'The Importance Of Being Earnest' at the Vaudeville Theatre

Last week we went to see the last play in the year-long season of Oscar Wilde plays at the Vaudeville Theatre, 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. This is probably Oscar's best play, far more subtle and funny than his earlier plays and I can quite imagine him keeping a notebook specially for his wittiest lines to save them up for this play. It has all the social commentary and absurdity you expect from Mr Wilde and it's effortlessly funny. So why were there empty seats?

This is the tale of Jack who wants to marry Gwendolen but there's a problem since he's pretending to be called Ernest and his best friend Algie, Gwendolen's cousin, finds out there's something afoot and quizzes him about his life in the country. It turns out that Jack is upright Jack in the country but pretends to be his younger brother, the rake Ernest, in town. And that's where the confusions starts with Algie travelling down to the country to pretend to be Ernest and falls in love with Jack's ward, Cecily, and the story gets more complicated.

Of course, Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag in Victoria station by a kindly old man who adopted him and left him his wealth. If we know anything about this play it's Dame Edith Evans' rising shout of 'a handbag????''. There's so much more to the play than just that line. There are twists and turns aplenty in this play and the production does them proud. Double identities, put upon servants, the power of money, society, town versus country and the clergy, it's all in there somewhere.

While the play is fab and some of the performances were great, I wasn't all that taken with the cast as a whole or with some of the direction. Sophie Thompson was a joy as Lady Bracknell and I loved her under-playing of the 'a handbag' line (you just know that most of the audience - including me - was expecting the Evans outburst at that point). Everything worked so well when Sophie was in control of what was happening on the stage. Less so when other characters and actors took the lead.

I wasn't terribly keen on the male leads and don't understand why Ernest turned into John Cleese in the 'Ministry of Silly Walks' in the final scenes with his silly and unnecessary jumping, and the young ladies could've done with some real backbone. That might be why there are some empty seats, it's the cast not the play.

Still, it's been a great year for this season and more theatres ought to take the plunge and dedicate a year to productions of a specific playwright. This season has demonstrated how effective this can be and it's been a breath of fresh air in the West End. Well done to Classic Spring and the Vaudeville, I hope to see more in the future!

'The Selfish Giant' at the Vaudeville Theatre

Last night we went to see a new production of 'The Selfish Giant' as part of the Oscar Wilde season ate the Vaudeville Theatre. It's described as a 'folk opera' by Guy Chambers with no dialogue but lots of songs to tell the story. It's a short show, only one hour and ten minutes, and there's only five shows so, as completists, we were lucky to see it. The Wilde season has announced al the main productions but the shorter 'entertainments' between the main plays seem to be announced only shortly before they're performed.

The story is quite straightforward and reasonably well known so it all comes down the telling to keep the attention and make it interesting. We have children playing in a garden with the best trees to climb, the brightest flowers and the most tasty fruits and the garden belongs to a giant. When the giant comes home from his extended visit to a friend he finds all the children in his garden and chases them off, then builds a wall to keep them out. That's when winter appears and doesn't go again until the children find a way back into the garden and the giant looks out to see that, finally, spring has arrived and he sees the error of his ways. When he goes into the garden the children run away but je finds one boy trying to climb into a tree and he helps him up before demolishing the wall and inviting the children into his garden which is now theirs. Many years later the boy returns with wounds in his hands and feet and the giant grows angry that someone dared to hurt the boy. The boy invites the giant to visit his own garden and, later that day, the giant is found dead in his garden. Cue big song.

The staging was very simple, with the band at the back of the stage and various ladders in the front half acting as trees. Different coloured balloons appeared now and then (only white balloons in winter), some white sheets to cover the ladders in winter and lots of cardboard storage boxes with yet more balloons inside. And a chair. I've seen ladders as trees a few too many times but it worked out ok.

The young cast were dressed as we've come to expect children to be dressed since 'Play Away' was on telly in the early '70s in bright colours and baggy ill-fitting clothes. It would be nice if someone could come up with a different way of dressing young adults as children some time.  They had nice enough stage voices but it was difficult for anyone to really stand out since most (or all?) of the songs involved several singers singing together. I did notice Izuka Hoyle as one of the narrators and her voice sounded nice and smooth.

The giant, on the other hand, couldn't be missed by using his bassest of bass voices. How can anyone sing that low and sustain over a whole series of songs? Well done Jeff Nicholson on sustaining that voice and managing those enormous platform shoes.

I enjoyed it well enough and I liked the little production touches such as giving random members of the audience little lights to switch on at two points in the show - I gave mine back at the end like a good little audience member. I suspect the show needs to play for a bit longer than this short run and then Guy Chambers can get out his editing pen to tighten it up a bit and get in some more hooks. Having said that, I'd be happy to see it again in future.

Oscar Wilde's 'De Profundis' at the Vaudeville Theatre

Part of the year long season of Oscar Wilde plays at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand is a short series of performances of the long letter Oscar wrote to Bosie from Reading Gaol. It's performed by Simon Callow lasts around 1:40 hours. How Simon remembers all those words, those endless, numerous words while on stage alone is really quite astonishing. Or at least it was until I noticed the two screens attached to the front of the dress circle, presumably there 'just in case'.

A bare stage with just a chair and a light shining above Simon's head, this is all about the words and the emotion behind them, the sheer exasperation of Oscar with Bosie's behaviour at times, the feeling that he in thrall to the younger man who uses Oscar and he just can't break away from him, even when he flees to Paris to put some distance between them. The letter tells us of their friendship and relationship over the years, recounting specific incidents and how Oscar reacts and interprets them. Of course, we only hear Oscar's side of the story but Lord Alfred Douglas sounds like a nasty little shit who was only interested in using Oscar for his position and money and then loses interest. The awful thing is that Oscar seems to see this quite plainly but keeps forgiving the little shit and keeps giving him more money and attention.

I've seen Simon Callow on stage before in plays, but this was just him along on stage with only a chair as a prop and to sit on. He does move around, gets down on his knees. stands, leans on the back of the chair, sits on an arm, but that's it. He's caught in a small space with his memories, just like Oscar was when in jail. It was an impressive performance.

'De Profundis' was adapted for the stage by Frank McGuinness and performed by Simon Callow.

'A Woman of No Importance' at the Vaudeville Theatre

A year of Oscar Wilde plays has started at the Vaudeville Theatre so it was time to jump in and get all Wildean. An additional draw was a cast headed up by Eve Best, Anne Reid and Eleanor Bron with the additional delight of William Gaunt having a small role as a local clergyman (I last saw him play John O'Gaunt, his namesake). With that cast and a Wilde play, what's not to like, especially when we were seated down the front of the stalls with perfect views?

The play opens at the country house of Lady Hunstanton who has invited a range of different people in the hops of having an interesting weekend. We have a young lady from America, various members of the aristocracy that seem to go from one country house to the next, a young clerk that Lady Hunstanton has taken an interest in, a politician and various others. A late Victorian play is, of course, full of morality and preaching and very so often you can clearly hear Wilde's Irish views spouted by the young American lady, a cypher for his own views on 'society' and the upper classes.

When Lord Illingworth offers the young clerk, Arbuthnot, a job as his secretary everyone is happy for him. It's a good step, after all. And his mother is invited to join the party for dinner. And that's where the tone changes since Mrs Arbuthnot ran away to live with Lord Illingworth when they were both young but he refused to marry her when she became pregnant. She doesn't want her son to have anything to do with the father who did nothing to help them all those years ago and we see her explain that Lord Illingworth is actually his father. That's where the twists and turns become ever more sharper.

It's a very enjoyable production, excellently delivered. Eve Best is a safe pair of hands as the 'woman of no importance', independent and strong whose only flaw seems to be her relationship with her selfish son. The son annoyed me - that's partly the writing of course, but mainly his stupid 'Ed Sheeran' hair style that was all over the place while everyone else was in character. It was a delight to see Eleanor Bron on stage who was imperious and, well, she played Eleanor Bron really well.

A very pleasant surprise was seeing Anne Reid on stage for the first time. Not only did we get a great performance but she came out in-between acts with some of the 'servants' to sing appropriate songs that helped the story move forward and she has a lovely singing voice. She was a friend of Barbara Cook so that's hardly surprising.

Once we got over young Arbuthnot's tantrums at the end of the play he finds a glove in his mother's drawing room, not knowing that Lord Illingworth had visited earlier and his mother had slapped his face with that glove. Her response to the question of whose glove it was was a very satisfying ending when she said it belonged to 'a man of no importance'. Take that!

Well done all, I really enjoyed this production and I'm looking forward to the next one now. Seeing a Wilde play every few months seems like a nice thing to do. Thank you Vaudeville for taking the plunge and committing to a Wilde year!

'Di and Viv and Rose' at the Vaudeville Theatre

Last night I was treated to a ticket to see 'Di and Viv and Rose', the new play on at the Vaudeville and I had no idea what it's about. Three women I suppose, but what else? And it features three actresses I've seen on stage before: Tamzin Outhwaite (Di), Samantha Spiro (Viv) and Jenna Russell (Rose). Oddly, I've seen them all in singing roles but there wasn't a song in sight in this production, other than singing along to 'Walk This Way' by Aerosmith and Run DMC.

I've seen Tamzin in 'Sweet Charity' at the Menier Choccy Factory and in 'Boeing Boeing', Jenna in 'Merrily We Roll Along' at the Choccy and in 'Sunday in the Park with George' at Studio 54 on Broadway, and Samantha in the concert version of 'Merrily We Roll Along' to celebrate Sondheim's birthday and in 'Twelfth Night' with Derek Jacobi. And together, I must say, they are great.

It's the age-old story of growing up and being 'besties' (in today's tortuous jargon), sharing their young lives, hopes and dreams and then seeing what happens. So, the first half of the play is set in the early 80s where they all meet up as students and share a house. Di is a lesbian, Viv is a feminist swot and Rose just wants to have fun with as many boys as she can manage. They're not great friends initially but after they move into the house together that Rose's stepfather buys as an investment, we watch their relationships develop and deepen.

One gets raped and they rally round, one gets pregnant and they rally round. That's what friends do, they rally round. We see their evolving friendship in the first half and the second half sees them growing up and older, from one having children and one moving to New York to realise her dreams, to the harsher realities of life in the '90s and '00s. The first shock comes when Rose dies suddenly (and I really didn't see that coming). She's the calm centre that holds Di and Viv together and the centre of their memories. Rose brought them together in the first place and now she's gone - how will the friends stay together, especially when one lives in New York? It's all about memories.

In the final scene Di and Viv talk about still seeing Rose - her hair, her arms but never her face - the friend they lost too young with their shared memories. No one of them 'owns' those memories, they're all shared. Relationships are strained and there's no telling what might happen… until it happens. But I won't spoil it.

There's a great soundtrack to the play as well, mostly women (as is appropriate). Eurythmics, Bellestars,  Kirsty MacColl, Madonna and more. The music punctuates the scenes and the changing years. The sparse set (after the clutter of the student house) says 'look at me', focus on me and what I'm saying - or not saying.

The play particularly resonated with me since I was a student in the early '80s and shared a house with two friends. My reality being mirrored by this play - or at least some of the elements. There was me, Mark and Mike sharing a terraced house in Cardiff, growing up together for two years, two long years of starting to become the people we became. Mike sadly died and he was the sort of Rose figure, the one in the middle that linked us all. I hadn't thought about Mike and Mark for years until I saw the play and the memories came flooding back. I was at Mike's funeral but I've lost touch with Mark. After all these years he might've been in the same audience for this play and I possibly wouldn't recognise him.  

There are laugh out loud moments (a lot of them), big grin moments and moments of thoughtful quiet in this play. The women gel most effectively, demonstrating the fun and the niggles of being young and living away from home for the first time, using the freedom to explore in different ways. And it works, it's believable and real. It's a delight and great fun and you should go and see it! Now!

'The Wind In The Willows' at The Vaudeville Theatre

This evening we went to see 'The Wind In The Willows' at the Vaudeville Theatre on The Strand, Kenneth Grahame's lovely book made into a stage production by the Royal Opera House. As soon as it started I became 11 years old again, rapt with wonder at seeing Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr Toad brought to life in front of me. And it snowed!

But hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself. This production was put on a couple of years ago but I didn't get to see it so, when I saw it was opening I had to buy tickets. It's not opera in the slightest, but it tells the tale of the riverbank through dance and narration and it's so easy to follow and so delightful. It opens in Kenneth Grahame's attic with Alan Titchmarsh as Kenneth, the narrator, as he introduces us to his animal friends and the story kicks off.

We learn of the friendship of Mole and Ratty, of their friendship with the exuberant Mr Toad who decides he wants a gypsy caravan (pulled by a rocking horse) until he encounters his first motor car. Uh oh, children, that's a danger! Badger convenes a meeting to discuss what can be done to curb Toad's dangerous driving and Mole is saved from the stoats and weasels in the Wild Wood by Ratty. Mr Toad is arrested and put in prison, escapes and makes his way back to his friends only to find that Toad Hall has been taken over by the stoats and weasels. A battle ensues and Toad and his valiant friends win back Toad Hall, seeing off the nasty stoats and weasels. Phew!

Of course, there's a lot more going on than that. We see the changing of the seasons from lazy summer to bountiful autumn and chilly winter and the first half ends at Christmas with carol singers and snow descending from the ceiling onto the audience. There are lots of little messages in this production about friendship and loyalty, of 'Englishness', of life and living it to the full. In the half-time interval up in the bar the driver of the car ran in asking where his car was to be followed by police checking out leads and then, finally by Mr Toad in the stolen car. He was arrested a couple of feet from me and led away by the police. When the second half opened Mr Toad was in the dock in court being sentenced to 20 years in prison! O no!

I hope you don't mind me saying that I *loved* this production? It was fun, it was frivolous and it was magical by turns. The real surprise was seeing Alan Titchmarsh on stage for almost the whole time. I knew he was narrating but I'd assumed it would be a voice-over track, not that he'd be physically there on stage for almost the whole time. He was the only one who spoke during the whole production and even did some singing and dancing (well, sort of). Alan is a gardener who turned into a TV personality in the '90s and has been building on that since then and he was really excellent as the tweedy narrator. I hope his grandchildren (if he he has any) have seen him up there on that stage. Well done Alan!

If you're in London and have time for some magic in your lives then go along and see this lovely production. You won't be disappointed! O, and they also serve extra large glasses of Shiraz in the upstairs bar if that helps you decide...