Billed as a musical comedy, The Fabulist is actually a rare chance to see Giovanni Paisiello’s rarely performed light opera, The Imaginary Astrologers , translated and updated to Mussolini’s Italy. With sublime music, fine singing and a bit of additional silliness thrown in for good measure, it’s a welcome addition to the choices available on the West End. It’s currently playing at Charing Cross Theatre . In this update, the action moved to Italy in 1929. A magician (or, as he prefers to be called, Fabulist), Julian is on the run from both the fascists and the Catholic Church. On the run, he stumbles on a film shoot and dazzles the screenwriter Clarice with his charm while her sister tries to complete a series of mildly subversive historical films. What will win in a battle of ideas between science and magic, the church and the Fabulist? It’s an evening of light operatic comedy, so there are no prizes for guessing. Experts in clerical fascism and fascist mysticism may find some of the
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Theatre: Jersey Boys
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From the Tony Awards 2006
I caught Jersey Boys at the Prince Edward Theatre Monday night. I saw it with Grant and we must have looked like a right pair of luvvies as a lady in front of us from Cincinnati asked us if we get to the theatre all the time living in London. I wasn't quite sure if that was a question asking us whether we liked musical theatre. Whatever the line of questioning was, I wasn't going to admit that I had just bought on DVD Show Business. Besides it had been over a week since I had last been to a theatre. And that was fringe theatre...
Jersey Boys - a show about some workin' class boys from New Jersey makin' good - was was all class. Rather than the usual trick of being a juke box of hits strung together for an unbelievable story, or weaving a string of b-side songs into a nights entertainment because that is all the rights that were available, this show tells the story of the boys rise to fame using their music. Their story moves at breakneck speed and has been very cleverly put together. Songs spin into drama about the creative process that spun into new songs spinning into more drama about paying back mob loans. It felt like Dreamgirls meets The Sopranos... But by the end of it you felt like you knew something about each of these boys.
Drama aside, even more fascinating was what happened when the show gave the audience the recognisable music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The first time it occurred was half way through the first act in the build up to the song "Sherry". Surrounded by baby boomers, as the song started there was this shock wave of audience excitement that rippled across the theatre. It was like we were taking part in some sort of phenomena channelling a collective experience of the 1960s. As that was a little before my time, I was a bit taken aback by this... Music always takes me back to when I first heard it, and I was assuming that this audience had a bit longer to travel back than some eighties retro flick like Dirty Dancing... Just as well the tunes were so easy to groove to otherwise there could have been quite an emotional mess in the Prince Edward Theatre...
It was easy to forget it also wasn't the Four Seasons on stage but a talented group of young(ish) actors and a rather amplified band. There seemed to be a great chemistry onstage with the actors and Ryan Molloy as Franki Valli and Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio were particularly memorable. When songs you have heard many times before seem new and fresh like "December 1963 (Oh what a night)" you know something good is going on.
The only thing that had me perplexed all evening was the set. It was a mish mash of styles and almost as hideous as the one in Thoroughly Modern Millie. I could appreciate that it was to give the show the backstage / gritty / Jersey look, but surely we could have something executed a little bit more elegantly. Oh perhaps nowadays one should just be glad to have seen a decent new show, well made and performed, that hasn't had to rely on BBC advertorial to pull in the punters... Good tickets available at the usual outlets.
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue . Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple. The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
