I saw the very first preview — breaking set automation and all — as the guest of a friend. At the time, I wasn’t particularly impressed and tweeted as much, in rather scatalogical terms that amused my friends - which is what it was meant to do. Unfortunately, that single tweet was done via a phone whose battery has been totally erratic over the last few weeks, and no sooner had I sent that than everything went dead and I had no chance to elaborate further on the night. However, the following morning I did discuss with my friends what my misgivings were, all the while conscious that, as a preview, there was scope to tweak some aspects of the production and fix others.

Unbeknownst to me, that tweet was being dissected on the message boards of another theatrical website — and as such, by people who were deprived of the context of my Twitter stream. It’s important to remember, I think, that individual posts on Twitter aren’t discrete, but part of a larger, longer, multi-threaded conversation that frequently heads off and continues on other websites or (gasp) the real world.

As it is, my overall impression of Love Never Dies is somewhat more diverse than a single tweet probably suggests. The Daily Mail, however, rang me earlier today to check that I had actually written the aforementioned tweet, so it may be mentioned in the national press tomorrow morning. Frankly, there are more influential and worthier people whose opinions matter more than mine, so quite what the Mail is doing sniffing around my Twitter stream I’m not too sure. Whatever they say, though, tomorrow’s podcast should demonstrate that my actual opinions are more well-rounded and thorough than a single, post-preview, tweet that gets repeated out of context would suggest.

UPDATE: The aforementioned podcast is now online as a streaming MP3 as well as available as an ‘enhanced’ podcast via the iTunes Podcast Directory. I’ve also - a little warily - reopened my Twitter feed.

Closing my Twitter feed didn’t stop the Daily Mail misrepresenting my eight-word tweet as a ‘review’, nor did it stop one rather over-hopeful individual attempt to start a campaign to have me sacked (wasn’t going to happen, but you’ve got to his admire his chutzpah). It did, however, help ensure that today, I was able to communicate with my usual Twitter friends in my usual Twitter style without worrying what tabloid hacks may misrepresent as ‘news’.

Related posts:

1. It’s nice to be noticed
2. Brevity is the soul of wit, and the bane of the feature writer
3. Stuart Jeffries’ pussy problems

Spencer Charles Noll and Ruaraidh Murray play gay couple Donald and Jim, who celebrate the first anniversary of their civil partnership by re-enacting tales of two Victorian cross-dressers and their relationship with Lord Arthur Clinton. The court case of Edward ‘Stella’ Boulton and Frederick ‘Fanny’ Park, while little known today, is something of a landmark case in the course of England’s ambivalent attitude to homosexuality, and is one of the first recorded instances of the word drag being used in its now familiar sense. Lewton’s script presents the case in an interesting way, only failing to work when he tries to create parallels to 21st century gay life in Britain.

Noll in particular displays a flair for character transformation, playing each of his multiple roles with precision - a quality useful for an audience that has to cope with a story that bounces around time frames and storylines at a fair pace.

Murray has the harder problem, coping with a contemporary character who is saddled with a neurosis about his own homosexuality that comes and goes at a whim. His fear of being outed at work seems out of place with his modern London lifestyle in a way that devalues any sense of peril the script tries to imply. The faults with the creation of that character are ultimately this otherwise promising play’s undoing.

Reviewed for The Stage

King’s Head Theatre, London, March 2-April 10
Author/director: Martin Lewton
Producer: Theatre North
Cast: Spencer Charles Noll, Ruaraidh Murray
Running time: 1hr 10mins

Related posts:

1. Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Richmond Theatre
2. Maurice, Above the Stag
3. What’s Wrong With Angry?

Adam Lilley (Maurice) and Rob Stott (Durham) in Maurice at Above the Stag theatre Roger Parsley and Andy Graham’s new stage adaptation is perhaps a little too faithful, choosing to play out Maurice Hall’s sexual awakening through a series of staccato scenes. This leads to the first act lacking any real momentum, a dangerous quality in a production that is just under three hours in length.

Thankfully, director Tim McArthur and an able cast work their hardest to bring life into the script, finding new wit and nuance to appeal to a 2010 audience, while remaining faithful to a novel written nearly a century ago.

As moustachioed hypnotist Mr Lasker Jones, Jonathan Hansler threatens at times to turn the production into one of melodramatic pastiche, but it adds a levity that helps propel the second act forward. He is helped in this endeavour by Persia Lawson as Ada, able to wring comedy from awkward silence.

But it is the central role of Maurice which must carry the production, and Adam Lilley succeeds admirably. The progression of a socially and sexually unaware 14 year old arriving, via a confused adolescence, at contented homosexual adulthood is played with delicacy and care.

Reviewed for The Stage

Above the Stag, London, March 2-28
Author: EM Forster, adapted by Roger Parsley and Andy Graham
Director: Tim McArthur
Producer: Peter Bull for Above the Stag
Cast includes: Adam Lilley, Rob Stott, Leanne Masterson, Jonathan Hansler, Persia Lawson, Stevie Raine
Running time: 2hrs 50mins

Related posts:

1. Beautiful Thing
2. Busted Jesus Comix
3. The Ropemaker’s Daughter, by Virginia Smith

That the film itself is still showing, having been released on Boxing Day 2009, seemed just as surprising as the fact it’s taken me this long to see it. But now, after having watched it, I can see why — it’s an enjoyably entertaining romp. Robert Downey Jr. clearly revels in the absurdity of the character’s near super-human skills of observation, allowing him to play the role with the sort of deadpan humour he also brings to Iron Man’s Tony Stark.

Jude Law’s Watson is a younger incarnation of the character than we’re used to seeing, but it’s satisfying to see him written and played as an intelligent man, with the sort of fighting skills that a veteran of war would have and with an intelllect befitting the one person Holmes would be able to bear as a friend.

The main plot revolves around a quasi-Masonic cult obsessed with black magic rituals, with Mark Strong suitably chilling as an adversary for the cunning Holmes. Of course, this being a 21st century interpretation of the Sherlock Holmes canon, Professor Moriarty has a pervading presence, despite his being a much smaller part of Conan Doyle’s fictional world than common folklore suggests. Inspector Lestrade has a substantial role, too, of course, here being played by the wonderful Eddie Marsan — and the typical depiction of him as a bumbling policeman, while intact, has been given a couple of nice spins that play out well.

This being a Guy Ritchie film, women know their place, with just three characters to speak of. Blink and you’ll miss Geraldine James as Mrs Hudson. Kelly Reilly is a little too two-dimensional as Watson’s fiancée, leaving the lion’s share of female screen time to Rachel McAdams as the smart-witted thief to whom Sherlock is attracted, but who is working for someone else. It’s a character that doesn’t quite work, but one has to admire her ability to find the one exit from the sewers underneath the Houses of Parliament that emerges at Tower Bridge a couple of miles down river. And not only that, but which emerges at the top of the bridge. Still haven’t quite worked out how that one works, save to set up a dangerous location for the film’s denouement.

The film contains several of my gripes about the depiction of Victorian London, including the depiction of buildings which would have been new at the time as if they were in the same half-decrepit state they are over a hundred years later. For more noticably, all the printed materials, including several newspapers and flyposters, all use typography that is far too regular and cleanly printed. Hours of perusing The Stage archives from the period has convinced me that any depiction of headlines that fill the front page in perfectly rendered block capitals are as accurate as depicting the front page of the Daily Express with actual news on it.

Small points, I know, but in a film that does attempt to capture the spirit of the age, anything which jumps out like that detract from what is otherwise a fun period thriller.

Related posts:

1. Holmes v Sunday Times: WTF?
2. So the costume was HER idea…
3. The Young Victoria

With all the action taking place in a sparsely furnished Norwegian country house, the light permeating through rain-soaked conservatory windows becomes another character in a story about throwing light on secrets previously kept hidden in the shadows. Sharp plays Helene Alving with a bird-like stature, neck craned, eyes darting, a widow whose carefully constructed life unravels in a single night. In sharp contrast is Harry Treadaway as her effete artist son. Nothing like his mother, Pastor Manders’ remarks that the young Oswald looks just like his late father provoke a plaintive “Oh no, he looks like me” from Helene that not even she believes.

The sense of duty - to one’s husband, to one’s wife, to parents, children, the church - pervades the play. Helene’s maid, Regina, rejects the notion that she should be the dutiful daughter and return to her father’s home and help him with his business. Helene reveals that in the first year of her marriage, she left her husband and sought refuge with Pastor Manders, who made her return to the abusive, philandering man she left because of her wifely duty. Dutiful actions have consequences, though, and as those consequences play out, the reminders of the past, the ghosts, begin to emerge.

Iain Glen plays Pastor Manders as a man who is supremely confident that he knows what is best for those around him even as he propels them towards their fate. Even as the Alvings’ world starts to fall apart in the second act, his self-doubt seems limited to whether he would lose his job once people find out about his poor decisions. His relationship with Helene, which forms so much of the backbone of the play, is nicely ambiguous. There’s a lot of humour too, with Sharp, Glen and Malcolm Storry as Regina’s father Engstrand all able to wring a wry smile, and often a laugh, out of the dryest line.

But humour gives way to drama often, no more so than at the end, as Helene must face the fact that her son has inherited the syphilitic madness that plagued her husband. With Oswald suggesting that he wants to be administered a lethal dose of morphine when the time comes, the decision about whether to euthanise her son is one that, today, would be considered subject matter for a whole play: here, it is a mere coda, the latest in a long line of horrible decisions Helene must make.

As I said, I have no frame of reference to judge whether this is the definitive production of the play. But it is certainly an impressive piece of theatre, and as Iain Glen’s first directorial work it is an accomplished debut.

Related posts:

1. The Ghosts of Christmas
2. Coming soon: The Ghosts of Christmas
3. Shakespeare’s R & J, Arts Theatre

On Tuesday, I went to the Soho Theatre to review gay theatre legend Bette Bourne being ‘interviewed’ by Mark Ravenhill. The inverted commas are because, although the evening was based on transcripts of interview conversations between the pair of them, Ravenhill then took those transcripts and cut them down into scripted conversations. Last year, the conversations took place over three evenings: this current production further cuts them down to a single evening. It’s not a particularly successful approach to investigating what is a spellbindingly personal story — but being in the presence of Bourne recounting tales from his life is a privilege, in any case. Wednesday’s outing was to the West End transfer of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem from the Royal Court to the Apollo. I saw it in its original staging, and I have to say it’s one of the few theatrical productions where a second viewing not only brings out new levels of understanding of the script’s many layers, but also suggests that a third visit would reveal even more. As a metaphor for the changing state of England, some of those levels on my Australian friend Chad. Ah well, his loss.

Thursday was an odd day. During the day, the wonderful feeling of experiencing the St John’s College, Cambridge Choir in the college chapel singing elements of Fauré’s Requiem was tempered by the performance being part of the funeral service for my uncle John, a Fellow of the College, who passed away a couple of weeks ago after a long battle with cancer. Family pre-Christmas trips to the West End helped fuel the interest in theatre I’m lucky enough to be able to draw upon in my working life today, so that’s thanks in part to John. Further connections emerged in that Jez Butterworth went to St John’s, Jerusalem was one of the hymns during the service, and the chaplain ruminated on the implicit meanings of Blake’s words during his sermon.

Later in the evening and back in London, it was off to Hampstead for a performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods by the MA Music Theatre students of the Central School of Speech and Drama. A creative use of clothes racks and storage trunks showed that you don’t need a huge set budget to convey a sense of place. The whole piece was characterised by some imaginative staging, from quick changes and disappearing witches to expressionistic dance allowing the ensemble to represent the woods and the beanstalk. The quality of performance did vary quite a lot, though — while we may have seen one or two future West End stars, I won’t feel too disappointed if one or two others decide to pursue other careers.

Tonight sees a break from the relentless theatregoing, which starts up again tomorrow with a trip to see Ghosts starring Lesley Sharp and Iain Glen (who is also directing), in previews at the Duchess Theatre. It will be by first experience with Ibsen, I have to admit, and I don’t know what to expect. After that, it’s back to television, and the grand final of So You Think You Can Dance, which I’ll be live tweeting and writing about, especially after the week’s offstage dramas, which saw finalist Robbie White felled by a dislocated shoulder, briefly replaced by last week’s loser Alastair Postlethwaite, and now replace by Alastair and two other, non-competing, dancers to couple with the three remaining competitors.

And that’s most likely the end of this particular glut of theatrical outings. But there will, in the weeks to come, doubtless be more…

Related posts:

1. A Life in Three Acts
2. Quick theatre round-up
3. Requiem for a Songbird

As the local council makes efforts to evict him after complaints by residents of the encroaching estate, Mark Rylance is a primal force as Byron. A drink-sodden, drug-addled metaphor of an England which is still in contact with its pre-Christian spiritual mythology, but which is constantly being eroded by external forces, Jez Butterworth has created one of modern theatre’s most mesmeric characters.

Rylance’s towering performance does not overshadow the rest of the large ensemble, however. Byron’s hangers-on and fair weather friends, some of whom live on the estate threatening his way of life and who have signed the petition calling for his eviction, are drawn with a deft stroke of the comic pen. While Mackenzie Crook and Alan David provide the biggest laughs, Tom Brooke’s wide-eyed would-be emigré imbues the comedy scenes with a sense of realism, and the serious ones with a sense of absurdity, that leavens the whole production.

As with last year’s staging at the Royal Court, Ultz’s set design, with its towering elm trees, battered furniture and implausibly American caravan, is another character, enriching the atmosphere of Butterworth’s glorious script. And as the comedy falls away at the close of the third act, surrendering to brutal violence and a call to awaken the country’s long forgotten forces, one is left in no doubt that this a superb piece of theatre.

Apollo, London, February 10-April 24
Author: Jez Butterworth
Director: Ian Rickson
Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, Royal Court Theatre Productions and Old Vic Productions
Cast includes: Mark Rylance, Mackenzie Crook, Alan David, Tom Brooke, Gerard Horan, Danny Kirrane
Running time: 3hrs 10mins

• Reviewed for The Stage

Related posts:

1. Jerusalem at the Royal Court
2. Six days, five shows, some dancers and a requiem
3. New Boy, Pleasance Theatre, Islington

A condensed version of last year’s scripted conversations, originally spread over three nights, the structure does tend to hamstring Bourne’s tales of post-war Soho, discovering drag and the foundation of his ground-breaking Bloolips theatre company. Tales of his father’s violence sound flatter than they should when read from the page in front of him. Having Ravenhill’s offer of a tissue after a particularly harrowing recollection delivered as a scripted direction rather than a genuine moment of concern lends an unnecessarily manipulative air to a scene that deserves greater impact.

In his role as interviewer, Ravenhill does a good job of keeping the subject matter on track. His occasional dips into portrayals of other characters in Bourne’s life, however, are too brief and too scattered to work as intended, becoming instead unwelcome distractions.

It is when Bourne goes off-book, either staring wistfully into the distance or moving downstage to perform to his audience, that the evening comes alive. His determination, forthrightness and good humour come to the fore, keenly demonstrating why he is one of the few people truly deserving the epithet of ‘gay icon’.

A Life in Three Acts
Soho Theatre, London, until February 27, 2010
Authors: Bette Bourne, Mark Ravenhill
Producers: London Artists Projects, Soho Theatre
Cast: Bette Bourne, Mark Ravenhill
Running time: 1hr 50min

• Reviewed for The Stage

Related posts:

1. Six days, five shows, some dancers and a requiem
2. Lord Arthur’s Bed, King’s Head
3. New Boy, Pleasance Theatre, Islington

The effect is amplified once the small theatre’s curtain rises, revealing sets constructed from painted flats and characters ripped straight from the Big Boys’ Book of Wildean Archetypes. There’s the imperious dowager who is the fulcrum of society; the absent-minded vicar for whom devotion to God is not top of his list of priorities; the foppish aristocrat who can’t help but get himself into trouble; and his fiancée, whose only role seems to be the prize the aristo will receive for relinquishing his foppish ways. If the actors had lengths of wood attached to their feet, running off into the wings to be controlled by the hands of giant children, it would be no surprise. It sounds a ridiculous setting, and it is. The truth is it’s perfect for Trevor Baxter’s play, which takes a short story by Oscar Wilde and turns it into an amusing comedy that, while never matching the original author’s own stage works, is nevertheless highly enjoyable. Playing on both Victorian obsessions with the supernatural and eternal questions about the nature of free will in the presence of a higher power determining our fate, it also satirises the melodrama of period theatre.

The story itself is slight in the extreme, belying perhaps its origins. Lord Arthur Savile (Lee Mead in his first dramatic stage role) is told by his aunt’s palm reader that he is destined to commit a single murder — and he concludes that, if he is to ensure that the victim is not to be his fiancée, he must commit the dreadful act before committing to marriage. As with genuine Wilde, the story itself is of less consequence than the dry wit of the dialogue. Here, Baxter does well to emulate the playwright’s observational style, although the topics for his witticisms are rather limited. Still, he finds enough variation in the theme of ‘everything changes after marriage’ to prevent a sense of repetition from getting in the way of laughter.

The actors work their hardest to add a third dimension to their otherwise cardboard characters, although Kate O’Mara plays the role of haughty aunt in what seems to be her second-best pair of teeth, and the whole time appears to be in a holding pattern ready for the offer of playing Lady Bracknell to come through any day now. Mead is comfortable in the role of Lord Arthur, playing the straight man to the majority of comic characters but displaying a fine sense of comic timing when the moment requires.

But it is Gary Wilmot, as the clairvoyant Septimus Podgers, who makes this production really work. It is a true pleasure to see an actor best known for a long succession of musical theatre successes demonstrate that his versatility extends well beyond the confines of the song and dance genre.

Richmond Theatre, Richmond-upon-Thames
February 8-13, then touring
by: Trevor Baxter, adapted from the short story by Oscar Wilde
Director: Christopher Luscombe
Cast: Lee Mead, Gary Wilmot, Kate O’Mara, Derren Nesbitt, David Ross, Louisa Clein, Belinda Carroll

• I attended the performance as a guest of Richmond Theatre.

Related posts:

1. Lord Arthur’s Bed, King’s Head
2. When Harry Met Sally, Theatre Royal Haymarket
3. Lee Mead

If you haven’t heard his works before, the glories of Amazon.co.uk’s MP3 service means that you can hear preview tracks below (edit: doesn’t seem to work on Google Chrome for Mac - see below for some links):

If you want to buy full albums, you find the above widget a little confusing to navigate (I don’t blame you) or it doesn’t show up at all, try these links:

• Keys: the Music of Scott Alan
• Dreaming Wide Awake: the Music of Scott Alan

Related posts:

1. The Distance We Have Come… The Music of Scott Alan
2. Ella sings Rodgers and Hart
3. Torchwood: Children of Earth music