Clifton Park and the World Goes Round Review
Julian Eaves reviews Kander and Ebb's musical review And The World Goes Circular at the Stockwell Playhouse.
And The World Goes Round
Stockwell Playhouse
29th March 2018
Before disappearing away recently for an Easter vacation, I was lucky enough to call in at this interesting and beautiful space in the Wandsworth Road to come across a smart and sassy revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb'southward own re-working of selections of their songs, here presented until the canny gaze of producer-director-choreographer Stuart Saint, in a co-product with the theatre'due south Marking Magill. And am I ever glad I did. In a run of a merely a handful of shows, and with the briefest of rehearsal schedules, his cleft team of promising newcomers Daniel Hall and Georgina Nicholas, combined with the inestimable seasoned skills of cabaret greats, Suzanna Kempner, Katy Baker and Paul Harwood (also known as Paul Nicholas Dyke) gave a magnificent rendering of this wonderfully ingenious and glamorous re-packaging of some very well known, and some much less well known songs. We also got some occasional lilliputian bits of dialogue – partly their own – to stitch it all together in Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman and David Thompson'due south original conception.
Revue is all about chemical science – mainly betwixt the performers – and tone – mainly regarding the option of content. Here, the show scored heavily on both counts. Saint prides himself on picking winners, and this batch of lovelies was extremely well chosen to create maximum levels of musical harmony and theatrical interest. He likewise succeeded in dressing the phase with aplomb, appositely evoking the urban press of Manhattan – which seems to be the only terrain, regardless of specified background, that Kander and Ebb songs can properly inhabit. And with Ballad Arnopp leading the brassy and full-throated band of Peter Mooney (bass), Megan Landeg (drums and percussion), Robert Greenwood (reeds) and James Mayhew (brass), nosotros got the massive, big sound you need to sock it out to the back of the next tenement and the one beyond that.
The show really clicked into gear properly a scattering of songs in with Baker'south unearthly 'Colored Lights' – a timely reminder that the 'other' borough playhouse, the i in Southwark, will soon exist presenting the whole of 'The Rink', from which it hails. The culminating 'switching on' of the titular spectro-chromic illuminations at the stop of the number was a neat touch, and feature of the many snazzy juxtapositions and transitions that were to ensue. Kander and Ebb are writers for whom the word 'segue' was surely coined. The merging from i moment to another here was suave to say the to the lowest degree. Like, in the incredible trios of numbers taken from dissimilar shows, and then piled i on top of each other, in a positively – and doubtless cocky-consciously – Sondheimesque manner. The show manages to make us hear unfamiliar material every bit if it were an old friend, and to make the virtually standard of their songbook wares suddenly sound fresh and startling. The understated, close-harmony ensemble version of the title song from 'Cabaret' was a case in indicate: divinely unexpected and now all about the people who are serving up this… cabaret. Clever, and also truthful. Wonderful qualities, and primal to the whole betoken of this revue.
Comedy also flourished here. Baker and Kempner, in particular, really knew how to work the crowd with their cutely presented 'Class' and and then the knowingly re-loaded 'The Grass Is Always Greener', showing us that for all the wittily crafted lyrics and devastatingly uncomplicated but constructive tunes, the rep here is ultimately all about the 'people' behind the songs, and their relationships. And the laughs could also be broader, more than dynamic, equally in 'Arthur in the Afternoon', using rapid movement around the phase in a disorientating counterpoint to the illicit love story of the number.
For sheer dazzler of utterance, what on world, though, can shell 'My Coloring Book', a vocal of such Joni Mitchell-similar artlessness that it hardly seems possible information technology can come from the same world as 'Money Makes The Earth Go Around', and Kempner sang it with patently effortless control in the same way that the gang got together to bash out the brashest of the large numbers from the moving picture of their now probably second best known stage works.
Oddly, when it kickoff appeared in the West Finish, 'Chicago' was a short-lived wonder. It closed after a few months, and the unabridged production was sold, for the princely sum of £500, to an amateur grouping in Leeds, who promptly revived it for a further 3 weeks – an exceptionally long run for an apprentice group – and where I saw it every calendar week that run, incredulous that such a perfect evidence could mayhap non have found its place in the centre of British amusement. It would, I felt certain, come back, and I went about for years telling as much to anyone who would mind. Somewhen, of course, it did, and in magnificent triumph. The spirit of the times had finally caught up with the artistic vision and the warped sensibility of the authors and now we cannot get enough of them. Having been off on its wanders, it'south dorsum over again in WC2. And a whole bunch of other shows are waiting their plough.
What is the cloak-and-dagger? If simply i could just explain. I call up it's suggested by the extremes these writers encompass, from the sincere heroics of young hope to the deranged despair of Hall'south staggering 'Mr Cellophane' (complete with Mr Bojangles-manner horror-lighting), from the bawdy yearning of Kempner'south 'Perhaps This Time' to the exotica of Harwood's 'Kiss Of The Spider Woman'. And more than. And more. This is a testify that makes you not just want to hear more than of these performers – and, delight, let us! – but as well directs correct back to where all the stuff came from and delve into the creative genius of 2 of the very greatest of Broadways legends: Kander and Ebb. Terrific.
VIEW OTHER SHOWS AT STOCKWELL PLAYHOUSE
Writes volume, music and lyrics of new musicals. Currently completing, 'Generation Rent', a contemporary higher-reunion comedy. New project: 'Kate The Great', prepare in the Metropolis. Previous productions with: Iris Theatre; LOST Theatre; Then-and-So's Arts Club; Chichester Festival Theatre (National Theatre Connections); Courtyard Theatre; Arc Theatre, Trowbridge; Harlequin Theatre, Redhill. Also for Majestic Courtroom Young People'due south Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, National Youth Theatre.
Source: https://britishtheatre.com/review-and-the-world-goes-round-stockwell-playhouse/
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