BREVIEW: Peter Pan @ Birmingham REP – running until 19.01.20

Words by Vix & Ruby-Lou / Pics by Johan Persson

The opening scene of Birmingahm REP’s new production of Peter Pan, ‘reimagined’ by Liam Steel and Georgia Christou, is set outside a dull and depressingly grey concrete apartment block, where adults and youths collide and tensions run high.

Wendy (Cora Tsang) plays an angsty teenager in foster care, with major trust and abandonment issues, who ‘mothers’ her foster brothers and has clearly lost all concept of her own carefree youthfulness.

Nia Gwynne plays Jess, the children’s patient foster mother – and later a fabulously female Hook, scared of nothing; nothing but the crocodile’s ticking clock.

We are soon transported to a fantastical urban underworld; imagine Peter Pan being given the Mad Max treatment, but with way more vibrant, clashing colour. The crew kick it with a rap-rock track and we can feel their energy. Ruby-Lou turns to me wide-eyed, “Mummy! This is brilliant!” I agree. The whole ‘Post-Apocalyptic Day-glo Steampunk’ vibe is a visual delight.

Lawrence Walker is an amiable Peter Pan, staying true to the iconic character, whilst Tinkerbell (Mirabelle Gremaud) is a feisty, foul-mouthed fairy. Let me clarify, when I say ‘foul-mouthed’, the worse it gets is her calling anyone and everyone a “silly ass”. Ruby-Lou is quite shocked (I’m pleased and proud to say) exclaiming: “Tinkerbell is my favourite, but why does she keep saying that?!”

Thankfully, my 9 year old daughter totally understands when I explain Tink is angry, unhappy, and doesn’t have anyone to tell her what’s right and wrong etc – one of the intended morals of the play. Plus, Tink flies about wearing a spacetastic silver tinsel and glitter outfit which is great fun to watch (I’m sure I wore something very similar with Fuzzbox on John Peel stage at Glastonbury back in ’86!).

Needless to say, REP’s new production of Peter Pan is right up our street – following the parallel universes and the deeper parallel meanings, and for me relating to my own experience running Community projects with LAC (Looked After Children) and Foster Families.

Moreover, as a proud Brummie born and bred, I am delighted to hear local accents (far more authentic than in Peaky Blinders, I might add) in a new take on a literary classic that has been adapted ‘specifically for Birmingham audiences.’ Thank you for the positive promo Birmingham REP.

I ask Ruby-Lou her thoughts and she exclaims that this is “the best show ever! The actors, the scenery changes, the songs, the costumes…!” We unanimously give Peter Pan a big fat 10 out of 10 – this imaginative reimagining by Liam Steel and Georgia Christou is everything it promises to be, and then some.

On stage at the Birmingham REP well into the New Year, there is still a chance for many more people to catch this wonderfully creative and contemporary take on a classic festive fave. Peter Pan runs until 19th Jan, so book your tickets now and let a little magic in. The clock inside that pesky croc is not the only one ticking down…

Vix & Ruby-Lou’s Live Vlog Review – Peter Pan @ Birmingham REP

A special season’s greeting from Vix & Ruby-Lou

Peter Pan runs at the Birmingham REP until 19th January 2020 – adapted by Liam Steel and Georgia Christou. For direct show information, including a full production schedule and links to online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/peter-pan

For more on the Birmingham REP, including venue details and further listings, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here.

If you have been affected by any of the issues surrounding sexual violence – or if you want to report an act of sexual aggression, abuse or assault – click here for information via the ‘Help & Support’ page on the NOT NORMAL NOT OK website.

BPREVIEW: Peter Pan @ Birmingham REP – running until 19.01.20

Words by Ed King / Pics by Johan Persson

Running throughout Christmas and up to 19th January 2020, a new production of Peter Pan comes to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre – offering a “brand new re-imagined version” of the J.M Barrie classic, one that has been adapted “specifically for Birmingham audiences.”

A production that is accessible for both children (aged 7 plus) and adults, and those that sit resolute between the two, tickets for Peter Pan range from £15 – £39.50 – depending on date/time of the show and seating position within the theatre.

For more direct information, including the full production schedule and links to online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/peter-pan

**Peter Pan will be presenting a relaxed matinee performance on Sunday 5th January 2020, at 2:15pm – with a special evening show interpreted by British sign language on Tuesday 7th January 2020, at 7:15pm. Click here for more details.**

There is the old adage, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. And Peter Pan is a classic. But Liam Steel and Georgia Christou are unperturbed, taking the J.M. Barrie fairy tale from the tight lipped turn of the century and dragging it into modernity – replacing London’s ‘seen and not heard’ cast of children with the yute and yoofs of millennial Birmingham. The characters have been shaken up, gender bent, and the coy copy on the show’s press release promises ‘surprise twists in the casting.’ That and a man eating crocodile, so I guess some things are still status quo in Neverland.

But there are some pretty strong credentials at the helm of ‘Peter Pan in Birmingham’ (say it out loud), with Georgia Christou’s debut play, Yous Two, being shortlisted for a Verity Bargate Award in 2015 – paving the way for a solid portfolio on both stage and screen.

Her co-adapter and Peter Pan director, Liam Steel, also has a pretty gleaming CV across musical theatre and film – riding the success from his adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which ran with aplomb at the Birmingham REP this time last year. Well, The Guardian called it a ‘thrilling Oz of racial diversity, gender reversal and voguing androgyny… more current – and vibrant – than the MGM musical.’ Sorry Judy.

“All the beloved characters will be there,” explains Liam Steel – talking about his and Christou’s adaptation, “but we have transposed it from London 1904 to Birmingham 2019 and made the characters much more relatable and relevant for a modern day audience. For children encountering the story for the first time, I want them to feel this was how the characters were originally written, and for those who know the story well, then I want them to experience it with the joy of re-discovery, as though they are hearing it for the very first time all over again. 

With spectacular flying, incredible sets on a huge scale, ingenious puppetry, out of this world costumes and of course a giant man eating crocodile, audiences can expect to see one of the most visually spectacular Christmas shows ever to grace The REP’s stage.”

Danke schön, Herr Direktor. But there’s another old adage: ‘the first bite is with the eye’. So, here’s a sneaky peak of Steel and Christou’s Peter Pan (…in Birmingham) – courtesy of Costume Designer, Laura Jane Stanfield.

Peter Pan runs at the Birmingham REP until 19th January 2020 – adapted by Liam Steel and Georgia Christou. For direct show information, including a full production schedule and links to online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/peter-pan

For more on the Birmingham REP, including venue details and further listings, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here.

If you have been affected by any of the issues surrounding sexual violence – or if you want to report an act of sexual aggression, abuse or assault – click here for information via the ‘Help & Support’ page on the NOT NORMAL NOT OK website.

BREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome until 10.11.18

BREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome until 10.11.18

Words by Ed King / Promo pic by Matt Crokett, production pics courtesy of the Hippodrome

The Full Monty – an expression born from a Field Marshal’s penchant for a hearty English breakfast, but one that has come to signify ‘the works’. To leave nothing out; to include everything. To bare all. But etymology be damned, the Hippodrome’s audience tonight have come for a show. And flesh. Make no mistake about that.

Simon Beaufoy’s screen play was the ‘sleeper hit’ of 1997, directed by Peter Cattaneo, balancing the depression of a disenfranchised unemployed – in this case those left to rot after the closure of the Sheffield steel mills – with the repressed comedy of proud alpha males subjugating themselves for cash. Cue the probing eye of defensive superiority, comradeship, the class stratification table, feminism by proxy, male pride, and the shadows of Thatcher’s Britain. Or what’s left of it. Or what’s left of any of them. But the film’s narrative struck such a successful balance that it made Beaufoy’s script a silver screen smash. A £200million smash. And that’s hard to ignore.

The inevitable stage show was, well, inevitable. But The Full Monty, despite being an on paper paint by numbers success, has not had the easiest time on stage – with the 2013/14 production pulled by its producers, and the current 2018/19 billed as its last. Seems an odd way to milk a potential cash cow, but I’m far from being Cameron Mackintosh.

We open with a spot lit TV playing appraisals about the ‘jobs for life’ offered by Sheffield’s steel mills, an economy we now know proved to be false. The stage is set as per the inside of the now derelict steel mill where our male protagonists used to work, from crane operator to canteen staff, and continues with this backdrop until the final razzle dazzle.

Our introduction is a comedy of errors, as our central character Gaz (Gary Lucy) and the man behind the male striptease idea, is joined by Dave (Kai Owen) his jokingly henpecked best friend, as the pair try to steal some steel from their previous place of employment.BREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome until 10.11.18 Gaz’s son, Nathan, is along for the ride – bringing in an important, but somewhat under developed, subplot of parental responsibility.

The northern accents are a little think and the script a little thin, as we are reminded of the desperate times that were left in the wake of the steel mill closures of the 1980’s. For what it is, it’s delivered well – with confident performances from all characters and ages. And somebody somewhere really wants this to be ‘authentic’.

But the promise of gritty social commentary meets the humour of human endeavor, wrapped up in the comradeship of combined struggle, falls a little short. The odd scene under a neon signed ‘Job Club’ doesn’t sum up the communities ripped apart by Sir Ian MacGregor’s scythe wielding approach to the steel industry, and nor should it. Likewise, when the troubled Lomper (Joe Gill) sees his only option hanging at the end of a rope we get a well delivered run down of alternatives from Dave and Gaz – “have you thought about shooting yourself in the head?” – in a scene that makes me laugh out loud, but perhaps a little too much.

The rest of the first half moves through the plot points of a script that arguably relies on its audience already knowing its outcome, drip feeding both the idea of male stripping as a source of quick cash and the men who eventually disrobe for the grand finale – each replete with nickname, back story, and for want of a better expression their unique selling point.

There are with some noticeable steps up on stage once Gerald (Andrew Dunn) and Horse (Louis Emerick) get their teeth sunk in, and as the ensemble grows so does the camaraderie between the cast. But whilst each actor is confident throughout, and increasingly believable, the script jumps from serious to silly without allowing either side to fully breathe.

BREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome until 10.11.18Shock value is a heavy attribute too, as women wee standing up and a pantomime penis brings the interval curtain down, leaving the midway audience engaged but unchallenged. The Full Monty brochure has a double page spread on ‘The Changing Landscape – a time line of British politics’, alongside a repeated ‘back to its Sheffield roots’ mantra from the promotional rhetoric, but not too much would have been lost so far if the story was still set in Buffalo.

The second act opens with the fledgling troupe rehearing their dancing, from the fumbling first attempts to the simple stripteases that sees each actor undress. Wolf whistles and cat calls surround our poster boys in the buff, but soon enough the audience is whooping at every man on stage.

It is here that the magic of this show, the latest run of a production that has danced these steps a few times before, begins to work itself through the theatre. We care. And not just about the nakedness of the men on stage, but for the vulnerability and fight that they begin to represent. The audience ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and Gaz explains the love for his son, we applaud and laugh as Guy and Lomper address their sexuality, and we stand silent in solidarity as Dave confesses his body dysmorphia.

As we rush to the final curtain, both ours and theirs, there is – to end on an adage – a lot of love in the room. This is down to the actors, who could have been given about 20mins more dialogue to help them shape their characters but who play their cards with increasing aplomb.

And by the time we are finally given The Full Monty, the applause comes from an honest desire to see everyone on stage succeed as opposed to what’s under their hat. Birmingham’s opening night closes to a well deserved standing ovation, for a production I suspect will get better and better on as it’s final run progresses. It’s just a shame it will eventually close for good. But as the play’s premise declares many things have to, or are forced to, and who knows what we’ll see next from this very capable cast.

The Full Monty – 2018/19 UK production

The Full Monty runs at the Birmingham Hippodrome from until Saturday 10th November, For direct show information, including venue details and full online ticket sales, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/the-full-monty-2018

For more on The Full Monty 2018/19 UK production, visit www.fullmontytheplay.com 

For more from the Birmingham Hippodrome, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To sign up to NOT NORMAL – NOT OK, click here. To know more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK sticker campaign, click here.

BPREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome 05-10.11.18

BPREVIEW: The Full Monty @ Hippodrome 05-10.11.18

Words by Ed King / Promo pic by Matt Crokett, production pics courtesy of the Hippodrome

Running from Monday 5th to Saturday 10th November, The Full Monty comes to the Birmingham Hippodrome. Simon Beaufoy’s screen to stage adaptation is out on tour for the final time, playing at theatres across the UK until May 2019.

Tickets are priced from £18-92.50, depending on the day/time of performance and position in the theatre. For direct information, including venue details and full online ticket sales, click here. For full details of The Full Monty’s final UK tour, click here.

Best known for the smash ‘sleeper hit’ film, released in 1997, Simon Beaufoy’s story of Sheffield steelworkers turned striptease troupe has been a phenomenal success – the original cinematic release cost under £3million to produce, a relatively small amount for the big screen, and went on to gross around £200million in worldwide sales.

Beaufoy first adapted his screenplay for the stage back in 2012, premiering at Shefffield’s Lyceum Theatre in February the following year. The Full Monty went on to tour theatres across the UK, before being picked up and adapted for a North American audience – exchanging the Sheffield background for Buffalo in upstate New York.

Now back to its North England roots, The Full Monty is once again being toured across the UK – following the ill-fated West End run, somewhat dramatic (if you’ll excuse the pun) cancellation, and subsequent rebirth in 2014.

Gary Lucy returns as Gaz, having played the role since September 2014, and is joined by clothes removing cast members including Andrew Dunn as Gerald, Louis Emerick as Horse, Joe Gill as Lomper, Kai Owen as Dave, and James Redmond as Guy.

Fully dressed, The Full Monty also presents Liz Carney as Jean, Amy Thompson as Mandy, Bryonie Pritchard as Linda, and Keeley Fitzgerald as Sharon. Other cast members include Andrew Ashford, Stephen Donald, Alex Frost, Fraser Kelly. and Lee Toomes.

The 2018/19 production is directed by Rupert Hill, who previous played the on stage role of Guy in the 2014/15 run of The Full Monty.

Further crew credits include design by Robert Jones (National Theatre and RSC), choreography by Ian West (The Blues Brothers, The Play What I Wrote), lighting by Colin Grenfell (theatre award winner for Blackwatch) and sound by Luke Swaffield (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime).

The Full Monty – 2018/19 UK production

The Full Monty runs at the Birmingham Hippodrome from Monday 5th to Saturday 10th November, For direct show information, including venue details and full online ticket sales, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/the-full-monty-2018

For more on The Full Monty 2018/19 UK production, visit www.fullmontytheplay.com 

For more from the Birmingham Hippodrome, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com

________

NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To sign up to NOT NORMAL – NOT OK, click here. To know more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK sticker campaign, click here.

BREVIEW: Brief Encounter @ REP until 17.02.18

Brief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18

Words by Lucy Mounfield

Heading to the Birmingham REP for Kneehigh Theatre’s Brief Encounter, I pondered what might be in store. Kneehigh always produce imaginative and lively productions, where music, dance and high theatricality have all play a large part in developing the atmosphere.

946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips utilised puppetry, the carnivalesque, lindy hop, music, extensive props and costume changes to aid the story-telling, and this worked a treat: the chaotic upheaval and influx of American GIs during world war two was brought to life.

All the theatrical accouterments were used to great effect and in service of the story. However, the frenetic effects of Kneehigh productions have tended, in my opinion, to jar with romantic or serious plays. Their 2015 adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s romantic thriller Rebecca was a feast for the senses, but it left me a little cold.

Brief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18As a fan of the book, I felt that Du Maurier’s Gothic sensibilities were flattened by the silliness and high-camp of the Charleston music and the dancing during the intervals. The shanty singing built up an eerie tension as the boat containing Rebecca’s dead body was raised from the sea, and was in service to the play, yet these moments became more frequent as the play progressed and ultimately dimmed the climatic reveal at the end. And how could comedic musicality work in an adaptation of such an emotionally sincere script as Brief Encounter?

I have been an admirer of David Lean’s cinematic masterpiece Brief Encounter (and Noël Coward’s screenplay for it) since I watched it as a child. What immediately comes to my mind for me, and probably for many people, is the image of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as protagonists Laura and Alec looking deeply into one another’s eyes before they depart at a train station, seemingly never to be reunited.Brief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18 They find each other and wish for their love to continue, but outside commitments interfere. Although they do not remain together, they forever have the experience of their romance.

So, with all this in my mind, I was a little nervous. However, it is reassuring that, as you enter the theatre, director Emma Rice has referenced the original film: the space has been re-imagined as a cinema auditorium, with a screen on stage playing clips that meld with the performance, the actors slipping in and out, sometimes watching from seats at the front. Ushers show us to our seats, adding a special nostalgic touch.

Not everything seems to fit though: a glitzy curtain is drawn across the stage with a pink gel cast onto it making it seem bawdy and cabaret-like, which seemed slightly out of place for a ‘30s cinema. On stage, musicians and singers (all members of the cast) perform witty ditties from Coward’s 1930s back catalogue whilst ushers mingle with the audience. The songs work well with the cinematic stage, balancing the serendipity of love with the reality of life.

The trope of the cinema screen is a fantastic way to situate the story of Laura (Isobel Pollen), a bored housewife. Whilst she sits with Alec (Jim Sturgeon) on the front row with the audience, her husband Fred (Dean Nolan) is on the screen asking for her to return. Laura pulls away from Alec and walks onto the stage and into the screen.Brief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18 This is an effective way to prefigure her encounter with Alec at the train station and foreshadows the end of the play, perfectly pitching the balance between the stylistic elements of the piece with the poignancy of her return.

This filmic technique is used less as the performance gets going; from here on, Kneehigh’s version takes the intimate world of Laura and Alec and blows it wide open to include an ensemble cast of couples, station staff and Laura’s family and friends. Their first meeting, when Alec removes some grit from Laura’s eye, is a tender moment which, for me, was slightly marred by movement from the ensemble cast behind them.

The station scenes provide comedy, whilst courting couples contrast with the intimacy of the protagonist’s stiff emotion. Beverley Russ as Beryl stands out as the naïve café waitress who is being courted by Jos Slovick’s Stanley. These characters were superbly acted, but at times they distracted from the story of Laura and Alec; each couple had a story to tell, but this resulted in them competing for attention with (and detracting from the nuanced dialog and intimacy between) the leads.

FBrief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18or instance, the buns that Beryl and her boss Myrtle (Lucy Thackeray) bake are used in a Carry On routine wherein Beryl teases Stanley by placing a bun on each of her breasts. At their best, though, the flamboyant station staff and travelers, through their cavorting and dancing, provide a fluid physicality that juxtaposes with Laura and Alec’s reserved body-language. It is what they both cannot say and do that makes the most powerful statements.

The scene that really hits the mark is the boat scene in which the main, couple during a romantic boat ride, fall overboard. The quiet moment sees them merely undressing their wet clothes and announce to each other their love. The ensemble cast add to the atmosphere with gently singing an almost lullaby effect. However, as the scene changes the glamourous curtain comes down and Slovick sings in a cabaret rock style, Coward’s ‘I’m Mad About the Boy’. This completely contrasts with the naturalness and beauty of the early moment and is too fast paced. When Rice gets it right Brief Encounter is fantastic but all too often she intersperses fast physical dance routines that, for me, jar with the tone of the romance.

Brief Encounter @ REP running until 17.02.18Projection is used throughout to submerge us within the period; black and white images of trains, menus, ticket stubs, timetables, and so on, all flash past. Most effectively, in one scene, a calendar and pressure gauge from a train are used to symbolise Laura’s desperation to see Alec and the pressure that their affair creates. A further theme throughout Kneehigh‘s Brief Encounter is Laura’s childhood desire to swim in the Devon sea, with the projection often showing choppy coastal waves. The natural freedom with which the waves crash and roll against each other symbolises Laura’s desire to let go and fully embrace Alec. After she kisses him, Laura’s body contorts and bends to the shape of the sea, her eyes closed as if the power of his kiss has transported her back to her natural raw state.

The ending is particularly moving too, as Laura and Alec finally say goodbye only for Laura’s annoying friend Hermione (Rudd) to interfere. Laura, in a fit of desperation, runs off to a bridge where she contemplates throwing herself onto the train tracks until a train races past on a cloth projection and she collapses in a heap. The thunderous classical music played at the end, by Laura, perfectly matches her heartbreak and suggests that forever she will play music to remember Alec.

The world that is created is rather fantastical, yet the period detail does occasional err on the side of parody. For instance, a model train is used with a smoke machine to create the effect of a passing steam locomotive, which is effective yet comical. The raucous comedy and dance is highly entertaining, but it fails to capture the flawed middle-class sensibilities of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

If you love the style of previous Kneehigh productions, then you will love their adaptation of Brief Encounter, and overall it is a wondrous love story. But as an adaptation of the cinematic classic, for me, it falls a little too far from the mark.

Brief Encounter runs at the Birmingham REP until Saturday 17th February. For direct show information – including all performance times, venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/brief-encounter

For more from Kneehigh Theatre, visit www.kneehigh.co.uk

For more from the Birmingham REP, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk