★★★

“A very British tale of love lost during the second world war years”

In the intimate 90 studio at Park Theatre is One Day When We Were Young, written by Nick Payne in 2009. A three scene, time shifting two-hander about the lives of Leonard (Barney White) and Violet (Cassie Bradley).

A dowdy room in a Bath hotel where the young unmarried couple are spending what appears to be their first night together, and possibly their last, the night before Leonard heads off to war. It is 1942 and with promises of waiting for each other forever, the nerves and innocence of the couple shows; one is terrified to go to war and the other naively wants the night to be romantically perfect for them. It is not and they are interrupted by the bombs of the Baedeker raid.

The blitz is shown with blinding lights flashing and loud sound effects – and a very simple “special effect” showing the window suddenly broken. Dramatically that all works well. But then the actors were suddenly shouting that they must get dressed and get to the bomb shelter, whilst taking the bed covers off the bed and rolling them up, running off and on with bits of furniture as they take the bedroom apart and replace it with a park bench.

Scene two is a snowy park in the early 1960s. This middle scene should have been the most heart-breaking but the dynamics between the couple does not quite gel in both script and acting. Clearly Violet had not waited for Leonard and she has been married since 1944 to her music teacher husband, has a 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter plus washing machine and television, living her perfect life; whilst Leonard is a broken man having survived being a POW in Japan. He lives with his mum in Luton.

The final scene – and post more rather unnecessary moving of furniture around the small set – it is 2002, which makes the pair now at least in their late seventies. Leonard is still totally devoted to Violet, and Violet is now a widow… Old age and Leonard sadly has onset dementia as he repeatedly asks how with the train delays her journey to his Luton home has been. There is a confusing power cut (unexplained historically, mea culpa if wrong), and one rather lovely moment when Leonard lights a pair of sparklers for light.

The sound (Aidan Good) uses music from each period to set each scene, but if you didn’t know the snippets of music playing it didn’t help. Scene two has continual low-level playground sounds which worked to show they were in a park. But in the third scene the inclement British rainstorm sound keeps disappearing and then returning; and it would have carried more gravitas of the doomed love affair, if it had continued throughout the final scene, even at a low-level.

A very British tale of love lost during the second world war years. One Day When We Were Young shows how we Brits have an inability to show emotions and to say what truly should not be left unsaid. The script doesn’t fill in those complex undertones, so feels a tad unfinished. In the final scene, Violet’s rendition of “their song” is sung without Leonard present, which seems an odd directorial decision by director James Haddrell – as that could have shown each of their true feelings in that moment.

SCISSORHANDZ

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★★

“The cast are superb across the board and there is an easy camaraderie that adds to the feelgood factor”

It is a bold statement to tag your show with the subtitle ‘A Musical Reinvented’. But there is nothing faint-hearted about Bradley Bredeweg’s reinterpretation of Tim Burton’s classic and gothic fairytale. Direct from Los Angeles, it bursts onto the London stage as though heading for Wembley Arena, but instead took a wrong turn and landed up in the three-hundred-seater, Southwark venue. Edward Scissorhands, the solemn and doleful outsider, has morphed into a rock legend of their own making – if only for a few fleeting seconds before retreating behind the bank of loudspeakers to await rediscovery.

The tale of an outsider trying to ‘fit in’ is an obvious celebration of being different; yet it is hard to maintain the impact of this message when the whole ensemble are complete weirdos anyway. A delightful bunch, nonetheless. Jordan Kai Burnett’s Scissorhands is slightly pushed into the shadows as a result, eclipsed by the eccentrics that surround them. Emma Williams, as Avon Lady Peg who adopts the waif-like Scissorhands, also adopts the role of protagonist with her wonderfully kooky, mad-as-a-hatter portrayal of the American housewife. Neighbours Joyce (Tricia Adele-Turner), Esmerelda (Annabelle Terry) and Helen (Ryan O’Connor) are as maverick and flamboyant as Abby Clarke’s primary-coloured costume design; while Dionne Gipson’s striking, ethereal ‘Inventor’ holds court from on high.

We are never completely emotionally engaged, but are always sucked into the sheer energy and sense of fun with which the performers are swamping the stage. And even if the song list gratuitously breaks the continuity of the story, the numbers are delivered with a powerful virtuosity. Like many juke-box musicals, the choice is hit and miss – some forming a neat and natural segue from the dialogue, whereas others are as isolated from the plot as Scissorhands is from reality. But, boy, there are some belters in there! Annabelle Terry’s ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ is a standout moment, along with Tricia Adele-Turner’s ‘Bleeding Love’ and Dionne Gipson’s ‘Mad World’. Emma Williams majestically reinvents ‘Creep’ (even though we really feel the song belongs to Scissorhands), and throughout the show, the wall of sound created by musical director Arlene McNaught’s five-piece band threaten to bring the roof down.

It is quite the spectacle, but the nuances of Burton’s original are lost in the mix, just as the quirkiness is occasionally obscured by an earnestness that is shoe-horned in. Rather than reinvented, the musical is relabelled – somewhat superficially like a ‘new-and-improved’, ‘special-offer’ packaging. Overtly establishing in a throwaway line of dialogue the correct pronoun for the lead character merely scratches the surface of the essential issue, while we either want it to dig deeper, or else take it as a given (as it should be).

There is a fair amount of disarray, but we cannot mistake the sheer joyfulness of it. The cast are superb across the board and there is an easy camaraderie that adds to the feelgood factor. The audience feel part of it all, especially when the fourth wall breaks down and boundaries are overstepped. Improvised ad-libs are let loose, often as sharp as the blades of Scissorhands’ make-shift fingers.

“Scissorhandz” is a fun-loving, camp, boisterous show bursting to crash through the walls of its chosen venue. But like Scissorhands themself, is a bit of a chimera – not quite fully formed. Yet there is something special in there, and it is an extraordinary piece of musical theatre. Its message implores us to seek that ‘special something’ within ourselves. Applied to itself, this show could well be onto a winning path to completion.

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

Park Theatre

★★★

“A very British tale of love lost during the second world war years”

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

Park Theatre

Reviewed on 3rd March 2025

by Debbie Rich

Photography by Danny Kaan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

SCISSORHANDZ

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★★

“The cast are superb across the board and there is an easy camaraderie that adds to the feelgood factor”

SCISSORHANDZ

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 30th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Danny Kaan

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

SCISSORHANDZ

SCISSORHANDZ

SCISSORHANDZ

JOIN US