Frances Ruffelle as Piaf. a review.

“Mesmerising, I never wanted the music to stop.” Phil Lowe

The first time I saw Pam Gems play 'Piaf' was at the Derby Playhouse in 1982. The original play had opened in February 1978, at the RSC's  Other Place in Stratford on Avon, transferred to the Donmar Warehouse; and from there to the Aldwych, Wyndam's and the Piccadilly theatre in the West End and Jane Lapotaire had won the Tony award for her performance of Piaf on Broadway.

In the Derby Playhouse production, a young, relatively unknown actress called Caroline Quentin played Edith Piaf and was stunningly good. Further in her career Quentin went on to be part of the ensemble and played a prostitute in the original production of the musical Les Misérables. Based on those theatrical memories and that of seeing FrancesRuffelle as Eponine way back then, I went to Leicester's Curvetheatre to see Frances Ruffelle as Edith Gassion (Piaf).

This gripping and entertaining drama is performed at the studio space with an ensemble cast playing many and various roles of characters that came and went into Piaf's dramatic, difficult and often lonely life. Piaf couldn't bear to be alone especially after her concerts when she said that: 'The audience is so warm down there in that black hole. It's as though all those people are taking you in their arms, opening their hearts to you and taking you in. You overflow with their love, and they overflow with love for you. They want you to give yourself to them, you sing, you shout, you scream your pleasure, you're beside yourself with happiness.'

The world outside the stage door, for her, was often filled with exploitation and abuse from men. Yet through this life drama she had a great spirit, a naughty sense of fun and a voice full of raw emotion and power. She touched the hearts of millions and when she died from liver cancer in 1963 over one hundred thousand Parisians followed her coffin to its final resting place.

Frances Ruffelle as Edith Piaf

Frances Ruffelle brilliantly charged her theatrical portrayal of Edith Piaf with energy, fun, grittiness, pathetic vulnerability coupled with a determined stubborn toughness as the character struggled to carry on and on during the crazy circus of her short life. Ruffelle's singing was brilliantly done, nine songs in well articulated French, gesturing as Piaf but giving the part something extra special – creating a real live gutsy raw character you really cared about despite her massive mood swings and drug abuse. She was especially magnificent during her scenes of terrible despair, caught in a circle of cold harsh light scrabbling on her knees at the street cobbles racked with desperate sadness and the final scenes with Theo, her last, calm and caring lover were very moving. She is on stage for the entire play and runs the gamut of emotions throughout through her acting and songs.

Including Frances Ruffelle there were nine actors in this company and all were terrific morphing into one character after another on some extraordinarily quick scene changes. I particularly liked Laura Pitt-Pulford as Toine as she portrayed Edith's prostitute friend through various stages of her life – you sensed the ageing and growing bitterness and sadness of the character. Tiffany Graves as Marlene and the two nurses was wonderfully different in each role and Oliver Boot was perfectly cast as the tender boxer Marcel. This was ensemble acting at it's best as each character portrayed by the other male actors was clearly defined and regardless of the longevity of the role on stage each was totally believable.

The set design of a brick railway arch, framed within a frame and a sweeping black curtain created the tawdry atmosphere for the many scene changes as the audience flickered back and forth through  the late Pam Gem's play of Piaf's life. All was angular and smoky, terrific lighting and sound and with three live musicians, pianist, accordionist and drummer the stage was set for a wonderful time at the theatre. Paul Kerryson's direction was exemplary.

This was the first production I have seen at the Curve and I will certainly be going back again. The production runs until March 16^th.

 

Les Miserables. History in the making book. From page to stage.

I was thrilled to get a paperback copy of Les Miserables: History in the making, by Edward Behr in the post this weekend and can't stop reading it. It is jam packed with all that any Les Mis fan would want to know about the Victor Hugo novel and it's re-imagining by the RSC and the Les Mis composers and lyricists. I have been a fan both of the original musical and the recent film and have thoroughly enjoyed learning how the whole story went, as the expression goes, from the page to the stage.

The book explores the immensely popular musical's history from the French production and concept album that so inspired Cameron Mackintosh to back an English language translation back in the mid 1980s. It also covers those years and the growth of the musical to other countries around the world listing over 70 opening nights across the world from the original arena version of Les Miserables at the Palais des Sports on the 20th September 1980 in Paris to the Musichall Theatre Duisberg on the 26th of January 1996.

I was particularly taken with an engraving style picture of Jean Valjean and how close the image looked to the Hugh Jackman portrayal in the years after his parole. This painting in the first edition of Les Miserables made it possible for Colm Wilkinson to keep the beard which Trevor Nunn had initially wanted him to shave off for the musical.

As well as a wealth of written text, there are some fantastic photos of Les Mis from across the world and the whole libretto at the end of the book (illustrated with b/w photos).

"Bring him home!"

"Lovely ladies!!"

If you are as keen to order the book as I was you can order it through Amazon at this link below.

Les Miserables - the film of the musical

I went to see the Les Miserables film yesterday afternoon at the Broadway cinema in Nottingham. I had been looking forward to this for weeks and weeks and wasn't disappointed. I hadn't heard the best of reports online on Russell Crowe's singing abilities or the performances of the Thenardiers but, to be fair, they were just different from the West End stars as was the direction of the whole.

I particularly liked the immediacy of the piece with the live singing and I was intrigued by the  additional dialogue and new sung through lyrics in some scenes. The actual new song 'Suddenly' filled a story line gap but otherwise was unmemorable. I thought that the main actors' performances were stunning, especially Hugh as Jean Valjean/M. Madeleine and Anne Hathaway as the tragic Fantine.

Another surprise (not in the stage musical) was when Valjean and Cosette arrive at the North Gate of Paris and are on the run from Javert. Feet away from being caught they are met by M. Fauchelevent ( the man Jean Valjean rescued when trapped under the carriage) at a convent and he agrees to hide them there.

I loved the young lad who played Gavroche the second he popped out of the top of the elephant figure and made his way through the crowds stealing and dodging the law. I felt that I learnt much more from the film than I did the stage musical, namely the handing over of Javert's medal to Gavroche as he lay dead and the fact that the barricade was the last barricade left standing in the Victor Hugo's version of the June uprising of 1832. When they brought the cannons on to blast away the barricade I actually gasped.

The end was superb and I was thrilled to see Colm Wilkinson again at the end. Lastly, well for now, the settings were superb! Wow, what a film! And, of course I didn't cry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Les Miserables Nottingham Playhouse

This Friday the film of the musical Les Miserables goes on general release and I expect to be amongst the excited fans queuing to see how the cast and director have done.

Back in 1992 I was thrilled to be in the professional production of Christina Reid's play version at Nottingham Playhouse. There were eight hand picked male extras to play soldiers, citizens, students at the barricade and a chain gang. The story started with Gavroche and Eponine meeting in heaven after being killed on the barricades and suddenly shot back in time to the battle of Waterloo with the Thenardiers picking over the corpses.

I remember going to the rehearsals and trying to behave as professionally as possible (I was a performance art student in my third year at the time and this was a paid job). I made a good friend of the actor Roger McKern and kept in touch with him for years and went to see him in many productions around the midlands and in London. Through him I started to learn about the life of a professional actor.

Unfortunately, I don't have any decent photographs to put up on here, only copies of copies.

That's me with my arms folded as a citizen in the dressing room, alas not all the extras were as professional as myself. A few of them were quite noisy backstage and pissed about. I was probably one of the older ones and tried to keep myself to myself or mingled with the pros.

There was no dialogue for the extras but we did get  to sing the French National Anthem as we constructed the barricades each night. On the first night the actor who was supposed to get trapped under the cart forgot to come on (he was playing multiple roles) and the extras had to improvise with one of us falling under the cart to be rescued by the actor playing Jean Valjean.