Review The Comedy About A Bank Robbery

The Comedy About A Bank Robbery

By Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Sbields

Diamond Geezers

https://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/

TLT and her own little getaway car broke into the Criterion Theatre to see the latest offering of Mischief Theatre which previously scored a big success with The Play That Goes Wrong, still running, and Peter Pan Goes Wrong, poised to return to the West End.

We have to admit, even if it blots our copybook as theatrical know-it-alls, that we haven't seen either of these, so it was with a hopeful heart and an open mind we entered the parallel universe of Mischief Theatre.

And you really, really can't complain that this is show that doesn't do what it says on the tin with a title like The Comedy About A Bank Robbery. :)

For this play, the writing trio of Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields have decided to locate the action in 1958 Minneapolis (real-life home of the Artist,now sadly, formerly known as Prince, the Coen Brothers and Bob Dylan). 

Eventually.

Because the action starts off with thieves in a Canadian prison  - well, actually a corporate effort by prison guards and prisoners -  determining to steal a diamond belonging to a Hungarian Prince visiting the local bigwigs. Quite what a prince is doing representing Communist Hungary is never quite elucidated, but hey ... :)

Meanwhile the widowed bank manager (Henry Lewis) and the world oldest intern  - not sure again if there were banking interns in 1958, rather medical and political ones, but hey ...;) - Warren (Jonathan Sayer)  are being regular duped by his daughter Caprice (female Charlie Russell),.

And the cashier Ruth (Nancy Wallinger) has a minor criminal for a son (Dave Hearn) who just happens to know one of the criminals and is lured into the heist. And so on and so on.

Directed by Mark Bell on a cooperative basis with the Mischief Theatre company, the premise seems to be a homage - exactly what that means is explained in the programme - to heist movies with a few recognizable types thrown in for good measure - for example Mitch Ruscitti (Henry Shields) is a Brandoesque bad boy.  

Ever since the success of Richard Bean's adaptation of Goldoni's Servant Of Two Masters as One Man Two Guvnors, it seems to us that a new genre has developed of the sketch show play.

But One Man Two Guvnors had a solid plot, albeit filled with variety turns. The Comedy About  A Bank Robbery struck TLT and her cohort in crime as plot almost entirely overtaken by random gags and sketches.

So we guess it's a Marmite experience and the audience member is either going to buy into this stuff as zany and laughter-inducing or find it a wearying parade of jokes being milked until, some might say, they curdle.

There's a supermarionation feel to some of the characters - that's a style not a criticism - and, again, you either take to it or you don't. The set design by David Farley is slick, sliding from a Canadian jail via a car journey to the bank offices to a bedroom to the bank vault.

The show took off far more for us in the second act with the heist itself as the would-be heisters (is there such a word?!) clamber for the hot rock as they are lowered into the bank.

All in all, it was a mixed swag bag for we fun-loving criminals. The Comedy About A Bank Robbery  may have benefited fro some heavy cutting. Still, it scrapes through into an amber light and it's up to you whether it sounds like a "Wanted" experience or you prefer to avoid the crime scene.

Review Close To You. Bacharach Reimagined

Close To You. Bacharach Reimagined

Music Burt Bacharach and Lyrics Hal David

Co-conceived by Kyle Riabko and David Lane Seltzer 

The Old Music Master Remastered

http://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/site/crit/templates/general.aspx?pageid=128&cc=gb

The age of downloads has led to an inter-generational appreciation and study of great song writing as never before.   It's also probably led to the popularity of a show like "Close To You", with  twentieth first century arrangements of mid twentieth century classics by octogenarian Burt Bacharach and the late Hal David.

  

Starting with a spotlight solo "Anyone Who Had A Heart" with Canadian Kyle Riabko  on guitar followed by "This Guy" and the first of a recurring refrain of "What's It All about" (from Alfie), the show follows musical themes and patterns rather than an instantly recognisable musical theatre narrative. Whole songs are embedded with slivers of others,  giving a seamless sonata quality to the musical medley expertly choreographed by director Steven Hoggett.

And, with Burt Bacharach present on press night, maybe one can say there is an outside narrative - real life merging with theatre. Emerging from a demo session when he played new material by the  composer, the show is the brainchild of twenty something Riabko alongside David Lane Seltzer with the old masters, Bacharach and David (before his death), giving their blessing.  Once such protegé back stories were away from public gaze, now it's part of the marketing of the show. 

The talented seven-strong cast play instruments varying from guitar to percussion (ah, rhythm is all!) to piano to ukele to double bass (and maybe shades of an electric organ?). 

While artistes as diverse as Johnny Mathis, Dionne Warwick, Cilla Black, the Carpenters, Whitney Houston, Tom Jones, Sammy Davis Jr have interpreted the songs of Bacharach, David and  collaborators, the septet work to bring fresh rock, funk, soul, rhythm and blues, reggae sounds to the thirty three songs in the show.   

Hits such as What The World Needs Now Is Love, Walk On By, This Guy's In Love With You and many more. 

In some ways a musical equivalent of sitcom Friends with Riabko at its centre, the show plunges the cast into an impromptu jam session in a kooky boho apartment. Walls are clad with a higgledy piggledy of  musical instruments, a turntable, even sofas,  suspended above a patchwork of carpet, rugs, chairs, speakers and lamps.  And joining in the cosy façade created by designers Christine Jones and Brett Banakis with lighting by Tim Lutkin, some audience members sit on squashy sofas on either side of the stage. 

Inevitably for anyone of a certain age, affecting, nuanced recordings have already colonised the mind. Yet the show's aim is Bacharach reimagined in a style for a twenty first century global audience - the generation of mass musical education, easily accessible downloads of song archives, of Glee,  X-Factor and The Voice. In that it has proved already in New York and an earlier run in at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London under the moniker "What's It All About?" very successful. 

And is there more of an affective patchworked narrative within the musical clichés? Or at least a colouring of  music history as the business changes tack from  solo artiste interpreting the songwriter to the rise of singer songwriter, personified in Riabko's vocals with acoustic guitar, then of the group, natural or manufactured. 

Maybe tinges of a "Merrily We Roll Along" story and even the show's publicity image with an almost ironic twist,  reflecting the psyche of music besotted generations:  the image of the magnificently talented ethereal James-Dean like solo singer, eyes on musical heaven, but still a babe magnet. 

The singers - at first free-moving atoms across the stage - become like rotating figures contractually glued (letters received and torn up) on a turntable, singing however joyously and  beautifully.  

The slivers of story give way to more of a concert second act, a slick and mature rendering of hits echoing the first act but also reflecting organically the amalgam of current musical influences.

The versatile technically brilliant cast all shine, though the featured vocalists naturally (like the music business itself) are the pin ups one takes home. Riabko's folksy solos and rock leads,  Anastacia McCleskey's "Don't Make Me Over",  James Williams' percussion moving rightfully at times centre stage, Stephanie McKeon, Daniel Bailen, Greg Coulson along with Renato Paris's vaulting vocals.

Yet this is way too analytical! Give yourself up to the music and your own non-copyrightable musical nervous system, shaped by a century or so of American recorded music,  and life will shape its own narrative. A superior hall of musical mirrors, the change from "What's It All About?" to "Close To You",  gets a green light from TLT. 

PS Video of Burt and the cast outside the Criterion in Piccadilly Circus - for once it wasn't raining in London for Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head! Ah memories of those heady pre-video and internet days when TLT queued (yes, queued!) to see Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid at her local fleapit, even if she later abandoned her bike for the engine beneath her theatregoing wings ... :)