Review The Last Five Years

The Last Five Years
by Jason Robert Brown

A Final Chapter
https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

The Last Five Years is a gauzy ribboned confection with a bitter pill underneath the wrapping. This two-hander charting the coupledom of novelist Jamie (Jonathan Bailey) and actress Cathy (Samantha Barks), an almost totally sung-through American musical, first performed in 2001, after an intial stumble has become a worldwide success.

It's a piece for a post-war generation - that is post Vietnam War and the many conflicts since then, all boiled down to the short-lived marriage of writer and aspiring actress in New York whose lives and careers are structurally opposed within the piece.

In some ways, this is a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, with the death of love rather than the lovers and an unintended career war between an agented published writer and a performer still on the audition roundabout. A portion of each of the couple's souls are sliced, diced and wither by the undoubted success of Jewish author Jamie and the relative career failure of Irish Catholic Cathy. 

Directed by the composer Jason Robert-Brown, the scenery is minimal. With musicians led by musical director Torquil Munroe on scaffolding above, loft apartment brickwork slide open to bring forward a desk, a door, at one instance a boat and nicely understated use of video footage (Jeff Sugg).

Samantha Barks brings heartrending and humorous soaring vocals to the role of Cathy. She's well-matched by Jonathan Bailey's Jamie whose initial infectious charm and over-confidence hardens into darker ambition and infidelity. 

Like Harold Pinter's Betrayal and Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Merrily We Roll Along  (the song Moving Too Fast perhaps has an oblique reference to the latter), we're given a rewind, as well as a play forward, of the romance and rupture.

Cathy is the musical's catalyst. The first song is her realisation Jamie her husband has left her, Still Hurting, "Jamie decides it’s his right to decide/Jamie’s got secrets he doesn’t confide/ And I’m still hurting.” Her story runs backwards to the dawn of love when life seemed far more straightforward.

From the first, despite the beauty of the songs in a range of styles,  there's sour with the sweet. Principally it's Jamie, whose story runs in chronological order, who is allowed to inscribe his version to the outside world. Even if it is Cathy who catches the complexity of tone at the beginning, realising how lies and authorship interact and now characterise her life.

For throughout the relationship, it is male writer Jamie telling female actress Cathy who she is. From the simple  crassness where, nevertheless, his energy provides wit, of Shiksa Goddess  "I'd say, 'Hey! Hey! Shiksa goddess!/I've been waiting for someone like.../You, breaking the circle/You, taking the light/You, you are the story/I should write/I have to write!'.

Jamie even assumes the garb of secular rabbidom (there are sly glimpses of Fiddler On The Roof in the musical arrangements and staging) combined with a fairy storyteller in Tbe Schmeul Song.

There he spins a Danny Kaye/Sylvia Fine-type yarn (although the song sweetly stands on its two feet without knowing that) by the light of a fully decked-out Christmas tree, apparently instructing Cathy what she should do to succeed.

The couple only come together musically on stage in a marriage duet "The Next 10 minutes" on a Central Park boating lake where the moment after there's a touch of The Lady Of Shalott drifting off to Camelot as Cathy is sent off in the boat alone.

At the same time Jamie's "If I Didn't Believe" just misses crossing with Cathy's disappointment with her audition in "Climbing Uphill" and marks the point when his glib career-politicking and domestic life merge, as he distances himself from her and what he sees as failure.

The tale of the one left behind is not of course original: A Star Is Born being a prime example. But this piece juxtaposes and sets at odds two separate but not unrelated professions, author and performer.

Maybe the individual stories are not always a tight metaphorical fit but there is more than enough wit and romance in the one-act 90-minute score and book for performers to scoop up and make them their own without the audience having to worry about that.  It's a green light for a tender, bittersweet intimate tale of love and betrayal with a steely core at its centre. 

Review Twist Of Lemmon

Twist Of Lemmon

Chris Lemmon

Sentimental Journey

https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/

Who'd be the child of the first divorced wife of a beloved Hollywood screen legend? Well, Chris Lemmon, son of Jack of Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and Missing fame, is that child.  And this one-man show, named after an album recorded by his piano-playing Dad, is a gently paced memoir of his father's life.

f you have to ask, "Who?" - well, this is a show to please fans of a certain age and suckers for old Hollywood (TLT couldn't possibly comment as to whether she is one of them ;)). But your reviewer as a mere stripling theatregoer did manage to see Jack Lemmon in  two West-End plays, Veterans Day and Long Day's Journey Into Night. 

Although one of the points of the show may be that Christopher Lemmon would be happy to have those who don't know the work of Jack Lemmon to be in the audience. For him to be accepted as Chris Lemmon, a person in his own right, introducing newbies to a story about human beings and families caught up in, torn apart by, and sometimes reconciling within the Hollywood machine.

This is a very bookish narration (indeed its genesis was in a 2006 book) spliced with Chris, as his father, piano playing, singing standards with double-edged lyrics reflecting, albeit gently, on the Hollywood set up and taking on his father's stammer and nervous energy, as well as bringing to life his fellow celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Walter Matthau. 

And there's no doubting, even without words, the look of  the almond eyes, the fleeting impish expression and talent for show business, is part of the Lemmon legacy, not only from his father Jack but also, we learn, his flamboyant poker-playing grandmother Gigi. 

Still, the  darker strands do emerge, like shards of original sin inflicted on the innocent, especially nearer the end of a gently-paced show running a tad over two hours. Yet the piece is deceptively carefully structured under a seemingly meandering river of music, narration, impersonation, photos and movie clips (video designer Simon Clarke).   

For Twist of Lemmon directed, by Hugh Wooldridge with design by Simon Wells, is a curious show for the terminally curious about Hollywood, so gently spiked you have to work a little to put together the darker strands. 

Nevertheless the consequences of a Tinsel Town star's life is its own version of JFK's Camelot  and, while there can only be one president after winning an election, as Chris brings across,  the competition between and playing off of movie stars is endless and all-consuming.  

Competition which even extends to father and son, although as with Hollywood story arcs, the son winning out, even at  Jack Lemmon's cherished golf club, is finally accepted and a source of pride for his father. 

Like Jack Lemmon, a talented musician whose piano player career was cut short by Hollywood stardom, his son Chris can more than tinkle the ivories. A photo of studious father and toddler son playing the same piano gives the sentiment, more than a thousand words, of sharing a musical nervous system, as well as a father-son bond. 

But there was also the separation, both physically   - after the divorce of mother Cynthia who started off in radio with Jack - and mentally,  as second generation Hollywood Chris is a classically trained musician, having had the opportunity to do degrees in music and acting. 

It's almost a performance by Chris Lemmon which lulls one into a false sense of security. Only when we examined afterwards the stark facts of the story which emerged, we realized those ripples in the water with the star at the centre were tidal waves inflicted on spouse and child. 

So we come - gently - to the end of our review. We found it interesting if a little lengthy. The chief attraction is the one degree of separation from an old-time movie superstar, while also making one reflect on unnatural pressures which would tear asunder any family.  

But at the same time it's maybe as much an end of the pier show (and Jack Lemmon was much influenced by French cinema and mime), with political, global and digital interests shiftng, breaking the old sureties,  marking the end of yet another era in Hollywood. 

Beneath the laughter and tears, there is some acid in this niche Lemmon show which gets an amber//green light from TLT and her horsepowered caddy.

Review Sideways

Sideways

by Rex Pickett

Through The Grapevine

https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/

It's tough for Miles. He's a would-be novelist with a sheaf of rejection letters and more in the post. That's a failed novelist with rejection letters and a failed marriage behind him. 

Oh yes, a failed novelist with a failed marriage, popping prescription drugs. With (failed) actor Jack as a mate. That's Jack who has made a foray into voiceovers and TV directing but now has settled for a forthcoming marriage to a fiancee with a trust fund.

Oh but we mustn't forget Miles's passion for the wines of California and his stock of bottles filled with the most exquisite vintages he can afford.

In 2004 the Sideways movie, adapted from Rex Pickett's semi-autobiographical novel and directed by Alexander Payne, was a hit movie with numerous awards, even affecting wine sales according to Miles's likes and dislikes. 

Now Pickett has adapted his novel into a stage play directed by David Grindley which, of course, we should take on its own play-tasting terms but somehow can't forget savouring the fragile 2004 movie vintage.

The movie, full of lush Californian landscapes and a gently humorous entrée into esoteric world of wine tasting, followed the two pals on their road trip through Califonian wine country, Miles seeking more wines to savour and Jack seeking - Jack seeking, well, to get laid before his wedding.

 
The play is well enough acted by Daniel Weyman as yearning and eager-to-impress Miles, while Simon Harrison takes on the role of Jack. 

But it loses the visual contrast of the film's characters. the feeling of a novelist and actor "in plain clothes" and frenzied recompense sought in wine tasting and womanizing..

Despite the clunky scene changes, (and with our special interest TLT and her own London cadillac are always ready to go on the road with a play! ;)), we were slightly more drawn in when we realised designer Laura Hopkins's scenery flats were, in fact, book covers.

However this delicate and very clever touch was a little obscured in the blunt instrument of the play. The bare bones script, although laced with some wit, becomes ponderous stripped of the chance to delve into the Californian landscapes, sunsets and manicured vineyards.

Emotional turning points never develop into exquisitely fruity consequences until perhaps the last quarter of the play when a harder-edged humour, tearing us away from the movie, makes its mark, relating fluently with the book cover scenery and novelist success fantasy of a middle-aged man.

But youngsters may wonder why Miles doesn't self-publish and how come hot waitress Maya (Ellie Piercy) and tasting room manager Terra (Beth Cordingly), who must come across any number of pretentious fakes, would not be more suspicious of Jack and Miles.

A two-act play, this felt a tad bloated and might well have worked better as a quicker paced  shorter piece where cash transactions, the tricksy relationship between writer and actor - and literature and viticulture  - might have made for something more full-bodied. 

Anyway, using up our quota of wine puns,  it's a mellow amber light for a volatile piece with some crisper moments.

Review My Mother Said I Never Should

We at Trafficlighttheatregoer Towers are pleased to welcome Francis Beckett, author, journalist, playwright, contemporary historian - and now guest reviewer on trafficlighttheatregoer.com :) Find out more about the newest addition to our team at http://www.francisbeckett.co.uk/

My Mother Said I Never Should

By Charlotte Keatley

A Woman's Century

http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/

Four generations of women, the eldest a baby before the First World War and the youngest starting life almost three-quarters of a century later. Each does the best she can for her daughter and herself  - within the limitations imposed on them by the society into which they are born.

This beautifully-observed and carefully-researched piece records, without comment, the decisions they make. Decisions which sometimes appear incomprehensible only a few years later, yet at the time they seem like the only responsible paths to follow.

Despite earnest attempts in the programme to bill My Mother Said I Never Should as a worthy feminist piece, the play, set in Manchester, Oldham and London, is far more interesting. As much an account of a changing yet still cruel society by a woman playwright who understands that inequality and unfairness, while certainly penalizing and punishing women, punishes men too.

Written more than 30 years ago in 1985 when Charlotte Keatley was just 25, it still comes alive as if fresh-minted with the magnificent performances at the St James Theatre in Victoria.

There’s the always wonderful Maureen Lipman as Doris – no one in the world does a cantankerous mother better. Alongside her, Katie Brayben as granddaughter Jackie, Caroline Faber as Jackie's mother Margaret and Serena Manteghi's great granddaughter Rosie. All young performers who match Lipman's presence and professionalism.

It’s a testing play for actors who must age purely physically, as any gap is too short to allow for the application of make up. Yet the audience easily recognizes when, for example, Katie Brayben's Jackie is four, 14 or 40 years old before she even opens her mouth.

It may not be a perfect play, nor for that matter a perfect production. At the start, director Paul Robinson introduces some abstruse movement and stamping of feet which made me fear that the evening was going to sink under the weight of mysterious symbolism. 

Occasionally the odd line is a little too deliberately trying to be a tearjerker – “You’ll never call me Mummy,” cries Jackie as she hands over her baby.

But at these moments, the production always manages to recover its equilibrium quickly and this absorbing, sometimes very funny, evening in the theatre easily earns a green light.

Review Miss Atomic Bomb

Miss Atomic Bomb

by Adam Long, Gabriel Vick and Alex Jackson-Long

Having A Blast

https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/ 

It's a great strange story for a musical - or a play or a movie. During the 1950s' Cold War, Las Vegas and the state of Nevada turned atomic bomb testing into a commercial golden goose. 

Before the public knew the dangers of radiation fallout, tourists flocked not only to gamble but also to grandstand the nuclear mushroom clouds. And the burghers of Las Vegas invented a beauty pageant< Miss Atomic, roping in radiant (geddit?!) Las Vegas showgirls photographed in a fetching range of A-bomb inspired swimwear. 

A strong story - and TLT and her atomically charged little motor thought they could detect a  visceral and more complex history lurking beneath the muddled but slickly-performed piece that is Miss Atomic Bomb.

The story of this new musical from Adam Long (also co-director), composer Gabriel Vick and Alex Jackson-Long is roughly (very rough) this (deep breath):

Farm girl Candy (a hillbilly country and western  Florence Andrews, Dolly Parton with a touch of Doris Day) from Utah but a Californian wannabe, threatened with losing her trailer home to bank administrator Mr Potts (Daniel Boys in suited and booted evil form) after her grandmomma's death, is persuaded by small-town sophisticate chain-smoking best friend fashion designer Myrna (Catherine Tate) to compete for Miss Atomic Bomb prize money to clear the mortgage.

Meanwhile  Joey Lubowitz (soon-to-be Aladdin Dean John-Wilson), conscripted during the Korean War draft, goes AWOL and deserts the army in the desert (no, that's not a line from a song but a TLT excruciating pun!), running away to Las Vegas. Where his brother Lou (Simon Lipkin making the most of his role) runs a hotel but is threatened by Brooklyn mobsters. 

And a  mad professor (Stephane Anelli in fine animation adversary fettle) with his own secrets  is also paperclipped on to the plot. 

Between the foreclosure on the trailer and the crowning of the new Miss Atomic Bomb, there's a series of skits and turns involving the army, the showgirls - and a Hasidic rabbi disguise. Because Lou meant to order in a rabbit costume for Easter but instead ... Yeah, one joke which maybe should have been passed over ... 

Adam Long is, according to Wikipedia, a founding member of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and it does feel like a homage gallop through various musicals, plays, styles and issues instead of trusting to the strength of the real story and growing the themes from that tale. 

So, to take a more obscure example, we thought we got a hint of the first musical version of a Bernard Shaw play, The Chocolate Soldier, adapted from Arms And The Man, but the fleeing soldier is given a different label of ... well, we won't spoil the gag but a vegetable without rhyme or reason is involved.

There are also references to or pastiches of the opus of Jerry Herman, Babe the sheep-pig, Priscilla Desert Queen (mind you, Australia has its own nuclear test scandal), The Producers, Gypsy and maybe Calamity Jane, the play Angels In America, Dr Strangelove, The Desert Song  and Beautiful. 

In a small fringe venue or at the Edinburgh Festival,, this cartoonish revue could have been a hit but marketed as a bankable fully fledged musical, it doesn't feel at ease. Still it's never boring. There's serviceable hoofing (choreography by co-director Bill Deamer) and a few of the songs have wit in both form and content.

And, above all, there's a classy cast of performers who give their all with nuclear gusto. 

The projections from Jack Henry James transform the production with desert vistas. A harder edged and more intriguing story does occasionally peep through as when the showgirls come pageant contestants plaster on the smiles and belt out "vote for me".   

So with a green for the performances and red/amber for the story, it just about scrapes through into a glowing radioactive amber light.

Oh, and if anyone knows the whereabouts of the real 1952 Miss Atomic Bomb, Lee Merlin, as photographed by Las Vegas snapper Don English, there are people who really wanna know with a possible movie in the offing ....

Review Around The World In 80 Days

Around The World In 80 Days

By Laura Eason 

Odds On London Fogg  
https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/

Before the internet put a girdle round the world in nano-seconds, TLT and her own Passepartout automobile recalls David Niven and Shirley MacLaine  on the telly floating in the basket of a hot air balloon in the 1956 movie.

It seems curious and remains unanswered in any way by this play, why a Frenchman Jules Verne would write a book about English gent Phileas Fogg with a British Empire Bank of England featuring majorly in the background.  However now American playwright Laura Eason  has adapted Verne's 1873 episodic adventure story Around The World In 80 Days into a tongue-in-cheek play directed by Lucy Bailey.

Phileas Fogg (a suitably phlegmatic Robert Portal), a London gentleman of mysterious independent means who lives a life of  mathematical precision attended by recently recruited French valet Jean Passepartout (an engaging Simon Gregor), accepts a £20,000 bet from his Reform Club whist pals.

Namely that he can travel the world in 80 days by rail and steamer clutching his copy of Bradshaw's Guide  - the world tending to mean the dominions of the then British Empire apart from the breakaway USA

But with any good book, it turns out what sounds most topical is in the original Jules Verne's novel : the Bank of England robbery, the gas left burning, the incompetence of Inspector Fix (Tony Gardner playing it with a touch of One Man Two Governors)  chasing the wrong man with his warrant.

While adventures rather than deep characterisation dominate the book, it remains a stonking story harnessing 19th century fascination with travel, Empire and exploration with a touch of the later Sherlock Holmes and an attempted nemesis in Fix who believes Fogg to be a gentleman thief.

This cheery pantomine-like version held the attention of the youngsters in the audience. A detailed set by Anna Fleischle adapts well enough to above ship and round-the-world locations while below deck the show starts with live piano playing.  The rest of the eight strong cast including Liz Sutherland and Eben Figueiredo inhabit a range of roles with a breezy comic competence.

Enjoyable but not perfect. The saloon style piano player features in the first few minutes but never appears again. and with the feel of a children's show, it did make TLT and her companion wonder whether the play could work just as well with an unadorned stage while keeping the ingenious props.

The grumpy old men in the Reform Club, an elephant ride led by Lena Kaur as the pachyderm's keeper, a  Hong Kong opium den and a turn by Tim Steed as an American colonel stick in the mind. But, the first act particularly sometimes felt less than varied in staging and pace once the initial character traits of the lead characters were established.

Still the testosterone-fuelled events are suitably softened with the rescue of widow Mrs Aouda (a graceful Shanyana  Rafaat) from the funeral pyre and Gregor's Passepartout enlivens proceedings in the second act when the actors break out of the fourth wall.

So it's another 80 days to add to the canon: A 1946 Orson Welles/Cole Porter flop (:o!!!) musical; a foxy 1972 Australian animation series; a 1984 mini series with Piers Brosnan and then Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan in a very loose adaptation.  All preceded by a 1919 silent German film Die Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen.  

This skittish adaptation has plenty of playfulness, even explaining with the lightest of touches the lack of a hot air balloon. Yet it felt as if it could have explored more the impetus behind the book, threading in its literary allusions and social background. All this may have lent more variety to its staging to match the energy of the acting ensemble. An amber light.