Tag Archives: Lambert Jackson

First Date

First Date

★★★

Online

First Date

First Date

Online stream from Crazy Coqs

Reviewed – 22nd October 2020

★★★

 

“the memorable songs and the impressive performances carry this funny and relatable take on the dating world”

 

The year is 2020, a pandemic has turned singletons everywhere horny (sound familiar?), and the musical ’First Date’ is here to find out if we can still believe in love!

In the Crazy Coqs bar we meet Aaron (Simon Lipkin) and Casey (Samantha Barks) on a blind date and setting eyes on each other for the first time. Queue a series of fantastically funny songs alighting on all the truisms of first dates from the friend you have lined up to fake an accident to the awkward pauses and who pays the cheque at the end of it all! The pair navigate small talk and their differences, to see whether this could be something. Our two daters are surrounded by a fantastic chorus who pop-up Grecian-esque as bartenders, exes, bad boys and even Google embodied!

The songs, written by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner, are consistently brilliant. There are cabaret numbers, comedy numbers, ballads, duets and a lovely five-person opening. Accompanied by a live piano, the songs are well-written, well-sung and all great fun! The script (Austin Winsberg) between songs, however, is not up to the standard of the song writing at all. Whilst there’s some promise in there, it is overly long and slow, and needs some serious tightening up to meet the quality which is so evident in the lyric writing.

The cast are really strong, directed by Dean Johnson. They all boast fantastic voices, brought together with musical direction from John Winstone. Barks and Lipkin sing wonderfully, working hard on a slow script, although lacking in chemistry between them. Some favourite characters in the panopoly that the chorus play include Nick McLean’s Reggie and Danielle Steers’ dead grandma! The shining star of the whole show is Oscar Conlon-Morrey who is irresistibly funny in every role he plays: a feast to watch, even when he is just making comments during the internal (a lovely touch). I could’ve watch him all day.

Unfortunately the quality of the music and performers is let down by the audio (Matt Ide) and videography (Sam Diaz) quality, both of which are wildly inconsistent, so much so that they are disruptive to the piece*. The green screen backdrops are really fun and work really well, but in the space itself the lighting is bizarre and doesn’t respond to lighting changes mentioned in the script, silence buzzes, and it would be impossible to watch this through without regularly adjusting the volume up and down on your television or laptop. Given that it is presented like a film, it needs to have the basic production values of one. It is such a shame, given the quality of the actors and the material.

Production quality aside, the memorable songs and the impressive performances carry this funny and relatable take on the dating world.

 

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography courtesy Lambert Jackson

 

* This show was reviewed on an advance link so sound and video quality may be improved on the released production

 


First Date

Online stream from Crazy Coqs

 

Last ten shows reviewed by Amelia:
Germ Free Adolescent | ★★★★ | The Bunker | October 2019
Before I Was A Bear | ★★★★★ | The Bunker | November 2019
I Will Still Be Whole (When You Rip Me In Half) | ★★★★ | The Bunker | November 2019
My White Best Friend And Even More Letters Best Left Unsaid | ★★★★ | The Bunker | November 2019
Potted Panto | ★★★★ | Southwark Playhouse | December 2019
The Girl With Glitter in Her Eye | ★★½ | The Bunker | January 2020
Essence | ★★½ | The Vaults | February 2020
Flights | ★★★½ | Omnibus Theatre | February 2020
Maliphantworks3 | ★★★★★ | The Coronet Theatre | February 2020
Globaleyes | ★★★★ | Online | September 2020

 

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Songs for a New World

Songs For a New World

★★★

Online

Songs for a New World

Songs For a New World

Online

Reviewed – 23rd July 2020

★★★

 

“boldly aims to define the new normal, but unfortunately you won’t find anything here that you wouldn’t get from just listening to the album”

 

Well, here we are in ‘the new normal’. With so many theatres closed indefinitely while social distancing remains untenable, many venues and companies have been finding new ways to adapt. There have been plays performed via Zoom and actors playing to empty auditoriums in the Old Vic as producers scramble to safely recreate the theatrical experience. Musicals, of course, present an even greater challenge with having to sync the vocal performances with the musicians, which events such as Signal Online have made huge steps forward in. But does this production of Songs For A New World fit into, well, the new world?

It certainly frames itself as such. The show opens with newsreel footage of the likes of Rufus Norris and Nicholas Hytner speaking on the state of the industry post-COVID, panning through sombre shots of closed theatres, while the four performers (Rachel John, Ramin Karimloo, Cedric Neal, and Rachel Tucker) sing about being on the precipice of a moment when everything can change. It’s fitting, if a little heavy-handed. Songs For A New World is a little unconventional in its structure in that it’s more of a song cycle than a musical: the sixteen songs written by Jason Robert Brown are all self-contained narratives working within that same theme of the opening number – that of people hitting the point where vital choices have to be made. As such, there’s no over-arching story to tamper with by recontextualising the show through the lens of current affairs.

However, Brown’s USP is that he’s a very narrative lyricist. A lot of the songs feature characters in specific circumstances making those aforementioned vital choices, and so there are detailed stories that need to be told within the songs. The newsreel gimmick is repeated often throughout the show, which can sometimes flatten and obfuscate the nuance of the material. ‘On The Deck Of A Spanish Sailing Ship’ is intercut with footage of Black Lives Matter protests, for example, which the song was clearly not written for as lyrics about not being strong enough seem to undermine the defiance and urgency on display in the footage. Setting this precedent, ‘The River Won’t Flow’ features video of Trump being confrontational at a press conference at its start, which then has no bearing on the song itself. This poorly thought out recontextualisation ultimately rings hollow and meaningless.

If you can ignore that, however, then what remains is four exceptional performers (with an exquisite guest appearance from new graduate Shem Omari James in ‘Steam Train’) with seismically beautiful vocals and hair-raising harmonies in here. All of Brown’s deliciously complex music is given a pulsing energy by Josh Winstone’s musical direction, although Séimí Campbell’s direction doesn’t seem to trust the actors enough at times, giving them too much ‘business’ to do. The number of times the actors pointlessly fondle props or hold drinks during a song is baffling, taking the focus away from the arcs of the songs themselves, although standout performances such as John’s ‘I’m Not Afraid Of Anything’, Tucker’s ‘Surabaya-Santa’, and John and Karimloo’s duet ‘I’d Give It All For You’ manage to transcend those trappings.

For a show about making choices, Lambert Jackson’s production of Songs For A New World seems strangely on the fence: its use of intercutting with real world footage seems like it’s trying to attain a cinematic quality, yet the performers are self-recording in their kitchens and lounges which creates a dissonance with that. Meanwhile, the direction makes broad general strokes of the zeitgeist on material that demands nuance and specificity. This production boldly aims to define the new normal, but unfortunately you won’t find anything here that you wouldn’t get from just listening to the album.

 

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography courtesy Lambert Jackson

 


Songs For a New World

Online until 25th July

Click here to book via The Other Palace

 

 

 

 

 

 

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