Blog, Frontpage Article, Review
A Streetcar Named Desire is everything you want Theatre to be
Mescal, Credit…Marc Brenner
First things first, Paul Mescal is tremendous. He makes bully Stanley Kowalski terrifying yet sensitive, while Anjana Vasan as his wife Stella is magnificent – – blind to his brutality.
Kowalski is the epitome of toxic masculinity, a character devoid of empathy and kindness.
Alas, blue-collar Stanley sees that the unexpected sister-in-law Blanche DuBois is not what she appears to be, and sets out to destroy her. Patsy Ferran excels as the disintegrating dame in director Rebecca Frecknall's grand production of the 1947 Tennessee Williams play.
Ferran who stepped in to play Blanche last month when Lydia Wilson withdrew due to an injury, is completely mesmerising.
Madeleine Girling's empty raised platform, under Lee Curran's lighting, makes the in-the-round battle for territory fully absorbing. Frecknall honours Williams in not making it easy to take sides.
This seriously unsettling production with few props barrels along: the furious jazz drum score (designed by Peter Rice) sometimes becomes intrusive and occasionally makes the dialogue hard to hear.
But on the whole the nerve jangling a capella singing, percussion and symphonic swells work to the play's advantage: they punctuate Stanley's rancour and Blanches downward spiral.
As Blanche loses first her dignity and then her mind, an audience's emotions is left in shreds. I wept as Blanche walked from the auditorium.
This multi-faceted show lasts around three hours, but there isn't a moment when the drink-fuelled tension drops or focus of the ensemble lapses.
Pasty Ferran as Blanche
The Almeida's A Streetcar Named Desire – the play's fifth major UK revival in the last 20 years – is everything you want theatre to be: vital, challenging, intellectually alive, visually stunning, emotionally affecting.
Yet my memories of this spiky production will be of lean, sexy and pitch perfect Mescal who roars like a goaded boar – "I'm king around here." He mimicks a tiger, in the infamous show-down scene
It's a savage tour de force not only from Mescal and Ferran but everyone involved, and awards will follow: a west end transfer has been announced.
So if you haven't got a ticket, try relying on the kindness of strangers.
A Streetcar Named Desire runs at the Almeida, London, until 4 February.
January 21, 2023 /0 Comments/by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/6CF094B3-4BBB-46BF-BBAE-636AEED4C852-scaled.jpeg 1707 2560 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2023-01-21 18:32:382023-01-25 16:39:29A Streetcar Named Desire is everything you want Theatre to be
Blog, Frontpage Article, Latest News, Review
Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol: A Festive Fiasco (bring wine)
In one of the more camp events to hit the London theatre scene this Christmas – which is saying something when Ian McKellen is in panto – Dolly Parton arrives at the Southbank with her Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol.
It's a story we all know but this time set in Tennessee, Dolly's much-loved mountain home, with as much 'rootin' and 'tootin' as you can shake your jingle bells at. The set and staging is beautiful, and the songs (though there aren't many, it's just the same handful repeated for the most part) are toe-tappingly pleasing and delivered with great gusto by a cast eager to please.
Beyond the pleasantries though, this show is not good. It is, in fact, actively bad. It is the Hallmark Movie of festive theatre productions. Despite everyone's commitment to having a good time, this has more rough edges than Scrooge has humbugs – the accents are all over the place, the choreography is pedestrian, and the whole thing could be about half an hour shorter.
It must be said there are some wonderful turns, the acting is upbeat, and Olivier award-winner George Maguire's flamboyant turn as Jacob Marley is a stand-out portrayal. The cast presents itself with an emphatic and infectious glee, and there are plenty of chuckles along the way.
Often, though, the story it's trying to tell doesn't match up with what the rest of your senses are telling you. Everyone's dying, everyone is poor, Scrooge's past present and future are bleak, but all of this will fly over your head when delivered with whatever darn-tooting accent has been chosen for this particular line.
At one point we were told that seven people had died and the US Army had been brought in, which almost gave the audience whiplash as they tried to marry it with the non-stop hoedown the line was sandwiched between.
"It's two o'clock, the clock has just struck two," says Scrooge, in just one example of a piece simultaneously over and underwritten as it tries to slam together a Dickens classic and a Parton playlist. At one point we find Ebeneezer speaking to a violin in a way one would converse with a clanger (this was the ghost of Christmas Future). I don't know either, nobody in the audience did.
None of it works. It has the air of a fever dream. But at the heart of this 'Christmas Carol' message is that of love and goodwill to all men. It's a goodwill it asks of its audience, and one it gleefully receives. It's terrible, and yet I wholeheartedly loved it in spite of its flaws, and if that's not the true meaning of Christmas I don't know what is.
Ollie Cole is a journalist and broadcaster based in London. His writing credits include The Stage, Secret London, The Times, KentOnline & EachOther.
December 15, 2022 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/806FA660-F7BC-40E6-84FE-88439089A1BD.webp 675 1200 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2022-12-15 12:54:542022-12-15 15:23:59Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol: A Festive Fiasco (bring wine)
My Neighbour Totoro is profound and inventive
To the Barbican, for My Neighbour Totoro.
Not since Life of Pi, have I fell in love with a show so unconditionally.
My Neighbour Totoro Photo by Manuel Harlan
The RSC's completely stunning stage version of the 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film has smashed box office records – eloquent, profound, and moving, My Neighbour Totoro benefits from wonderful music by Joe Hisaishi that says more than words ever could.
Phelim McDermott, who divides his career between opera and theatre, has pitched his production somewhere between a playful musical, a divine comedy, and a metaphysical drama. The plot centres 10-year-old Satsuki and her 4-year-old sister, Mei, in 1950s Japan befriending forest spirits. Then crisis comes as the children's mother falls gravely ill, and all of a sudden we're not in Kansas anymore.
Reworked for the stage by Tom Morton-Smith, here we see emotions form the fundamental arc of all narrative life. This is a production that embraces sadness and doubt.
As for the puppets, designed by Basil Twist, they are the real pull of a show that broke the Barbican box-office records for ticket sales in a single day, surpassing the set by Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet.
The inflatable Cat-Bus, meanwhile, is a huge glowing feline that floats through the set's trees with supernatural grace. It's as bizarre, imaginative, and authentically psychedelic as anything produced in mainstream theatre. I loved the chickens and the Soot Sprites.
Just as the sensational screen to stage adaptation of Life of Pi, so this show uses puppets and drilled ensemble storytelling to stunning effect, all on Tom Pye's malleable set that shifts scenes with effortlessness grace.
Of course, it's easy to become blasé about the visual brilliance, both technical and artistic, of RSC's output, but Totoro really is a treat for the eyes. Formidably inventive, My Neighbour Totoro hits an elusive sweet spot in terms of appealing to children and adults alike.
The show has adapted perfectly well to the Barbican stage, but, in essence, it signifies a return to the Cirque De Soleil appetite for spectacle. There is a stunning moment that celebrates the British East and Southeast Asian cast representation at the end during the joyous curtain call.
Make no mistake, the artistry and insight will shine on any stage; West End, New York or Hong Kong.
Overall, a captivating world you won't want to come home from, its beauty, warmth and ambition are panoramic.
I took my Godmother who had tears of joy streaming down her face as we exited the venue.
I may be late to the party, but I now have no hesitation in declaring myself a fully paid-up Totoro fan.
Grab a return or await the inevitable transfer.
At the Barbican, London, until 21 January
November 5, 2022 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/MNT_MAR22_Portrait-Landscape_NTV4.jpg 538 768 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2022-11-05 18:08:572022-11-09 12:55:38My Neighbour Totoro is profound and inventive
Blog, Featured, Frontpage Article, News, Review
Into The Woods, Theatre Royal Bath: be careful what you wish for
"'Horror! Shame! Disgrace!' laughs Terry." runs the programme note asking what co-directors Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausman want audiences to take away from Into The Woods in Bath.
The cast of Into the Woods at Theatre Royal Bath. Photo: Marc Brenner
Some evenings at the theatre make an instant impact, others lurk in your unconscious and won't go away.
As you may recall, last year the Old Vic cancelled Gilliam's show following unrest (he'd made contentious comments about Netflix special by comedian Dave Chappelle and the #MeToo movement) about its original decision to programme the production.
During the pandemic, Theatre Royal Bath agreed to re-home the production.
Terry Gilliam & Leah Hausman on stage with the cast of Into The Woods
In that context, this disquieting revival becomes a riposte. With a cast of 23, the macabre musical is almost too vast for Bath's proscenium, but it wittily (and pertinently) blends the carnivalesque and the gothic.
Anyway, in the first half of co-director's Gilliam's and Hausman's slippery production, a childless couple go on a quest to lift a curse placed by a witch (Nicola Hughes). We encounter as Red Ridinghood (Lauren Conroy), Cinderella (Audrey Brisson) Jack of the Beanstalk (Barney Wilkinson), Rapunzel (Maria Conneely) and of course the Baker (Rhashan Stone) and his wife (Alex Young)– all of whom seem emotionally damaged. And even The Mysterious Man (Julian Bleach) can only raise a snarl.
In the superior second half, an unforgiving giantess inflicts mayhem on the fairy-tale community, whose survivors realise self-discovery. There's magic in the air around Young as the childless Baker's Wife and superb Brisson as Cinderella – they are the key to what makes this evening so beguiling, I think.
Into the Woods at Theatre Royal Bath. Photo: Marc Brenner
Interestingly, Sondheim saw the richly atmospheric designs before he died and is said to have wholly approved. This surreal staging ingeniously mashes up the vividly dark and the popular.
Ingenious use is made of designer Jon Bausor's Victorian toy theatre creation: a sinister cuckoo sits above the curtain, a large chicken with "Made in China" on its thigh lays a golden egg, a massive pocket watch drops from the sky, counting down hours to undo the curse.
Elsewhere, Will Duke's opulent video designs compliment the storytelling effortlessly. The ensemble is drilled. The singing is good.
It's a heady mix: political, playful and profound.
Gilliam and his co-director Hausman make us unsure if we are to care about the characters, or if it is all just for a laugh – there is a lot of mugging off – and this can occasionally be at the expense of the more melancholy numbers.
Furthermore, too often this rollicking production mistakes the overwrought for genuine emotion. You never really emotionally connect with any of the material. Well, except for Milky White – Jack's bug-eyed pantomime cow.
Still, it's a dreamlike evening defiantly served not just by its leads but the entire top-notch, shape-shifting ensemble and a small but perfectly formed 10-piece band.
So, transfer Into The Woods? Only if it comes with this warning out front: 'be careful what you wish for'.
Into The Woods runs until 10 September at Theatre Royal Bath.
August 28, 2022 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/028625A4-03B4-4A56-B9DA-2343AB302EFD-scaled.jpeg 1707 2560 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2022-08-28 15:58:272022-08-29 06:38:10Into The Woods, Theatre Royal Bath: be careful what you wish for
Blog, Featured, News, Review, Spotlight
Cabaret, review: the show of a lifetime
Stunningly designed by Tom Scutt, London's Playhouse Theatre is transformed into the Kit Kat Club – and Eddie Redmayne is its emcee – for this jaw dropping – expensive (the lowest price in the top two ticket price bands is £120)- production.
Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley in 'Cabaret'
(Marc Brenner)
In this grand, in the round space, these Kander and Ebb songs recall, rather strangely, the toughest emotional moments of opera, and powerfully re-render them.
The devil is in the detail.
I don't think I have ever seen a more demented Emcee. I fell headfirst into Redmayne's shape-shifting approach here. There was a strange menace to his otherworldly appearance, standing alone, facial features altered by extraordinary makeup.
In his party hat and Bowie attire, Redmayne resembles some kind of pale, alien clown being. Staking the stalls and swinging from the circle – you can't take your eyes off the Oscar winner. His crumpled physicality is a marvel.
Like a first-rate evil clown, he twists his impish body and tongue around the slippery role. He also has a beautiful singing voice.
Eddie Redmayne as Emcee / Marc Brenner
This A list casting might have triggered a frenzy, but make no mistake, this is director Rebecca Frecknall's production — and it's a radical reinvention with real political intent. Each possibility is laid out with complete clarity and assessed.
Her Cabaret is one of the most visually and atmospherically expressionistic productions I've ever seen, of anything, ever. The creative team's theatrical ambitions are astute and dense.
Mind you, supporting cast (including an outstanding Anna Jane Casey as Fraulein Kost) may have big names to lean on but they make it look effortless; everyone is on magisterial form.
With Liza Minnelli erased from memory and Fosse's iconic choreography stripped from this production, the audience are forced to confront the dark heart of the material. Julia Cheng's twitchy choreography sweeps over the stage in waves. The gender-fluid ensemble frequently make you gasp.
Omari Douglas and Jessie Buckley / Marc Brenner
Sardonic, seductive, uniquely done. This Cabaret is an distinctive, shattering, deeply humane evening. It is also genuinely cathartic, in the great, transcendent tradition of classic tragedy.
In a superb piece of acting, Jessie Buckley plays an anti-Sally Bowles; her subdued rock star approach to 'Maybe This Time' reduces the audience to hushed awe. But her voice rings out clear and she in total command.
Buckley gives her character a bewitching vulnerable finish that makes Sally both more life-size and broken than she's ever been before. Her nervous breakdown performance of title song 'Cabaret' is distressing to watch.
Her voice is full of charm and hurt, an elemental howl that appears to affect the fabric of time. Towards the end, she roars with unruly splendour.
Omari Douglas plays Cliff / Marc Brenner
But Omari Douglas! Holy smoke, what an actor! It would be easy to forget he is up on stage amidst the pandemonium and moments of rising fascism. But keep looking up, because occasionally there will be a scene he is in, and Douglas will be up there on the stage, apparently doing not much more than speak. Douglas gently presents the bisexual American novelist, Clifford Bradshaw.
As it is, the fact this triumphant production has been achieved 20 months into an ongoing medical emergency is nothing short of miraculous.
Kind of amazing, I came out stunned into submission, admiring the musical more than ever: the accustomed world had shifted.
Cabaret is at the Playhouse theatre, London, until 1 October 2022.
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Cabaret-CTSY-03.jpg 853 1280 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2021-12-13 11:51:492021-12-16 16:00:50Cabaret, review: the show of a lifetime
Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane is incredible and scary as hell
What a triumph for the National Theatre to make a riveting nightmare out of this long-anticipated transfer.
Two years after The Ocean at the End of the Lane's first staging, Neil Gaiman's dark fairy-tale has returned, this time to the West End.
The story from Gaiman's award-winning book is about the escape a lonely child finds in fantasy worlds. In one of many extraordinary moments during Katy Rudd's haunting production, the stage becomes a playground for the imagination. Anything can come to life; anything can be transformed. It is also occasionally unbearably chilling and poignant.
Leading the production, James Bamford as the Boy is commanding – at times heart-rending – as the distressed, gawky 12-year-old hero who is plunged into a confrontation with a wicked witch in his own home, screeching monsters and flapping creatures. Nia Towle is dynamic as Lettie, the farm girl who becomes his guiding friend. The magical realism is a pure spectacle.
Nia Towle (Lettie Hempstock) and James Bamford (the Boy) / Manuel Harlan
Elsewhere, Nicolas Tennant as the Dad movingly portrays the messily human emotions of a family bereavement and subsequent trauma. The 16-strong cast work effortlessly to realise a slick and polished ensemble performance. Extraordinary moments abound.
How do you stage unfurling forests, tunnels, witches, snapping demons, and action-packed drama so effortlessly? With the help of Joel Horwood's nimble adaptation, a terrific team has found the way.
Every small thing is beautiful; the creative team are chef's kiss. Ian Dixon's sound design turns innocent noises into explosions. In a triumph of theatricality, movement director Steven Hoggett, composer Jherek Bischoff and lighting designer Paule Constable pull out all the stops to ensure that the production soars; the dreamlike storytelling becomes the arena that the Boy makes his own. All this ensures that The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a triumphant theatre event.
The disparate and menacing electric 80s music by composer Jherek Bischoff deftly underscores the journey of a man returning to his childhood home, and is a work of art. Taken as a suite of music on its own merits, The Ocean at the End of the Lane's official soundtrack flows rather seamlessly—no small achievement. Perhaps the most deft and frightening as hell touch is the use of synths to mimic a vaguely inhuman howling.
Photo: Manuel Harlan
Sometimes a show comes along that is so inventive that you just can't help but be in awe of everyone involved. Separating the very good from the excellent moments in Rudd's dreamlike production is almost impossible. Fly Davis's set has benches, doorways and props popping amongst a beautiful series of tunnels and abstract backdrops.
I should also say that I am delighted that west end theatre is waking up to the notion that it should take advantage of the great blossoming of children's literature in the last few years – and by doing so luring in a new generation of theatre-goers.
If you have the chance, make sure you get along to the show because it is visually thrilling, moving and extremely special.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane runs at the Duke of York's theatre, London, until 14 May 2022.
November 12, 2021 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-1280-x-720.jpg 720 1280 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2021-11-12 14:44:402021-11-13 08:56:31Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane is incredible and scary as hell
Blog, News, Review
Review: The Shark is Broken is a wonderfully aquatic account of masculinity
How good is The Shark is Broken? It is quite good.
I admire it; partly because its surface exuberance seems to conceal a great melancholy, partly because it has the whiplash exactness of the best Edinburgh Fringe shows plus a good deal of intellectual resonance.
The Shark is Broken offers a glimpse at the overwrought relationship between the three stars of Steven Spielberg's iconic 1975 film Jaws. Ian Shaw plays his own dad Robert who starred as Quint in the original blockbuster.
(from left) Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw), Demetri Goritsas (Roy Scheider) and Liam Murray Scott (Richard Dreyfuss) in The Shark Is Broken. Photograph: Helen Maybanks
And while things looked great on the screen, behind the scenes, the lead actors were trapped in a notorious feud; in addition, the mechanical sharks repeatedly broke down – something that inspired the play's title.
As a film, it has been interpreted as everything from a depiction of masculinity in crisis to a post-Watergate paranoid parable about rotten bureaucracy.
Guy Masterson's production provides a new perspective on Spielberg's film in this brooding, intelligent show. Shaw's portrayal of his own father is bittersweet and tender.
Staging it, however, poses problems, most of which Masterson's production overcomes. The fishing boat to which the story is confined sits glossily on Nina Dunn's video ocean backdrop. Surprisingly, the effect works.
Meanwhile, Shaw and Joseph Nixon's dialogue throughout is snappy and, crucially, hilarious when it counts. About Spielberg's next picture, Roberts scoffs: "Aliens? What next, dinosaurs?".
Across the play's 90-minute running time, addiction, love, regret, life, ambition, and masculinity are all unpacked and peppered between mock filming of the classic film. It felt to me that the shark off-screen becomes the means of exposing the men's rootlessness, insecurity, and uncertain sense of self.
Their reservations about the blockbuster's potential and anxiety over the inexperience of the young director play right into the mysterious nature of popular culture. And although there are few subtexts here, the portrayal of abrasive masculinity is all too recognisable and yet, in these fine performances, sympathetic and resonant.
Overall, the final impression of the making of Jaws is of frustration and emotion behind a posturing feud. It may take place in the past, but it says something that will always be current about our quest for meaning in a world in which it sometimes feels like that which we used to believe in and rely on no longer comforts us in the same way.
Liam Murray Scott (Richard Dreyfuss), Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw), Demetri Goritsas (Roy Scheider)
I only hope the inventive work, which has just extended to 13 February 2022, gets through to the popular audience it deserves. Crucially, it's a special play.
The Shark is Broken runs at Ambassadors Theatre, London until 13 February 2022
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Demetri-Goritsas-Roy-Scheider-Ian-Shaw-Robert-Shaw-and-Liam-Murray-Scott-Richard-Dreyfuss-in-The-Shark-is-Broken-Photo-by-Helen-Maybanks-scaled-e1636603328240.jpg 400 600 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2021-11-09 20:06:562021-11-11 04:05:16Review: The Shark is Broken is a wonderfully aquatic account of masculinity
Blog, Latest News, News, Review
Bat out of Hell rocks Manchester Opera House
Bat Out of Hell is the first big musical to be staged at the theatre and it's a night of delirious entertainment.
It's a tale of unrequited love from different sides of the track, with a parent determined to keep them apart. Story wise, it is post-apocalyptic Peter Pan.
Jay Scheib's totally electrifying production re-imagines the jukebox musical for these mad times.
If you saw the show in London you won't be disappointed – the flames, the cameras circling the stage, the video screen capturing and magnifying the action are all here. There's no expense spared.
What's more, this talented and vibrant cast navigate the luminescent and fast-paced production with high stamina and real flair. The songs are gloriously sung and the occasion allows everyone to let their hair down.
Glenn Adamson and Martha Kirby lead as Strat and Raven respectively, and are electric together.
Glenn Adamson and Martha Kirby
Incredibly, Meatloaf's three Bat Out Of Hell albums have sold a staggering 100 million copies globally. This lively and quirky show has been perfectly reconfigured for a UK Tour and features all the hits: Out Of Hell, I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) and Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad.
Jim Steinman's soaring rock n roll anthems and Jon Bausor's anarchic designs offer an extravagant sense of occasion, as well as a show with extremely high production values. The lighting and sound are world class here.
It was great to see people having fun, and this high voltage and good-natured mega show is the perfect tonic to reinvigorate regional theatres and attract audiences back after a miserable 21 months.
Vegas? Don't bet against it.
Bat Out of Hell runs at Manchester Opera House until 2 October and tours the UK through to November 2022.
September 29, 2021 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/51CAB235-AC2B-47C3-9A78-EF94F9C5520F.webp 1440 2560 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2021-09-29 10:25:282021-09-29 10:46:47Bat out of Hell rocks Manchester Opera House
Blog, Latest News, Review, Westend Musicals
Anything Goes gave me one of the best nights in a theatre — ever.
An actual show at the theatre. Wow indeed.
Financially, theatre is unviable. Yet at the Barbican in London right now, it's never looked so enticing, beautiful and well produced.
Helmed by three-time Tony-winning director Kathleen Marshall, Anything Goes is the real deal.
Cheeriness is contagious, folks.
Photo credit: Tristram Kenton
It has been a long time coming, but Cole Porter's Anything Goes is the biggest new musical to open since the lifting of social distancing curbs on July 19.
Felicity Kendal is genuinely hilarious and brilliantly camp in her non-singing role. Gary Wilmot is thoroughly entertaining – that man is kind of amazing – throughout and theatre legend Robert Lindsay is cleverly funny as Moonface Martin – America's 13th Most Wanted Man.
He is perfectly matched by chipper and demure Broadway star Sutton Foster making her UK debut as Reno Sweeney, who gets to sing some of Porter's greatest songs including I Get a Kick Out of You and Blow, Gabriel, Blow.
Reprising the role that won her a Tony Award a decade ago, from beginning to end Foster blazes through this feel-good show. She is full of jagged gestures.
The story is nautical farce, but this is inconsequential. Even if you have never seen the musical, you know the songs.
However, if your main anchor is being offended by everything, then you must stay at home. The source material can, obviously, feel jarringly out of date.
Basically, the gangsters are sex-crazed, women are leggy and there is a repressed aristocrat that sings about having 'a bit of gypsy' in him.
In fact, the lines leading into song The Gypsy in Me have been tweaked, thankfully.
Unworthy critics will fail to ruin the magic of a magnificent production like this. We all know that these glitzy shows are from another era.
The dancing here is exceptional. When did you last experience the truly awe-inspiring sight of two mid-show standing ovations?
Having said all that, this is a triumphant, world-class, rousing piece of musical theatre.
This magnificently starry production proves most captivating, while ultimately raising a toast to the redemptive power of theatre. It is pure escapism.
Basically, Anything Goes gave me one of the best nights in a theatre — ever.
Anything Goes runs at the Barbican until 31 October 2021
August 3, 2021 /by Carl Woodward
https://www.mrcarlwoodward.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/579E4DE5-A34A-4862-A69C-904E065A3852.jpeg 585 1170 Carl Woodward https://www.shwetas11.sg-host.com//wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Copy-of-Carl-Woodward-2-300x66.png Carl Woodward2021-08-03 20:29:062021-08-04 13:15:19Anything Goes gave me one of the best nights in a theatre — ever.