I have been cast in a Bench production for 2008. I am playing the Badger in the Christmas production of "Wind in the Willows" . I will publish the dates later in this blog. It was a part I wanted and I am looking forward to my first acting role of the year with the Bench. I have tried to interest CCADS in casting me in one of their productions but so far to no avail.
I have also discussed with my pal, David Penrose, the resurrection of Cunning Plan in 2009, as a touring theatre for two middle aged actors and actress. We have a few ideas on that score, which I will keep up my sleeve for the moment ,in case someone else thinks they are worth copying.
2009 season is the 40th Anniversary of the Bench Theatre, with which I have been associated for 36 years. The group is doing "Old Times" in February, "Closer" in April, "Road" in July, a Brand New Play in September and "What the Butler Saw" in December. The first two productions will have no parts for me and although I like working backstage - as witnessed by this year - I do prefer to tread the boards, luvvies. The last three may or may not have parts for me but I shall be auditioning, even though I played Dr Rance in our last production of "What the Butler Saw" back in 1984. I was younger then (37 to be precise) and was playing above my range. I am just about the right age now of course. However as I have stated elsewhere this is a farce and farces are real hard work - do I have the stamina, the strength, the will power? - oh f***, of course I do! Talent will out, children!
I am also looking forward to seeing Bob in "Crave" in a couple of weeks as part of the Bench double bill July 2008 production. She has suggested directing a full length monologue with yours truly that made me drool on reading the script. There is a slight delay this year in the availability of amateur rights so hopefully this will be another project for 2009. Good on yer, Bob!
Thursday 10 July 2008
The Music Man
The Chichester Festival Theatre are mounting two musicals this year: "Funny Girl" in the Minerva and "Music Man" in the main theatre. I was eager to see the former and ambivalent about the latter. After last night's performance of "Music Man", I still prefer "Funny Girl" but was won over by the performances of Brian Conley and Scarlet Strallen in particular.
The Meredith Willson musical opened on Broadway in 1957 and followed in the same vein as "Oklahoma", "Carousel" and "Shenandoah" to capture the spirit of the early American heartland. Willson wrote about his home state of Iowa and created a classic Broadway musical, full of invention and traditional Broadway numbers. "Seventy Six Trombones" is a well known number as is the much covered "Till There Was You".
We find ourselves in River City, Iowa, in the company of self-styled Professor Harold Hill, who is renowned for selling band instruments and uniforms, promising to give lessons but cannot read a note of music and disappearing with the money. Brian Conley eases himself into the part and charms the audience as much as the good folk of River City. He lacks the sleazy aspect of the salesman but wins us over firmly onto his side by his smooth humour and brilliant smile. By the end, he made me care about his character and provoked a tear or two in the Best Beloved.
His co-star and the love interest of the piece is the stunning Scarlet Strallen. She plays Marion the librarian and is gorgeous. She is beautiful, slim with a wonderful behind and the movement of a dancer, which later in the show she proves herself to be. However it is when she sings that my heart fluttered helplessly against my rib cage. "Goodnight My Someone", "Will I Ever Tell you? and "Till There Was you" are delivered in a crystal clear voice, which effortlessly reaches into the higher notes and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention.
The director, Rachel Kavanaugh, has done a fine job with a good looking show and some terrific moments. She is indebted to Robert Jones, the designer, Stephen Ridley, the musical director and Stephen Mear the choreographer (who was also responsible for "Funny Girl" this season). The set design succeeds in creating a train, River City, the gymnasium, the interior of the library, the Wells Fargo Wagon and the Footbridge. The Footbridge is a touch of real magic on the open thrust stage of Chichester aided superbly by the lighting design of Howard Harrison. For a while I was suspended in space by the beauty of the set and the movement and singing, especially of "Till There Was You". Stephen Mear's work in choreography raises the standards even higher with a particularly fine rendition of "Marion the Librarian" (rhyming her name with her occupation and at one point in the song with "carrion") in the library interior and the chicken dance in "Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little".
Stephen Ridley, the musical director, also plays his part in putting together a marvellous evening. The melody of "Seventy Six Trombones" with the tempo slowed down is used in "Goodnight, My Someone" to link the Professor and the librarian in romantic, operatic fashion. This was as written by Meredith Willson of course. "Till There Was You" i s the traditional Broadway ballad but beautifully delivered by Scarlet Strallen. It begins in tremulous fashion with two short, halting phrases of three notes each, then rushes more freely and blissfully onwards in an expansive style. I didn't want the song to finish.
The curtain call is pure razzamatazz and I heard a Chichester audience cheering and calling for more - a sound rarely heard there by me. I think Jonathan Church and Alan Finch might have come up with yet another outstanding season!
I love musicals! I know they appeal to the more sensitive or feminine side of my nature but I can play 'butch' as well, you know!
The Meredith Willson musical opened on Broadway in 1957 and followed in the same vein as "Oklahoma", "Carousel" and "Shenandoah" to capture the spirit of the early American heartland. Willson wrote about his home state of Iowa and created a classic Broadway musical, full of invention and traditional Broadway numbers. "Seventy Six Trombones" is a well known number as is the much covered "Till There Was You".
We find ourselves in River City, Iowa, in the company of self-styled Professor Harold Hill, who is renowned for selling band instruments and uniforms, promising to give lessons but cannot read a note of music and disappearing with the money. Brian Conley eases himself into the part and charms the audience as much as the good folk of River City. He lacks the sleazy aspect of the salesman but wins us over firmly onto his side by his smooth humour and brilliant smile. By the end, he made me care about his character and provoked a tear or two in the Best Beloved.
His co-star and the love interest of the piece is the stunning Scarlet Strallen. She plays Marion the librarian and is gorgeous. She is beautiful, slim with a wonderful behind and the movement of a dancer, which later in the show she proves herself to be. However it is when she sings that my heart fluttered helplessly against my rib cage. "Goodnight My Someone", "Will I Ever Tell you? and "Till There Was you" are delivered in a crystal clear voice, which effortlessly reaches into the higher notes and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention.
The director, Rachel Kavanaugh, has done a fine job with a good looking show and some terrific moments. She is indebted to Robert Jones, the designer, Stephen Ridley, the musical director and Stephen Mear the choreographer (who was also responsible for "Funny Girl" this season). The set design succeeds in creating a train, River City, the gymnasium, the interior of the library, the Wells Fargo Wagon and the Footbridge. The Footbridge is a touch of real magic on the open thrust stage of Chichester aided superbly by the lighting design of Howard Harrison. For a while I was suspended in space by the beauty of the set and the movement and singing, especially of "Till There Was You". Stephen Mear's work in choreography raises the standards even higher with a particularly fine rendition of "Marion the Librarian" (rhyming her name with her occupation and at one point in the song with "carrion") in the library interior and the chicken dance in "Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little".
Stephen Ridley, the musical director, also plays his part in putting together a marvellous evening. The melody of "Seventy Six Trombones" with the tempo slowed down is used in "Goodnight, My Someone" to link the Professor and the librarian in romantic, operatic fashion. This was as written by Meredith Willson of course. "Till There Was You" i s the traditional Broadway ballad but beautifully delivered by Scarlet Strallen. It begins in tremulous fashion with two short, halting phrases of three notes each, then rushes more freely and blissfully onwards in an expansive style. I didn't want the song to finish.
The curtain call is pure razzamatazz and I heard a Chichester audience cheering and calling for more - a sound rarely heard there by me. I think Jonathan Church and Alan Finch might have come up with yet another outstanding season!
I love musicals! I know they appeal to the more sensitive or feminine side of my nature but I can play 'butch' as well, you know!
Thursday 3 July 2008
Tales from the Green Room 1984
Continuing this series of personal reminiscences of the Bench Theatre, unsupported by any documentary evidence other than my somewhat suspect memory, I jump five years from my last article and the introduction of David Penrose in 1979. We are in the year 1984 and after a few years in the wilderness bringing a family into the world and earning a degree in my spare time, I decided the time was ripe for a Peter Corrigan production.
I have always read lots of plays and I try to see as many as I can (although I can never do enough of either pastime). In 1984 I was much taken by the work of Peter Whelan, as was the RSC at the time. In particular I read his "The Accrington Pals" and was bowled over. I loved the play and had to do it. I felt the Bench could really do it credit by doing it well in our intimate theatre and inadvertently I also introduced a great character into the Bench firmament.
"Accrington Pals" is set in Lancashire in the First World War and is about the Pals battalion set from that town to fight. In fact, it is more about the impact on the town and upon the womenfolk left behind. The Accrington Pals suffered grievous losses in the War. The comment, "lions led by donkeys", about the flower of British youth and the First World war generals who led them, has long resounded in my heart and mind. The production would give me the chance to articulate some of those thoughts and feelings. I rarely direct plays as that combination of passion and intellectual stimulation are hard to find and to maintain.
The set was extraordinary and was probably realised by David Hemsley-Brown, who also starred in the play as the young male lead, Tom Hackford, an apprentice, nineteen. As usual the finishing touches, the artistic touches of the set, were applied by David Penrose, playing Arthur Boggis. An all black set it all became part of the black box of the theatre. It was easy therefore with lighting to portray interiors and exteriors ranging from kitchen ranges to cobbled market streets and the Western front. David's (Penrose) touch was to introduce the deepest red, so deep it was almost black, on to the black walls. Most of the time it was invisible but when you became conscious of it, it was always there in the background of your vision and consciousness. I had a stage manager who created the effect of smoky streets before the audience entered the auditorium.
The play is concerned with a love affair between Tom and May Hassal. May is a stall holder, in her late twenties or older. May was played by Nicola Scadding in a stunning performance. In fact the cast was one of the very best I ever assembled. We worked very hard in the rehearsals on the scenes set in Accrington and especially the ones before the Pals left for war. To this day I still remember the scene with Ralph in the tin bath. But more than anything I remember the scene between Tom and May on the eve of his departure. She was dressed in a whiter than white nightdress and he in his khakis. He brought a bunch of red roses with him. During what should have been a loving farewell, they quarrel as invariably they did. In a final gesture, Tom hurled a red rose into her lap before banging out of the house. Under the steely blue light and on that whitest of night gowns and because she was seated on a black stool, the rose landed in such a way that it looked like a bloodstain. The symbolism of that one moment could have been a painting and was for me the key moment of the whole play. It could only be captured under full lighting, costume and performance. We worked for weeks but that is what I had dreamed and its fruition was greater than I had ever imagined.
The men in the play were quite disappointed because I only rehearsed the trenches scene once or twice when the Pals went over the top. I did so because it was a beautifully written scene and once we had determined the Pals would charge up the central aisle through the audience and disappear into history, it was easy to stage. I also didn't bring the men back for the curtain call. Instead the curtain call was entirely populated by the women who opened their ranks to let through the cripple Reggie, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, the only surviving male. It was my attempt to say how we had thrown away the flower of our manhood and yet the strain was borne by women.
We were trained and drilled by the Territorial Army in the uniforms and weaponry. I had wanted to use a live pigeon in one poignant scene when Arthur at the front writes home to Annie, his wife (a powerful and heart wringing performance by Jane Hart) but had to settle for a fake one as the production was threatened with blockade by a animal rights group. I have the habit of riling people unintentionally as I go about my single minded dedication to the theatrical arts.
Finally I wonder if you have worked out the great Bench character who made his debut in that production? Well I was into the second night of auditions and was just beginning to jig the cast in my mind, when a stranger walked into the Lecture Room. I could have cast the play comfortably and usually I use the same repertory of actors when doing so. I suppose this opens me up to accusations of cliquishness. However, I was always more concerned with delivering the piece and getting it on stage than I was with developing actors. I spent my working days developing and broadening young minds and didn't want to do it as part of my hobby.
Anyway I was looking for someone to play the part of C.S.M. Rivers, a regular soldier in his thirties or forties, which believe it or not, is what I was back in 1984. The part is an important pivotal part as he is the one that induces the young men to join the Pals and rather Pied Piper like leads them away from Accrington to the battlefields, from whence they never return. Into the rehearsal space stepped one Peter Woodward, full of apologies for his late arrival and hoping he would still be allowed to audition. I believe he had been at a social or sporting event that evening and had imbibed before his arrival. Those of you who know Peter will perhaps recognise the state he must have been in that night. Now the original Rivers had been played by one of my favourite actors of all time, Bob Peck. (Have I told you about the three months I spent as an Assistant Stage Manager at the Midlands arts Centre, where Bob Peck was the star? If not, perhaps I should another time!) Peter read beautifully and caught both the martinet and the lonely man inside the uniform instinctively. I was able to welcome a new Bench member, who became one of those Bench stalwarts Mike Allen always likes to mention, and who would always be in any cast of mine if he wanted and was available.
I am not sure where this occasional series of Bench Green Room Tales will take me but I hope you will join me the next time.
I have always read lots of plays and I try to see as many as I can (although I can never do enough of either pastime). In 1984 I was much taken by the work of Peter Whelan, as was the RSC at the time. In particular I read his "The Accrington Pals" and was bowled over. I loved the play and had to do it. I felt the Bench could really do it credit by doing it well in our intimate theatre and inadvertently I also introduced a great character into the Bench firmament.
"Accrington Pals" is set in Lancashire in the First World War and is about the Pals battalion set from that town to fight. In fact, it is more about the impact on the town and upon the womenfolk left behind. The Accrington Pals suffered grievous losses in the War. The comment, "lions led by donkeys", about the flower of British youth and the First World war generals who led them, has long resounded in my heart and mind. The production would give me the chance to articulate some of those thoughts and feelings. I rarely direct plays as that combination of passion and intellectual stimulation are hard to find and to maintain.
The set was extraordinary and was probably realised by David Hemsley-Brown, who also starred in the play as the young male lead, Tom Hackford, an apprentice, nineteen. As usual the finishing touches, the artistic touches of the set, were applied by David Penrose, playing Arthur Boggis. An all black set it all became part of the black box of the theatre. It was easy therefore with lighting to portray interiors and exteriors ranging from kitchen ranges to cobbled market streets and the Western front. David's (Penrose) touch was to introduce the deepest red, so deep it was almost black, on to the black walls. Most of the time it was invisible but when you became conscious of it, it was always there in the background of your vision and consciousness. I had a stage manager who created the effect of smoky streets before the audience entered the auditorium.
The play is concerned with a love affair between Tom and May Hassal. May is a stall holder, in her late twenties or older. May was played by Nicola Scadding in a stunning performance. In fact the cast was one of the very best I ever assembled. We worked very hard in the rehearsals on the scenes set in Accrington and especially the ones before the Pals left for war. To this day I still remember the scene with Ralph in the tin bath. But more than anything I remember the scene between Tom and May on the eve of his departure. She was dressed in a whiter than white nightdress and he in his khakis. He brought a bunch of red roses with him. During what should have been a loving farewell, they quarrel as invariably they did. In a final gesture, Tom hurled a red rose into her lap before banging out of the house. Under the steely blue light and on that whitest of night gowns and because she was seated on a black stool, the rose landed in such a way that it looked like a bloodstain. The symbolism of that one moment could have been a painting and was for me the key moment of the whole play. It could only be captured under full lighting, costume and performance. We worked for weeks but that is what I had dreamed and its fruition was greater than I had ever imagined.
The men in the play were quite disappointed because I only rehearsed the trenches scene once or twice when the Pals went over the top. I did so because it was a beautifully written scene and once we had determined the Pals would charge up the central aisle through the audience and disappear into history, it was easy to stage. I also didn't bring the men back for the curtain call. Instead the curtain call was entirely populated by the women who opened their ranks to let through the cripple Reggie, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, the only surviving male. It was my attempt to say how we had thrown away the flower of our manhood and yet the strain was borne by women.
We were trained and drilled by the Territorial Army in the uniforms and weaponry. I had wanted to use a live pigeon in one poignant scene when Arthur at the front writes home to Annie, his wife (a powerful and heart wringing performance by Jane Hart) but had to settle for a fake one as the production was threatened with blockade by a animal rights group. I have the habit of riling people unintentionally as I go about my single minded dedication to the theatrical arts.
Finally I wonder if you have worked out the great Bench character who made his debut in that production? Well I was into the second night of auditions and was just beginning to jig the cast in my mind, when a stranger walked into the Lecture Room. I could have cast the play comfortably and usually I use the same repertory of actors when doing so. I suppose this opens me up to accusations of cliquishness. However, I was always more concerned with delivering the piece and getting it on stage than I was with developing actors. I spent my working days developing and broadening young minds and didn't want to do it as part of my hobby.
Anyway I was looking for someone to play the part of C.S.M. Rivers, a regular soldier in his thirties or forties, which believe it or not, is what I was back in 1984. The part is an important pivotal part as he is the one that induces the young men to join the Pals and rather Pied Piper like leads them away from Accrington to the battlefields, from whence they never return. Into the rehearsal space stepped one Peter Woodward, full of apologies for his late arrival and hoping he would still be allowed to audition. I believe he had been at a social or sporting event that evening and had imbibed before his arrival. Those of you who know Peter will perhaps recognise the state he must have been in that night. Now the original Rivers had been played by one of my favourite actors of all time, Bob Peck. (Have I told you about the three months I spent as an Assistant Stage Manager at the Midlands arts Centre, where Bob Peck was the star? If not, perhaps I should another time!) Peter read beautifully and caught both the martinet and the lonely man inside the uniform instinctively. I was able to welcome a new Bench member, who became one of those Bench stalwarts Mike Allen always likes to mention, and who would always be in any cast of mine if he wanted and was available.
I am not sure where this occasional series of Bench Green Room Tales will take me but I hope you will join me the next time.
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