Review Nottingham Playhouse production of Forever Young.

For a play to come back to the Nottingham Playhouse stage four times since it's first showing in 2010 and to have a legion of devoted followers, some having made repeated visits to see the show, it must have something very special about it. Forever Young is a musical comedy that makes broken hips hip.

 

 

The programme advises that “Forever Young began life at the beginning of 2001 in Germany and was originally called Thalia Vista Social Club. It is still being revised now and is currently enjoying its latest incarnation at the state owned Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. The reasons for its longevity over there are as mysterious and extraordinary as they are in Nottingham.” Maybe audiences throughout the world just like seeing folk grow old disgracefully. Especially wacky old actors.

Two images below from the German productions.

In Germany, it was originally devised as an entertainment in front of the safety curtain that could allow construction work to continue on the set for what turned out to be an unexpectedly short running production of the opera Faust. Gedeon's Forever Young turned out to be more popular than Faust and has been played all over the world to adoring fans. Something strong within the show demonstrates a very positive message or two about getting old and its originators highlighted Europe's poor record when it comes to looking after its elderly citizens. Saying that, the messages are put across with a great deal of adult and silly humour and pathos as well as some lovely renditions of songs including the title track Forever Young by Gold/Lloyd and Mertens.

The play is set in 2050 and Nottingham Playhouse has had to close because of what are known as The Cuts. The space has been turned into an old folks home and some of the residents are old actors that once graced the boards at Nottingham Playhouse. In this production they are played by some of the cast of the recent (2014) pantomime. Part of the fun of the piece is in seeing familiar faces and bodies aged up. Each week the residents revel in taking to 'the stage' and relive some of their old routines and shows. With the exception of Georgina White as the sexy Sister George all of the actors/ characters play themselves many years on. So actor Clara Darcy is Ms Darcy, Dale Superville is Mr Superville and so on.

Darcy and Superville make a fantastic couple of geriatric old love birds, mostly squashed together on a settee. Darcy tries to act much younger than her years and hangs on to her days as Juliet or Nina from The Seagull when she isn't going for a random perambulation around the theatre. Superville shows off some superb comic timing and brings the house down with his high pitched singing voice and uninhibited dance moves. His character is the very essence of continuing to have fun despite his physical age. His disastrous magic show is one of the highlights of the show.

Rebecca Little's old lady swears like a trooper and gropes the old men's bottoms and her ribald behaviour is only temporarily put on hold when part of her body drops off! Little also brings a less licentious side to her character in the more poignant aspects of the show. As in the Nottingham Playhouse pantomimes she shows off a great singing voice.

Tim Frater and John Elkington play off each other brilliantly during a prolonged slap stick scene that amuses with the creative ways each find to damage the other ending with an explosive first half. Each of their characters sit on the opposite side of the stage and often say so much by saying very little.

All the young actors are very believable as the old folk shuffling around the stage. Their antics receive a mixture of laughs and sympathetic “aaahs”. Much of the show is told through action rather than dialogue and is often more truthful for it. Musical director Stefan Bednarczyk is seated at the piano on stage for 99% of Forever Young being his character Mr Bednarczyk and playing the accompaniment to the eighteen main songs ranging from the traditional folk song Scarborough Fair to the rousing I Love Rock and Roll including three original numbers by Gedeon – By and By, Dying and Thanks for the Laughs.

 

 

To give it its full title 'Forever Young – rock and roll until you die' this fantastically funny and ultimately poignant show will have them rocking until their hips break unexpectedly in the aisles at Nottingham Playhouse and on its tour including its artistic partner Oldham Coliseum, the Warwick Arts Centre, and Cast Doncaster. Forever Young is gloriously directed by Giles Croft and plays at Nottingham Playhouse only until 7^th February. Shuffle on down to the Playhouse for this production and you will be guaranteed to laugh yourself young again.

                                                                 'Rocking!'

 

Review originally published by The Public Reviews on Saturday 31st January 2015

 

Photo credit: Robert Day.

 

Nottingham Playhouse: Review Sleeping Beauty.

Originally published by The Public Reviews on December 2nd

Given five stars.

 

In thirty-one years of Nottingham Playhouse presenting the annual pantomime this is only the second time that Sleeping Beauty has been performed. What a fabulous production! It sparkles with light and energy and humour and like the best Panto's should – it sends you home with a huge grin on your face and feeling the child-like magic of Christmas through and through.

 

 

Last year writer and director Kenneth Alan Taylor played his last role as pantomime dame to great applause and this time round he brings us an honest story of Sleeping Beauty that is like stepping into a wonderfully alive and exuberant story book. The set designs by Tim Meacock for the Palace, the wonky cottage in the woods (complete with singing wildlife), Maleficent's Lair, the Princess's Bedchamber and for the Grand Finale are knock out gorgeous. All these are enhanced by terrific lighting effects by lighting designer Jason Taylor. Musical director John Morton and his live band bring alive the show with show stopping numbers and the musical romance of the piece.

This year's dame Nurse Tilly Trot is played with gusto by Playhouse panto favourite John Elkington. Elkington has several changes of outrageous costumes and he engages immediately with the audience with his character's 'common touch'. The kids in the audience go crazy when he gets hypnotised by the evil fairy Maleficent and carries out the command to take a spinning wheel into the bedchamber of the princess Rosalind with the result of her being put to sleep for a hundred years. If a thousand children shouting “Nooooo!!!!” at the very tops of their voices would change this dastardly action and consequence then their collective cries should have worked a treat but no, the story must go on!

All but one of the main cast are Playhouse returnees with whom families in Nottinghamshire look forward to seeing each trip to the theatre and they never disappoint. This year the new guy is Jonny Fines playing the part of Prince Alexander – an interesting diversion from the pantomime norm where the Prince is played by an attractive and charming thigh slapping young woman. I really like Fines in this role – his natural good looks, great singing voice and athletic moves make him very sympathetic and the romantic scenes between himself and Princess Rosalind (Kelly Edwards) are very touching and believable as fairy-tale characters falling almost instantly in love.

Kelly Edwards' Princess Rosalind doesn't appear until a little later into the show, because at the beginning she is just a baby, but when she does she is immediately lovable in a bright, energetic, independent modern young Princess way. Edwards' enthusiastic performance certainly helps the show go with a zing. Her athletic song and dance routine with the fantastic Tim Frater as her friend Jerry the Jester is one of the highlights of the show. How they got those wildlife creatures in the bushes to sing and dance along too is a joyous mystery and a great part of the surprise and charm of Nottingham Playhouse's terrific pantomimes.

This year Rebecca Little (formerly principal boy) steps into the wacky shoes of the Queen Gertrude and shows her skills at building a fun older character and she works brilliantly in comic partnership with her stage husband, the expressive and irrepressible Anthony Hoggard as King Hubert. Little retains her rehearsal role as dance captain and together with choreographer and assistant director Adele Parry they bring the dance action superbly to the stage. This is not only with the main cast but with the two expressive and talented teams of young female dancers.

As the two main fairy's we have the good fairy, Fairy Wisheart, played again by Francesca Ellis and the evil fairy Maleficent played by Hannah Whittingham. Ellis is delightfully graceful in the role and as she waves her star topped wand around to good effect I find myself smiling as a little girl in the audience turns to her mum and whispers with a genuinely innocent and child-like enquiry “Is that a real wand mummy?” The mum answered a very believable “yes” with no sense of irony attached. That is the magic of panto in a single wand wave!

Good always triumphs over evil in fairy tales and in panto land and the audience revels in booing and hissing the evil deeds and words of Hannah Whittingham's bad fairy Maleficent all bedecked in a rather sexy black outfit and headpiece of black horns. The superb attention to detail is in all the costumes in this production and is the work of the Playhouse's highly inventive and skilled costume department. It is nice to see Whittingham playing a baddie role again this year. Previously the Nottingham Playhouse pantomime audiences would have seen her playing the title role in Aladdin, Prince Charming in Cinderella, Millie in Robin Hood and The Enchantress in last year's Jack and The Beanstalk.

As the giant snowflakes glitter at the end of this year's thoroughly entertaining Nottingham Playhouse pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, I for one will be going home to bed and will remember this fantastic and truly spectacular panto for a hundred years!