Tag Archives: Ben Elton

The Twiggy Musical

Close Up – The Twiggy Musical

★★★

Menier Chocolate Factory

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CLOSE UP – THE TWIGGY MUSICAL at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★

The Twiggy Musical

“We do also feel light footed and energised such is the fun factor of the production, which boasts an impressive line-up of performers”

The overriding feeling coming out of the theatre having just witnessed “Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical” is of wanting to find the nearest police station to report a missing person. There was once an award-winning author, playwright, comedian, satirist, social commentator, observationist – with an astute and sharp mind. His name is credited in the programme as the writer, but there appears to be little trace of Ben Elton’s involvement, except for a sweeping pastiche of his trademark style here and there. We wonder if he passed the task onto a lazy sixth-former. And then we wonder how the book would have made it through the first week of rehearsals without being questioned by the director… oh hang on – Elton is the director.

Maybe ‘overriding feeling’ is a bit harsh. We do also feel light footed and energised such is the fun factor of the production, which boasts an impressive line-up of performers. It is quite a whirlwind tour of the back story of one Lesley Hornby with a few stopovers at certain landmarks on the way. Much of Twiggy’s life story is already known, but here the chain of events rewinds further still – to her parents meeting in the thirties, surviving the London Blitz and some choice moments of Twiggy’s childhood and schooldays. A retrospective, predominantly narrated by Elena Skye who personifies the iconic image we have of Twiggy, even though the character is reminiscing from today’s perspective.

We witness the professional and the personal. Her serendipitous discovery and rise to fame as a teenage model, her ill-fated relationship with the controlling and self-aggrandising boyfriend/manager, Justin de Villeneuve. Her parent’s support throughout her career, her mother’s depression. Her success on stage and screen, her shadowy moments locked in marriage to the alcoholic screen-star, Michael Whitney. The facts are fascinating and revealing. Many well-known areas are covered but there are insights into the dark corners too, all illuminated by the strong supporting cast and ensemble. Justin de Villeneuve is given a particularly hard time, which Matt Corner takes on with a cheeky, mocking self-deprecation. Darren Day’s self-destructive Whitney has moments of poignancy, which are manifested most strongly in song. The two stand outs are Hannah-Jane Fox and Steven Serlin as Nell and Norman Hornby respectively – Twiggy’s mum and dad.

“Elena Skye certainly knows how to put a song across, and the ensemble numbers are striking”

There is far too much unnecessary cross referencing of the ‘then and now’. Yes, we all know it was ‘different times’ then. The only refreshing twist on this conceit is when the father quips: ‘The show must go on. That’s what they say. Well, at least they did back then’. In that short remark we get a glimpse of the subtle insight that Elton is capable of, with what is a real and relevant indictment of the changing attitudes and their current effects on the theatre industry. But overall, Elton is thrusting over simplified lessons on socio-economic history at us, while glibly exploring issues such as alcoholism or post-natal depression. There is a positively surreal song and dance routine while Nell is receiving electroconvulsive treatment. And then suddenly we find ourselves in a fifties style episode of ‘Grange Hill’.

Despite racing through the song list like an extended medley of hits, there are moments where poignancy can show itself through the musical refrains. Elena Skye certainly knows how to put a song across, and the ensemble numbers are striking. The repertoire is pretty suitable on the whole, with only a few numbers showing the bruises from the shoehorn Elton is so keen on using. Some key cultural moments are glossed over while some are given too much airtime. And two and a half hours in we are suddenly offered a rapid ‘summing up’. Followed by an upbeat song and dance number.

The show does indeed end on a high that is greeted with a standing ovation. They say, ‘don’t kick someone when you’re down’. There is much to fault in this musical but, hey – the show can handle all the flak. It’s a sure-fire hit. And why not? It’s a brilliantly executed five-star show; with top-notch production values, wonderful performances, and a juke-box full of fabulous music. Just a preposterous one-star book.


CLOSE UP – THE TWIGGY MUSICAL at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 28th September 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

The Third Man | ★★★ | June 2023
The Sex Party | ★★★★ | November 2022
Legacy | ★★★★★ | March 2022
Habeas Corpus | ★★★ | December 2021
Brian and Roger | ★★★★★ | November 2021

Close Up

Close Up

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gasping

Gasping

★★

The Space

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gasping

Gasping

The Space

Reviewed – 25th October 2019

★★

 

“with a small cluster of 80s stereotypes and a feverish stream of innuendos and misogyny, it’s beaten to death over the ensuing two hours”

 

First staged in 1990, during the first flush of Britain’s love affair with corporate greed and privatisation, Ben Elton’s ‘Gasping’ imagines a company, Lockheart Industries, commoditising the one natural resource left to exploit. With help from a marketing agency they devise and popularise the ‘Suck Blow’ machine to process air into designer variants, to achieve what Perrier and Evian achieved for water. That’s the idea, and with a small cluster of 80s stereotypes and a feverish stream of innuendos and misogyny, it’s beaten to death over the ensuing two hours.

For a modern audience the possibility that capitalism has an environmental downside is hardly a revelation and witnessing the relentless extraction of cheap jokes from the subject is as fun as fracking. Much in the style of the writer’s stand-up comedy, which worked as a mechanical barrage of anti-establishment mockery, this production from the Rising Tides Collective harvests some appreciation from its audience. However, their options are limited by the language and shallowness of this oddity dredged from a generally unmissed era. The only scene which satirises today’s world is that in which a spokesman outside 10 Downing Street (Emily Beach) advises people on how to breathe less, implicating the media in the process.

Ben Elton’s first attempt at writing for the stage might have worked better as period piece, with stylised costumes and hyperbolic performances like a restoration comedy. Indeed, William de Coverly as Philip, the golden boy of Lockheart’s Air Division, does most to embody his character’s bombast, strutting and preening like Freddy Mercury. Michael Jayes is too gentle as the destructively acquisitive Sir Chiffley Lockheart if only because, like the rest of the cast, he is allowed one dimension only in which to work. Skevy Stylia must play Kirsten the same in scenes where she’s a ‘marketing whiz’ as in those where she is ‘tasty totty’ and Gabriel Thomson’s control and competence as Sandy, Philip’s rival in the affections of both Kirsten and Sir Chiffley, seem to be for a different situation entirely.

After the interval, the brave cast are further burdened by the ill-judged incorporation of projections showing real life scenes of privation in Africa. No doubt intended to shock us into seeing that climate change is destroying real lives, right now, the sincerity appears naively bolted on and even crass in a context of knob gags and sketch-show characters.

Production design is basic as befits the era, but depresses rather than heightens the experience, with only sound (Keri Chesser) and lighting (Luke Ofield) departments coming across with confidence. As part of Climate Extinction double bill, the intentions of the production team seem irreproachable, with several new writing projects advertised. Even the idea of restaging older works from a famous name to spread the message more widely, is heartfelt. But Gasping is a superficial play designed to cash in on the alternative comedy boom, not the heartfelt plea for sanity that its producers seem to have misconceived it as.

 

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

 


Gasping

The Space until 16th November

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Post Mortem | ★★★★ | April 2019
The Wasp | ★★★★ | April 2019
Delicacy | ★★★½ | May 2019
Me & My Doll | ★★ | May 2019
Mycorrhiza | ★★★ | May 2019
Holy Land | ★★★ | June 2019
Parenthood | ★★★½ | July 2019
Chekhov In Moscow | ★★★★ | August 2019
The Open | ★★★ | September 2019
Between Two Waves | ★★★ | October 2019

 

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