Max Gallagher Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★

“The music and Anjali Mehra’s choreography are indeed highlights”

“That’s how it all began. Just by me getting a little piece of grit in me eye”. So often in life it is one of these small, simple twists of fate that change the course of a life. Laura, a respectable middle-class woman in an affectionate but rather dull marriage takes a shopping trip to a nearby town by train every Thursday. On the same day, Alec Harvey, a general practitioner works at the local hospital. They become acquainted in the refreshment room of the railway station after Alec removes a piece of dust that Laura has in her eye. Although both are quite content in their marriages, they fall in love and embark on a ‘brief’, passionate affair. They also embark on the rocky road of love, guilt, and self-examination.

Officially titled ‘Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter’, Emma Rice’s name is featured in as large a font as Coward’s on the programme. It is perfectly justified as her stage adaptation is now almost as recognisable as Coward’s film adaptation in 1945 (based on his original one act play “Still Life”). Here, Robert Kirby’s quirky and intimate production has all the Riceisms dutifully bouncing around the stage, showering magic onto a fairly dated love story. All competent musicians and singers, the cast almost give the impression that they have wandered in from the wild shores of Cornwall and an early ‘Kneehigh’ combo. I say ‘almost’. With a couple of exceptions, this troupe sometimes appear to be a bit out of their depth with the demands of the material and they need a couple more weeks to grow into the roles. For now, though, we are too aware of their concentration on getting the words, actions, and the stylistic staging right. Once they relax into the skins of the characters, the emotional impact will have the space to break through.

Laura Lake Adebisi, as Laura, is probably the guiltiest of this and therefore doesn’t quite grab the sympathy of the audience. Callum McIntyre’s more layered Alec gives her plenty to play with, but we don’t really witness the chemistry needed that would make these seemingly above-board characters decide to delve into the depths of deception. It is the peripheral characters that come across more fully formed. They burst with energy, circling the central pair, and filling the tea bar with colour. Kate Milner-Evans as Myrtle, holds forth with a commanding performance, occasionally breaking into song with a quite outstanding voice. Hanna Khogali is a bubble of quirky energy juggling her multiple roles while deftly handling her violin and guitar. Max Gallagher gives a standout performance, again switching between roles and providing the most real and memorable moments of the show; particularly as the camp Stephen, whose flat the lovers borrow one afternoon. Gallagher captures some of the hidden tones of Coward’s original text in just a few short moments of nuanced delivery.

The music and Anjali Mehra’s choreography are indeed highlights. The two are intertwined as the actor musicians dance to the tunes, relaying their instruments back and forth. We bask in a gorgeous mix of Rachmaninoff, Noël Coward and original music from composer and Musical Director, Eamonn O’Dwyer. O’Dwyer’s closing number ‘Always’ is a haunting moment. These are the moments that linger after we leave the auditorium. This staging of ‘Brief Encounter’ is stylistic, atmospheric and a feast for the senses, but there is a detachment, and the emotional encounters are all too brief.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

Roots

Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed – 7th October 2021

★★★★★

“As the audience, we teeter uneasily between outrage and laughter”

1927 is one of those rare, extraordinary, once in a generation companies that comes along to show us how theatre can be done, and how we’ve been doing it wrong all along. Their signature works such as Golem (2014) and now Roots (2019) are a seamless blend of live music and live performance stitched into fantastic animated collages projected onto a screen on an otherwise bare stage. 1927 takes the audience into the moving picture experience—and then opens doors and windows in the movie screen so that a live performer can cheekily poke through and explode the idea that watching anything on a screen is somehow real. Not content with that, 1927 also challenges our notions of what constitutes performance with this blend of live and projected action. Just as important, the narratives performed by this company give our imaginations a real workout as well.

In many ways, Wilton’s Music Hall is the perfect venue for a company like 1927, who generally need just a bare stage, a screen and a space for the performers and musicians to shimmy alongside. Anything else, even elaborate lighting, would be a distraction from the show taking place (mostly) at the back of the stage. But Wilton’s is a stained and faded beauty, with its patchwork walls and ceilings standing in mute and shabby chic testament to its long gone glory days as a Victorian music hall. It is somehow the perfect backdrop for a company that specializes in taking mythic stories from a murky past, and reanimating them, much like a latter day Frankenstein. Everything in Roots, though, is designed not to horrify, but to amuse—and to make us think. In the disturbing stories of cats that eat the world; murine husbands who fall into the stew while their ant wives are working, and ungrateful children who try to shed burdensome parents, there is a sly humour at work, present both in the images projected on the screen, and the actors in their drab but expressive costumes. As the audience, we teeter uneasily between outrage and laughter. Luckily for us, laughter usually wins out. There are faint echoes of music hall humour in all that 1927 presents. Wilton’s brings that out in sharp relief.

Unlike 1927’s Golem, which is a show with one overarching narrative, Roots is a medley of a dozen or so stories “from a simpler time” adapted from the British Library’s Aarne Index—a collection of folktales from around the world. There is no particular theme linking these stories together. 1927 have simply selected those that appealed, and adapted them to suit the instantly recognizable company style. These adaptations are set in a time that could be the 1920s—the costumes hint at that—but jump both forwards and backwards in time as well. The accompanying music is similarly hard to categorize. Clever use of conventional instruments such as violins are playfully augmented, as well as subverted, with the addition of “Peruvian prayer boxes, donkeys jaws…and musical saws.” The eerie sounds produced, once again do not frighten, but heighten, the experience of watching a 1927 show. Roots may disappoint some who go expecting a show with a more conventional approach to storytelling, but veteran viewers of the company’s work will appreciate Roots for what it is: not one mythic story, but many.

There is a consistently talented team at the core of 1927. Susanne Andrade, writer and performer, and Paul Barritt, animator and illustrator, have been working together since 2005. They’ve since been joined by performer and director Esme Appleton, when their trademark style of live performance and animation came into its own. Producer Jo Crowley keeps the company touring around the world. First produced for the Spoleto Festival USA in 2019, Roots now tours showcasing the work of costume designer Sarah Munro, and performers David
Insua-Cao, Francesca Simmons, Genevieve Dunne and Philippa Hambly. The voiceovers for each tale belong to friends and family of the company. Roots is a delicious combination of performance and animation talent working at the top of their game, all wrapped up and delivered in an unmissable show. See it at Wilton’s while you can.

The Watermill Theatre

Reviewed – 18th October 2021

★★★

“The music and Anjali Mehra’s choreography are indeed highlights”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

Brief Encounter

The Watermill Theatre until 13th November

Other shows reviewed this month:

Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed – 7th October 2021

★★★★★

“As the audience, we teeter uneasily between outrage and laughter”

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Leigh Webber

Roots

Wilton’s Music Hall until 30th October

Shows reviewed by Dominica this year: