Drama Archives - Page 5 of 8

The Broons at HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 212016

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

broons_1c 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.

broons_2 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

The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil – At HMT

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 052016

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil – at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen. Duncan Harley reviews.

the-cheviot-production-image-9-photo-credit-tommy-ga-ken-wan-1

Performed by the Dundee Rep Ensemble as a Highland Ceilidh, Cheviot has been brought bang up to date.

Written by the late John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil tells the story of forced economic change in the Highlands.
First performed by 7:84 Theatre Company in 1973, the Ceilidh play pointedly compares the sheer brutality of the landowning capitalists of the Clearances to the often callous exploitation of Scotland by the predatory capitalists behind the oil boom.

As an unconventional piece of popular theatre combining radical politics with drama, plus music and song, Cheviot predictably attracts mixed reaction.

The Establishment was seemingly not much impressed with the original production, and sheafs of appalled letters were written to The Scotsman. The general reaction ranged from deep hostility from supporters of global capitalism, to a feeling of empowerment amongst nationalists who, despite the extreme Socialist views expressed in the play, sensed that an unlikely ally had emerged to challenge the mores of the day.

Cheviot played to audiences as small as twelve, in Fraserburgh of all places, on that first tour; but persevered and went on to tour the Highlands and beyond, gathering larger audiences along the way. Village halls which had never seen a live play performed were the venues. Folk in far-flung places whose own grandparents had witnessed the Clearances first hand became both spectators and willing participants in this new theatre.

I first saw Cheviot in the 1970s: yes, I am that old, and for free. Strathclyde Regional Council, God rest its cotton socks, had hired a Glasgow performance space so that John McGrath’s take on Scotland’s turbulent economic history could be played out to a wider audience.

What did I make of it then? I can recall the surprise at getting the afternoon off from work, and I can still remember wondering what on earth the city fathers hoped to achieve by exposing both me and my fellow workers to cutting edge agitprop theatre, since we were on the verge of revolution most of the time already. Perhaps they thought that Cheviot might just calm us all down a wee bit.

The show’s pedigree is unquestionably anti-establishment. Estate Factor Patrick Seller burns down a croft house with poor old granny still inside; the loathful Duke of Sutherland evicts 15k of his tenants to make way for 200,000 sheep; Highland regiments are sacrificed on a colonial whim, and Highland culture comes under sustained attack from the capitalised aristocracy.

The Astors, David Cameron’s family and a toupee-topped golf course magnate with Lewis connections all take it firmly on the chin; all in the best possible taste of course, and with unforgettable sing-along ditties, including:

“we’ve cleared the straths, we’ve cleared the paths, we’ve cleared the bens, we’ve cleared the glens, we’ll show them we’re the ruling class.”

Performed by the Dundee Rep Ensemble as a Highland Ceilidh, Cheviot has been brought bang up to date. The timeline of the original production concluded with the discovery of North Sea oil, but now concludes with the oil exploration downturn which Mark Carney has described as:

“a challenging environment which, given global prices, may persist for some time.”

The cast of ten play multiple roles and generally this works really well. A coat rail of costumes stands to hand, stage left, and fast changes are the order of the day.

As Irene Macdougall slips effortlessly into the gown of Sutherland’s infamous estate clearance manager James Loch, Billy Mack is swapping Queen Victoria’s crown for factor Patrick Seller’s top-hat.

Stephen Bangs moves fluidly between his role as the plaid-clad Sturdy Highlander and that of the totalitarian bible thumping preacher, while Barrie Hunter’s Duke of Sutherland alternates with both an old man and an old woman.

The audience have a big part to play too. This is Ceilidh after all. It’s safe enough to sit in the front row, so long as you don’t stick your hand up too high; but be warned that this production takes audience participation to entirely new levels.

Early on, during a warm-up Canadian Barn Dance, half the audience appeared to be heading off out to Union Terrace as Musical Director Alasdair Macrae called out the steps.

A hilarious sing-along parody of the Alexander Brothers stalwart “For these are my mountains and this is my glen” follows, before the more serious business of lampooning the men who own your glen begins in earnest.

Irvine Welsh‘s Trainspotting Renton, AKA Rent Boy, infamously cried out that:

“It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in … and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!”

He may have had a point, although McGrath might have disagreed on the finer detail of Renton’s argument. Cheviot, for all the humour – and some of it is very black indeed – takes the stance that the people don’t own the land under their feet; but perhaps they should!

Today’s Cheviot continues to hit the zeitgeist. The message of this play is as relevant today as it was when first performed in the early days of the oil boom. Nothing quite like it had seen before and if you are a newcomer to McGrath’s work, Cheviot will be nothing like you have ever seen before.

Make up your own mind, go see the play. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.

As John McGrath once said:

“Cheviot is the music of what is happening.”

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil performs at HMT Aberdeen until Thursday 6th October

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Aberdeen Performing Arts

Chicago The Musical at HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 292016

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

chicago_john_partridge_as_bill2 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.

chicago_hayley_tamaddon_as_rox2 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

Made In Dagenham – The Musical: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured No Responses »

Aug 262016

Duncan Harley reviews ‘Made In Dagenham – The Musical’ at His Majesty’s Theatre.

Made_in_Dagenham_3a The timing couldn’t really be better. At a time when Labour is in disarray and the pay differential between males and females performing the same job remains at a whopping 18%, the Lyric Musical Society production of Made in Dagenham the Musical illustrates graphically that despite decades of industrial strife and equal pay legislation there is nothing fundamentally different in the labour market.

The glass ceiling is still firmly in place.

The Dagenham car plant in the London Borough of Barking nowadays employs around 3,000 people. Output today consists mainly of the production of car engines with around 1.4m each year making the long trip down to the end of the assembly line. Vehicle assembly ceased at the plant in 2002 and Ford estimate that 10,980,368 cars were produced at the 475 acre site during the period between 1931 and 2002.

A rough calculation reveals that, assuming that each automobile had a seating capacity of five and each vehicle had two front seats and a bench rear seat; the mainly female machinists working in the Dagenham plant seat-cover fabrication shop were kept pretty busy most of the time manufacturing the seat covers for around 32,941,104m Ford UK car seats. I could go on.

However, despite long held aspirations by the trade union movement to secure equal pay for both sexes many union members, to the delight of the employers, remained fearful of the threat to male employment posed by the female workforce and actually supported employment law discrimination directed against women and married women in particular.

Labour government, fearful of losing the certainty of the TUC Block Vote, continued to echo Beverage’s sentiment that the housewife belonged in the home and had no place in gainful employment.

In June 1968 things came to a head at the Ford plant when 187 women machinists employed in the seat cover machine shop took strike action and brought Ford to its knees.

There had been longstanding and largely unresolved grievances regarding health and safety issues at the plant.

The women worked in an old and draughty asbestos clad ex-aircraft hanger using unguarded machines. Workers were watched over by assessors and quotas of around 30 seat covers per hour were expected. Injuries were common and it was held that workers were not really proper machinists until they got caught by the machine.

To cap it all, the women employees were paid at an unskilled B grade rate which was only 87% of the unskilled male rate. The scene was set for double trouble at mill.

Made_in_Dagenham_1 Based on the 2010 film of the same name, the Lyric Musical Society production of Made in Dagenham the Musical presents the story of the ensuing three week strike in an engagingly gritty and generally humorous style.

Ambitious in nature, the Dagenham stage set presents as slightly bewildering. However in a blistering series of fast paced scene changes the bricks and mortar factory walls certainly keep the plot moving on at a lively pace.

Alongside the various Ford factory sets, there are scenes set within the PM’s private office, in the Westminster offices of Barbara Castle and on Eastbourne beach. The family home of strike leader Rita O’Grady features regularly alongside a replica of the infamous Dagenham Berni Inn better known as the spawning ground of both the prawn cocktail and that Black Forest Gateau

Undoubted star of the show is Sophie Hamilton Pike as Rita the accidental activist. A regular at HMT and well accustomed to playing roles as diverse as the evil Inverurie Panto Queen and occasional Principal Boy, she leads the audience seamlessly through the troubled tale of Rita’s speedy journey towards political awareness.

Rita’s meteoric rise creates tensions within the family and Ryan Peacock’s confident and reflective performance as Rita’s husband Eddie clearly illustrates the emotional difficulties faced when challenging generally accepted societal norms.

Andrew Begg’s witty Mike Yarwood take off of PM Harold Wilson probably mystified many of the less elderly in the theatre audience. Who even remembers Ganex after all? What does Harold have against Belgium? Why is the PM portrayed skipping gaily across Eastbourne Beach in a Donald McGill seaside cartoon costume? Should the man have gone to Specsavers before vacating the closet? No doubt a memory-lane trip down to the Scilly Isles will reveal all.

Essentially a fairly astute political drama about 1960’s Labourite industrial relations set firmly within a lively musical, Made in Dagenham spins a good tale.

Perhaps some of the innuendo laden banter is outdated and maybe even a little obscure but it usually gets a ribald laugh anyway. Musical numbers, and there are around twenty of them, range from Eddie and Rita’s sweet duet “I’m Sorry I Love You” through to “The Same Old Story” at the Berni Inn and the rousing TUC Conference climax “Stand Up”.

Entertaining in the extreme, Made in Dagenham the Musical plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 27th August. Oh and be sure to watch out for the mysterious man in Act 2 playing his guitar atop a ladder.

Directed by Craig Pike of Flying Pigs fame with Musical Direction by Rhonda Scott.
Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Aberdeen Performing Arts

Jackie The Musical At HMT – Duncan Harley Reviews.

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Jul 212016

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

The 1970s was an era when people actually spoke face to face or, in extremis, resorted to sending handwritten letters through the post.

Although home computers were beginning to appear, digital media was largely the prerogative of the military, academia and government.

Personal mobile phones were available, but tended to be the size of bricks, and the social media app of choice was the humble GPO land line.

Remembered for its bell-bottoms, the miners’ strike and the rise of disco, the 70s heralded a few wars, a moon landing or two, plus a good few political scandals. The US had its Watergate, and in the UK we had Rinkagate, perhaps better known as the Jeremy Thorpe Affair.

While Maggie and Arthur battled it out on the picket lines, the gender-bending Bowie performed on Top of the Pops; pirate radio, the precursor to local radio, was moving shore-side, and novelist Tom Wolfe’s ‘Me Decade’ was welcoming in the recovery of the self in a flawed and corrupted society.

Boys read Commando Comics, sneaked the odd copy of naturist magazine ‘Health and Efficiency’ into the classroom and occasionally, just occasionally, thumbed through big sister’s personal copy of Jackie Magazine.

With tips on how to meet Mister Right, and with a distinctly interactive format for the day, Jackie the Magazine proved an enduring read, and by the mid 70s it was selling over 600,000 copies per week to teenage girls hooked on a heady mix of girl meets boy comic strips, advice columns and pop star pull-outs.

Then of course there were those agony aunts Cathie and Claire. In reality a randomly rotating team of DC Thomson staffers, Cathie and Claire received up to 400 letters each week from troubled teens asking about anything from the mysteries of menstruation to the mysterious nature of Mister Right.

The magazine ceased publication in 1993 after 1,534 issues, and although vintage copies can be found on eBay, perhaps the best way to connect, or re-connect according to your age, is via Jackie the Musical.

The show is built around a well trodden plot familiar to many. Jackie, played by Janet Dibley, is divorcing errant husband John, Graham Bickley.

He has fallen for Gemma, Tricia Adele-Turner, but has doubts about the new relationship. John and Jackie have a teenage son David, Michael Hamway, who aspires to pop star status, but he is in a state of unrequited love with Prosecco-saturated older woman Jill, Lori Haley Fox.

While packing for the inevitable divorce-led house move, Jackie discovers her long forgotten hoard of Jackie Magazines nestling under the stairs.

Opening the dusty boxes releases a genie in the form of a fresh-faced and sweetly naive teenage version of herself, played by Daisy Steere. A tranche of cliché-ridden 1970s-era dating advice is proffered by the younger Jackie, and things soon become heated in Jackie-land.

A convoluted but well-engineered farce ensues. The punch lines are at points slightly laboured, and the tree-dancing sequence was a bit on the odd side of fabulous; but overall the toe-tapping, gut-busting energy of this production more than makes up for those minor niggles.

The musical framework and the story line generally work seamlessly to create a powerfully nostalgic musical spectacular, fully laden with beautifully choreographed textbook 70s jukebox hits from the likes of the Osmonds, David Essex and T Rex.

Musical numbers include the classic ‘Love Hurts’, ‘I Beg Your Pardon’ and ‘Crazy Horses’. A highlight is Michael Hamway’s hilarious bump ‘n’ grind groin-shuffling rendition of the T-Rex hit ‘20th Century Boy’: even Bolan might have loved it!

For my money though, the proof of the pudding often lies in the audience reaction. At the finale, the theatre audience were literally dancing in the aisles. Nuff said!

This is a feel-good production intended to do just that, make folk feel good, and Jackie the Musical succeeds brilliantly.

Resident Director Harry Blumenau. Choreographed by Arlene Philips.
Jackie the Musical plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 23rd July.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

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

Footloose – The Musical At HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Jun 242016

Duncan Harley Reviews Footloose – The Musical at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen

The 1980s were pelvic times. Hard Rock, Glam Rock, R&B, Hip Hop, Northern Soul and all shades of everything in-between made quite sure of that.

A torrent of unstoppable sound and movement swept the globe, empowering youth and challenging oldies.

Barriers of colour and creed turned fluid, and a new politics of expression brought young people together in an explosive mixture of sound, dance and visual art.

Except of course in Elmore City, Garvin County, Oklahoma, where evangelical Protestantism and social conservatism contrived to pretty much ban fun. A Bible Belt town of around 600 souls, Elmore has one graveyard, a Junior School and a High School. It features in the Gideon Book of Historical Places, and seemingly the school mascot is Bogey the Talking Badger.

For reasons no one could even remember, fun in the form of dancing had been banned by local ordnance since 1898. On March 3rd 1980, the Elmore School Board voted 3-2 to allow the class of 1980 to hold a school prom.

In ‘Footloose – The Musical’, Elmore has been re-named Bomont. Dancing is strictly forbidden under Local Ordnance 416, and a classic head-to-head between emerging youth and well-established establishment is defo on the cards.

Those who have seen the 1984 film, and who hasn’t, will be familiar with the plot line. Good lookin’ Chicago boy moves to Bomont, tries to fit in and meets rivalry from peers and opposition from elders. Love blossoms, establishment attitudes soften and compromise comes. Everyone starts to have fun and the art of dance is again legalized.

The transition from film to stage both retains and builds on the essential energy of the film, and although perhaps a tad slow in the very early scenes, this production builds steadily to a heady audience-engaging climax by the end of Act Two.

The casting of actor-musicians is a brave move but works very well indeed.

Any lingering suspicion that a rock band or two lurks behind the scenes is soon dispelled as Luke Baker’s ‘Ren McCormack’ and Scott Haining’s ‘Cowboy Bob’ strut their stuff and swing those flying guitars.

Even Nigel Lister’s soul-searchingly honest ‘Rev Shaw Moore’ gets in on the musical act with a rousing bass finale.

Add to the mix singer/actor Maureen Nolan as preacher’s wife ‘Vi’, a quorum of swing cowgirls and understudy Luke Thornton’s ‘Willard’ – Gareth Gates was unavailable on first night in Aberdeen – and Footloose really takes off big-time.

With around twenty classic Eighties hits, including ‘Holding Out For A Hero’, ‘Mama Says, Dancing Is Not A Crime’ and the pounding ‘Footloose Finale’, ‘Footloose – The Musical’ served up exactly what the audience wanted, and by the finale had folk dancing wildly in the aisles.

Directed by Racky Plews with David Morgan as Touring Company Stage Manager.

Footloose – The Musical plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 25th June

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA

Dreich Encounter At HMT – Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Jun 032016

Duncan Harley reviews ‘Dreich Encounter’ at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen,

In the classic 1945 David Lean romantic drama, Brief Encounter, Laura famously meets Alec at the local railway station and the chance encounter leads to unexpected consequences including an emotional love affair

In the classic 2016 Flying Pig’s comedy drama, Dreich Encounter, both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are conspicuously absent.

Mither meets Faither on the sofa and then in the bedroom and then yet again in the sitting-room. Screenwriter Noël Coward would have simply loved the unconventionality of the Pig’s production.

Dreich is such a wonderfully emotive adjective. In a 2013 YouGov Plc opinion poll, which asked adults across the country to select their number one Scots word, it ranked well ahead of sleekit, glaikit and even blether; and a recent Tripadvisor review of the shortbread tin favourite Eilean Donan Castle really put the welly in when it concluded that the place was “dreich AND disappointing”.

Aberdeen’s very own Flying Pig’s latest offering ‘Dreich Encounter’ is far from dreich and certainly far from disappointing.

‘Father Ted meets Ivor Cutler’ utterly fails to describe this production adequately. With past classics such as ‘Stanley Cooslick’s Clockwork Sporran’, ‘Finzean in the Rain’, ‘All Quiet on the Westburn Front’ and ‘How to Look Glaikit’ firmly behind them; this new production elevates the Pig’s very own brand of parody-punkesque Doric humour to completely new levels.

From the moment the show opens with the startling announcement that “this evening’s performance has been sponsored by naebody” to the final sketch where Cooncillor Croonie introduces the theatre audience to the new and improved Aberdeen Town motto, no-one and certainly no public institution is safe from gentle ridicule.

As musical comedy sketch revue, ‘Dreich Encounter’ goes bravely where no-one else usually dares or wins. In fact anyone daft enough to emulate the Doric dynamos risks being put up against a wall in Broad Street and executed by firing squad.

Predictably, the Donald gets a mention, as does the Robbie Shepherd. Less predictably Anuptaphobia, medically defined as “a morbid fear of staying or remaining single” features briefly, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is sung with more up-to-date lyrics including the hilarious line “When you walk through the storm, hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the duck.”

There are 28 laughter-strewn sketches, featuring the likes of grand piano player Hilton John, the dulcet-toned, tartan-trewed Delmonte-jacketed Buckie Drifters, and of course Archie and Davie: this is a show which has something for everyone. Classics include the Bakery Wifies, a Doric A to Z, and Meikle Wartle TV, surely a parody of the Garioch’s very own household favourite, Kintore-based Turnip Radio.

Then there are the words and phrases. Best not repeat the punch line “I’m aff for a shite” perhaps; however lard arse, wobble-bottom and pleiter certainly make it into the non-expletive top ten.

For my money, Mither’s Happy Days and Mither’s Happy Anniversary represent the best that ‘Dreich Encounter’ has to offer. Reminiscent of Cutler’s Glasgow classic “Life in a Scotch Sitting Room”, “Mither” gently parodies the folk memories of the North east.
In fact you can almost taste that delightfully carbonated Blue Nun and those cheesy pineapple hedgehogs.

A Flying Pig Production, Dreich Encounter plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 11th June

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Annie At HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

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May 132016

Duncan Harley Reviews ‘Annie’ at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen.

When writer Thomas Meehan was hired to write the story for a musical based on Harold Gray’s newspaper-strip Little Orphan Annie he seemingly thought that it was the worst idea he’d ever heard.

The brief was to convert Gray’s far right cartoon rants against welfare, unions and Roosevelt’s ‘creeping communist policies’ into a sugar sweet Dickensian romp fit for Broadway.

The result is a powerful and entertaining celebration of the enduring power of the American Dream set within a slightly dubious tale about a balding US billionaire, war profiteer Daddy Warbucks, who sends his PA down-town to the local children’s home to pick up an orphan for Christmas.

Its depression era 1933 New York and the banks are going bust. The stock market is in chaos and the factories are shutting down nationwide. The citizens are starving on the streets and there is barely controlled civil unrest afoot. To make matters worse, Japan’s colonial ambitions threaten American interests in the Pacific and in Europe Herr Hitler has just become Chancellor of Germany.

Red headed Annie lives at NY’s Municipal Orphanage for Girls along with Molly, Pepper, Kate, July, Duffy and Tessie.

Run by the tyrannical Miss Hannigan AKA Elaine C. Smith, the orphanage is in reality a sad sweat-shop where gin soaked Miss Hannigan subjects her charges to an oppressive regime from which escape seems impossible. In a scene reminiscent of Colditz the feisty freckled Annie, Anya Evans of Team Liberty – there are three alternating teams of young actors in this production, defies the odds and makes her bid for freedom.

Meeting downtrodden out of-work Americans along the way she and her canine pal Sandy, played obediently by Amber the Labradoodle, defy the odds and achieve the seemingly impossible.

By the end of Act Two, Annie has come to terms with orphanity, advised the US President on economic policy and made an old man very happy. The nasty Miss Hannigan gets her just deserts, Annie’s fellow orphans won’t have to work no more and all is well in the land of FDR’s New Deal.

This is a picture perfect production. From the moment early in Act One where the orphans throw off the bed-clothes to the final curtain call, the electrifying entertainment pounds on. Lighting, sound and set combine superbly and it is obvious from the very start that each and every cast-member is committed 110% to the show’s success.

Alongside comedic asides, dance routines to die for and a wee measure of slapstick the musical highlights include Easy Street, Hard Knock Life and Elaine C. Smith’s stunning rendering of Little Girls. There are around sixteen musical numbers in the show.

With a list of credits including leads as Dean Martin in Rat Pack and Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story, Alex Bourne is a natural as Daddy Warbucks. He commands the stage just as Warbucks commands his business empire. Anya Evan’s Annie is of course centre stage throughout and she excels in, what is after all, a very demanding role.

Callum McArdle’s portrayal of the wheelchair bound president was refreshingly honest. In reality of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s mid-career polio was stage managed to the point where most of the American public remained blissfully unaware of his condition.

Tuesday’s performance at His Majesty’s concluded with a five minute stand-up ovation. By the end of the week the likelihood is that this will have increased to ten minutes at the very least! Harold Gray must be rolling in his grave.

Directed by Nikolai Foster with Children’s Casting by Debbie O’Brien and starring Elaine C. Smith Annie plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 14th May

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Breakfast At Tiffany’s @ HMT – Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

May 052016

Duncan Harley Reviews Breakfast at Tiffany’s at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen.

Theatregoers expecting a re-run of the 1961 Rom-Com Hollywood blockbuster film are likely to be disappointed with this production. Those with fresh eyes and those who have read Truman Capote’s novella are likely to enjoy the experience.

Leading lady Holly Golightly welcomes a succession of men into her bedroom, she never names her cat and insists on applying lipstick before receiving bad news.

Aspiring writer Fred wrestles with his sexuality, narrates Holly’s story and gets fired for not making friends with the semicolon.

Meanwhile Bing Crosby croons softly in the background, a roller-skating burned-out-diva circles the stage and the veiled spectre of Audrey Hepburn haunts the audience. Neither a musical nor a love story Breakfast at Tiffany’s is in a complicated place.

As a love story, Capote’s tale was never going to cut the mustard anyway. It’s not really a stereotypical boy meets girl tale. In act two, Holly memorably reveals that she has really only had eleven lovers, that is if you discount all of those from before she was sixteen.

As an honest exploration of sexual morals Breakfast at Tiffany’s remains challenging and in its day the risqué behaviour and sexual ambiguity of Capote’s characters invited both fierce criticism and intensely voyeuristic interest.

Interviewed for Playboy in 1968 Capote was asked whether Holly was the prototype of today’s liberated female. In reply he likened her to an authentic American geisha.

“She had no job, but accompanied expense-account men to the best restaurants and night clubs with the understanding that her escort was obligated to give her some sort of gift. Perhaps jewellery or a cheque … if she felt like it, she might take her escort home for the night.”

Played out in flashback, Richard Greenberg’s adaptation can be challenging.

Set in both the 1950’s and in war-time 1944 the story moves sharply backwards and forwards between the two era’s, relying on New York accented machine-gun dialogue, delivered speedily by Matt Barber’s Fred, to fill in the blanks. In general this works well although Matt’s delivery was on occasion let down by a poor sound envelope.

The 1950’s action takes place in an oddly deserted New York bar. Holly has left the country some years before following legal difficulties connected to her relationship with Sing Sing resident and some time mobster Sally Tomato. Many of the 1944 scenes are played out in Holly’s room, in the street outside her apartment, at a bus station and on Brooklyn Bridge. There are frequent changes of scene.

All eyes of course are on leading lady Emily Atack.

New to the role, in fact new to the touring stage, and fresh from playing Daphne in a re-make of Dad’s Army could Emily step into Holly’s wee black dress and high-heels? Thankfully the answer is a resounding yes.

This is a demanding role with Holly Golightly on-stage virtually throughout the performance. Alongside the reams of Capote dialogue and those iconic costume changes, Holly is required to deliver Moon River and of course Emily does this memorably.

Robert Calvert’s portrayal of horse doctor Doc Golightly is a delight. Old enough to be her father but in reality her legal wedded husband, Doc accepts Holly for who she is and after ae fond kiss, parts gracefully before broken-heartedly riding the interstate bus back to Texas.

Bob the Cat plays Holly’s unnamed feline companion and deserves special mention. Hailing from a small animal rescue centre in Surrey he has made it into the Moggie A-list with a list of credits including East Enders, Crimewatch and The Secret Life of Cats. Seemingly he is purring with delight to be appearing in Breakfast at Tiffany’s but is far too well mannered to purr loudly on-stage.

It’s a brave cast who take on the ghost of a worldwide blockbuster and on some levels it is impossible to shake the temptation to make comparisons. That however might be a mistake since this production stands well enough on its own merits.

Directed by Nikolai Foster, Breakfast at Tiffany’s plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 7th May

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Guys And Dolls At HMT- Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 082016

Duncan Harley Reviews Guys and Dolls at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen.

L-R, Maxwell Caulfield (Nathan Detroit), Louise Dearman (Adelaide) credit APA Guys and Dolls

Based on the short stories of Alfred Damon Runyon, the musical Guys and Dolls first took to the Broadway stage in 1950 and has been touring in various incarnations ever since. Runyon was an intrepid gambler who funded his habit partly through journalism. He claimed to have met Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in a Texas bar, he fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and seemingly has a lake in Pueblo named after him.

When Runyon died, aged 66, in 1946 his ashes were scattered from an aeroplane over Manhattan.

He wrote mainly in the present tense and many of his plots involve the seedier side of 1930s New York, featuring gangsters, gamblers and of course dolls.

Sharp suits and spectacular sets feature big time in this musical fable of the seamier side of Runyonland, an idealized version of sinful downtown Manhattan, where guys in the know can get away with almost anything. Dolls in the know take a more reformist approach. First nab your man, then change him for the better. Behind the fabulous dance routines and the show-stopping songs lies an evergreen tale of romance and coming-of-age angst.

Hot-Box-Club cabaret singer Miss Adelaide, Louise Dearman, has been engaged to grifter Nathan Detroit, Maxwell Caulfield, for all of fourteen years, and all she really wants is a cosy life barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Nathan however has other ideas, preferring hustling and shooting crap to marital bliss.

New York’s finest are on the case in the form of Anthony McGill as the intrepid Columbo-coated Lieutenant Brannigan; and a suitably secluded spot to hold the next crap game, the Biltmore Garage, will cost $1,000 up-front rent.

Nathan is broke, but proposes an unloseable bet to raise the cash. Call the Midwife star Richard Fleeshman’s Sky Masterson accepts the wager, agreeing to wine and dine Salvationist missionary Sarah Brown, head of the Save-A-Soul Mission, in far off Havana. If he fails in his quest, Nathan wins the thousand dollars and the dice game goes ahead.

After a good few Bacardis and a measure of spectacularly Diva-ridden Rumba, Sarah and Sky declare “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”.

The witty punch-lines rumble on, but the dialogue wears a little thin at points.

Unbelievably, the childless Miss Adelaide has told her mum that she and Nathan have five children and a sixth on the way, and tells Nathan that, when finally married, they can easily cover the lie by breeding like rabbits.

Additionally, the spectre of Cameron Johnson’s giant gangster Big Jule morphing from murderous mobster to amiable Salvationist takes some believing.

No matter! The songs and spellbinding dance routines are what drive Gordon Greenberg’s revival. Familiar favourites “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat”, “Havana” and “Luck Be a Lady” are surely where Guys and Dolls is at in the 21st century.

This musical masterpiece may have turned 65, but the odds are two to one that there’s plenty of life in the old doll yet.

Directed by Gordon Greenberg, with Musical Direction by Andy Massey, Guys and Dolls plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 9th April.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

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