying to kidnap Raven so that him and her can be together. Meanwhile, one of the gang members (a fabulous Danielle Steers – returning) is slowly falling in love with another gang member, while she’s actually a maid in the Falco household. She knows their secrets, and lies.
This is the story, in a nutshell, but the way it’s told is spectacular. Motorcycles, explosions, video projection, skimpy costumes, a convertible on stage that was formerly a dining room table, and said convertible plunging off the stage into the orchestra pit – it’s all musical mayhem – from a rock classic album, and it is just as good on stage as it is on the album and when it played at the Coliseum. The cast dance and prance on stage, and with most of the songs dealing with love, Bat Out of Hell is a love story set to rock music. It’s loud, it’s crazy, it’s superb!
BAT OUT OF HELL is currently booking until 27 October 2018.
