Deceptions - Richmond Theatre

Deceptions by Paul Wheeler
Director: Joe Harmston
Reviewer: James Higgins

Paul Wheeler has written extensively for television including many well known hits such as Poldark, Begerac, Minder, Tenko and The Darling Buds of May. Deceptions is, somewhat surprisingly for such a talent, his first stage play.

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The action revolves around just two central characters, played by actors better known for their roles in well known television soaps. Julia Smythe (Michelle Collins) is a well regarded, prominent psychiatrist and Adrian Wainwright (Rupert Hill) her new client. We join them in Smythe's sparse consulting room where she is attempting to ascertain Wainwright's background and start to put him through his paces.

Simon Scullion's set is very basic and consists of just a table, chair and couch against a lit background during the first act, which although it doesn't create a sense of place alone, it does however help focus the attention solely on the dialogue in the room. She explains she can only try to help him rather than actually cure him of his sexual anguish. Strangely it is Dr Smythe that initially seems more anxious than her client as she tries to make sense of his stories and antagonistic replies making you start to wonder who is meant to be asking the probing questions in order to determine the truth.

It becomes clear that Wainwright is deeply mistrusting of analysts on couches and the phenomenon associated with that. He seems to want to constantly undermine the profession that he has seemingly gone to for help. The audience is given an indication that it is an industry that we should question more carefully. As time goes by it is fairly obvious that Wainwright has other motivations behind attending the sessions and does indeed have a hidden agenda.

Act two swaps the sparse consulting room for Wainwright's almost equally sparse bedsit and the plot begins to unravel at a far greater pace than before. The twists and turns come thick and fast and we discover far more about Smythe's character as the plot develops.

Michelle Collins is very good as the bored Psychologist who has been stuck in an unrewarding job for far too long without a thought for herself and her personal life. She starts quite slowly in a fairly rigid way but by act two manages to convey another dimension to her character and excels in her role. Rupert Hill is excellent as the charming client with the hidden agenda and comes across very strongly right from the onset of the play and through to the dramatic finish.

This is an unusual and fresh contemporary play revolving around many themes and issues with an intriguing twist at the end. Despite the fact that Deceptions has a cast of just two and starts quite slowly, the audience was entertained the whole way through.

Deceptions runs at Richmond Theatre until Sat 11th July 2009

Dr Korczak's Example - Arcola Theatre

Dr Korczak’s Example By David Greig
Director: Amy Leach
Reviewer: Honour Bayes

Dr Korczak’s example and Gandhi’s example were almost identical, both believing in non-violent protest against oppressive regimes. But where Gandhi’s example had a direct effect, Dr Korczak’s idealism was squashed under the sole of a Nazi boot. Focusing on the last days of Dr Korczak’s orphanage in the ghetto, David Greig’s play is dynamic and pacy but at too many points it is a like being spoon fed the truth with a little bit of sugar to make the medicine go down.

An inspirational figure whose work eventually formed the basis of The United Nations Convention on The Rights of Children, Dr Korczak was world renown for his work with children and deeply admired for his choice to go with them to their death, even though he could have escaped on numerous occasions. It is a shame therefore that in this piece he comes across as a dreamer and sometimes, seemingly, a complete innocent. At one particularly frustrating point instead of putting his children into the safety, albeit slight discomfort, of hiding in cellars he is adamant that nothing will happen to his orphans and that he cannot abandon them; an admirable thought which eventually leads to all their deaths.

It is hard for a modern audience to look on the horrors of the Second World War with anything but a weary acceptance that people really did enforce these atrocities on to one another. For the first part of this play it is therefore quite hard to buy into Korczak’s blind belief in humanity triumphing above all. Greig does begin to balance this with echoes of doubt starting to enter Dr Korczak’s conviction and with the strong will for violent defensive action which springs from the fiery street urchin Adzio, a new arrival to the orphanage, but the Dr’s blind optimism still grates on one’s common sense.

Director Amy Leach translates the story admirably onto the stage in a production which is imaginative and playful and the performances are all assured, with Craig Vye’s performance as the forceful but fractured Adzio being particularly compelling. There is a slight whiff of the patronizing however; as we are being told that ‘these characters are made up but they represent lots of people like them who were real’ it is hard not to wonder that surely children deserve to be given a little more credit for picking up on story points which aren’t handed to them on a plate. But for all this simplification this is still an effective show with some stunning visual moments; the fragile sunflowers representing each orphan are particularly emotive as is the cello case which forms the silent ever watching soldier as it’s occupant is played mournfully across an empty stage.

Leach has done a strong job at turning Greig’s slightly obvious text into a successful piece of theatrical storytelling. But with a script that seems to always take the easy road, this obviousness stops it from being a truly powerful piece of theatre; children see and understand a lot more than adults give them credit for, Dr Korczak understood that, it is just a shame that Greig hasn’t appeared to.

Photos: Jonathan Keenan

Dr Korczak's Example runs at the Arcola until 18th July 2009

Everybody Loves A Winner - Royal Exchange, Manchester

Everybody Loves A Winner
Writer/Director: Neil Bartlett
Reviewer: Gemma Longfellow

The International Festival is now underway in Manchester, bringing a wealth of new talent and creative events to the city, and Neil Bartlett’s ‘Everyone Loves a Winner’ is a fabulous addition to the line up. Commissioned and produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre and Manchester International Festival, the show is full of energy and surprises, which create an experience that is far from ‘traditional’ theatre and encourages the audience to interact with the characters and action on stage.

Set in ’The Rex’ bingo hall in Manchester, the action follows a typical day for those who work at and attend the bingo. The audience gains an amusing and at times heart wrenching incite into the thoughts and lives of the staff and thirteen Rex regulars, exploring issues including loneliness and hope. Bartlett skilfully portrays the back-story of all the characters through the play’s dialogue, and short monologues that draw the audience back to the heart of the issues being explored. This occurs amidst an undercurrent of comedy that flows throughout the play, portrayed through, amongst other things, fights between players and musical interludes. With the opportunity to play a live bingo game during the show, the play feels more like an evening of entertainment than simply a performance, and it enables the audience to empathise with the characters’ struggles and passions.

The show work’s excellently in the Royal Exchange Theatre, with the audience in the round, facilitating close interaction with the cast. This helped to breakdown the mentality of the audience as onlookers, and developed the idea that they were attending the Rex as bingo players. This was emphasised with a clever use of the front-of-house lighting that enabled the audience and cast members to establish eye contact. Bartlett and his set design team created a convincing bingo atmosphere with slot machines, neon lights and an excellent background soundtrack at the theatre entrance along with a very convincing set comprising broken old seating, a callers stand and manager’s booth. At moments during the performance I forgot that I was in a theatre. The props subtly echoed the religious metaphors that ran throughout the dialogue.

The cast excellently revealed a slice of Mancunian life, portraying believable and strangely loveable characters. The chorus of ‘regulars’ successfully established their individual characters, aided by impeccably accurate costumes, whilst communicating the collective experience that they shared. Alexander (Debbie), Henderson (Joy) and particularly Sollars (Joe) provided stand out performances as the Rex’s teenage staff. Their hilarious musical renditions, classic teenage comments and attitudes, and convincing local accents kept the play fun and drew the audience into the action. Sally Lindsay played Linda the bingo hall’s Manager superbly, convincingly revealing a woman who was trapped in her job and haunted by her own disappointments. Her final speech to Debbie and Joy was excellently executed and very poignant, even though the content bordered on cheesy.

Suitable mainly for adult due to some use of ripe language and gambling restrictions ‘Everybody Loves a Winner’ is a unique and fun experience that draws you to consider the ‘whys’ of life. It is an excellent way a spend a summer evening during July, and who knows you could be a winner!

Photos: Jonathan Keenan
Everybody Loves a Winner runs until Sat 1st August 09

L’Amour de loin – English National Opera at London Coliseum

L’Amour de loin (Love From Afar) by Kaija Saariaho

Libretto by Amin Maalouf

Director: Daniele Finzi Pasca

Conductor: Edward Gardner
Reviewer: Mark Valencia

ENO is ending its strongest season in years with the UK première of this Finnish oddity from 2000. Music Director Edward Gardner is behind the project to bring it to London, and with his outstanding track record he’s more than earned the right to follow his nose. Whether audiences will tag along too is another matter, but at least they’re getting a bargain chance to make up their own minds because every seat at the Coliseum is being sold at a generous £20.

The oddest thing of all about L’Amour de loin is Saariaho’s choice of material. Most composers would kill for a Salzburg Festival commission, and if they were to land one their substance of choice would probably be theatrical red meat. Not Saariaho, though. She opts for a semi-static examination of courtly love, played out by a cast of just three singers in a shimmering, constant aural landscape.

The plot takes moments to explain yet two and a half hours to unfold onstage. Jaufré Rudel, the prince of Blaye in French Aquitaine, falls in love with an idealised notion of woman. He admits this phantom infatuation to a travelling Pilgrim who tells him, wonder of wonders, that during his travels he has met this very woman, in Tripoli. She is the Countess Clémence. The Pilgrim vouchsafes Jaufré’s secret to the Countess herself, then returns to Blaye (more ferryman than pilgrim, this Pilgrim) and escorts the languishing lad to meet his love. Alas for Jaufré, during the voyage to Tripoli he falls ill and, on arrival, he barely has time to meet his beloved before dying in her arms.

Saariaho’s anti-dramatic score is at once fascinating and frustrating. She makes no attempt to characterise any of the three protagonists through music, so the result is more tone poem than opera. It could have been hypnotic in the manner of, say, Pelléas et Mélisande, but the bleached and purified orchestral colours merely slow-release Amin Maalouf’s tale dose by homeopathic dose. Such refined, understated music offers challenging raw materials for any director, while for a theatrical visionary (like Peter Sellars, whose Finnish production is available on DG DVD) its very restraint may be the trigger that excites the creative impulse.

For this new staging, ENO has recruited Cirque de Soleil’s Daniele Finzi Pasca to direct. If that prompts expectations of busy fly galleries and extensive use of billowing silk, you’re right; but alas even Pasca fails to crack this theatrical nut. He triples the cast size by adding two acrobats to every singer and giving them lots of physical business to do, but to little purpose. His production is like a slo-mo Cirque show: beautiful to look at, expensively kitted out, fabulously lit, empty. Surprisingly, he fails to inject any trace of wit or humour into the evening, as though Saariaho’s filigree score forbade it. Perhaps it does. Such attempts at levity as there are (a tedious pair of shadow-puppeteers pop in from time to time) fall flat, and the only laughs to be had are unintentional. Chortle at the Pilgrim’s costume and its comedy sleeves! Chuckle as the bungee-bouncing Countess plays peek-a-boo upstage!
The production’s sound world is immaculate. Gardner’s three singers have mastered every nuance of what must have been a fiendish piece to learn, yet they are at one with each other and with the on-form ENO Orchestra. Roderick Williams is astonishingly good as Jaufré Rudel – his timbre is magnificent these days – and he even comes close to achieving characterisation, which is some feat in this opera. Joan Rodgers is a commanding Clémence, and if her voice is a little strident at times it gives a welcome kick to the pervading serenity. As the Pilgrim the American mezzo Faith Sherman is cruelly decked out like Gandalf’s gonk, but she sings with power and vocal warmth.

It’s worth a £20 punt to catch one of the three remaining performances, and it’ll do wonders for your blood pressure if you do. For all its faults L’Amour de loin offers beauty and tranquillity, and it will wash over you like a cloud of Pasca’s silk. You’ll find yourself becalmed, bemused and possibly beguiled by it.

Photos: Johan Persson

L'Amour de loin runs at the London Coliseum, 3rd to 11th July 2009 (4 performances)

Forbidden Broadway - Menier Chocolate Factory

Forbidden Broadway
Writer: Gerard Alessandrini
Director: Phillip George
Reviewer: John Roberts

For the past twenty seven years no show has been safe from the sharp satirical stab of Gerard Alessandrini’s theatrical savaging, and it is a joy to finally see the show over the waters the first time in over ten years.
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What started off as a small night time cabaret spot to showcase Alessandrini’s talent as a performer has spawned various incarnations throughout the musical theatre world.

Forbidden Broadways latest production includes some of the ‘old time’ favourites from previous Forbidden Broadway shows including the hilarious send up of Les Miserables and the Lion King to a new song which highlights the trend for camp in the West End with Hairspray, Priscilla and soon to open Legally Blonde, even the Menier’s own Midas Man (David Babani) isn’t safe from the battering as the show spoofs his current productions of A Little Night Music and La Cage Aux Folles.

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Although a knowledge of musical theatre would be a distinct advantage for any viewer watching this production I feel you wouldn’t be alienated from any of the sketches and skits as director Phillip George has produced a slick and very comic 2 hours worth of entertainment.

The strong cast of four; Anna-Jane Casey, Sophie-Louise Dann, Alasdair Harvey & Steven Kynman give their all, including a dazzling array of facial grimaces and strong vocals, but it was Steven Kynman and his Silly Billy (Billy Elliot) routine that provided this reviewer with the most laughs along with a very witty Elaine Page and The King and I skit.

Don’t get me wrong there were certain elements of the show that I feel needs a little tightening, the constant blackouts after every song really started to grate, and loosing certain lyrics due to badly mixed sound at times meant very funny lyrics were left with a very big blank.

Forbidden Broadway is a breath of fresh air and loving provides numerous pokes at the shows and composers that litter the West End I just hope its not another ten years before it finds a home here again!

Photos: Alastair Muir
Forbidden Broadway runs at the Menier until Sat 19th September 09

Oklahoma - Chichester Festival Theatre

Oklahoma
Music: Richard Rodgers
Book & Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
Director: John Doyle
Choreographer: Nikki Woollaston
Reviewer: John Roberts

There’s something special taking place in Chichester’s Festival Theatre this summer, this latestrevival of Rodger and Hammerstein’s take on the 1900’s novel Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs is an absolute joy from start to finish.

John Doyle has got himself a name as a pioneer of directing Actor Musician shows, perhaps this is more to do with where he has directed such shows in the past, Wilton’s Musical Hall and The Watermill are hardly spaces that allow you to have a full scale production, but with this production he has a sublime sounding full orchestra aptly directed by Catherine Jayes at his disposal.

Over the years we have come to expect something special from Chichester’s summer musical and this is now different, but what makes this production stand head over heels of previous years? The answer lies in Doyles approach, strip the show of everything, start with the bare essentials (the actors) and don’t apply anything else unless it is absolutely vital.

This is followed through with the set, the stark and open stage is cladded with a raked wooden floor with two mottled sheets providing the backdrop hung in such a way that it really makes the actors feel they are walking in from the distant, making the stage feel even more barren and open than ever before, but this clever stage design by David Farley only helps to add to your vision of the sweeping dustbowl of Oklahoma landscape.

Not only is the set beautiful to look at but this has to be one of the best looking casts in the country. The men, with their rugged and macho looks and strong physical presence. The women with their to die for figures and a glint of sexual appetite in their eyes only help to provide to the enjoyment.

Oklahoma’s strength lies in its ensemble telling of the narrative, Doyle has given a Brechtian twist to the production, rarely giving the cast a chance to leave the stage but always be in observance to the action that is taking place in their town, only disbanding when the darker elements of the story need it.
Michael Xavier brings a warm and likable Curley, the audience warming to his silky smooth voice and cheeky smile from the off and Leila Benn Harris as love interest Laurey continues pushing her career with a fantastic performance it wont be too long before we see her back on the West End stage.

But it is the performances of Craig Els as Jud and Natalie Casey that really come and steal the show. Casey has always had the ability to make this reviewer smile, she oozes stage presence and has more facial expressions than one could think is humanly possible. Casey gives a highly energetic and comedic performance and although her voice isn’t the strongest in the company it doesn’t matter for what she brings to the production in every other department more than makes up for it! Els is stunning, such a departure from previous west end production of Never Forget, giving Jud such a strong penetrative stare that could make even the biggest of men run away add to that his strong earthy powerhouse vocals and this is an award winning performance.

Doyle has reinvented Oklahoma with this stark but wonderful production, bringing to the forefront the relationships of those in the small community and bring in the high octane choreography by Nikki Woollaston which adds just enough traditional elements to make this a show that one won’t forget in a while, and one that should be on your to see list as soon as possible.

Photos: Tristram Kenton
Oklahoma runs at CFT until Sat 29th August

Pools Paradise - Darlington Civic Theatre

Pools Paradise By Philip King
Directors: Ian Dickens & Giles Watling
Reviewer: Ian Cain

The tenth summer Repertory Season at Darlington Civic Theatre rounds off with the second instalment of Philip King’s ‘See How They Run’ trilogy, ‘Pools Paradise.’

The action takes place in the vicarage of the small village of Merton-cum-Middlewick. The vicar’s wife, Penelope Toop (Kathryn Dimery), has been enticed by Ida (Julia Main), the maid and her doltish boyfriend Willie Briggs (Frankie Fitzgerald) into a flutter on the football pools, which seem to have come up trumps.

The win, however, is not a certainty. It must be checked and this is where the complications set in. In true farce tradition it has its protagonists, the pious Reverend Lionel Toop (David Callister) and the straight-laced, but sexually frustrated, spinster Miss Skillon (Helen Jeckells), who are both dead set against gambling. Throw in a clutch of clergymen and another pools coupon and you soon have a household in a high state of confusion as coupons are switched and switched again, trousers are lost and the inevitable breathless pursuits in and out of cupboards occur that are so familiar to lovers of vicarage farces.

Although there is nothing groundbreaking about ‘Pools Paradise’, it does have a certain twee, quaint charm that appeals to the audience it tends to attract. Most patrons in the auditorium were aged sixty or over and, I suppose, to them the play was a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane, back to the days when priests were looked upon as respected pillars of the community. That taken into consideration, it was probably thought of as quite racy to see the vicar without his trousers or surreptitiously skulking in a closet with another clergyman.

David Callister gives a competent performance as Reverend Toop, but is far outshone by Kathryn Dimery as his wife Penelope. Dimery – a cross between Jane Asher and Liza Goddard – almost brings believability to the madcap set of circumstances that she finds herself in and, in doing so, virtually acts everybody else off the stage.

The plays two ‘star’ names, Frankie Fitzgerald (nasty Nick Cotton’s son, Ashley, from ‘EastEnders’) and Ben Roberts (Chief Inspector Derek Conway from ‘The Bill’) perform roles that provide little justification for top billing. Roberts, as the Bishop of Lax, is required to do little more than read out the pools results from the News of the World, whilst Fitzgerald doesn’t do anything more than grunt a few monosyllabic words now and again.

David Janson (the milkman in ‘Keeping Up Appearances’) is passable as Reverend Arthur Humphrey, but Julia Main (Ida) and Helen Jeckells (Miss Skillon) overact so badly that the production descends into the realms of pantomime.
Although this production has, undoubtedly, been staged with the best of intentions, it is simply too old-fashioned and the humour too dated for it to be a commercial success in the twenty-first century. Even the prayers of a Bishop and two vicars aren’t enough to save it.

‘Pools Paradise’ runs at Darlington Civic Theatre until Saturday 4th July 2009.

Dreamcoats & Petticoats - Richmond Theatre

Dreamboats & Petticoats

by Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran

Director: Bob Thomson

Reviewer: Ann Bawtree

It would be interesting to take a group of teenagers to see this production. They might well feel it was a period drama. So it is, to some extent and yet the story is universal. Boy falls for wrong girl, right girl consoles herself with wrong boy. First boy then falls for right girl and wrong boy finds wrong girl who turns out to be his right girl and becomes her right boy. Anyway, they all live happily ever after. There is also the sub-plot of the little schoolgirl who loses her teeth brace, takes off her glasses and becomes the local belle. This is not giving away the plot as what is going to happen is obvious from curtain up.

However, based on this abbreviated story line is an entrancing two hours of youthful exuberance, singing, dancing, arguing, quarrelling, mooning about and playing ping-pong.

Several of the cast of eighteen double as both instrumentalists and dancers and/or singers, some of them doing both at the same time. Many “other characters are played by members of the company” so it is too dizzying to follow every change. For instance the actor who plays the hero’s father seems to be his grandfather as well, practically at the same time. The confusion makes it difficult to single out particular players but the relatively new Daisy Wood-Davis is perfect as the ingenue and Jennifer Biddall carefully plays the brazen Sue as fast, but not loose.

Under the direction of Bob Thompson Scott Bruton’s Bobby wins our support from the outset while Ben Freeman’sNorman is the boy every parent dreads their daughter bringing home. His schooling at “Grange Hill” must have been very character forming.

The evening is set mainly in St Mungo’s Church of England Youth Club “somewhere in Essex” circa 1961, where the band, or group, they cannot decide which, rehearse amongst the table tennis playing, the hula-hooping, the fizzy drink selling and the flirting. Set designer Sean Cavanagh uses scaffolding which arrives and departs as necessary to become the high-rise flat where the adult Bobby now lives with his granddaughter, or Southend Pier. The difference between the two is the lighting of Mark Howett who has given us every effect from gaudy to romantic and executes the final curtain with great pazazz.

Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran’s script is full of youthful longing with the occasional ironic aside which only a post millennium audience would find amusing. It would be interesting to know the age of the choreographer Carole Todd. Reading the long list of her achievements it is just possible that she saw rock and roll at its height before it degenerated, through the Twist and the Shimmy-shimmy Shake, to the mindless, on the spot twitching of today’s club scene. Her dance moves are exactly as we danced, or rather, as we wished we could dance. (Don’t argue with me, I was there.) Nothing over the top to render it unbelievable but exciting both to perform and to watch.

Musical director has arranged over forty songs into a cohesive story line even if some excerpts were tantalising brief. Ben Harrison did a fine job in the sound design department with the energising beat, which revolutionised social dancing, never overwhelming the melodies which, in turn, did not obliterate the words. We were never blasted out of our seats.

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The costumes of Brigid Guy were delightfully in period although I was less sure about Emma Hatton’s hair style, that strange quiff and a pony tail at half mast.

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But altogether Ben Kenwright and Laurie Mansfield have produced a delightful evening’s entertainment, enough to brighten any credit crunch. Cries of “Wonderful!” from the seat next to me and the accolades of several teenagers, one of whom particularly admired the “vintage” aspect, confirmed me in my opinion that this is a thoroughly enjoyable show on all counts and is for all ages.

Dreamboats & Petticoats runs at Richmond until Sat 4th July

Evita- Theatre Royal, Newcastle

Evita
Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics: Tim Rice
Directors: Bob Thomson & Bill Kenwright
Reviewer: Ian Cain

The astounding brilliance of the Andrew Lloyd-Webber/Tim Rice partnership is surely embodied to best effect in their spectacular musical biography of Eva Duarte de Peron, ‘Evita.’ With more than twenty major awards to its credit and featuring some of the most famous and inspiring stage music ever written, its position as a monumental musical masterpiece is firmly established.

The part of Eva is one of the most coveted roles in musical theatre and has been played by divas such as Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone, Marti Webb, Stephanie Lawrence and, of course, Madonna in the 1996 Oscar-winning film version. This latest revival, from Bill Kenwright, is a stylish and sophisticated production that succeeds on all levels and, in doing so, ensures that the shiny, polished brand that is Andrew Lloyd Webber remains suitably untarnished.

A tone of understated elegance is set from the start and runs throughout this production. Indeed, the order of the day seems to be that ‘less is more.’ From the set, which is amazingly simple yet brilliantly effective and stunningly beautiful, to the performances which have been rehearsed and honed to a state of faultlessness, nothing is superfluous or ostentatious.

The songs are delivered with a clarity and meaning that is almost reverential, which enables the audience to hear each and every one of Tim Rice’s lyrics.bThe role of Eva is usually performed by Rachael Wooding but, at the performance reviewed, was played by understudy Natalie Hope. That said, in no way at all did this reviewer feel short-changed. Miss Hope delivered a performance that was nothing short of mesmerising, as she captured each and every one of Eva’s characteristics perfectly, reflecting the change and development to great effect in the musical numbers. In ‘Buenos Aires’ she sings and plays Eva as an impetuous teenager who longs to escape her small town existence for the bright lights of the city; she is ambitious and calculating in ‘Goodnight And Thank You’; she is manipulatingly persuasive in ‘I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You’ and strident in ‘A New Argentina.’

Seamus Cullen has put aside all thoughts of playing Joseph to star as Che Guevara and his interpretation of the role is somewhat different to his predecessors. Instead of the angst-ridden revolutionary figure that we have become used to, he plays him more as a dissident, a thinking man who comments upon the Peron regime rather than challenging it. This is successful in as much as it seems to sit in context with the understated approach that is the trademark of this revival.

Mark Heenehan is an imposing Peron, both physically and vocally, and he is every inch the statesman. The relationship with Hope’s Eva, although believable and pleasing to watch, is a little short of sexual chemistry, though. Perhaps this is more of a result of direction than performance? Carly Bawden makes a sensational professional debut in the role of the Mistress. Grabbing her one great number, ‘Another Suitcase In Another Hall’, with both hands and performing it with pathos and poignancy earned her a lengthy applause from an appreciative audience.

It isn’t just great performances that make this production the gem that it is, though. Bill Deamer’s choreography incorporates tangos and paso dobles , giving a truly Latin feel, whilst Mark Howlett’s lighting design provides many breath-taking effects, too. ‘Evita’ successfully stands the passage of time and this production is one that you simply must see.

Evita runs at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle until Saturday 4th July 2009.

You Really Couldn't Make It Up - Live Theatre, Newcastle

You Really Couldn’t Make It Up
Writers: Michael & Tom Chaplin
Director: Max Roberts
Reviewer: Ian Cain

Hot on the heels of Newcastle United Football Club’s relegation from the Premiership to the Championship, Live Theatre presents ‘You Really Couldn’t Make It Up’, a follow-up production to Michael and Tom Chaplin’s original piece, ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’, which was staged at the venue in February.

With disaster on the field and constant recriminations off it Newcastle United fans have well and truly been put through the mill, yet through it all they have kept faith – despite the constant failure of the club to consult them or even explain what’s going on. The fans now cling to the hope that the club’s latest messiah, Alan Shearer, will sign a new contract and be provided with a substantial enough transfer fund to make a return to the premiership in 2010 a certainty.

As with the first production, the play uses testimonies from football insiders and imagined encounters between the three mythical characters who have together defined the last year in the life of the club – Mike Ashley, Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer.

Three of the original cast – Bill Fellows, Dave Nellist and Laura Norton - are reunited and are also joined by Chris Connel. They each play dual roles, firstly as a group of season ticket-holders who are becoming increasingly despondent with their beloved NUFC, and then as key high-profile characters.

Fellows reprises his role as Kevin Keegan, Dave Nellist takes on the part of Mike Ashley and Chris Connel plays Alan Shearer. Poor Laura Norton is deprived of a significant role, though, and has to make do with portraying Mike Ashley’s personal assistant.

Although each member of the cast delivers an excellent performance, it is Connel’s interpretation of Alan Shearer that raises the roof. Every mannerism and nuance is perfectly honed and his depiction of ‘Big Al’ is so accurate that it is almost surreal.

As well as being an informative piece of journalism, ‘You Really Couldn’t Make It Up’ is a heart-warming production that lends a voice to the many thousands of season-ticket holders through its four fictional characters. As the programme notes from the authors explain, it is ‘a howl of pain, a cry of rage, and in the end, a song of love.’

‘You Really Couldn’t Make It Up’ runs at Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne until Friday 10 July 2009.