Box Office Poison: The Sound of Music – Are the tills alive?

Maria fans beware!

Following the huge plugging for this show on TV’s “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria” we decided to book now.

But like Evita (see our previous blog) there’s something of which theatregoers should be aware.

Having let the cat out of the bag in the programme that the elected Maria will do “at least six shows a week”,
(er..and the other two?) I casually asked at the box office what chance we have of seeing the winning girl.

The conversation went something like this:

The Canterbury Tales..A cheap Knyght out

Andrew and Phil like a good offer.

£22 for centre row E including programme (RRP – £3.50) and generous slug of wine (RRP – forgot to ask, but it’s a West End theatre so.. £4? £5) at the half proves there’s bargains galore to be had.

Ok so we only saw half the production. That is we saw CT Part One but CT 1 and 2 can be seen independently and though we quite enjoyed it we’ll pass on part 2. We think we get the gist.

Which brings us to the programme, now £3.50 is pretty steep, we’re not complaining as ours were “free” and as it covers both shows you can look at it as costing half that price for each. This one really is packed with information and as kept Phil reading till way past His bedtime, it puts other costly programmes to shame (Put your tail between your legs, Theatre Royal Haymarket).

As for the show – well, it’s very much a curate’s egg. Actually we didn’t spot a curate but there may well have been. Some of the stories were much more fun than others. The knight’s (knyght’s?) tale was a dullish beginning, the order apparently changes, but it’s probably best to get this one out of the way. Other stories were much bawdier and there’s a well choreographed farcical bed hopping scene with three beds and five characters which would do Brian Rix proud.

Phil was slightly disappointed with the Nun’s Priest’s tale which he had studied for O level (of course, Chaucer’s work was much more contemporary then which may account for it). The puppetry was goodish but the fox stole the cock and the show too. At the moment it seems there’s puppetry galore on stage. Haven’t seen this much since two Australians manipulated another type of cock in the West End.

In a generally good cast Mark Hadfield looks the part of Chaucer, Clare Benedict and Michael Jibson (outstanding in the Madness musical Our House) stand out and we would liked to see more of the wonderful Paola Dionisotti. Perhaps that’s reason enough to invest in part two.

And if you’re passing the stage door ten minutes or so before kick off you might be granted the marvellously incongruous sight of Chaucerian figures enjoying a crafty fag before curtain up.

Unallocated seating…we have our reservations

Further to Andrew’s comments about the 39 Steps .

There’s probably still time to pick up an offer and head to the Wyndhams Theatre to see the terrific production of Sunday in the Park With George.

You’ll probably get a more overall view than the four of us did the night we went to the otherwise excellent Menier Chocolate Factory.

Operating the irritating unreserved seating policy. (Unless of course you’re one of the lucky ones who drifts in at the last minute and takes up one of the seats with “Reserved” stuck on it…prime seats natch!). The four of us arrived early enough to grab reasonable seats, or so we thought. We instead found ourselves scattered around the auditorium like dots in a Seurat painting.

The 39 Steps

Writing credits for this amusing four-hander production of The 39 Steps are given to the book’s author, John Buchan , and Patrick Barlow (he of National Theatre of Brent) “from an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon”. Strangely it makes no mention of Charles Bennett or Ian Hay whose work , as adaptor and dialogue writer of Hitchcock’s 1935 film, most of this production is based on.

Directed by Maria Aitken (bizarrely), this is an amusing production with a great cast (Rupert Degas, Charles Edwards, Catherine McCormack and Simon Gregor) and some inventive staging.

Great value for money too – we managed to get a What’s On Stage two-for-one offer which worked out at £7.50 a seat. You can’t complain at that, can you?

Apart from the fact that the theatre seemed to be running a bizarre two-tier system of seat allocation. If you paid full-price, you got a numbered seat. If you didn’t, you had to arrive early or wander round the theatre looking for somewhere to sit. This system naturally results in lots of single seats scattered around the theatre which was hopeless if you had come as a party of two or more.

What is this thing about unallocated seating? It’s the worst thing about visiting the otherwise excellent Soho Theatre and new heights to this policy were experienced at an otherwise enjoyable visit to see Bill Bailey at the Battersea Arts Centre where the tickets had seat numbers on them but the seats didn’t.

I mean, for heaven’s sake. How much money are they saving by not putting numbers on the seats or the tickets (or both)? It’s like flying with easyjet or Ryanair – it really can’t be the lack of allocated seating that lets them fly you at rock bottom prices. It just seems to be designed to make the whole experience more miserable than it need be. Stop it at once.

Top tips

• Pre-theatre: The Small & Beautiful restaurant 351 Kilburn High Road does an edible two course menu for £5.50 Mon-Thurs. You can’t say fairer than that.

Brasil Brasileiro – wasn’t nuts about it

Phil and Andrew had a well-deserved night off from the theatre yesterday evening but sent along acolyte Jarlath and his companion Angela in their stead. Here’s what he had to say…

Did anyone else see Brasil Brasileiro? Am I crying in the wilderness. Angela bailed out at the interval and went home to do the ironing.

Brasil Brasileiro was dire. If Kylie thinks this is good dance she needs to get out more.
It was shockingly amateurish like a a bad tourist cabaret on a cheap cruise liner. It was lowest common denominator stuff and it really rankles that they think they have to dumb down dance to reach a mass audience. What they need to do is just present good dance.

They had an appalling band who were out of tune and two ageing cabaret stars (dressed in black on a bare black stage!) were singing flat and seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the band weren’t with them. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve heard better singing at hoolies at home Ireland, at least there everyone can sing in tune.

The choice of music was also second rate. From a country which produced Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Astrid Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, this was unforgivable. It would be like representing British music abroad by using Des O’Connor.

The dancing was really community group level (like some dreary festival that Hackney council would dream up) and at one stage this couple did a lambada which was off the beat. I know middle aged English people who can dance a lamabada on the beat so was horrified. London used to have (still has I think) a number of lambada schools where amateurs produce a level of dance which is far superior to what was in this show. Passing this off as the best of Brazilian dance was criminal.

The whole show looked really under-rehearsed but the main problem was not so much the lack of talent of the cast and the basic flaw in its conception. The show was devised by Claudio Segovia who created Tango Argentino, Flamenco Puro and Black & Blue, all of which were fabulous.

What unites those three of course is that that they took as their starting point very strong vernacular dance forms and he brought together exponents of these dances who were at the top of their profession. The problem with this Brazilian nonsense is that there really isn’t a dance called “samba”, so there isn’t anything to hang the show on. It’s all too diffuse. Samba schools are about teaching street dance for Mardi Gras but there is no really defined steps so it’s a loose cover all term for varieties of street dance which have echoes of jitterbug, salsa, lambada, hip hop (the Samba dance in European Latin American dance competitions is a totally different and European invented dance).

This is all fine, if it’s well done but it’s party dancing and while it can be fun and looks embarrassing on a professional stage. I’m not saying the dance has to be artistically pure it just has to be coming from somewhere. All the women in this show were just decorative and didn’t really have any steps, they just kept up with the men who threw them around.

The look of the piece was also very interesting. They all looked really trendy (in today’s terms) which meant all the men were in sporty gear and all the women looked like hookers. I could write another essay on the sexual politics of the piece, but I won’t!.

The place for this show was the streets of Notting Hill Carnival not Sadlers Wells. Of course the audience loved it and clapped loudly and stamped their feet but as PT Barnum said “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the general public”.

Frost Nixon – It’s a good evening and very welcome..

If seeing David Frost and Richard Nixon portrayed on stage isn’t enough of a curiosity, imagine the bizarre thrill of adding John Birt and Evonne Goolagong to the mix.

Indeed we thought this would be nothing more than curiosity. Could the story of David Frost’s seventies TV interviews with Nixon be interesting enough to drag us off the vino? Definitely! Andrew and I were happy to lose two hours of serious Merlot time to spend such an entertaining time at the Donmar.

Titus Andronicus – more gore than bore

Be warned. For a play with a reputation for over-the-top gore, Titus Andronicus at the South Bank’s Shakespeare’s Globe has an awful lot of words in it too.

Andrew thinks it may have been the verbiage rather than the fake blood that resulted in so many groundlings to be escorted from the theatre by concerned-looking ushers. In fact, he was tempted to feign faintness himself more than once in the first half.

Evita bleaters

Well I’m inclined to agree with Andrew.

There’s no doubt little Elena does have star quality and a spectacular mouth. Though even in her heels she barely comes beyond Peron’s waist (perhaps explaining the attraction).

I found myself drawn to watching her throughout – if only to lip read when the going gets tough and it certainly does, at less than acceptable levels. When my focus did stray it was to a particular member of the chorus giving her all, she’s the one in the Eartha Kitt wig in ALW’s take on My Fair Lady’s Ascot scene. (Or should that be Ladies?)

Which brings me to Richard Mawbey who deserves a special mention for excellent wig work. I’m a sucker for convincing wigs. Though I did notice Silvikrin get a mention on the posters. No wonder Mr Mawbey gets such a high mention in the credits. Well done Richard.

Evita bleaters

Well I’m inclined to agree with Andrew.

There’s no doubt little Elena does have star quality and a spectacular mouth. Though even in her heels she barely comes beyond Peron’s waist (perhaps explaining the attraction). I found myself drawn to watching her throughout – if only to lip read when the going gets tough and it certainly does, at less than acceptable levels. When my focus did stray it was to a particular member of the chorus giving her all, she’s the one in the Eartha Kitt wig in ALW’s take on My Fair Lady’s Ascot scene. (Or should that be Ladies?)

Which brings me to Richard Mawbey who deserves a special mention for excellent wig work. I’m a sucker for convincing wigs. Though I did notice Silvikrin get a mention on the posters. No wonder Mr Mawbey gets such a high mention in the credits. Well done Richard.

I was a little more taken with it as a whole finding it more atmospheric than the original production, but that could be my memory. And if they insist on being so literal with the sets shouldn’t the Casa Rosada have been pink?
However when Evita collapses and Andrew whispered, “things are looking up” I had to agree. The best tunes had gone, the turgid oscar winning (how?) “You must love me” unnecessarily added from the film, “Mistress” Lorna had left us Wanting more (of her) and less of the last twenty minutes which seemed to last forever.

And why does the ad in The Times describe the Adelphi as “Air Conditioned” when the box office call it “Air-Cooled”?
It’s clearly less efficient, though we noticed the cheaper, emptier, rear stalls (around the lighting desk) much cooler than our seats. Also it’s not playing to “packed houses as John Barrowman claimed on Saturday’s “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? And another thing, raking the stalls might help too, get a tall person in front of you and you might miss Elena Roger.

Despite this, my recommendation would be stalls centre row J for best appreciation of the Morcambe and Wise effect (see Andrew’s review). Enjoy!

Evita – £55 is a lot of money for a dodgy old repeat

The show opens with evocative newsreel footage of Eva Peron’s funeral procession – thousands of Argentinians line the streets of Buenos Aires, weeping and wailing. The drama continues onstage when about a dozen of the chorus endeavour to reproduce the splendour on the stage. Andrew hasn’t laughed so much in years. Not since the French & Saunders “my dead baby” extras sketch to which it evidently paid homage.

Then they all clutch at a crucifix held aloft by a priest (-cum-chorus boy) while dramatically lit from below by a spot that casts dramatic shadows on the backdrop. Oooh. Well, Phil thought it was quite dramatic but Andrew was too preoccupied wondering where the light was supposed to be coming from to be drawn in.

All this and we’re not five minutes in. Quite an amusing beginning to the £55 and 200 minutes of wine time invested (£110 and 400 minutes if you look at it holistically).

But it’s pretty much downhill from then on.

You don’t solve a problem like Maria this way, that’s for sure

Well, that was a promising show for two weeks. Who wants to keep watching now shop-girl-naif Briony Price has gone? I can’t tell the remaining Marias apart, with the exception of the rather arrogant one whose name escapes me.

ALW asked Briony if she thought that at 16 she was old enough to be a West End star? Well, Mr LW it’s only a week ago that you were ranting on about how Maria was always played by actresses too old to play the “girl” that Maria clearly is. You’re asking the wrong question: it’s not whether she’s the right age for a West End star; it’s whether she’s the right age to be Maria.

Of course, Briony had to go; she’s the delightful underdog who would have charmed BBC viewers into putting her through every week. Too high a risk for someone who’s going to have to do eight (sorry, six. see previous post) shows a week.

To be honest, I don’t care who gets it now. The ten that are left are just not interesting. I hope Brioney gets her own show. I’d pay good money to see her in The King’s Head; not so sure about paying to see any of the others in SOM.

How do you solve a problem like booking for The Sound of Music?

Well, it’s all very well ALW making a big fuss on TV about finding a Maria for the new production of The Sound of Music but buyer beware!

In the first edition of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, the cat was let truly out of the bag with a slip of the tongue by one of the judges emphasising that the successful Maria would have to perform at least six performances a week.

At least? What does that mean? Six? Eight? Seven? Which ones? If you buy a ticket now, will you see the winner or not? Do tell.

And is this now the standard? Just turn up when you can, love. Don’t worry about it. We’ll send someone else on if you don’t feel up to acting like a professional.

And another thing. How come this programme is all about being able to sing? Is the acting something you can fudge your way through in a few weeks? If so, those poor bastards sweating their way through two years of acting school should be told. And so should we.