'Follies' at the National Theatre

I saw the revival of Steven Sondheim's 'Follies' at the National Theatre in 2017 (see here for that blog) and it was so successful that the production has been brought back with many of the original cast. It's a big show and isn't performed that often so it's nice to have the opportunity to see it again. It's back on the big Olivier stage with the same sets and staging but there are some small changes and it's these I'll focus on here.

The key changes are the addition of Joanna Riding and Alexander Hanson as Sally and Ben (replacing Imelda Staunton and Philip Quast) and the addition of Harry Hepple as the young Buddy. We also had Felicity Lott temporarily replacing Josephine Barstow as Heidi, the operative Weismann Girl. At first, it was odd seeing Joanna in Imelda's place but I gradually warmed to her in that role - it must've been a big decision (as well as a big opportunity) to step into Imelda's shoes but I think she did it quite successfully. It was also good to see Alexander again and he worked well with Janie Dee as his stage wife.

One of the most noticeable changes for me was to see the 'ghosts' of the past shadowing the 'current' selves throughout the performance. Whenever Sally or Phyllis or any of the cast were on stage they were clearly shadowed by their younger selves in full costume.  I really liked this link between the 'now' and the 'then' that they are all nostalgic about in a ruined theatre about to be turned into a car park.It worked really well.

It was nice to see Dawn Hope and Tracie Bennett belt out their show-stoppers (which is exactly what they are). Janie Dee was also on top form. Surprise of the evening went to Joanna Riding singing 'Losing My Mind' (which she is clearly doing) by downing a handful of pills (not really) and pulling off her wig on the final note of the song. That was a big wow moment.

Well done all, a great re-creation of the production that was a joy to see again. If you're in London you could do a lot worse that get tickets (if you can) to see this show.

The Plastic Bag Awards 2017

It's that time of year again when awards are awarded, winners are overjoyed and losers try to smile through their tears but let's not get sentimental since there can be only one winner (no tied votes here). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Plastic Bag Awards for 2017, in other words, the Baggies!

Best Theatre - Shakespeare

This has been a poor year for Shakespeare in the Plastic Bag and there are only two nominees in this category. Both are worthy to be nominated but neither were perfect productions.

'Hamlet' at the Almeida Theatre
'The Tempest' at the Barbican Theatre

I liked the new production of 'Hamlet' with Andrew Scott right up until the made-up ending scene and I liked Simon Russell Beale as Prospero and I loved the fluidity of the electronic flying Ariel but it wasn't really all that smooth. So, neither ticked all the boxes, but the Baggie goes to 'Hamlet'.

Best Theatre - Drama

There were some very powerful productions on stage in 2017 and the list of nominees could easily have been expanded but it's limited to five:

'The Glass Menagerie' at the Duke of York's Theatre
'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' at the Harold Pinter Theatre
'The Ferryman' at the Gielgud Theatre
'Angels in America' (both parts) at the National Theatre
'Young Marx' at the Bridge Theatre

Imelda Staunton and Paddy Considine both gave astonishing performances in 'Who's Afraid' and 'Ferryman' respectively and 'Angels' was a great ensemble performance across both parts of the play. 'Menagerie' and 'Marx' both had their great moments in very different types of play. The award must go to 'The Ferryman' for the excellent writing and poetry in the lines, the great performances and the shocks and twists and turns when least expected.

Best Theatre - Musical

The West End still seems to be full of musicals that have been on forever or jukebox musicals but there are still some gems with revivals and even new musicals being written and produced. The nominees are:

'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill' at Wyndham's Theatre
'The Life' at Southwark Playhouse
'Follies' at the National Theatre
'42nd Street' at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
'Everybody's Talking About Jamie' at the Apollo Theatre

If there was an award for new musical it would go to 'Jamie' and new one full of life and love and and joy but it's up against stiff competition this year. It was great, as always, to see Sharon D Clarke in 'The Life' and be introduced to new talent T'Sham Williams, and Audra McDonald was astonishing in 'Lady Day. However, the winner has to be the great production of 'Follies' at the National Theatre and the excellent performances by Imelda Staunton and Janie Dee.

Best Entertainment

An 'entertainment' is a performance that doesn't really fit into any of the other categories, such as one-man/woman shows, readings and cabaret. There are only three nominations this year:

'Miss Hope Springs' at the Wigmore Halls
'Bent' at the National Theatre
'A Poem for Every Day of the Year' at the National Theatre

The winner was easy to pick for the harrowing and powerful performance of a staged reading of 'Bent' at the National Theatre, a production I won't soon forget.

Best Gig

There was a time when I'd go to a gig a couple of times a month (or more) but these days it's a much rarer thing. There are only three nominations:

Suzanne Vega at the London Palladium
Bananarama at Hammersmith
The Unthanks at the Royal Festival Hall

It is always a joy to see Suzanne Vega play live and last year was the anniversary shows for 'Solitude Standing' and '99.9C' in which she played both albums all the way through. The Unthanks gave a veery moving performance with an orchestra as backing band and there were some astonishing arrangements of their songs. But the Baggie must go to those three mad girls in Bananarama who brought joy to Hammersmith and made us all young again. Keep it up girls!

Best Dance

I saw a lot of dance in 2017, with lots of triple bills of ballets as well as full length performances. Two Wayne McGregor's ('Woolf' and 'Codes') and both were excellent and innovative. Two one-act ballets from separate triple bills at the Royal Opera House really stood out as well as an innovative production of the story of 'Alice'.

'Woolf Works' at the Royal Opera House
'Tree of Codes' at Sadler's Wells
'Rubies' as part of the 'Jewels' triple bill at the Royal Opera House
'Flight Pattern' as part of a triple bill at the Royal Opera House
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' at the Royal Opera House

The judging panel found this to be a very difficult decision but they were kept locked away until they could hand over an envelope with one title in it. That title was 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' for the astonishing performances, the innovative designs and the sheer wonder and fun of the thing. Well done Royal Ballet!

Best Exhibition

This category was a difficult one to narrow down the nominees from the large number of really good exhibitions visited this year, but here are the final nominations:

'Revolution: Russian Art 1917 - 1932' at the Royal Academy
'Michelangelo & Sebastiano' at the National Gallery
'Raphael: The Drawings' at the Ashmolean Museum
'Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home In Antiquity' at Leighton House Museum
'Cézanne Portraits' at Musee D'Orsay and the National Portrait Gallery

It was great to see artists whose works I;m very familiar with next to those of artists I've never heard of before and wondering why not? Seeing classics from the High Renaissance and revolutionary works from the last century and then seeing painting after painting by an artist who hasn't had his own exhibition in over 30 years. So much to see and wonder at. However, the Baggie goes Mr Cezanne and his portraits of family and friends that I saw both at Musee D'Orsay and at the National Portrait Gallery.

Best Film

Given the many different film genres it's probably unfair to try to compare films showing wild leaps of imagination next to documentaries but there's only one category for film I'm afraid. The nominees are:

'La La Land'
'Wonder Woman'
'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2'
'Here To Be Heard: The Story of The Slits'
'Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World'

'La La Land' was a joy and a sadness, 'Wonder Woman' was an inspiration and 'Guardians' was just daft fun. 'The Slits' told a story I was partially familiar with but from a different perspective and 'Rumble' told a story I wasn't familiar with at all and I learned so much from it. The winner has to be 'Here To Be Heard: The Story of The Slits' because I go back so many years with those women. Well done!

And there you have it, the Baggies for 2017! I wonder what 2018 will be like?

'Follies' at the National Theatre

We went back to see Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies' at the National Theatre again the other evening - we'd seen it in preview with a few technical niggles so it was good to see it in its more finished form. It was great! It's such a well-constructed piece of story-telling and a musical that it can't really fail when done right and the National Theatre is certainly doing it right. It's on the big Olivier stage and it works its magic to great applause.

'Follies' is about life and love, about growing old and growing apart, about hopes and dreams - youthful and those belonging to a more advanced age - and about personal stories intertwined to tell a bigger tale.

It's 1971 and the night before an old New York theatre is about to be pulled down and become an office block. The theatre used to hold the Weismann's Follies spectaculars between the wars and, as a farewell, Mr Weismann has invited his old leading ladies back for a last party. It's a chance to relive the old days, for old friends and rivals to meet and remember when they were young and for old loves to emerge. It's a theatre of ghosts and dreams that we see to start the show, the younger selves of our leading ladies in all the glamour and glitzy costumes as they grace the stage before the 1971 reality hits.

The core of the story belongs to Sally and Buddy and to Phyllis and Ben who were friends before the war and married their respective spouses and went their separate ways. Sally and Phyllis were in the Follies show and Buddy and Ben were their suitors who used to come to the theatre after the performance to take their girls dancing. We gradually learn that neither couple have had it easy and that Sally still has an unhealthy love for Ben who used to play around with her behind Phyllis's back. Buddy knows, but can't help loving Sally. Throughout the show, whenever we see the 50 year old leads we also see their 20 year old younger selves somewhere in the shadows, watching and reliving their experiences. It works really well.

This is the case for the whole cast - whenever we see the 1971 version of them their young version  is also on stage. It's a trick that works really well, reminding us that these 'old ladies' were once glamorous but that life passes us all by. And the ladies also have their stories to tell. We have the Parisian chanteuse who uses her former Broadway fame to sell cosmetics, the dancing couple who set up a dance studio, the vamp who went on to star in films and now has her own TV show but still lives it up. There are some great performances in these vignettes into other lives and it all works very well indeed.

One of my favourites was seeing Heidi as Miss 1918 who had a song written for her by some famous composer in Vienna (who she can't quite recall) and the stage goes silent as her 1971 self sings the song in her operatic soprano, later joined by her 1918 self. It's a song of love long gone, of lovers parting and wanting just one more kiss, one more attempt at life. It's a great moment and gets a huge reaction from the audience. It's even more special since we have a genuine opera star on the stage playing the role in Dame Josephine Barstow who used to sing lead with the Royal Opera.

Another great sequence was when the 'girls' perform one of their old numbers involving both singing and dancing and, understandably, their younger selves take over the dancing after a while. Dawn Hope leads this section with style, grace, a big voice and excellent timing.

It always circles back to our main players of the two couples, all of whom have their star moments (or two). One of my favourites from this show is 'In Buddy's Eyes' sung by Sally about how the husband she doesn't really love still sees her as a young and perfect princess despite being married for 30 years. It's such a lovely song and I grew to love it through Barbara Cook's version of the song. In this production it's sung by Imelda Staunton who plays Sally. She also gets to sing another 'biggie' later in the show, 'Losing My Mind'. It's good to see where and how this song fits into the show and we can see that she's been losing her mind for a long time, sadly.

Janie Dee, our other leading lady, plays Phyllis and she gets her own big songs and an extended dance sequence and my favourite of hers was 'How Could I leave You?' sung after an argument with husband Ben who asks for a divorce. It's a very clever song and Janie pulls it off excellently. She also exhausts by watching her energetic dancing in 'The Story of Lucy and Jessie' which she dances with her younger self.

Philip Quast and Peter Forbes play our leading men, Ben and Buddy respectively. They get their own songs both together and alone, old friends who met their wives when they were showgirls at that theatre. Ben suave as the former diplomat and Buddy the clown who still loves Sally despite having a mistress when he's out on the road. I particularly liked Buddy's 'The Right Girl' about the two women in his life when he realises that he doesn't love the right girl for him.

I also liked Ziti Strallen as the young Phyllis who yearns to be worthy of Ben and, later, outshines him. I also liked Leisha Mollyneaux who played young Stella (Dawn Hope's character), particularly for her dancing behind the mature Stella reflecting her arm movements in reverse - that must've been incredibly difficult to get right but she performs it really well.

The set looked like the demolition of the theatre had already started but, as it moved around and created larger spaces its versatility became obvious. The glamour of the show rests with the young ghosts of the past as they sing and dance in their glitzy costumes and outlandish headdresses - it's odd that all the fancy costumes are worn by the chorus rather than the lead characters but it works.

This really is an excellent show and, if you can get tickets, grab them with both hands.