Tag Archives: Matthew White

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

★★

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

Apparently, John Schlesinger’s 1969 American film “Midnight Cowboy” is the only X-Rated film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Despite its bleak setting and outlook, the story of an unlikely friendship between two lost souls in New York City has been variously described as one of the greatest films of the sixties, and later deemed ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically significant’. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel of the same name, its success – according to the director – was largely down to its brutal exploration of loneliness. Both the film and the novel captured the quality of its time place in American cultural history.

Fast forward half a century and the ground-breaking story washes up in the hands of dramatist Bryony Lavery and songwriter Francis ‘Eg’ White who have shoehorned the bromantic fairy-tale of New York into a two-and-a-half-hour slice of musical theatre. A few years ago, we might have been more surprised, but as we have become acclimatised to outlandish choices for a musical’s subject matter, we have learnt to take this sort of thing in our stride. Claiming to be based on the novel, in reality “Midnight Cowboy – A New Musical” duplicates the film’s narrative by doing away with the central character’s back story and presenting it in disjointed flashbacks which, in this medium, get lost in the mix.

Joe Buck (Paul Jacob French) is a naïve yet damaged individual escaping his dead-end life in Texas by reinventing himself as a cowboy and heading off to New York to become a male prostitute. Success doesn’t come easy, to the point that he even pays his first client instead of the other way around. Hooking up with Rico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Max Bowden), he thinks his fortunes are on the rise until he discovers the rat Ratso has taken him for a ride. A mutual dependence grows, however, and after Joe moves into Ratso’s squalid squat, each individual’s isolation finds meaning and connection in a world of hustlers and ne’er-do-wells.

Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy, and we never feel the full force of the unexpected chemistry between the protagonists. Despite strong performances we remain unconvinced, and neither do we feel their desperation. Similarly, Joe Buck’s encounters steer clear of gritty realism. However, whenever we are drawn in, we are suddenly denied access by a song that comes out of nowhere. Francis ‘Eg’ White has form as a songwriter, and there is no denying that there are a fair few excellent numbers, but the score is too often at odds with the text. There are exceptions. Tori Allen-Martin’s gorgeously smoky voice curls round the sultry, soul-disco chords of ‘Whatever it is You’re Doing’. We are in Serge Gainsbourg territory here, with a soft-porn gloss. Bowden’s ‘Don’t Give Up on Me Now’ has a real Tom Waits quality, reprised later by French who throws in shades of Randy Newman. Elsewhere, however, the songs tend to halt the narrative or simply cloud the intent. ‘Every Inch of this Earth is a Church’ strips away the inherent comedy of the classic scene where Joe Buck mistakes a religious fanatic for a pimp. And blow jobs and ballads have never been known to go well together.

It could be ground-breaking, and there is at times a surreal, cartoon-like quality to the show. But it cannot conceal the tameness of this interpretation. As if sensing the emotional detachment, French cranks up the passion during the closing scene, but we feel that it is unearned and inauthentic. There is poignancy in there somewhere, but like the dreams of the hapless heroes, it remains out of reach.



MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 10th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

 


 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WILKO | ★★★ | March 2025
SON OF A BITCH | ★★★★ | February 2025
SCISSORHANDZ | ★★★ | January 2025
CANNED GOODS | ★★★ | January 2025
THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024
THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | ★★★★★ | November 2024
[TITLE OF SHOW] | ★★★ | November 2024
THE UNGODLY | ★★★ | October 2024
FOREVERLAND | ★★★★ | October 2024
JULIUS CAESAR | ★★★ | September 2024

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

THE ADDAMS FAMILY A MUSICAL COMEDY – LIVE IN CONCERT

★½

London Palladium

THE ADDAMS FAMILY – THE MUSICAL COMEDY – LIVE IN CONCERT at the London Palladium

★½

“pretty feeble stuff and – despite the talent of the cast”

The Addams Family – originally a single-panel comic before being reimagined in a whole host of television and film adaptions – has become a cult phenomenon. Thus, it was only a matter of time that the famous family would get the musical treatment, first performed on Broadway in 2010. Now, after a successful UK tour, The Addams Family: The Musical Comedy (directed by Matthew White with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa) premieres on the West End with two nights at the London Palladium as an ‘in concert’ show.

Patriarch Gomez Addams (Ramin Karimloo) faces a conflict with his wife Morticia (Michelle Visage, of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame) when their typically morose daughter Wednesday (Chumisa Dornford-May) asks him to keep her shotgun engagement to all-American boy Lucas (Ryan Kopel) a secret. When Lucas and his parents Mal and Alice (Sean Kingsley and Kara Lane respectively) come to dinner to get to know their soon-to-be in-laws, Wednesday’s younger brother Pugsley (Nicholas McLean) causes mischief in an effort to turn his sister’s attention back to him.

The plot is weak and highly cliched. Our three couples – Morticia and Gomez, Wednesday and Lucas, and Alice and Mal – all go through some (very) minor strife before expectedly making up. They all learn some generic advice from one another – how to be honest, how to let loose, and so forth. The audience’s investment can only be minimal when the stakes are so low.

The strongest of the cast are Sam Buttery as Uncle Fester and Dickon Gough as Lurch despite the latter having minimal lines. Dornford-May performs well as Wednesday – she has a great voice. Her interest in Lucas however is baffling – she even calls him the wrong name (Lewis) at one point though its unclear whether this was scripted.

“despite the talent of the cast – not much can be done to enliven such a boring storyline”

The chemistry between Visage and Karimloo is a little lacking. They play their own roles well but one is strained to believe in their relationship, especially given Gomez’s characterisation as the doting husband.

The songs are nearly entirely forgettable. There are some amusing lyrics – most notably in the song Trapped sung by Gomez – but overall, they are uninspired and often come out of nowhere Karimloo delivers strongly in his solos but any group singing fails to pack a punch. Whether this is due to weak microphones, shoddy sound design or lack of enthusiasm from the cast is unclear.

The set (designed by Diego Pitarch) is disappointing even for an in concert performance. A cardboard façade of the skyscraper-clad New York City skyline sits at the back of the stage and a static tarp with stars and a moon shrouds the back wall. And, well, that’s it. Chairs, tables and the odd torture device are wheeled on in a vague suggestion of different rooms in the Addams’ family mansion. Granted, the musical is only scheduled for two nights but anything to suggest the set was anymore than a cheap afterthought would have been appreciated.

The props similarly fail to pack a punch. They are clearly cheap – Visage fails to make a clearly cardboard coffin look heavy at one point – and frankly no fun. There are no surprise hands or creatures jumping out of boxes. No appearance of the family pet Socrates the Octopus – not even a tentacle! Poorly rendered birds on sticks are flown around the stage at one point – I thought they were meant to be some make-belief fluff monster.

The Addams Family: The Musical Comedy – Live in Concert is pretty feeble stuff and – despite the talent of the cast – not much can be done to enliven such a boring storyline.

 

THE ADDAMS FAMILY – THE MUSICAL COMEDY – LIVE IN CONCERT at the London Palladium

Reviewed on 12th February 2024

by Flora Doble

Photography by Pamela Raith

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DEATH NOTE – THE MUSICAL IN CONCERT | ★★★★ | August 2023

THE ADDAMS FAMILY

THE ADDAMS FAMILY

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