Review. Richard III Curve Leicester

In the Leicester Curve studio space an eager audience enters and seats itself for the annual community theatre event. This year it is Shakespeare's Richard III directed by professional director Nikolai Foster, an apt choice given the recent internment of the actual King Richard's bones in Leicester cathedral. This community theatre play is comprised of non- professional actors of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and sexes and their production of Richard III is better than a handful of professional versions this reviewer has seen over the recent years.

 

The playing space is traverse and most of the action takes place on a raised area of faux black marble. Even before the play has begun the parameter surrounding the playing space is encrusted with the thick grey dust and debris of war. The set design is created by Matthew Wright with lighting and sound by James Whiteside and Thomas Preston respectively.

Abandoned shoes and boots litter the area and denote the grisly remains of the victims of warfare. A long heavy chain handing from the ceiling ends with a hook and on the hook hangs a knee length leather coat. In the air electricity crackles almost as if human flies are frying in an invisible fly catcher. The coming danger is palpable.

Richard III needs a very compelling Richard to carry the piece. It is huge challenge for any actor in a monster of a play of containing 3718 lines and Mark Peachey's plain speaking Richard nails it from his first 'Now...' His performance is subtle stage craft personified, full of guile and smiling charm, his personality greased with cunning and malevolent intent, theatrical but never bordering on the camp. This is a manly Richard for a modern age, despotic, determined, hypnotic and we get to see his crippled back!

Luke Oliver makes an almost brotherly companion to Richard as a conniving Buckingham and their scenes together are some of the most compelling of the play.

The entire cast is embodied by a total of thirty-one actors and through Nikolai Foster's directorial guidance their passion for this work shines through and their commitment to the energy and tone of the play is exemplary. The scenes of brutal violence are done with precision and sound effects of gun shots coupled with clever lighting make the human dispatches so much more effective than relying on a prop gun that might not fire and thus ruin the scene.

The women in the cast all show strong characters in defiance of Richard of Gloucester and Laila Lee is electric in the wooing scene. Catriona McDonald as Queen Margaret is interestingly positioned in the parameters of the stage as she initially bridles against Richard's parading swagger and comes into her own powerful self once she moves centre stage. Another subtle performance comes from Becca Cooper as the hired killer Tyrell and vodka swilling mock priest. A fascinating character change was bringing in Emma Dent as Bishop of Ely with a small line change of 'Lady Bishop'. As this version of the play was set in contemporary Russia with appropriate costuming one wonders whether Russia does indeed have lady bishops. Mistress Shaw was also absent from this production and her staying in bed makes for a tighter scene and keeps the drama intact.

The men and boys in the cast demonstrate strong character portrayals, all of them very diverse, human and believable. Three stand out portrayals come from William Hayes as a sympathetic Duke of Clarence and Dale Goulding as the wheelchair bound ailing but still powerful King Edward IV. Edward Spence shows us a brutal humour as the hired killer William Catesby, loyal to Richard.

In this ultimately professional community production the play retains its social and political relevance warning of democracy being eroded and freedom of speech being prevented. As Nikolai Foster says in his programme notes 'this production uses little more resources than Shakespeare's players would have had available to them, trusting the text and the actors to release the significance of the story for a new generation.' Given the huge final curtain applause from the Leicester Curve studio audience this cast and team have done their job stunningly and Leicestershire should be rightly proud of such superb local talent. Runs until 9th August 2015

Originally published July 30th for The Public Reviews

Photos credit Pamela Raith

@CurveLeicester

Review of Oddsocks Twelfth Night on tour at Nottingham Castle

Twelfth Night or What You Will is Shakespeare's only play with a double title and Oddsock's brilliantly funny touring adaptation coupled with the addition of live pop songs and utter silliness will have you doubling up with laughter and falling off your folding chair on to your picnic hamper!

The main plot is that Shakespeare's characters of Viola and Sebastian are brother and sister twins separated by misfortune at sea and the audience are required to believe that they could be misunderstood for each other. Countess Olivia is grieving over the loss of her brother whom she has sworn to mourn for seven whole years before considering any man as a lover. Viola meanwhile believes that her brother Sebastian has drowned after their ship capsized on the shores of Illyria. The main action of this play resolves this dual loss and a sub plot revolves around the haughty and prudish Malvolio – steward to Olivia. He is tricked in thinking that the woman he serves is secretly in love with him and the play finishes with him being further ridiculed and love eventually conquering all. Malvolio's last words are “I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and mature comedies and examines human urges including sex, food, drink and revenge and higher longings for justice and love. Well that is the story for the Shakespeare purists; the same purists who are not sat on the grass at Nottingham Castle thoroughly enjoying some great entertainment courtesy of OddsocksTheatre Company.

And now over to the real review...

As part of their nationwide summer tour Oddsocks are performing their completely daft and highly entertaining versions of Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing and from the 22^nd to 25^th July they are holding a merry court in the leafy grounds of Nottingham Castle. Their style is bordering on Panto and the packed grass seating area is full of families complete with their young children utterly enjoying the brilliantly comical nature of Oddsocks' story telling. How often do children in the audience of a Shakespeare play get a chance to pelt Malvolio with wet sponges? Well, they do in this one. The kids couldn't wait to get to on stage!

Such silliness prevails throughout the whole evening, the performers drop in and out of character, ad lib like crazy and even rail at a passing plane mid speech. The comic timing is spot on and all of the group sing and play musical instruments with Brit Pop Bard bravura. And that's not easy to say!

All of the cast double up in various roles with the exception of Lucy Varney as a sparky Olivia. A newcomer to Oddsocks, Varney appears to be having the time of her theatrical life and this infectious nature of fun is evident in all of the Oddsocks cast. Andy Barrow revels in his delightfully comical role as the droll and pompous Malvolio and encourages the audience to suggest an accent for his one line priest character. Peter Hoggart appears occasionally as the lost brother Sebastian and keeps the energy going as a black wigged rocking Lord of Misrule Feste the clown. The cost of the wigs alone in this production must be hair raising!

Taking the brunt of the action and songs is Rebecca Little as Viola and Maria and Viola's male alter ego Cesario. Little is no stranger to Nottingham audiences as she has been in the Nottingham Playhouse annual panto for the last sixteen years as well as reprising her roles with Oddsocks. Her pedigree shows in abundance as she delightfully sings and clowns her way throughout the show.

Gavin Harrison as Duke Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek is charmingly bonkers (a dual requirement of performing with Oddsocks methinks) in both roles but particularly funny in his drunken scenes with show stopper Kevin Kemp as the perpetually playfully paralytic (not easy to say either) heavy metal loving Sir Toby Belch. Kemp's performance has to be several of the highlights of Oddsocks' Twelfth Night.

Well, say 'What You Will' Twelfth Night by Oddsocks is one of the funniest evenings this reviewer has ever spent watching theatre outdoors. I will definitely be returning on Friday for their Much Ado About Nothing!

Propeller's Comedy of Errors at Theatre Royal Nottingham: a review.

When Shakespeare's shortest surviving play, The Comedy of Errors, was produced and staged in 1594 at Gray's Inn in London for an audience of lawyers to conclude a night of revels, the records of Gray's Inn reported thus: Night was begun and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called “The Night of Errors”. The play was then performed in court in 1604 and, in the centuries that followed it has been produced in unaltered and adapted forms ever since. Shakespeare's original source for the plot was from a Latin play by the Roman playwright Plautus and Shakespeare made his version ever more farcical by introducing a second pair of twins into the plot and gave it a happy ending. Historically it is his only play, aside from The Tempest to use the convention of having all of the action happen in the course of one day.

The traditional story is set in Ephesus, a Greek town with a reputation for witchcraft and mis-rule. In the modern day it is in Turkey. Merchants from neighbouring Syracuse are not allowed to conduct business in Ephesus without paying a fine of a thousand marks and vice versa. Should they trade 'illegally' and not be able to pay it the law said that they will be put to death. Solonious, Duke of Ephesus upholds this draconian law. However he becomes more flexible when he hears Aegeon – a merchant of Syracuse – relate his sad story of how he came to Ephesus.

For the play to work, firstly the audiences must be moved by Aegeon's story and believe that his life is at stake. If these circumstances are unconvincing then the story will lose the purpose of the following comic acts. Secondly the whole play relies heavily on all of the actors' comedic abilities. So, after that little bit of history, is this production by the all male Propeller company of The Comedy of Errors funny?

You bet! It is supremely funny!! Propeller take Shakespeare's play and bring hissing and spitting colourfully to life through their madcap interpretation. The play is well known for its farcical nature, clever word play and slapstick humour and this production has already started as you find your seat. The live background music playing is Latin style and the actors banter with the audience. When they reach the stage and the play starts we are transported to a cheap and cheerful Latin style Costa del Ephesus, holiday resort complete with, gaudy lights, graffiti and a barmy mariachi band kitted out in football shirts and sombrero hats.

Through an impassioned speech by Aegeon ( Chris Myles) the audience learns that two sets of twins (two goodly sons, the one so like the other that could not distinguished but by name) are separated on a voyage after a violent storm at sea. All survive but are split up and each is not aware of the other's existence. Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio find themselves washed ashore in Ephesus, the home of their twin brothers and the inevitable farce of misunderstandings and mistaken identities grows apace.

Shakespeare's language and complex plotting can sometimes be difficult for a 21^st century audience to grasp if one is unfamiliar with the story but Propeller make it an enormously fun journey and the characters are very recognisable even if some of the men are parodies of women and the actions have connected sound effects and are often cartoon like. The verse and prose is perfect and handed with panache by all the cast of eight male actors. There is much hilarious campery for the actors playing the female roles and the work that must have gone into developing and refining even minor characters is incredible and the whole play is bench mark of clear story-telling plus a million laughs. Scarily this reviewer started to actually believe the deceptively aggressive Luciana (Arthur Wilson) was actually female!

The play had a multitude of highlights and some real laugh out loud moments that will stay with you long after the play has finished – actors slide into wheelie bins, a cheesy Spanish policeman serenades a female member of the audience, Pinch, a lunatic Baptist conjurer played with reckless abandon by Darrell Brockis rocks the stage and the courtesan with rabbit ears (Mathew Pearson) is hilarious with his/her deadpan delivery. Plus there is much ridiculous farce with men fancying someone they ought not to and confused arguments over the payment for a tacky gold chain.

This production of The Comedy of Errors has enough energy to light half of the city of Nottingham and the sets of twins Antipholus of Ephesus (Joseph Chance) and Dromio of Ephesus (Mathew McPherson) and Antipholus of Syracuse (Dan Wheeler) and Dromio of Syracuse (Will Featherstone) are the electricity that powers the show. They are nonstop throughout and although they don't really look exactly like each other the power of the theatre demands you suspend belief. A superb show and I for one wouldn't hesitate to see another performance by the unique talents of Propeller. Highly recommended.

Review originally written for Nottingham Live,

Richard III on the roof of a carpark.

Recently I wrote a blogpost about Richard III and thought it would be fun to attempt the famous first speech by Richard Gloucester ... "Now is the Winter..." and as Richards remains were found under a car park in Leicester what better to place to film this but in a car park. In actuality on 'top' of the car park at Fletcher Gate in Nottingham. The Lace Market Theatre is down below me as I'm acting so it all seemed fitting somehow.

The idea was for a modern day take of the first speech by Richard in Shakespeare's play Richard III. Apologies to WS for some small mis-quotes but as this was practically take 155 and I was freezing up there and I finally felt happy with this last attempt. Plus my hands were like ice blocks from holding the laptop and the biceps brachii muscle in my upper left arm was seizing up big time!

Character-wise I wanted to get Richard's dark sardonic sense of humour into the piece and reflect changes in thought with halting as he moves about the space. Also I considered how the speech itself demonstrates his embittered considerations of how nature has given him a bad deal and his murderous thoughts of betrayal and cunning social climbing.

This video was filmed on my laptop and I wanted Richard to be moving around the space as if it were a stage. I chose this car park because of the tower at the end of the parking area. It made me think of a castle and also symbolic of The Tower of London where the Princes are held in the play. I hope you enjoy my take on this character.

PS: This famous speech is a sod to learn and even more difficult to remember and to perform when there is the potential of folk parking their cars around you!

Thoughts around Richard the Third.

Following the recent finding of the remains of King Richard the Third beneath a car park in Leicester I thought I would look back on a production of Shakespeare's 'Richard III' that I was involved in 2008. It was directed by Cynthia Marsh for The Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham and Richard was played by Chris Ireson. Although still of some playing length the play was cut and the dress code a mix of modern and Elizabethan styles. It also played in repertoire with a play called Terrorism by The Presnyakov Brothers with a translation bySasha Dugdale and this was directed by Martin Berry.

The links were the emotion of fear and the chaos and friction that irrational and real fear cause. Some of the cast in Richard III were also in Terrorism. I was not so brave to commit myself to both plays in one week and quite content to gets to grips with the Shakespeare, thank ye all the same.

 

 

The casting for Richard III was for over fifteen actors who often played multiple roles: I, for example; played Derby (Lord Stanley), a gentleman, a citizen, Rivers (brother of Elizabeth; Lord Mayor, Tyrell, Surrey and, to add contrast a bit of humour, a very camp Bishop of Ely.

One young man, new to the theatre and never seen again afterwards, played Grey, Lovell, a guard and one of the murderers and decided that, unfortunately, due to a vigorous bought of projectile vomiting, he couldn't make our last performance on the Saturday matinée. His mother phoned in just one hour before we were due to 'go up' (start the matinée performance) and so the rest of the cast frantically busied around sharing his roles between them. Thankfully his woeful acting skills weren't up to much and he had very few lines, therefore we were able adjust and to get by without him. I think it leant to a much more pacey show! There was certainly a sword sharp edge to the performances that afternoon. We told some friends who had been to see the show and they said they couldn't tell that we had an actor down. There's no business like show business as they say.

To paraphrase Cynthia, the director, she felt that the two plays presented during this exciting week were disparate; one late 16^th Century, one 20^th Century; one presenting a violent King the other presenting modern day violence in all its forms. She said that 'Richard the Third propagandised the founding of the House of Tudor to Elizabethan England beset by its own succession worries. Terrorism locates violence and bullying in the routines of contemporary life: travel, sex, work, gossipping and the banter of the changing room.' Source: programme notes.

Interestingly, the very unusual fact that we had two plays running together during our week long run echoed an almost bygone age of repertory theatre and like our Richard III actors playing several roles, seemingly effortlessly, (historically, known as the sweating lords for very good reason as, like us, they ripped off one costume and donned another set of clothes and identity) they would also have played several parts in Rep. Given the massive amount of Shakespearean text our Richard and the cast had to learn and perform this was no mean feat!

Some interesting things about the play Richard III generally.

• Shakespeare's main source for the play was the historian Raphael Hollinshed and Shakespeare's (strongly Tudor influenced) portrait of Richard took a great deal from Sir Thomas More's work, History of King Richard the Third.

• The ruthless ambition and semi satanic moral code given by Shakespeare to Richard were intended to make the usurpation of Henry VII (grandfather of Queen Elizabeth) seem necessary. Remember that Shakespeare's company needed the financial and royal support of the Queen to exist. The plays written could not afford to be seen as anti Queen Elizabeth or of her line. Heads would roll!

• Some modern day defenders of Richard (the man) believe that Shakespeare's portrayal of him as Richard Gloucester and King Richard in the play are unfair. Alas the play's popularity and continual success in the theatre and in film continues to convince people that he was evil, manipulating and violent.

• Richard III shows off some of Shakespeare's early formal verse at its best. The extraordinary scene where Richard woos the ultra reluctant Anne (act 1 scene II ) gains many of its effects by means of its clever use of parallel, quasi sing song constructions. “Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?” Despite initially hating him, Anne is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Richard exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose. Nice guy! Poor gal!

• Other courtly women in the play hate the manipulating king more and more as he plots the murders of children and adults alike on his rise to corruption and power. The distraught Queen Margaret exemplifies this point in her famous speech lamenting the existence of King Richard and his terrible deeds: we join the speech at it's climax here:

Queen Margaret: ... No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, unless it be while some tormenting dream fright's thee with a hell of ugly devils! Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that was sealed in thy nativity the slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins! Thou detested...

Richard: Margaret.

Queen Margaret: Richard!!

• In the play, Clarence dies after Richard is named Protector (how ironic!): in reality, Clarence died five years beforehand. Here and elsewhere William Shakespeare the playwright took historical liberties to dramatically construct his play.

Famous critics have said:

“Crimes are Richard's delights but Macbeth is always in agony when he thinks of them” (Thomas Whately)

“The hump... the conscience, the fear of ghosts, all impart a spice of outragousness which leaves nothing lacking to the fun of the entertainment, except the solemnity of those spectators that feel bound to take the affair as a profound and subtle historic play.” (George |Bernard Shaw)

“There is another peculiarity of the present drama which ought to be mentioned – the frequent use of the curse, it is a terrific weapon and is employed here with terrific violence. (Denton J Snider).

My recommendations in books and films:

Year of the King by Anthony Sher: I read this back in the 1980s and it is a very accessible record of Anthony Sher's acceptance of the role of King Richard for the RSC and Barbican and his journey as an actor to discover another way of portraying the crippled king with the ghost of Laurence Oliver's well known depiction of Richard III on his heels. This terrific book is also illustrated with Sher's wonderful sketches and drawings. Highly recommended.


                                                                    

Richard III: The 1996 film with Sir Ian McKellan playing the title role is set in Britain in the 1930s and offers yet another slant on duplicitous evil. In this version civil war has erupted with the House of Lancaster on one side, claiming the right to the British throne and hoping to bring freedom to the country. Opposing is the House of York, commanded by the infamous Richard who rules over a fascist government and hopes to install himself as a dictator monarch. The film is severely edited for text but gives a very clear depiction to Richard's rise to power and his downfall through violent means. I would encourage anyone to watch this as a lesson in film acting and as an encouragement to delve further into the play itself.


                                                                     

Looking for Richard starring Al Pacino: A documentary style film about Al Pacino's quest to find the inspiration to play the role of King Richard III.

                                                                            

Lace Market Theatre production photographs by Mark James. Copyright.

Puck's speech from A Midsummer Night's Dream

I played nutty Puck back in the 1980s for Derby Shakespeare Company so this rehearsed reading brings back a lot of fond memories. The script was written on the computer screen when I did this recording hence the sideways looks. :0)