'Blues in the Night' at the Kiln Theatre, Kilburn

Last week we went to see 'Blues In The Night' at The Kiln theatre in Kilburn (formerly the Tricycle Theatre, a much better name). It's not one of my regular haunts but I wanted to see Sharon D Clarke in her latest role as a blues singer in a boarding hotel back in the day with a score made up of classic blues songs from the canon. It's a sort of review show with songs by different people pulled together and worked on to tell the stories of three women and one man who seems to have something to do with each of them. But what?

The play is set in a boarding hotel and the stage is et with three separate rooms with a bar where the band play. The rooms are on risers around the stage and we meet an old blues singer, a woman of the world down on her luck and a young girl disappointed in love. The four-piece band play in the bar with a compere who visits the women at different times and for different reasons, maybe to seduce one or to deliver heroine to another. They each sing songs that illustrate their position and are surrounded by things in their rooms that show their position - the blues singer is waiting to make it big again, the women surrounded by furs that she gradually sells for drugs and the young lady by her one good frock. And the man? Well, he's the one with the drugs.

I quite like this kind of show since you're not constrained by the book or plot, the songs tell you enough to build your own picture of who these characters are and make up their back stories. I do that anyway. The old blues singer has seen it all over the years and is straight forward and the mother of the place, the young lady has clearly had a failed love affair but what about the worldly women with her furs? She was someone's mistress clearly, but what happened for her to end up in this low rent hotel and selling her furs for the next fix? I think she's the one who's back story I wanted to explore most.

The four main characters all have about the same time to shine and sing but the whole thing was dominated by Sharon D Clarke's presence - which is fine by me. Clive Rowe played the man, Debbie Kurup the lady and Gemma Sutton the young girl and they all shined at different times but it must've been a bit daunting to share the stage with Ms Clarke. She was on blistering form.

It would be good if the show transferred into the West End, that would probably galvanise the rest of the cast to up their game a bit to try to challenge Ms Clarke (and I don't think she'd mind in the slightest). I'd certainly go to see it again.

'The Rink' at Southwark Playhouse

Last week we went to see 'The Rink' by Kander & Ebb at Southwark Playhouse. Yes, the same Kander & Ebb that did 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' and no, I hadn't heard of 'The Rink' either. I now understand why.

Southwark Playhouse has a good track record of putting on little played musicals in recent years and I particularly remember 'Grand Hotel', 'The Life' and 'Pippin'. All well worth seeing (I think we saw 'Grand Hotel' three or four times) with solid production values. And that's the same with 'The Rink' - great cast, great production, good band - but, well, it's just not the greatest show that Kander & Ebb ever did.

It starts off with the demolition crew arriving at the roller rink in some anonymous American east coast seaside resort that's seen better days. The owner has sold up and is leaving for a retirement in Florida when, unexpectedly, her 30 year old daughter turns up out of the blue to throw a spanner in the works with her rose-tinted memories of the place. The owner is the mother but the roller rink was left to both mother and daughter and she has forged her daughter's signature since she's only seen her daughter once since she ran away when she was 16.

We then get the story of their relationship in flashbacks to the daughter's childhood memories of her dad and the reality of the situation from the mother. The daughter runs away to find her father and she does eventually, only to find that he's started a new life with a new family and wants nothing to do with her. The arguments and memories continue and then we find out that the daughter actually has a young daughter of her own and she reconciles things between her mother and grandmother. Happy ending all round. But what a journey to get there.

I liked the production, it was serious and fun by turns and it's quite nicely constructed given the basic material but my problem was and is that I can't remember a single song. I left the theatre thinking that too. Not every song in every musical works and is memorable but there needs to be at least one really.  I can forgive many things for a good song but there weren't really any in this show.

Another thing that sort of turned me off were the costumes, particularly for the 30 year old daughter, Angel. Given Angel's age and the dad going off to fight in Korea after her birth then that places the show sometime in the early-mid '80s, so why is Angel wearing an early '70s tank top and green flared jeans? No-one dressed like that in the '80s, even in America. I know that's a silly point but it doesn't half draw the attention away from the singing and acting and the show when you're sitting there thinking 'that's just so wrong'.

Well done to Caroline O'Connor and to Gemma Sutton at the centre of the production as the mother and daughter. My overall verdict is well done to the cast and crew for their work and well done to Southwark Playhouse for putting it on, but it's a shame the material just isn't that good. Still, it was good to have an opportunity to see it.