Tag Archives: Manuel Harlan

GUYS & DOLLS

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Bridge Theatre

GUYS & DOLLS at the Bridge Theatre

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“a captivating, energetic show that you’d bet on to run and run.”

The Bridge Theatre’s production of Guys and Dolls opened a year ago to rave reviews and now a new cast continues the party. This show really does feel like a knees up: my cheeks were aching by the interval and even I was persuaded to join in with a celebratory wiggle during the finale. Even if you have never seen this 1950 musical before, the immersive experience draws you into a world of gamblers, showgirls and fervent missionaries, and you will leave humming the excellent songs.

Part of what draws the audience in is the Bridge Theatre set (Bunny Christie), which includes seating on four sides of an immersive area which you can roam around with a standing ticket. Before the start of the show, the central area is laid out like a street map, vendors sell real hot dogs and pretzels from stands to the audience, and the ensemble circulate puffing on stage cigarettes. Bright neon and coloured bulbs (lighting design Paule Constable) decorate hanging signs that transport you to a busy Broadway, New York with the attention to detail on the road markings and sewer covers apparent up close. The immersive audience is encouraged to sit at diner tables and interact with the ensemble as the bustle increases. Given the geography of the room, the orchestra is not in a pit: it is elevated to the gallery, and flanked with more of the garish bulbs which shows off the pink glittery music stands and snazzy audience jackets. This is a show that’s not afraid to show how it operates, but that only adds to the magic.

 

 

And what magic. Especially when standing, the action is happening literally centimetres away. The acting therefore must be – and is – flawless. Emotions have to be portrayed both small and large for the audiences closer and those further away. Dancing (Arlene Phillips with James Cousins) from the talented supporting actors is super sharp. I loved the rowdy carrot routine from the showgirls in the Hot Box club. The gamblers in the crap game routines are totally committed even on narrow stage blocks, and the hat-ography is impressive.

Guys and Dolls is known for being the epitome of the comic musical, and the jokes here are mined expertly by the able cast. There is great physicality throughout from all characters, especially the anchor of the piece, Owain Arthur as Nathan Detroit. Timmika Ramsay also has perfect comic timing as Miss Adelaide, the aspiring wife and showgirl, intent on reforming her fiance. Ramsay is wonderful in the role; her voice is powerful and rich, even when singing sitting down, and with a cold!

“This refreshed cast does their material justice, and then some”

As a foil to this couple, Celinde Schoenmaker is excellent as the uptight Sarah, leader of the Mission for Lost Souls. She has an incredibly easy high register, and is able to inject character into her songs as well as excellent vocals. Watching her lose all abandon in Havana is a sight to behold – very reminiscent of having one too many drinks at a wedding. George Ioannides completes the quad at the centre of the story, again excellent vocally. He embodies the smoothness of a professional gambler, but with enough heart that his love story makes sense.

The supporting cast were also excellent, especially Jonathan Andrew Hume as Nicely Nicely Johnson. He leads the rollicking number Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat which is the biggest song and rightly gets multiple reprises.

 

 

As in previous immersive shows at the Bridge, blocks rise and fall through different scenes and all these potential hazards are well shepherded by stage hands dressed as cops. They get a well-deserved ovation for calmly co-ordinating the standing audience through the piece, as well as managing props and creating runways to the stage blocks for actors. Even watching the stage hands’ work up close doesn’t break the focus: it’s not often that you get to feel like you’re standing in the wings.

Nicholas Hytner’s strong direction combined with the amazing set and choreography bring out the very best of Damon Runyon’s characters and Frank Loesser’s much-loved music and lyrics. This refreshed cast does their material justice, and then some. In fact, Guys and Dolls could only be improved by serving up every audience member a mid-show dulce de leche, but in every other way, this is a captivating, energetic show that you’d bet on to run and run.


GUYS & DOLLS at the Bridge Theatre

Reviewed on 11th March 2024

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Manuel Harlan

 

 

 

 

More five-star reviews:

LUCY AND FRIENDS | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Soho Theatre | February 2024
STANDING AT THE SKY’S EDGE | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Gillian Lynne Theatre | February 2024
THE BIG LIFE | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Theatre Royal Stratford East | February 2024
HADESTOWN | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Lyric Theatre | February 2024
NELKEN | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Sadler’s Wells Theatre | February 2024
WHEN YOU PASS OVER MY TOMB | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Arcola Theatre | February 2024
HILLS OF CALIFORNIA | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Harold Pinter Theatre | February 2024
SELF-RAISING | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Soho Theatre | February 2024
JEFFREY BERNARD IS UNWELL | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | The Coach & Horses | February 2024
COWBOIS | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Royal Court Theatre | January 2024

GUYS & DOLLS

GUYS & DOLLS

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

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Duke of York’s Theatre

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE at the Duke of York’s Theatre

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“The performances are superb. Matt Smith, as Dr. Thomas, owns the stage.”


Before Henrik Ibsen even became a playwright, he was well known for his controversial, anti-establishment opinions. His early works, and poetry, revealed his rebellious nature as he challenged convention and criticised society. His dramatic works cut deeper into the darker side, holding up a mirror to human nature and its inherent hypocrisies. Inevitably he was met with divided opinion. β€œAn Enemy of the People” was no exception, and Thomas Ostermeier’s modern adaptation (translated by Duncan MacMillan) looks set to be equally divisive.

Co-adapted by Florian Borchmeyer, the play’s structure is also two-sided; the interval acting as a sharp watershed between two very different landscapes, even though it overlooks the same, indeterminate, Middle England spa town. It opens with a song. The main players comprise a shaky, indie-folk-rock band, the initial conversations breaking away from the music then weirdly segueing into Bowie’s β€˜Changes’. It is difficult to determine whether this subplot has a purpose, or whether it is a surreal contrivance, but it soon gets forgotten anyway. The music is definitely not their day job.

Dr. Thomas Stockmann is the chief medical officer at the town’s spa baths. He has discovered that the spa’s water is contaminated. Wanting to do all he can to alert the citizens he enrols newspaper hacks Hovstad and Billing to run the story in order to prevent the town being poisoned – possibly to death. He faces opposition in the shape of his brother Peter, the town mayor who sees the closure of the baths as the death knell to the town. There is tension too between Thomas and his wife Katharina, the local upstanding yet radical schoolteacher.

The dialogue bounces along breezily, occasionally bogged down with the earnestness of late-night-student-digs debates. Yet the writing recognises this pitfall and manages to pre-empt the charges and poke fun at itself. β€œYou sound like an undergraduate” quips Thomas to Hovstad. The blackboard walls of Jan Pappelbaum’s set are strewn with pseudo-scholarly slogans, which are eventually whitewashed over – figurately and literally. The arguments that are dished up, however, are chillingly pertinent and so close to the bone that there isn’t enough skin left to make crawl.

 

 

The performances are superb. Matt Smith, as Dr. Thomas, owns the stage. A lone wolf howling at the moon, his single-mindedness streaked with a naivety and good intentions, while Jessica Brown Findlay’s Katharina stands by him, despite being constantly at the end of her tether. Shubham Saraf, as journalist Hovstad, feeds Thomas’ fervour, encouraging his crusade like Lady Macbeth. Is he after the truth, though, or just a good story? His own quest for the truth dissolves in the saliva from the Judas kiss he plants on Thomas. Fellow journo Billing is ultimately equally disloyal – Zachary Hart giving an outstanding performance as the comic foil. There is much humour too in Paul Hilton’s mayor, Peter. As smooth and slippery as an eel his words drip from his angular grimace. The naked face of capitalism and pragmatism that is all too familiar on our front pages. Katharina’s father, Morten Kill, is an imposing figure in Nigel Lindsay’s hands. Bizarrely an Alsatian dog is also in his hands, presumably a metaphor for the dark, shady, business-minded aspects of Kill’s character beneath the leftist veneer. The dog is too friendly and well behaved to pull it off, however. Conflicts of interest also plague Aslaksen, the newspaper’s publisher. Priyanga Burford brilliantly swings from devout, self-serving pragmatism to obsequious cowardice in a glorious deadpan and often funny performance.

The second act is a completely different beast. Much snappier and forceful, it is full to the brim with contemporary, post-Brexit, post-Covid references and up-to-the-minute echoes of modernist realpolitik. It rips down the fourth wall completely, inviting the audience into a β€˜Question Time’ scenario. It is obvious there are some plants in the audience, but the effect is immediate and chilling. The real coup is Matt Smith’s tirade at the podium. Brilliantly and convincingly delivered. Smith is flawlessly believable, earning his ovation, whether one agrees with him or not.

A paint splattered transition leads us into the final, short act. The journey there has been almost as messy as the stage now is (I pity the backstage crew) but it has been swaggering, anarchic and fearless. And we are rewarded with an unexpected hook. In the course of the last two hours is has been difficult to decide whether Thomas is an enemy of the people or an enemy to himself. A final twist – a mere meeting of eyes – will help you decide.


AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE at the Duke of York’s Theatre

Reviewed on 21st February 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

BACKSTAIRS BILLY | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2023
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | February 2023

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page