Review: Haunting Julia - Mercury Theatre, Colchester

One doesn't normally associate Alan Ayckbourn with horror. The prolific writer, normally more familiar with suburban comedy, has though turned his hand to a chilling thriller. First performed in 1994 and revived in Lichfield and London in 2011, Haunting Julia now stretches its spectral legs on a first ever national tour.

While the territory may be unusual for Ayckbourn, those familiar with his work will find plenty of resonance. The monologues that delve deep into the characters psyche, the plot twists and even the wry humour are all here. While the writing may seem familiar, the plot however is a departure from his norm.

A musical prodigy dies tragically young and 12 years after her death her father has converted her student digs into a museum to her memory. As with all good museums the centre has an interactive audio guide but when disembodied voices start to be heard on the soundtrack it seems that young Julia may not have completely left the scene.

As her father, former boyfriend and a local physic gather in her former room, the possible motive for Julia’s death begin to unravel. Was it suicide or murder or did the pressure of being hailed ‘Little Miss Mozart’ become too much to live with?

We never really get the answers. There’s a feeling here that there is more left unsaid than explained and despite its age there is a feeling that in some way it is an unfinished piece. An exploration of a possible darker departure from his normal cannon but a journey that is never fully completed.

Andrew Hall’s production has great fun in building up the tension, causing the audience a few necessary jumps along the way, but seems somewhat lethargic. Ayckbourn’s exposition to deliver the requisite backstories slows down pace and robs the piece of the chill it needs.

Richard O’Callaghan reprises his role from the 2011 production; his mortuary attendant turned psychic the key to revealing Julia’s troubled past. O’Callaghan’s vocal delivery though can only be described as eccentric and, while it perhaps parodies many celebrity physics, it adds an unnecessary comedic edge to the character that dilutes the darkness. O’Callaghan is joined by two new cast members for the tour and it’s not a wholly successful casting.

Joe McFadden’s Andy, Julia’s former boyfriend, seems suitably spooked by the possibility of the musician’s presence, but again Ayckbourn’s tendency to launch into lengthy exposition makes it hard to fully understand the character.

Duncan Preston seems unsure where to pitch Julia’s devoted, even obsessive, father Joe. Preston veers from emotion to emotion wildly and it’s hard to emotional connect with this man who has lost his daughter, and on some level marketing product. Preston’s portrayal seems overblown in a script where a more subtle, darker edge would pay dividends.

There’s real potential here, and the staging does provide a few scares but overall it all seems somewhat unsatisfactory. We are left with far too many questions about Julia’s death and her relationship with her family and friends and while the bumps and bangs may elicit a few squeals, the whole piece needs to be much darker in tone. Ghost stories are notoriously difficult to pull off on stage and here it’s a case of a minor tremor rather than a full spectral spectacular.

Originally written for The Public Reviews

Review: Five Finger Exercise - Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh

Even the most genial of family groupings can feel the strain while on holiday; when the holiday is in a small, remote, cottage the pressure can build to explosive result.

Despite what Louise, the refined matriarch of the family may think, the Harringtons are a somewhat dysfunctional bunch. Louise has ideas above her status. Her tales of a French ancestry may, or may not be, wholly truthful and her obsession with high art and culture seem somewhat false. That she is married to a cultural philistine, Stanley, is a source of continual frustration to her. Instead she seeks hope in her protégée, their son Clive.

There’s something dark and disturbing lurking with this family though. Hints of something incestuous between both Mother and Son but also between Clive and his teenage sister Pamela show this is a family destined for destruction. Clive further fans the flames of sexual confusion with his barely hidden latent homosexuality.

Into this maelstrom of emotion is pitched an innocent young German tutor, Walter. Endlessly charming, Walter becomes the catalyst for many of the family’s secrets being brought into the light.

Peter Shaffer’s early writing hints at the darkness many of his later works would explore but while there’s some hint at underlying menace it’s a script that never really ventures into those dark corners, leaving the audience to overlay their own interpretations.

Richard Frost’s naturalistic production allows the family demons to surface slowly. At times it seems slightly too slow but that’s more to do with Shaffer’s early writing rather than direction.

There’s fine performances throughout the company. Ann Wenn as the pretentious mother retains her poise until the bitter end, while Holly Jones as daughter Pamela and Michael Shaw as father Stanley do their best with somewhat underwritten characters.

The true dramatic sparks however belong to Iain Ridley’s tortured Clive and Peter Hoggart’s Tectonic tutor Walter. Both deliver quiet but assured performances that provide the emotional powerhouse of the piece.

With its local connection, it’s somewhat appropriate to watch this play in Aldeburgh but, despite the strength of the production, it’s hard to escape the feeling that this is a play that is now somewhat dated. A showcase for the skills of Shaffer as a writer but a showcase that never fully explores the themes he raises.

Originally written for The Public Reviews

Review: Carousel - Barbican Theatre, London

Purists may sniff at an opera company turning its hand to the work of Rodgers & Hammerstein but, in Opera North’s sublime revival of Carousel, it is the audience who end up sniffing away tears.

Of all the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, Carousel is perhaps the closest the pair came to writing an opera and so it seems a natural choices. While 20 years ago the National Theatre staged arguably the definitive musical theatre staging of the work, Opera North now claim the piece as a true operatic gem.

If the pair’s work is sometimes seen as light and frothy, Carousel takes a much darker road with a heartbreaking look at undeclared love against life’s hardships. If The Sound of Music is remembered primarily for its saccharine-coated singing nuns, here we have domestic violence, childhood bullying and death prevalent. In those one of their finest scores, the hardship transforms into something beautiful and inspiring.

Jo Davies’ production hits the ground running from the opening strains of the Carousel Waltz prologue, resplendent with the creation of an actual Carousel, blending Opera, musical theatre, dance and staging into a seamless whole. Davies focuses very much on the human relationships, allowing the tension and emotion to build to an almost unbearable finale.

As the lyrics advise, ‘Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sad’ but even with that warning as the massed voices of the large 50 strong company rise into the classic anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ it’s only the hardest of hearts that won’t shed a tear, such is the devastating but uplifting power of Rodgers’ score.

Sometimes when casting opera singers to perform musical theatre the dramatic comes second to the singing, but here Davis has assembled a company who not only sing faultlessly but also deliver the vital emotional back up.

Davis’ shift of the timescale from 1890s to 1915 hints at a time when women’s role in New England society begins to change and Sarah Tynan’s Carrie Pipperidge shifts from innocent stay-at-home wife to the hint of a woman in charge of her own destiny. Joseph Shovelton as her righteous husband Enoch Snows sings beautifully with a delightfully understated comic air.

There’s also strong work from Michael Rouse’s roguish Jigger Craigin, John Woodvine’s movie director Starkeeper and Yvonne Howard’s Nettie Fowler, whose soaring preview of the final anthem sends shivers down the spine.

As Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow, Katherine Manley and Michael Todd Simpson delight. Manley gives her Julie a softness while never being a pushover, while Todd Simpson shades Bigelow with just enough roughness without losing the audiences sympathy. Both sing to perfection, with their love duet ‘If I Loved You’ a soaring testament to the power of romance.

James Holmes brings out every nuance of the score from the Birmingham Royal Ballet Sinfonia, blending power with a subtlety.

Anthony Ward’s design provides a simple, yet elegant backdrop for the action aided by Bruno Poet’s sunset tinged lighting and Andrzej Goulding’s subtle yet masterly projections.

Those seeking a couple of hours of jazz hand-infused piece of musical theatre lightness should look elsewhere but, for those looking for a celebration of one of the finest pieces of musical theatre ever written, you’d be hard pushed to find a better three hours.

Carousel may now be 67 years old but, in Opera North’s production, it’s never looked or sounded better. An evening of pure joy and emotion.

Originally written for The Public Reviews

Review: London Road, Olivier Theatre, London

It’s not often you get the opportunity to revisit a production, a year apart. Last year on press night for London Road in the Cottesloe theatre, the atmosphere was electric; a sense that we were witnessing a new direction for musical theatre. A year on and the production has transferred to the larger, neighbouring Olivier theatre. Something in the transfer, however, seems to have gone awry as, what was a moving and poignant piece in the small, intimate studio space, becomes somewhat lost and overblown in the expanse of the open stage.

In the interests of openness the reviewer needs to declare an interest here. As someone who lived in Ipswich at the time of the events portrayed in the piece, London Road was always going to have a deeper impact than your general audience member.

Alecky Blythe’s verbatim interviews with Ipswich residents at the time of the murders of five Ipswich women could easily become macabre and voyeuristic but her decision to focus on the residents of London Road, a location murderer Steve Wright had only lived for 10 short weeks, moves the piece in a different direction. Wright and his victims never appear, and are only fleetingly named, but their impact is felt on the residents of the road. The media appetite for images to feed the rolling news feeds imprisons the residents and their efforts to rebuild their shattered community provides a genuine uplifting ending but it’s a dark, unsettling couple of hours.

Or at least it was. In the move to the larger stage, the performances seem to have been expanded to fill the space and as such often come across as caricatures rather than the real-life characters captured in Blythe’s recordings. When the audience begin laughing at the opening scene and only really stop to reflect on the tragedy of events when a character says she’d like to shake the killer’s hand and thank him for ridding her road of the sex workers, you know something is seriously wrong.

Scenes that had a claustrophobic, almost menacing, feel in the studio now seem swamped by the space around them and, while Adam Cork’s rhythmic, overlapping cadences for his score impress, the heart of the piece is lost. On second viewing it’s also more apparent that, despite learning the piece from Blythe’s original recordings, the Suffolk accents veer wildly from Norfolk, via Somerset and at times even seem to settle in mid-Wales.

There are still some chilling moments. A long moment of silence as former sex workers explain how they have stopped working the streets still chills, as does the aforementioned recognition of some residents wanting to thank Wright. Overall, though, one can’t help wondering how many watching this production for the first time emotionally connect with the story behind the show or, indeed, how many recognise it is actually based upon real events.

To stage such a show in 2011 was a bold and brave move by the National theatre and, at the time, although uncomfortable for this reviewer it was a decision I applauded and rewarded with a 5-star review. In 2012 something has changed; it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly but the desire to bring the piece to a larger stage has sacrificed its power.

Originally written for The Public Reviews