★★

“On paper, the show is well structured”

It is 1957. We are on Hope Street where an eighteen-year-old John Lennon meets and falls for fellow teen, Cynthia Powell. Danny and the Juniors are topping the charts; we are in the land of Double Diamond and Mackeson stout. When a round of drinks costs eight shillings. Looking on wistfully is Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of John Lennon, who takes us back to those innocent days when she was Cynthia Powell, and when John and Paul had only recently met, still unaware that they were soon to change musical history.

Cynthia (Roxanne Male) is the narrator, guiding – and guided by – the piece with the helping hand of hindsight. A story of love and loss, that centres around John Lennon, it spans their early years, Beatlemania, psychedelia, the break-up, the aftermath and finally Lennon’s assassination and beyond. It is a brave attempt to portray such a well-known and documented story, and a noble venture to push Cynthia centre stage. But like the reality itself, it is still John Lennon who pulls focus.

The focus is somewhat erratic, however, overindulging certain milestones while inadequately skimming others. The result is a somewhat shallow sketch show, the dialogue of which is poorly equipped to offer much insight into any of the characters involved. John Lennon (Marky Reader) is the most prominent victim of this shortcoming in a rather insulting portrayal. When he’s not a morose adolescent, he’s an inarticulate bully with barely enough empathy to even think about translating emotion into song. Which is just as well. The Lennon-McCartney catalogue doesn’t feature in this musical. Instead, there are eight new songs, written for the show by Frankie Connor, Alan Crowley and The Merseybeat’s Billy Kinsley.

The younger Cynthia, played by Emily Guilfoyle, lacks substance. But Guilfoyle manages to offer light and shade to the somewhat naïve text. Writing that barely hints at a personality that might have attracted the complicated Lennon. But then again, Mike Howl’s script annuls Lennon’s complexities with slogan superficiality. We get little idea, too, of the talent, or the camaraderie between Lennon and McCartney. In the absence of their songs, Howl, who also directs, circumvents any copyright issues by slipping familiar lyrics into the dialogue. Achieved with varying degrees of success, this neat device ranges from the witty to the contrived, with added inaccuracies for good measure (for the anoraks out there, ‘Penny Lane’ is a McCartney – not a Lennon – composition).

Admittedly, this is Cynthia’s story, but it is strange that no mention is given to George or Ringo throughout, almost as if the history of popular music has been re-written and The Beatles were a duo. However, Stu Sutcliffe (Dominic Cummings) quite rightly makes an appearance. An immensely important personality in Lennon’s early life, the chemistry and rivalry are allowed to flicker across the stage, but all too soon snuffed out with a disrespectful and partially distorted depiction of Sutcliffe’s tragic death at the age of twenty-one.

Too many episodes are glossed over. Revelations about Brian Epstein’s (Kevin Thomas) homosexuality are cliched while Aunt Mimi (Geraldine Moloney Judge) is overly unsympathetic and dismissive towards Cynthia and John. Lee Clotworthy makes a late appearance as Julian Lennon, bringing a welcome depth of emotion hitherto lacking, as he grapples with the conflicting memories of his father. Musically, the show rarely strays from its one-note, acoustic guitar driven balladry. When Lennon isn’t crooning about his chip-bearing shoulders, Cynthia is lamenting the presence of Yoko.

On paper, the show is well structured, with an opportunity for a poignant finale as the younger and the older Cynthia unite onstage, both visualising their memories of Lennon from their differing perspectives. The potential is finally glimpsed, but it took a long time coming. And it’s probably still a fair way from being realised.

INVASION! AN ALIEN MUSICAL at the Camden People’s Theatre

★★

“It is possible to see how, with more work, Invasion! can become something that audiences will enjoy”

If Edinburgh is beyond your budget this year, you should definitely visit the varied performances now being offered as part of the 2023 Camden Fringe Festival instead. You’re bound to find something appealing, and at bargain prices too. It’s great to find interesting theatre in your own backyard, and the number of shows on offer seems to grow every year. So feast your eyes on all the intriguing performances listed on the Camden Fringe website, and hurry to get your tickets before it’s too late.

This year I’m beginning with a visit to the latest musical from the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society. This is the group that gave the West End its blockbuster musical hit SIX, about King Henry VIII’s unfortunate wives. The packed audience in the Camden People’s Theatre last night sounded eager to see if there’s another hit musical in the making. While there’s certainly conspicuous talent on display in Invasion! An Alien Musical, the show is a long way from the West End at the moment, figuratively speaking. This is mostly because Invasion! is a big budget musical put together on a shoestring. The money appears to have gone into boosting the sound of the keyboards at the expense of the singers. If you’re going to use amplification for the music, it seems only fair to give your singers a fighting chance by giving them an amplified sound as well.

But let’s backtrack a bit, and provide a sketch of the plot. With more than a little nod from classics such as the Little Shop of Horrors, the story behind Invasion! An Alien Musical is familiar enough. In brief, we meet exploited workers toiling away in a miserable theme park with not enough to live on, while an evil prime minister welcomes in sinister aliens disguised as plush toys. These aliens are, not surprisingly, here to take over the Earth. This would seem to be a pretty poor choice on the aliens’ part, given the current state of the Earth, but OK. The plush toys, called Larry Lotus’, that the aliens inhabit in order to mind meld with humans, are adorable, and of course, all the more threatening for that. If the plot had just stuck to the main story of Johnny Fox, exploited worker, trying to free himself and his fellow humans from alien plush toys (with the help of another alien called Sola) the audience could have reached the end of the show reasonably clear about what had happened. But there’s a ton of extra characters, some with mysterious American accents (take that how you will), and a lot of muddled rushing on and off the stage. There’s too much exposition to explain why these characters are on stage in the first place. The Rocky Horror Show, which also began as a musical on a shoestring, did this all very successfully, keeping the alien mayhem caught within a sinister mansion, rather than a theme park. And it brought all the extraneous events and characters into the mansion, while keeping Downing Street out of it. Keep it simple, folks.

It is possible to see how, with more work, Invasion! can become something that audiences will enjoy. Sci fi musicals have been successful in the past—even another low budget one like Return to the Forbidden Planet, which toured London parks in the Bubble Theatre’s inflatable yellow tent before transferring to the West End. It can be done, and the music and lyrics by the talented Lily Blundell deserve to reach a wider audience. But Jasper Cresdee-Hyde and Jonathan Powell, as writers and directors, are several drafts away from a workable book. The cast has some great singers, Kate South and Iona Rogan in particular. Gregory Miller is rather underused as a performer. But the leads, Jamie Ellis as Johnny Fox, Nathan Galpin as Brian Fox, and Freya Cowan as the alien Sola, are simply lost among the overpowered playing of Blundell on keyboards, and the acting and singing of the rest of the cast. The whole show needs to go for broke, and that includes the lighting, costumes and make up.

Hopefully this run at the Camden People’s Theatre won’t be the last we see of Invasion! An Alien Musical. If the cuddly plush toys go back to the drawing board and work on another draft, I, for one, would welcome the alien wannabe overlords back to the Camden Fringe next year. It would be cool to see how their plans for taking over the Earth—or even the West End—are progressing

Tag Archives: Camden Fringe Festival 2023

This Girl – The Cynthia Lennon Story

★★

Upstairs at the Gatehouse

THIS GIRL – THE CYNTHIA LENNON STORY at Upstairs at the Gatehouse

★★

“On paper, the show is well structured”

THIS GIRL – THE CYNTHIA LENNON STORY at Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Reviewed on 31st July 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Mark Reader

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Forever Plaid | ★★★★ | June 2021

How To Build A Better Tulip | ★★ | November 2022

This Girl

This Girl

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Invasion! An Alien Musical

★★

Camden People’s Theatre

INVASION! AN ALIEN MUSICAL at the Camden People’s Theatre

★★

“It is possible to see how, with more work, Invasion! can become something that audiences will enjoy”