Review: Richard Thompson and The Electric Trio

Richard Thompson is hailed as a songwriter of extra-ordinary skill and he is a recipient of a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award and Mojo's Les Paul Award. Thompson was also appointed OBE in the 2011 New Year's Honours List and the Americana Music Association recently honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. Other top music artistes such as Robert Plant, REM, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Patty Lovelace, Los Lobos, David Byrne, Don Henley,Tom Jones and many others have been proud to record Thompson's songs. He and his band, The Richard Thompson Electric Trio, are currently three quarters of the way through a national tour which ends on 20^th September at The Royal Festival Hall in London.

Having released his latest album Still produced by Jeff Tweedy in June 2015 and out on the Proper Records label, renowned guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson and his band are on top form. The line up is Thompson as guitar and vocals, Davey Faragher on bass and Michael Jerome on drums. An eagerly anticipated gig at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall this fine evening on Saturday 12^th September sees them wowing an appreciative audience with new tracks from the album as well as older material of six decades of his music. His undoubted skills as an extraordinary musician and 'genre defying mastery of both the acoustic and electric guitar' (to quote his website) will certainly cement his place in music history if tonight's gig and tight set is anything to go by. Thompson has the energy of a forty year old at the top of his game despite the true nature of his age and musical legacy begun in the early years of the folk rock group Fairport Convention that he co-founded as a talented teenager in the 1960s.

From the new folk rock album fans get 'She Could Never Resist A Winding Road, Beatnik Walking, Patty Don't You Put Me Down, Broken Doll, Where's Your Heart, and the stylistically varied guitar hero tribute number, Guitar Heroes. In a set that never seems like it is going to end (in a good way) Thompson and his band prove just how musically flexible they are with songs that vary in tone and mood such as Beeswing to 1952 Vincent Black Lightening. With a full evening's entertainment and fine support by thirty-five year old Johnny Borrell of Razorlight the fans go home ecstatic after three curtain calls and three standing ovations.

It is no surprise that Rolling Stone called Thompson 'The finest rock songwriter after Dylan and the best electric guitarist after Hendrix'. Tonight's concert at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall sent Thompson's audience home buzzing and eager to purchase his excellent new chart topping CD Still if they don't already own it amongst his massive body of work (over 40 albums) and consider it one of their prized possessions.

Originally written for Nottingham Live. 12th September 2015

Review The School For Scandal Nottingham Theatre Royal

Sheridan's complex comedy The School For Scandal was the inaugural play that opened Nottingham's historic Theatre Royal in 1865. The 18^th Century play had already been a popular night out at any regional theatre since its first ever performance at London's Drury Lane theatre on May 8^th 1777. It continues to delight with its stock characters named after their personalities and their delectation in creating scandal in society. The higher in society the victims are the more thrilling (to the scandal mongers) is their demise. It seems that things haven't changed so much since Sheridan's day as modern day gossips still love to pour over the gossip magazines and many a celeb exposé and debt issues are common themes in all the modern media.

 

 

This performance of The School For Scandal is revived as part of the celebrations of Nottingham Theatre Royal's 150^th anniversary. The Theatre Royal community theatre ensemble (The Royal Company) take the unusual stance of presenting the play in a promenade performance with various parts of the action played in a variety of locations in and around the theatre and its public spaces. With a constantly mobile audience of around fifty members, all eves dropping on the comical and naughty goings on in Sheridan's comedy of manners, the story becomes a lot more immediate than it might be in a classic proscenium arch production. Much use is also made of bringing individual audience members comically into the action. This type of presentation makes the audience true voyeurs to the piece almost to the point of direct complicity. The theatrical tables are even turned on the audience at one point when we are seated right here on the main stage watching the actors perform against the background of the sumptuous green and gold of the theatre's interior!

The play satirises the behaviour and customs of the upper classes through witty dialogue and an intricate plot incorporating ludicrous situations that expose the characters' shortcomings. Sheridan's characters are somewhat cartoon like and take on bold characteristics such as; the terrible bore; the gossip; the wastrel and the rich uncle. There are a massive twenty one actors in the cast and live music is played by John Crawford and Richard Mercia. The very stylised clownish make up of the entire Royal Company helps considerably to convey these types. It is almost if these personalities have slipped out of a satirical painting of the era. The costumes designed with a modern twist by theatre design students at Nottingham Trent University are superbly conceived and made up, especially the paper wigs made from modern day gossip magazines.

Major gossips Lady Sneerwell (Deborah Porter-Walker) and Mrs Candour (Michelle Smith) are portrayed to perfection in their snobbery as is Snake (Ade Andrews) with his opening complex monologue gleefully depicting who he has sold down the line with his deceitful lies. The Surface family - Sir Oliver (Barbara Whisbey) and brothers Charles and Joseph (Madison Wales and Charlie Osborne) two young men under the guidance of Sir Peter Teazle, (Mik Horvath) are all played with broad strokes and their various character traits come through well with this style of acting. Both the brothers are played by female actors as is Sir Oliver Surface. Such theatrical artifice works terrifically in this production.

The scene where Sir Peter Teazle complains about his young wife Lady Teazle (Victoria Murphy) and her spendthrift ways works well and the common argument over money is as appropriate now as it was in the society of 18^th Century Britain. The three clown characters (Mercedes Assad, Nikki Disney and Kayleigh Phillips) are played with great wit and energy and help keep the piece buoyant throughout the promenade transitions and within the play itself.

Edward Crook is superb as the rather camp Sir Benjamin Backbite, being all leopard skin and wicked asides and a louche poetic nature. Crook's stage performance as Backbite, although sadly brief, (as are a lot of the School For Scandal characters) leant a great deal of substance to the play as a whole and really brought out the self possessed nature of the scandal mongers. Contrariwise, the only truly moral character Moses is played with an aloof and knowing grace by the bespectacled and cautiously strutting Alina Hughes.

The School For Scandal is a complex and enjoyable play full of more sub plots than an over zealous design for a garden allotment, but The Royal Company do it proud in a gorgeously accessible production that Richard Brinsley Sheridan would have been rightly proud of here at Nottingham's Theatre Royal. It is directed with great style by David Longford. With a strong and likeable theatrical presence Longford also plays narrator Walter Montgomery who was the first theatre manager at the Theatre Royal.

 

 

This review was originally written for and published by The Public Reviews on 7th September 2015

Review 1984 at Nottingham Playhouse.

Hitting the Nottingham Playhouse stage with both bare and bleeding feet running, Duncan Macmillan and Robert Icke's Olivier Award winning acclaimed adaptation of George Orwell's dark political drama 1984, is a sure fire choice in starting off the Playhouse's Conspiracy Season with a startling bang.

 

Fresh from two runs in London's West End where it has been playing to packed houses, this terrifying theatrical version of 1984 ( a co-production between Nottingham Playhouse, Headlong and Almeida Theatre) wows and frightens. The various design elements; lighting by Natasha Chivers; stage design by Chloe Lamford and sound and video design by Tom Gibbons and Tim Reid respectively prove a collective theatrical and shocking tour de force. The adaptation inspired by the appendix of 1984 and directed by McMillan and Icke is phenomenal and this is truly theatre that makes us think about language and the nature of freedom and questions the fickle  natures of memory and reality.

Although the real year 1984 is long past, Orwell's bleak world of Big Brother watching still rings scarily true today with surveillance cameras high above most city streets in the world and monitors protecting and probing our every move in the shops and public buildings. In this fictional world where keeping a diary is unlawful and thoughts are criminalised, being in love is actively forbidden and history erased, the audience is completely gripped throughout. You can almost hear the audience's collective hearts breaking over Winston and Julia's doomed love affair as their world is literally pulled apart and gasps of real shock over Winston's torture.

Often it is said that a theatrical venture is an ensemble piece. Perhaps this can be a lazy description but not so in this constantly changing play of 1984 where within a second's worth of blackout the cast re-appear in completely different places on the stage and verbal repetition and human erasure fight for attention. Mere ensemble, hardly does the art justice. It is easy to see why this production has universally been offered five stars by the critics. Abstractly quoting from the play, maybe the critics were unsure whether they were seeing five or four stars and, terrified out of their wits, opted for five. If six or seven stars were another option 1984 would still be most deserving.

Every single performance by the ensemble; Tim Dutton, Stephen Fewell, Janine Harouni (Julia), Christopher Patrick Nolan, Ben Porter, Matthew Spencer (Winston), Simon Coates, Mandi Symonds, and the young girl played by either Anna Jaques or Victoria Todd is exemplary.

1984 is one heck of a production and deserves to go on winning award after award as it continues at Nottingham Playhouse and goes on to Australia and the USA.

Runs until Saturday 26th September 2015 at Nottingham Playhouse

See Nottingham Playhouse ONLINE to book and see more details about the stunning Conspiracy Season ahead.

Interview with Brassed Off actors Howard Chadwick and Jake Waring

I met up yesterday with Howard Chadwick and Jake Waring after watching an hour of early rehearsal for Derby Theatre's forthcoming production of Brassed Off (18^th September to 10^th October). I explained to them that I had seen the acclaimed film some years ago and that I wanted to ask what the cast and production team have done in terms of research for the play set in a troubled mining community.

Howard Chadwick

Jake Waring

Phil: What have yourselves as actors experienced to understand the social and political impacts on the mining industry in the UK in the early 1990s?

Howard: I feel like mining is following me a bit at the moment. The last play I did (Digging In) was commissioned to commemorate the anniversary of the 1984 strike. So I have done a lot of research about that strike and about the period leading up to 1984 and the period immediately after. In our play the mining industry is in decline and tapering. The strike was categorically lost and Thatcher's government just beat them into the ground, didn't they? This play is the point where the bit of meat on the bones are just being picked off.

It was very interesting to go up to The National Mining Museum between Dewsbury and Wakefield. We all went there on the first day of rehearsal. I know you didn't Jake cos you were working on another play weren't you?

Jake: That's right.

Howard: The tour is underground and you go down in the cage and the tour is given by an ex-miner. The one that took us round was probably in his mid-fifties and therefore he would have been in his mid twenties in '84. Now of course his job is a tour guide. He was very funny, a very amiable guy and his tour takes the mining industry right back to its origins to the present day. It is really well done but... he's one of the younger guys amongst some tour guides a lot older than him. I thought about how long the museum can last with original ex-miners taking the tours with their first hand knowledge of being down the pit. Really after the mid 1990s period only a handful of existing pits remained and I believe the last one or two have just gone in the last month or so. It is quite a poignant time to be doing the play I think especially given that we have just had the 30^th anniversary of the 1984 strike. So, I suppose where we are in the play is just where all the politics and social unrest hits the wall and slides off really.

Phil: In the play a character called Gloria arrives into the mining community at Grimley and gives a bit of a boost to the miner's brass band. Tell me a bit about her. What is her intention in coming into that community?

Jake: It's to reconnect with her roots I think. All she really wants is to be accepted the whole way through the story. She is from Grimley originally and what I find interesting about Gloria is that she is just a foot soldier. There is an element of guilt surrounding her and like a lot of people she thinks she is just doing her little job and they are part of a jigsaw. Then when things like pit closures come about they live with the guilt even though they weren't implicit in the dealings. I think that is what she comes with and she wants to save the pit and then to be accepted by her community. Narratively I think the device is really interesting because she arrives as the outsider. I was born in 1989 so I wasn't around during the real strikes but we had the Brassed Off video in my family and even though I was perhaps too young to watch it - I did - and it has remained one of my favourite films over the years. There was that video “I Support My Dad” that we watched as well as research.

Howard: Yes that was about how the miners children were affected by the 1984-85 strike in North Staffordshire. The play that was I was in was written by Debbie McAndrew and it was commissioned to go into schools and community centres to tell the story of the '84 strike. This was to kids whose parents or grand parents were involved in the strike so it helped them if they (the kids) didn't know a lot about it. The 'I Support My Dad' film is about the '84 miner's kids and how the events shaped them. They are seen as the adults they are these days and they are talking retrospectively. In 1984 there were only six mines still open and now there are none. There is a colliery band that survives – Florence Colliery Band. It is also interesting to hear what their attitudes are now to authority – to the Tory Party – to the police...

Jake: The knock on effect is staggering actually. Looking at the police brutality, people being locked up simply for stepping on the road when they were introducing new laws on how you can picket and things like that. All of it is not a million miles away from things that happen now which is why I think it's amazing how this is echoed in the Brassed Off play. There are speeches in the play that resonate and you almost think it's happening now. For a play set twenty years ago it is amazingly relevant today.

Phil: Is this the first time a play has been developed from the original film script?

Howard: No. Sheffield Crucible were the first to produce it not so long after the film came out and then Sheffield Lyceum toured it with Touring Consortium in about '99. Several places have done it. York have done it twice as a co-production with York Theatre and Bolton Octagon. Oldham Coliseum have produced it twice too. With York and Bolton there was a tour last year. It is a play that is often done Phil. I think it speaks to people, speaks to communities. It is about a community and that community was dependent on the mining industry. Not only for the people that the pit employed but for economy. Without all those jobs the supermarket in the play will close, the video shop will close, the pub will close because there's no heart there. The pit is the pulse of the community and in our play the voice of that is the brass band.

Phil: The actual physical band you are using and their music – what emotional impact has that had on your working on the play so far?

Howard: Massively. When people say 'when you hear a brass band' they quite often put their hand to their chests (Howard demonstrates) and that's what we all collectively do when the brass band comes into rehearsal. And for those of us who are lucky enough to sit in and be with the band and have that sound around you it's fantastic. It really gets you. The Derwent Brass band are brilliant and the sound is just beautiful. As you saw in the rehearsal today – the blokes in the locker room getting changed – going through their rough and ready routine and then they go and play this beautiful music. As the character Danny says at the end “People will remember the music long after the pit has gone.” This means the band playing miners are able to still speak through their music.

The play is based in a place called Grimley – loosely based on Grimethorpe where they had the Grimethorpe Colliery Band who on Saturday won the British Open Championship! Our fiction band are playing in the National Championships at the Albert Hall which is a different competition. They win that and Danny has a very rousing speech about how music matters but actually, it's the people that matter. It's easy to forget this.

Jake: That's one of those speeches and it's message that could easily be said now with a few word changes. Basically the same message.

Phil: Jake, this is your first experience working here at Derby Theatre as 2^nd year recipient of the Brian Weaver Fellowship. How has it been thus far?

Jake: It's amazing because I found out that I'd got it in January and this is the first production I've come into. So I have been itching all year to get into it. I was doing another show at Edinburgh over the summer – a puppetry show. It had me in work since March until August and at the time I said to Sarah (director of Brassed Off) that this had come up and she said 'we want to support your career so it seems silly for us to stop you from doing another show'. There was an overlap of a week and she let me do that - hence why I have come into to this week later. In another kind of working environment that may have not been made possible so I am very grateful for that kind of support. From a logistical point of view it has been amazing that I have had the opportunity to be in work all this year. With this show I am playing six characters and I have six costume changes. It is really fun and what it does mean is that I'm in a lot of scenes without a lot of lines or a lot to do and this means that I can be in rehearsals all the time and watch very knowledgeable people like Howard who has masses of experience and soak up all that influence and acting knowledge. Equally there are other members of the cast and creative team of all ages from whom I can learn about their processes. It's an amazing opportunity. I am doing Cinderella after this and because I am from Derby, having lived in London for a few years now, it feels like a homecoming and I'm very lucky and loving the chances I'm getting through the Brian Weaver Fellowship and DerbyTheatre.

Thank you to Sarah Brigham, Heidi Mckenzie and Derby Theatre for the opportunity to interview Howard and Jake.

Talking Heads at Theatre Royal Nottingham. Review.

Since Alan Bennett's original six part televisual masterpiece of social observation, collectively known as Talking Heads, aired on the nation's televisions in 1982, some of the ground breaking monologues have been transferred to the stage by both amateur and professional companies. The choice is usually an evening of two monologues and invariably two of Bennett's funniest – A Chip In The Sugar and A Lady of Letters. Quite often they are performed in an intimate studio or small stage environment as the confessional nature of the writing and performing suits such venues. Not this time however.

This Theatre Royal Bath professional touring production boasts not two but three of Bennett's works with a stellar cast of three well known actors each taking up the challenge of performing a forty minute monologue.

All three monologues are performed on a full stage and augmented by Frances O'Connor's clever angular sets. Paul Pyant's lighting adapts for each piece as well as suggesting glimpses of the outside world around the stories of all of the closeted characters. Original music by Simon Slater helps to create the changing moods within each of the monologues. Sarah Esdaile directs each piece with the accent towards uncluttered detail and delivery.

In the first monologue – A Lady of Letters - Bennett's character – the acerbic Miss Irene Ruddock (Siobhan Redmond) dashes off hand-written letters right left and centre to numerous officials and government bodies, including the royal family. She does this in order to express her ill informed opinions and complaints. Redmond plays her as the eager eyed ultimate curtain twitcher, smugly realising her minor victories through the power of the pen.

Whilst the audience laugh at Redmond's hilarious avalanche of verbalised written accusations, delivered with aplomb, the true and shocking reality of her actions is driven home. This is another of Bennett's obsessives whose practices lead to their downfall only in Miss Ruddock's case it is not terminal. Interestingly, her journey leads her to a better and more socially useful life. In this monologue Bennett returns again to his favourite writing topics of the 1980s – the youth of policemen on the beat, trendy vicars, society's ignorance and the obliquely racist opinions of his characters.

A Chip In The Sugar is one of only two Talking Heads monologues written for men by Alan Bennett. The other is Playing Sandwiches which is about a man with paedophile tendencies. In A Chip In The Sugar Bennett's own style of speaking and subtle northern wit is heard most clearly.

A Chip In The Sugar is almost a mini protest play from the view point of a closeted individual called Graham Whittaker (Karl Theobald). Graham's protests arise from his jealous perception of an unexpected new relationship between his elderly and forgetful mother and her new suitor – a seemingly dapper Mr Turnbull. The jealousy arises because Graham and his mother behave not so much like mother and son but like an old married couple very much set in their ways. Graham also protests against the nature of language and how it can obscure reality. There is a perfect example when Graham attends a meeting at Community Caring for the mentally ill. Pathetically railing against an accusation that he is being 'defensive' about sexual intercourse he erupts with his retort “I am not being 'defensive' about sexual intercourse! She is my mother!”

Theobald takes us on Graham's emotional journey of a life tipped into confusion and chaos by the arrival and courtship of the bullying and opinionated ageing roué Mr Turnbull. In a complex darkly comic monologue that brings in other characters Theobald does well in entertaining the audience with his ever twisting story whilst retaining Graham's own fey character.

Stephanie Cole is the seventy-five year old widow Doris in A Cream Cracker Under The Settee. Her frail old lady character has a fall from a height whilst attempting to dust the top of her wedding photograph on the wall. This tumble proves to be her downfall. Cole brings out all of Bennett's bitterly accusing wit and Doris's stubborn nature borne of a cleaning obsession and love hate relationship with her home help Zulema. Her main personal demon is the constant thought of being packed off to Stafford House – as she sees it – to die a lonely death with people who smell of pee. With beautifully written dramatic irony this fear is actualised earlier than Doris anticipates except that her place of death is her living room not in the relative comfort of Stafford House. Cole has the audience close to tears in the final part of her affecting monologue as she says “Never mind. It's done with now. Anyhow.”

Talking Heads runs at Theatre Royal Nottingham until Saturday 5^th September.

Originally reviewed 1st September 2015 at Theatre Royal Nottingham for The Public Reviews.

 

Review of Company by KW Productions at Leicester Little Theatre

On a transfer from Leicester's bijou Upstairs At The Western venue KW Productions take a second shot at their production of Stephen Sondheim's musical masterpiece Company. The Little Theatre Leicester venue allows for slightly more breathing space and an opportunity for the KW performers to let their souls sing out in the Haywood Studio space. This artistically freeing move proves to be a huge success on their (second) opening night, this time at The Little Theatre.

Company, with its brilliantly brisk energetic score and sophisticated wit, is largely regarded as a trail blazer of the modern concept musical genre and has been the winner of seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Lyrics and Best Book. In 1995 the musical was revised and amongst other changes it was decided to drop the dance number “Tick Tock”. In 2007 the show was named Best Musical of the Year by New York Magazine for a production directed by John Doyle and starring Raúl Esparza as Robert. In this production the performers not only sang, danced and acted but also played the instruments as part of the show.

Updating the original 1970s concept of the story of fractured relationships to include a modern young lesbian couple and humorous acknowledgement of the current trend towards selfies the KW version of Company proves as relevant today as it did when Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's piece was first aired. Leigh White directs this simply staged and classy production of Company. It is a funny, sophisticated, exploration of love and commitment seen through the eyes of 35 year old charming perpetual bachelor Robert and KW Productions do it proud.

Robert (Keiran Whelan) is about to celebrate his 35^th birthday and all his friends rally round to give him a surprise birthday party. In this way we are introduced to all of Robert's (Bobby's) friends in the pulsating opening number “Company”. The KW rendition is sung with clarity and gusto by Robert and all the fourteen strong cast. Whelan as central character Robert does an exemplary job of holding the whole show together and has a fine singing voice and first rate American accent that is held nicely in check throughout.

Gradually throughout the first and second act we meet all of Robert's friends be they married or single. The highlights of this show's first act are the classy renditions of the following songs for both their witty and poignant aspects; “The Little Things We Do Together”, “Sorry-Grateful”, “Have I Got A Girl For You”, “Someone Is Waiting”, “Another Hundred People”, “Getting Married Today” and “Marry Me A Little”. There is not a weak link amongst the whole strong ensemble with professional standards throughout the piece.

The highlights of the first half are the cleverly put together staging of “Another Hundred People” and Amy's (Victoria Price) comically frantic “Getting Married Today”. Plus, Whelan and Nikky Leigh Brooks as Harriet add a whole depth of tenderness to the song “Sorry-Grateful” that is usually begun by the two male characters Robert and Harry.

As we reach the second act Robert and the company open with a rousing and inventive “Side by Side by Side” and “What Would We Do Without You”. As the piece takes on a more sombre tone the bitterness of some relationships takes over after the comical yet poignant number “Barcelona” between Robert and April (Liz Kavanagh). Kavanagh has a great talent for understated comic acting and is delightful as air hostess April. One of the highlights of any production of Company is the older character Joanne belting out “The Ladies Who Lunch”. This is a song with less of a smile and a whole lot of savage bile and Karen Gordon does a fantastic note perfect job of putting it over.

Optimism is the key to the ending of Sondheim's bitter sweet musical look at the complexity of relationships and both Robert and the company complete the evening with a stirring rendition of “Being Alive!” And that's what it's really about. Isn't it?

Directed by and live musical accompaniment by Leigh White - Company runs at Little Theatre Leicester from 2^nd to 5^th September.

Photographic credits and copyright Sally Evans.

Review. Jeykll and Hyde, Theatre Royal Nottingham

Nottingham Theatre Royal's annual Colin McKintyre Classic Thriller Season which comprises of four thrillers played, as in rep, over four weeks is a very much anticipated part of the Nottingham theatre calendar. This year they present Jekyll and Hyde, Night must Fall, Suddenly at Home and Stage Struck and all the plays are performed by the TABS Production cast over the month of August.

Their season begins with Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde adapted for the stage and directed by Nicholas Briggs. Brigg's adaptation stays true to the original, although edited for theatrical brevity, it keeps, within the story-telling, to a lesser degree of locations.

For this reviewer the confused set design by Geoff Gilder is too much at visual odds with the Victorian melodramatic story. Only the central door of Dr Jekyll's house is in period leaving the rest of the stage to be dressed in incongruous criss-cross wire flats that, except for being draped in swathes of red cloth, would have suited West Side Story best.

The atmospheric lighting by Michael Donoghue helps to create various moods effectively and the music, composed, selected and arranged by Nicholas Briggs equally so - albeit with a little over reliance on the drama being punctuated repeatedly with short blasts of 'revelation' music.

On the whole, the gothic story of Jeykll and Hyde, is well acted by the TABS cast and the style keeps within the boundaries of what a modern audience would respond to in the form of melodramatic theatre. In fact the 2015 Nottingham Theatre Royal audience are not so far removed from their Victorian ancestors with the seriousness in which they take the moral story-telling. No tittering in the third row here, no even as Andrew Fettes occasionally hams it up beautifully as the evil Mr Edward Hyde.

There are some believable solid performances throughout especially from Susan Earnshaw as the concerned house keeper, Mrs Poole. Earnshaw brings a motherly sincerity to her part that a man in the role of the novella's original Mr Poole the butler wouldn't have. The choice to have a Mrs Poole also redresses the balance of the sexes in a very male populated play.

Anna Mitcham shows her versatility throughout this piece, one minute being killed off and the next popping up again in the mixed roles of servant girl Maisy, the dubiously moral Paterson, and the maid to Dr Lanyon.

Andrew Ryan is quietly compelling as, Mr Gabriel Utterson, lawyer and friend to Dr Jeykll and quite unrecognisable from his previous appearances at this theatre as pantomime dame! Robert Laughlin is perfect as a large bearded Dr Henry Jekyll and shows just right amount of concern over his mental and physical state as the tortured doctor. In a scene that could have been risible he refrains from being unintentionally comical as he twists and turns in agony in the transformation scene.

A character that could be allowed to employ a little humour into the proceedings is the canny Scotland Yard police inspector – Inspector Newcomen – given an highly enjoyable and slightly sarcastic performance here by David Gilbrook. From his programme résumé Gilbrook seems to have been cast as a police inspector on many theatrical occasions. His wry performance is one of the highlights of the show.

One wouldn't truthfully call this production of Jekyll and Hyde particularly scary or even overly thrilling. However, on the plus side the action moves quickly from location to location and the acting standards overall are good and the gothic story entertains. For the rest of the season we have the thrillers from the pens of Emlyn Williams, Frances Durbridge and Simon Gray to look forward to. Jekyll and Hyde runs until 8^th August.

Review originally published on August 4th by The Public Reviews