Aberdeen Voice

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

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

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

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA

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

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA