Tag Archives: Marianne Badrichani

FRENCH TOAST

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Riverside Studios

FRENCH TOAST at Riverside Studios

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“It mocks pretty much everything about the industry, but it is also a heartfelt love letter to the theatre”

The French actor, director and writer, Jean Poiret, is best known for his 1973 β€œLa Cage aux Folles”. He is perhaps less well known as a theatre and film actor before, making some forty motion pictures over three decades. You have to dig deep into his biography to come across the 1979 comedy. β€œFΓ©fΓ© de Broadway”. Writer Sam Alexander has obviously done so, and we can only thank him for that. His adaptation, that follows the backstage shenanigans of an ill-conceived musical, is a wonderfully light-hearted, eccentric and witty hour-and-a-half of escapism – now titled β€œFrench Toast”. There are going to be obvious comparisons to Michael Frayn’s β€œNoises Off” which was conceived around the same time this side of the English Channel. There are contrasts too. Alexander’s take on Poiret’s story (co-adapted with director Marianne Badrichani) draws a lot from the culture clash between the French β€˜glamour’ and the British β€˜eccentricity’. β€œFrench Toast” is indeed guilty of cramming itself full of stereotypes and caricatures, but the audience are willing victims of the crime.

Set in 1977, it focuses on French diva, Jacqueline BrΓ©mont (Edith Vernes). Rich and successful in her native Paris, she has decided to branch out and conquer London’s West End but instead lands up in Basingstoke. Old flame Simon Monk (ChΓ© Walker) is directing an ill-fated musical adaptation of Jean Racine’s β€˜PhΓ¨dre’. He has no intention of casting Jacqueline in the lead role – she can’t sing and dance to save her life. But money talks. Without her there’s no investment. What ensues is a farcical entanglement of egos during a hilarious stop-start rehearsal process. ClichΓ©s are pulled out of the hat like a manic conjuror on speed, but so are many moments of wit, humour, quirkiness and sharp comic observation that bring a huge smile to our faces. It mocks pretty much everything about the industry, but it is also a heartfelt love letter to the theatre.

You need to be exceptionally good to convince at being a bad actor. And this company have the collective talent to ham it up to the histrionic hilt. ChΓ© Walker brilliantly encompasses the authoritarian director who has suddenly lost all control. The show is being cast behind his back. Walker’s stunned expression on day one of rehearsals is an image that will imprint itself on the mind for a long time. But to shake things up a bit, Simon Monk enrols punk musician Nicky Butler. Monk thinks of himself as a bit of a β€˜right-on’ radical. Reece Richardson gives a star turn as the bewildered muso caught up in a thespian nightmare. Love interest comes via Suzy Kohane’s stylish yet earnestly β€˜New Age’ Kate Freeman. Kohane’s is a standout performance, particularly when she sidesteps Paul Hegarty’s vividly accurate, camp yet lecherous Etienne GrΓ©mine. We are reminded that the seventies were β€˜different times, darling!’ but a modern sensitivity is layered onto the narrative without detracting from the authentically period setting.

There is some doubling up of the roles. Josie Benson shines as budding actress Faye Rose but also a delicious Madame Bouffard, the diva’s dour dresser. The whole company is having so much fun, and Edith Vernes is no exception as the central figure Jacqueline. Despite a slightly clunky opening few moments, the show swiftly warms up. Touches of Alan Bennett’s β€˜Habeas Corpus’ take the style dangerously close to farce, as trousers start to go missing, but other influences pull it back. The mayhem of β€˜The Young Ones’ is visible through rays of β€˜Morecambe and Wise’. Tara Young’s choreography is spot on with her playful nods to Fosse while Sammy Dowson’s costumes let us know exactly which year, if not month, of the seventies we are in.

Crucial to the piece is Leo Elso’s music. The lush escapism of disco locks horns with the raw energy of punk. Like the text, it parodies and cherishes at the same time with an authenticity that pinpoints the era in which The Village People and Abba could share the world’s stage with The Clash and The Sex Pistols. The culture shocks resonate throughout, up until the upbeat finale in which virtuosity and humour make a perfect marriage.

The play is peopled by people from different backgrounds, yet the comedy of misunderstandings ultimately leads to unexpected reconciliations and a feelgood factor that tips the scales. Like it’s culinary counterpart, β€œFrench Toast” is crisp on the outside but fluffy and tender on the inside. At times a little bit eggy, but delicious. A toast can definitely be raised – in French or in English.


FRENCH TOAST at Riverside Studios

Reviewed on 7th October 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

KIM’S CONVENIENCE | β˜…β˜…β˜… | September 2024
THE WEYARD SISTERS | β˜…β˜… | August 2024
MADWOMEN OF THE WEST | β˜…β˜… | August 2024
MOFFIE | β˜…β˜…β˜… | June 2024
KING LEAR | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2024
THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2024
ARTIFICIALLY YOURS | β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2024
ALAN TURING – A MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY | β˜…β˜… | January 2024
ULSTER AMERICAN | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | December 2023
OTHELLO | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | October 2023
FLOWERS FOR MRS HARRIS | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | October 2023
RUN TO THE NUNS – THE MUSICAL | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | July 2023

FRENCH TOAST

FRENCH TOAST

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Sacha Guitry, Ma Fille et Moi
β˜…β˜…β˜…Β½

Playground Theatre

Sacha Guitry Ma Fille et Moi

Sacha Guitry, Ma Fille et Moi

Playground Theatre

Reviewed – 29th January 2019

β˜…β˜…β˜…Β½

 

“Main Quote Line”

 

Sacha Guitry, playwright, filmmaker and actor, was known for his charm, womanising and lyrically frank depictions of Parisian social life in the 1920s. Marianne Badrichani has reimagined the famous wit in a show which depicts the way that life can imitate art, and art life. This makes for a production that feels intelligent and crisp but has a static emotional landscape.

The show interweaves selections of Guitry’s plays with the stories of the playwright and actors bringing them to the stage. Beyond Guitry, then, Ma Fille et Moi is a story of a mother, an actress and a muse, Edith Vernes and her struggles with performance and motherhood. This story line is compelling but is left, unfortunately, overshadowed but Vernes’ affair with Guitry.

The play begins on a meta-theatrical note, with Vernes (played by Edith Vernes) threatening to kill Guitry but waiting to see a little bit of his performance before she does so. β€œI’ll shoot you when I get bored,” she heckles from the audience. This beginning feels promising in its simultaneous criticism and admiration of Guitry’s work. Unfortunately, Vernes the character, remains at this hightened level of sensitivity and self-involvement and Guitry, played by Sean Rees, remains the confident, eye-rolling playwright, exasperated by his lead actress and lover’s hysteria. The mild misogyny of such a well worn story of the battle of the sexes is a little tiring.

Nonetheless, Vernes and Rees’ performances are full of life. Their movements from different characters and fictions carry an admirable ease. Anais Bachet, playing Vernes’ daughter among other roles, is a talented newcomer to the stage. The multiple narrative switches are also wonderfully and simply executed by some fantastic stage and lighting choices involving an oversized frame of lightbulbs imitating a vanity mirror. Vernes’ costumes too capture the charm of Guitry’s period.

In many ways, this is a play about acting and authenticity. The melodrama of Guitry’s work is juxtaposed with the real problems encountered with making theatre. In this sense, this also not a comedy, but an attempt to inspect how an actor might engage with comedy sincerely. Unfortunately, the play’s meta-theatricality creates a loose form that loses itself and drags in places. It feels easy to forget, in some scenes, why we were here in the first place. However, Vernes’ speech to her daughter at the end is candid and clever and ties these rather loose threads together.

This is a So French Production, performed in French with English surtitles. For those for whom French is not their first language, the surtitles are easy to follow and the translations are sensitive and accurate, holding most of Guitry’s jokes intact. In that humour is often culturally and historically specific, it is possible that Guitry’s humour falls deaf on the ears of a modern, English audience. Though they are just flashes, there are moments of real intelligence as well as a tasteful and elegant aesthetic. As a show about the self-importance of great writers, this production does well to explore Guitry’s life and work.

 

Reviewed by Tatjana Damjanovic

Photography by Sonia FitoussiΒ 

 

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Sacha Guitry, Ma Fille et Moi

Playground Theatre until 2nd February

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Fanatical – the Musical | β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2018

 

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