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Posts Tagged ‘Damien Humbley’

Forbidden Broadway

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see a new ‘edition’ of this revue show just five years after the last one, but the reviews suggested otherwise and I have zero willpower, so off to the Menier we go.

Gerard Alessandrini’s show parodies musicals and it has been running on-and-off (but mostly on) in New York City for 32 years; now in its 19th ‘edition’. It has apparently had outings in Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore and this is the 2nd UK version. The format is the same, but the shows change. Four singers, accompanied by a pianist, solo or in combination, perform parodies of 13 shows plus a few performer profiles. Some hit the mark better than others, but they’re all fun.

In this edition, the highlight for me was that old warhorse Les Mis; it’s extraordinary how many laughs you can get from a (non-existent) revolve. Miss Saigon, The Book of Mormon and Once were also huge fun, probably because they were also amongst the most biting, and the title song of Sondheim’s Into the Woods became Into the Words, with performers charting the challenges of singing Sondheim. Of the performer parodies, there was a great song duel between Rita Moreno and Chita Riviera.

You have to know and like musicals to appreciate this show, and you also have to expect things you love to be treated mercilessly, but if you do it’s great fun. What helps here is the fact that it’s delivered by four of our finest musical performers. Damian Humbley is more than good enough to sing the lead in Les Mis, but even better parodying it. Ben Lewis is a dead ringer for Charlie’s new Willy, complete with matching costume. Anna-Jane Casey is way too good for Wicked but her parody is a hoot. Sophie-Louise Dann is an absolutely hilarious Matilda.

The Menier was a bit like a sauna and there was an unscheduled 35-minute technical break 15 minutes in, but neither could dampen the immense fun had by all. Though it’s written by an American, given that 11 of the 13 shows parodied are currently in the West End (and another recently departed), with 6 starting out here, maybe it’s time to change the show’s title?

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Putting It Together

Posted in Contemporary Music, Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

There was a time when I wasn’t interested in hearing songs from musicals performed out of context; now I can’t seem to get enough – this is the second of three evenings this month. There are five Sondheim compilation shows and this is one of the two most famous, but after it’s premiere run in Oxford 22 years ago (starring Diana Rigg, no less) it never got to the West End – well, until now. It’s been worth the wait.

It’s an unpredictable selection, with four from the film Dick Tracy, two from rarity The Frogs (which co-incidentally I will be seeing for the first time on Saturday) and numbers from the less well-known Do I Hear A Waltz? and Anyone Can Whistle and that’s actually part of its appeal. They are not just sung, they are performed by the characters for whom they were written by a quintet of seasoned musicals professionals – David Badella, Daniel Crossley, Janine Dee, Damien Humbley & Caroline Sheen. I loved the arrangements for piano, double bass, trumpet and three woodwind and they were played beautifully by an extraordinarily young band under Theo Jamieson.

As solos or in various combinations, these songs are interpreted with meaning and you savour every word of Sondheim’s incomparable lyrics. You know they’ve worked when you’re on the edge of your seat willing Janine Dee to make it through the manic Not Getting Married Today (which she does, to perfection), you’re laughing uproariously at Daniel Crossley’s hysterical take on Buddy’s Blues and Being Alive brings a tear to your eye just by being uplifting. There’s some sprightly choreography, a conceit that they’re all at a cocktail party and the only props are a chaise longue and a drinks table, but it’s the songs that make the show.

Producer & musical supervisor Alex Parker, director Alastair Knights & choreographer Matthew Rowland, like MD Theo Jamieson, have all graduated in the last 18 months and there’s a youthfulness, energy and freshness about the whole thing; a towering achievement indeed.

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Merrily We Roll Along

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

There are two things that propel Maria Friedman’s production of this most complicated of Sondheim shows from good to great  – faultless casting (well, she’s a musical theatre actress; it takes one to know one?) and Catherine Jayes terrific 9-piece band.

The show tells the story of composer Franklin Shepherd, his partnership with writer Charley Kringas and his relationships with wife Beth, lover Gussie & friend Mary…..but it tells it backwards from when he’s ‘sold out’ to Hollywood in 1976 to a night on the roof of their NYC apartment block as they begin their careers and as Sputnik is launched, heralding a new world. Chronologically, Frank & Charley start with their own fringe review, get picked up by a Broadway producer to write a musical and break up the partnership on live TV along the way. The producer’s wife, Broadway star Gussie, steals Frank from Beth and we learn that all the time he has been the (unrequited) love of Mary’s life.

In this production, the score really does shine. It doesn’t have showstoppers, but it has some terrific melodies and brilliant bittersweet lyrics with tunes weaving in and out and overlapping in a way only Sondheim can do. It’s the third production of the show I’ve seen, plus the Donmar’s extraordinary concert version as part of Sondheim’s 80th which is still ringing in my ears, but I still saw and heard new things; such is the depth and density of the material. It had a lot to live up to, but it did.

Jenna Russell is cast against type (until the end/beginning) but she’s wonderful as both initially cynical & bitter and  later/earlier excited & naiive Mary. Mark Umbers is superb as Frank, with an agelessness which enables him to be believable over the 20 year span. I didn’t think I knew Damien Humbley, who plays Charley brilliantly, until I read the programme and realised I’d seen and liked him in a handful of shows – he clearly inhabits characters rather than stars in shows. Josefina Gabrielle excels as predatory Gussie, propelled herself from PA to star. Having seen Glyn Kerslake as Frank in Derby in 2007, it was great to see him as Broadway producer Joe here. I thought Clare Foster perfectly captured small-town Beth, more comfortable as wife and mother than in the company of more superficial minor celebs. Amongst a fine supporting company, Martin Callaghan and Amanda Minihan made a much biger impression than the size of their roles.

I was less convinced by Soutra Gilmour’s design, perhaps a bit over-engineered, though in all fairness it does have to become a Californian beach house with pool, TV studio, NYC apartment, apartment roof and townhouse, Broadway theatre and club with side orders of stage door and greenhouse! The costumes (and wigs!) have a big role to play in moving the period back from the mid-70’s to the late 50’s and they do it very well though, perhaps like the set, somewhat  unattractively. 

It’s a big show for a small theatre but they get away with it and for a directorial debut, its hugely impressive. A second visit looks as as if it’s in order……

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