'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.

Matthew Bourne's 'The Car Man' at Sadler's Wells

Last week we went to see Matthew Bourne's 'The Car Man' at Sadler's Wells which was where I saw it (possibly in the same seats) when it was revived in July 2007. It seems like it's a summer show and it's certainly hot and steamy.

The tale is set in small town America, in Harmony with a population of some 370 souls, which is little more than a garage and a diner. The local lads work in the garage and the girls in the diner next door and the diner comes alive when the garage closes and everyone gets together for their night out.

Dino owns the garage and diner which is run by his wife Lana and her sister Rita. Lana makes it clear on numerous occassions that she doesn't want to be too close to her aging husband but has nowhere to turn. And then Luca appears, a drifter who is good with his hands and starts working in the garage and eventually starts an affair with Lana. At the same time, he's stringing Angelo along, the local geek who likes to read in his break in shifts from the garage and is supposedly going out with Rita. When Luca doesn't get his was with Lana because Dino comes home early, he lures Angelo into a car for rumpy-pumpy and the car rocks back and forth. Angelo is smitten. He's still bullied by the lads but at least he now has a friend.

The first half is all exuberance and full of a passion for life and love, for showing off and getting the girl, for being one of the lads. Endless movement, quick and focused with no stillness at all. And then it goes horribly wrong when Dino comes home early again. Lana and Luca have danced a most passionate dance, sizzling with erotic energy and then Dino finds them in an embrace on the floor and is enraged by this proof of Lana's infidelity.

She grabs a heavy spanner and slashes him on the head. When that fails to kill him, she gives it to Luca to finish the job and he does before running away when he hears the sound of police sirens. At that point in comes Angelo who holds Dino to see if there's anything he can do and gets blood on him and, just as the police arrive, Lana grabs Angelo to make it look like he's trying to rape her to frame him for killing Dino. And it's all over for Angelo who's life will never be the same again, innocence lost forever and all because of the scheming (and previously sympathetic) Lana.

The second half opens six months later in a swanky club (the Beat Route) in the nearest big city with Lana, Luca and friends all living the high life on Dino's money, gambling, dancing and getting drunk. And then Dino's ghost appears to spoil the fun. Switch to county jail and Rita is visiting Angelo before being scared off and the prison guard starts to abuse Angelo. He's had enough by now and fights back, knocking out the guard, stealing his gun and shirt and escapes. The scene switches back to a gloomy and obviously dying Harmony as Angelo meets Rita and pushes her away since he's been changed by his time in jail, tries to find Lana and ends up shooting Luca. Retribution is tough in Harmony.

Just as the first half is all about eneregy and life, the second half is about consequences. And they are dark. It's a marvel of storytelling through dance and lifts the spirits only to crash them down but it's clear why that happens. Happy and sad. That's life, right?

I had the impossibly named Zizi Strallen as Lana (I saw her sister, Summer, in 'A Chorus Line' a couple of years ago) and Chris Trenfield as Luca, along with Dominic North as Angelo, Kate Lyons as Rita and Alan Vincent (who created the role of Luca in the original production of 'The Car Man') as Dino. It's a really great production taking you up into the highs only to let you plummet to the depths of emotion shortly afterwards. That's powerful dancing and storytelling. Go and see it if you can!