Aberdeen Voice

Duncan Harley reviews ‘Rent, the Musical’ at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

It is Christmas Eve 1896. A painter, a philosopher, a musician and a writer are planning a bender.
The writer needs a bit more time to work on his play, and as his pals set off for the pub, he receives a visit from a neighbour Mimi, a poor seamstress, who chaps on his door in search of a light for her candle. 

Mimi and the writer fall madly in love then they too head off to the pub.

Eventually it all goes pear shaped. Mimi contracts tuberculosis and dies of exposure. The writer is left bereft. Well, that at least was Puccini’s La Boheme operatic take on the cruel realities of inner-city poverty in Bohemian Paris.

Substitute Bohemian 1990s New York for 1890s Paris. In Rent the Musical, writer Jonathan Larson takes La Boheme, turns the opera on its head and gives the tale a garishly glorious modern twist.

The poverty and the ill health are still around, but instead of the scourge of tuberculosis, Larson has substituted the scourge of HIV. Instead of a lack of fuel for the fire we have a bad-ass landlord, in the shape of Javar La’Trail Parker’s Benjamin Coffin the Third, who cuts off the power on a whim. And in lieu of Mimi the Parisian tuberculous seamstress, we have a 20th century Mimi nicely portrayed, by Philippa Stefani, as an HIV-stricken East Village sex worker stroke exotic dancer overburdened by a major smack habit.

Puccini’s poverty-stricken painter is portrayed as an independent Jewish-American wannabe filmmaker by the name of Mark Cohen who, Super-8 in hand, is single-handedly tasked with recording for posterity the tribulations of the East Village community.

On first night at HMT the role of Mark fell to understudy Joshua Dever, since lead Billy Cullum had a chest infection.

A veteran of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Grease and Jesus Christ Superstar, Joshua’s performance was seamless and came with the welcome bonus of a clearly enunciated commentary on what at times can be a convoluted and maybe even over-complicated tale.

There are rock arias galore, multiple phone messages from friends and even a little bit of tango. But perhaps the star turn was Layton Williams as the controversially clad Angel Schunard, a high-heeled power-dressed drag queen and committed partner to gay philosophy professor and sometime anarchist Tom Collins.

Caring, giving and kind, but with a penchant for murdering canines for cash, she/he, or is it he/she, executed an absolutely astonishing gravity-defying triple entendre somersault plus twist whilst clad in pink fluffy five inch heels!

Fast-paced, rock-solid, mega-loud and at points furiously intensive, Rent the Musical presents a heady mix of anti-establishment sentiment combined with perhaps an overload of doom-laden prophesy. The spectre of HIV and AIDS perches Damoclean over the entire production, and multisexuality is the order of the day.

Songs include the classics ‘Seasons of Love’, ‘Goodbye Love’, ‘Over the Moon’ and ‘Light My Candle’. In all there are around thirty musical numbers in this revival.

Both the established Rent Heads amongst us and the newbies to the genre will be in rock heaven throughout this entire performance. And of course, Angel gets to heaven and Mimi’s tiny hand is frozen.

Directed by Bruce Guthrie. Lighting design Rick Fisher. Rent the Musical plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 19th November

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA

Duncan Harley reviews ‘The Broons’ at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

Long ago, childhood Sundays were punctuated by an obligatory visit to Sunday School, and then on to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the Sunday roast. The day of course began with a breakfast of tea and groats, followed by a wee read of the Sunday Post pull-out Fun Section which, then as now, sported a full page sitcom monochrome comic strip featuring Maw, Paw and the entire Broon family.

Although nowadays relegated to page 50 or thereabouts, the Fun Section is still going strong.

Other DC Thomson titles may have gone digital, but the likes of the Broons and Oor Wullie keep truckin’ along in good old-fashioned print.

That is of course until now; for in a bold step for Mankind, the tenement-dwelling Broons of No 10 Glebe Street, Auchenshoogle have taken to the tartan stage to celebrate their Oaken Anniversary in glorious 3D.

Penned by Glasgow-based playwright Rob Drummond, The Broons stage-show takes 80 years of comic-strip familial ultra-conventionality and introduces alien concepts such as personal ambition and – gasp – character development into the endearingly familiar Groundhog Day mix. Alongside the obligatory bonnets and whiskers, the Scottish Waltons are brought bang up-to-date with the addition of laptops and tablets.

As various family members announce radical career plans involving moving away to far and distant places, Torry-born Joyce Falconer’s formidable Maw Broon is faced with the task of trying to keep the whole family together for yet another 80 years, or else face a lonely old age stuck in front of the telly with just Paw for company. The familiar hijinks of life in a Scotch sitting room come under threat and Maw’s deviousness in the face of adversity knows no bounds!

Maggie, admirably played by Kim Allan, starts the ball rolling when she announces her plans to get hitched. Joe then decides to move to London to pursue his love of boxing. The lanky Hen, played by Alaskan born Tyler Collins, is about to take off hiking round Australia to find himself. Euan Bennet’s Horace decides on a career in confectionery, and even Daphne gets a man at long last. What could possibly go wrong?

Sing-along and clap-along are never far away in this Sell A Door production, and the musical numbers cover every tartan-clad genre from White Heather Club ballad to Bay City Rollers brash ultra-pop.

Alongside the music there are frequent bursts of slapstick and lots and lots of one-liners. Some are painfully familiar such as when the desperate Daphne tells Paw that she has met up with a braw new guy while surfing. Predictably perhaps, Paw retorts “An did you fa’ aff your board?” But all in all, this is a skilfully researched production and the familiarity of the dialogue and humour simply adds to the appeal of the performance.

A good measure of the audience laughed in all the right places, and that surely must indicate success.

Very much a family variety show and with an element of traditional Panto showing through at the seams, The Broons does push the boundaries a wee bit on occasion. The long suffering Auchenshoogle vicar, a grandfather of four, is the willing recipient of a gay snog or three; and in a scene worthy of a Waltons bedtime routine, Paw Broon very nearly gets his oats.

But, so help ma boab, it’s all in the best possible taste and if The Bairn can take it then weans of all ages will simply love this show. Plus of course Oor Wullie makes a cameo appearance as himself, and that can’t be bad.

The Broons plays at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen until Saturday 22nd October.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © DC Thomson & Co Ltd

Duncan Harley reviews Chicago the Musical at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

Take a few soap stars, add some distinctly slinky costumes and pour in a few measures of Prohibition-era corruption and what have you got? Chicago the Musical, of course!
In modern times, superstars such as Oscar Pistorius and Phil Spector attracted extensive media interest before receiving lengthy terms of incarceration, following high profile televised murder trials watched in some cases by upwards of 100m viewers.

They were perhaps unlucky: if they had lived in Chicago in the pre-TV era, and had been female, things might have turned out very differently indeed.

The 1920s media moguls of Chicago Illinois were intent on selling newspapers at all costs, and were not above sensationalising the stories of low-life female killers in order to transform them into front page stars.

Crime reporters, known derisively as sob sisters, were despatched to the local prisons with firm instructions to work up a good story at all costs. Morality and criminal justice came second to a juicy tale, and a homicide involving a lover or a spouse often led to fast-track celebrity status.

Chicago the Musical tells just such a story. Based on a 1926 play of the same name by local newspaper reporter Maurine Watkins, the plot follows the corrupt creation of celebrity criminals in Cook County Jail in the U.S. state of Illinois. While media moguls and fat cat lawyers prospered, the rule of law went out the window as attractive prison belles were groomed to evade justice by playing on the public’s insatiable appetite for poor, but pretty and defenceless murderesses.

This new revival of Chicago strips back the production to the bare bones. Most of the stage is occupied by the band and the action features some highly minimalistic costuming, plus the very minimum of props.

The storyline is well known. Self-confessed murderesses get off with homicide due to good looks, or as headlines of the time put it more aptly “Pretty girls get free, ugly ones sent to Pen”.

As the band plays, the cast play out the sensational stories of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly in a series of high energy vaudeville routines interspersed with an occasional murder or two.

There are villains aplenty in this production, and apart from the pathetically downtrodden Amos, soundly played by Neil Ditt, the only real heroes are the cast.

Emmerdale’s Hayley Tamaddon fairly threw herself into the 2010 TV production of Dancing on Ice, and she drew gasps from the audience this week as she strutted her stuff on the Aberdeen stage.
Playing the part of the unrepentant Roxie Hart, she proved once again that she can perform equally well with or without her ice skates.

Co-star Sophie Carmen-Jones also wowed the audience as double murderer Velma. In a series of complex song and dance routines she proved once and for all that vaudeville ain’t dead yet.

For my money though, the supreme accolade must go to seedy lawyer Billy Flynn. Flynn is played exquisitely by John Partridge of EastEnders fame, who not only manages to squeeze out the longest single note ever heard on an Aberdeen stage but, in a hilarious scene, also proves his worth as a stage ventriloquist.

This is an engaging and exciting production full of dark humour and fast movement. At its core Chicago the Musical presents as a satirical take on the cult of the celebrity criminal, and as such is as relevant today as it was when first produced as a play almost a century ago. A must-see.

Chicago the Musical performs at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 1st October

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Aberdeen Performing Arts