'Widowers' Houses' at The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond

Last week Chris took me to see a George Bernard Shaw play I've never heard of (one of many I've never heard of) at the Orange Tree Theatre in deepest, darkest Richmond upon Thames. I've not only not heard of the play, I've not heard of the theatre either and that was part of the impetus for going - a rarely performed play in a theatre neither of us had been to before. So ok, let's go.

The theatre is only a few minutes from the station on the main road and it's partially painted orange so you can't really miss it. It's been there for donkeys years and seems to have been recently renovated but there's an awful lot of steps to get anywhere in the building. It also prides itself in putting on rarely performed plays, hence Mr Shaw. This play is from 1892 so relatively early in the Shaw cannon and it reeks of the late Victorian-ness that I always have a problem with.

The play opens with two English gentlemen on a tour down the Rhine, one of whom falls for a young heiress travelling with her father while the other gentleman is an unspeakable prig and snob and, for all that, great fun (in a kind of poking fun at and laughing at rather than with, if you see what I mean). They agree to marry and the father agrees subject to his beloved daughter being accepted by the posh gent's titled relatives. Only when they get back to London do they find out that the father's vast fortune that he'll settle on his daughter is based on being a slum landlord (he's the widower in the title). The righteous gentleman, who is a doctor and sees folks from the slums every day, can't accept this and takes it even worse when he finds out that his entire income is raised from the slum landlord's mortgage on the property that has been in his family for a long time.

The second half gets even murkier when it seems there's a new scam in London town as the municipal councils seek to build new roads and spruce the place up a bit by getting rid of the slums. The scam is to do up the slums and then claim huge compensation when they're pulled down. Will the good doctor resist this temptation? will he win back his love? will he ever hold his head high again? That's for me to know and for you to guess.

After my initial 'o no, what have I let myself in for' worries, I actually started to enjoy the play. It's performed in the round and I was sitting at the end of the row so I often had actors coming up behind me and starting to act as they approached the stage which made me jump a few times (particularly when the waiter rang a huge bell behind me to announce dinner) but it was good fun, a bit wordy in places but fun nonetheless. The only thing that drew attention away from the play were the oddly Dickensian poses of Simon Gregor as Lickcheese which were a bit over the top.

Stefan Adegbola was great fun as the camp snob Cokane who is only concerned with how things look and our young lovers were both good value with Alex Waldmann as Doctor Trench and Rebecca Collingwood as Blanche, the particularly violent and demure young lady. It was nice to see Rebecca in her first professional play since I saw her in the final year student's performance at the Guildhall last year when she played Flaemmchen in 'Grand Hotel'. I noted in that blog that she had the best voice on stage and, although this was a non-singing role, it was still nice to see her (and I went up to her afterwards to say 'well done').

The play is sold out for the rest of its run but I'm pleased I've seen it and visited the theatre. I suspect we'll be returning!

'Grand Hotel' at the Silk Street Theatre, Barbican

Every year the final year students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama put on a summer show and this year they've chosen to revive 'Grand Hotel'. I saw 'Grand Hotel' in its last production at the Donmar Warehouse in 2004 and fell in love with it. It's a very literate and intelligent show, quite densely packed with half a dozen lead characters all with their own inter-twining lives and plots. There are no real goodies or baddies in this show, it depicts the consequences of choices. It's a very clever show but I engage with it at an emotional rather than an intellectual level.

I generally have the memory of a butterfly flittering here and there but this musical has stayed with me over the years. I saw it twice in 2004 at the Donmar, one a programmed performance and the other a midnight HIV/AIDs benefit show. The Donmar production featured Daniel Evans as the dying Mr Kringelein, Mary Elizabeth Mastranatonio as the ballerina and Julian Ovenden as the Baron. The show made the tears well and roll down my cheeks at various places.

Right. So that's my history with the show and I've started off with the personal history to signal that it's an important show for me and I won't tolerate any laziness or mistakes in a production. So, Guildhall students, you have a high legacy to live up to and you certainly won't get an easy ride from me. Did the production work? Damn right it did!

As soon as I walked in to take my seat my expectations were raised by the art deco set of black and white marble floor and gilt trimmings, a versatile set that turns from the foyer, to a bedroom to the hotel bar. Then the music starts and the grand parade as people start milling in th foyer and we meet the lead characters: the Baron ('dangerous games and a carefree existence'), the Prima Ballerina and her Maid, the Book-keeper, the Typist ('I want to got to Hollywood') and the Businessman. We meet the front of house staff at the reception desk and the back room staff ('some have, some have not'), the gangsters who want money from the Baron and the impresarios who need to make money out of the Ballerina. There are a lot of intertwined relationships and themes in this musical.

It's quite fast-paced and we learn a lot about the characters in very short time, like the basic decency of the Baron by helping Mr Kringelein get a room in the hotel when he was about to be thrown out for being jewish and the Typist Flaemmchen being happy to dance with him as soon as she hears he's dying. So, yes, the Baron might be a thief (in the last resort as he says) and the Typist might want money to escape her dreary life but they're basically nice people.

The Baron tries to steal a diamond necklace from Grushinskaya, the Ballerina, but falls in love with her and she with him and this leads to two great songs, the Baron's 'Love Can't Happen' and Grushinskaya's 'Bonjour Amour' the following morning. Finally they have found love and all will be well, she will dance again and he will be her inspiration. On the other hand, we have Flaemmchen selling herself to the Businessman for one thousand marks to take her to America and it is when the Businessman attempts to rape her that the Baron appears in the room to save her. He was in the Businessman's room next door to steal his wallet and he gets shot in the struggle.

The Baron then appears singing 'Roses At The Station' with his last moments of life when he sings about being at the station with roses for his beloved Ballerina as he promised. We learn more about his life in this song, that he has been waiting for love,  "All my life I wanted to be here, all my life I waited to appear at the station with these roses..." and his privileged life,

"I spent my childhood in the fields

My boyhood on horseback

I was a soldier in the war

The bullets whizzed past my ear

And not one came near me till now..."

That's a big show-stopper of a song and the only way the song can be followed is by a couple of dancers coming on to dance a bolero as the Baron lies dead.

We then skip to the next day with police coming to investigate the murder and the Businessman is arrested, Flaemmchen leaving and Mr Kringelein checking out to go to Paris. Who will tell Grushinskaya that her lover is dead? No-one, they'll let her think he's deserted her like all the others, even her faithful Maid Rafaela who loves her mistress. Life goes on however, when Eric the receptionist becomes a father at last (singing a song that echoes one of the Baron's vocal themes) and Mr Kringelein and Flaemmchen leave together to head for Paris to raise her baby. One man dies and lives are wrecked but life goes on. It's a marvellous play with marvellous songs.

The cast were great and so was the music. The acting was good throughout and so was the dancing, it was the voices that drew a line between some of the actors. Best voices belonged to Rebecca Collingwood as Flaemmchen, Ceri-lyn Cissone as Grushinskaya and Emily Laing as Rafaela, all with nice, clear and strong singing voices. Kudos to Ceri-lyn for sustaining the believable Russian accent throughout. Sadly there are no photos of the production available but here's one of Rebecca as Flaemmchen.

The lads were good too, particularly Jay Saighal as the Baron, Joey Phillips as Kringelein, Ben Hall as Businessman Preysing and Jordan Renzo as Eric at the reception desk. Jay has a good voice but the ideal Baron remains with Julian Ovenden with his more powerful and versatile voice. I liked Ben's slowly corrupted Business man who starts off with honour and ends in shame and Jordan had a lovely voice when he sang of his new baby.

All in all it was a great production. It did, however, point to a few drawbacks. Age for one thing. The actors were all in their early 20s and sometimes it's just a relief to see actors of different ages and shapes on stage, not uniformly young and slim. Some of the lads seemed just too skinny for their clothes since they haven't bulked up yet. And where were the black actors? The two Jimmy's song is meant to be sung by black lads but where were they? A note for Simon Haines as the Doctor - great limp but, if you really do have a gammy-leg and a limp then most people learn to compensate for it in different ways - learn to do that and your future limps will be so much more realistic.

But, who am I to be churlish? You were all great and gave me a great night's entertainment seeing one of my favourite and rare musicals and I thank you. You made me cry as well, damn you! I hope to see some of you in the West End in the near future - well done people and good luck for the future!