“Feel-good entertainment this is, and in the hands of talented performers — it works”
True confession: I must admit that I arrived at this show (after some difficulty finding the Park Theatre due to the new (improved) area around Finsbury Park Station) a sceptic. Julie, Madly, Deeply? Two hours of Julie Andrews’ impressions? Fan of Dame Julie though I am, it still seemed like a stretch for one performer (Sarah-Louise Young) and her accompanist (Michael Roulston) to bring off. I am delighted to report that this sceptic left the theatre two and a half hours later — a convert.
Julie, Madly, Deeply (directed by Russell Lucas) is easy on the ears. It is easy on the eyes as well, since Sarah-Louise Young is a talented mimic who can make you believe she really looks like Julie Andrews (and even Audrey Hepburn). Young is also an accomplished singer (no surprises there) and accompanist Michael Roulston plays beautifully (and, on occasion, sings quite nicely as well). All the favourites from Dame Julie’s long and brilliant career are featured. But Young’s rendition of “Could I Leave You” from Follies was, for me at least, the standout song of the evening. The moment of tribute to the late Stephen Sondheim was poignantly and beautifully done. In Julie, Madly, Deeply the songs are delivered with an appropriately sharp wit. It does not seem out of place, especially when you consider how fearless and edgy Julie Andrews herself became, after she got together with movie director Blake Edwards.
There are always challenges to dramatizing the life of a famous person. If you want to be truthful as well as entertaining, you have to acknowledge the tragedies as well as the triumphs. Sarah-Louise Young doesn’t sugar coat Julie Andrews’ tough childhood (the absent mother; the alcoholic step-father, who also discovered her talent) and growing up as the family breadwinner. Young focuses on the important part: that Dame Julie is an extraordinary talent who has been performing on world famous stages since she was nine years old. Young doesn’t dwell on the personal tragedies in adulthood, either, because Julie, Madly, Deeply should have happy ending, right? To their great credit, Young, Roulston and Lucas do pull off the happy ending—by bringing us right back to where the show began: Young as a star struck Julie Andrews’ fan writing a letter to her idol. It doesn’t matter whether Dame Julie replied—what matters is the moment we can all identify with—a touching tribute to a great star, and a wish from a would be performer, to be like that star. In Julie, Madly, Deeply, the audience is warmly invited to sing along with all their favourite Julie Andrews’ songs, and to share their memories of seeing Dame Julie in person. Feel-good entertainment this is, and in the hands of talented performers — it works.
Julie, Madly, Deeply is perfect for those who feel unable—understandably during a pandemic—to brave the bigger, and riskier, theatres of London’s West End. The Park Theatre is not only smaller, but both cast and crew will welcome you in and make you feel as safe as is possible in these difficult times. So get your jabs on, mask up, and go over to Finsbury Park, for a delightful trip down Memory Lane.
“Dagleish is a genial, amusing Cratchit, winning the audience over with a jaunty charm”
Barring the actual nativity scene, A Christmas Carol is probably the best known seasonal story, not just in its original literary form, but also as a Muppet, a Donald Duck, the inimitable Michael Cain Christmas Carol of course. The same story every time, the same wholesome message of kindness and generosity of spirit. And unless you’re trying to entertain a bunch of kids, it gets a bit tired.
So it’s not a bad idea at all to mix it up and tell the story from a different angle. Writer and director Alex Knott has seemingly gone for a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern vibe, telling the story from the perspective of Bob Cratchit (John Dagleish), Scrooge’s hard-done-by employee and father of tiny Tim. Already suffering a very tight belt this Christmas Eve, Cratchit finds himself, through little fault of his own, owing money he doesn’t have to a couple of criminals.
In a moment of wretched despair he decides it’d be best for his family if he weren’t around to make matters worse. He tries to hang himself, but slips and falls into the frozen river, where he meets three spirits sent to give him a message.
Given that Scrooge is so close by- literally only next door to Cratchit’s cold, meagre office- I was hoping for a bit of story cross-over, maybe catching a glimpse of Scrooge’s own spiritual journey that evening, or perhaps adding something clever to the well-known plot. Instead ‘Cratchit’ is a kind of shadow of the same plot with a bit stolen from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
Except that the message is a little garbled too. Rather than showing an alternate reality, the three spirits take Cratchit into the future, first showing him the second Industrial Revolution, people enslaved in furnace-hot factories. Next, we’re transported to Christmas Day in WW1, lads playing football and singing hymns on no-man’s land. We take a trip through glittering ‘80s Soho, finally landing in our present plague-ridden day, and moving a little further into the future, where we meet Cratchit’s great-great-grandchild, or thereabouts, who’s doing very well indeed. This isn’t a subjunctive future, it’s just exactly what’s going to happen, so why is Cratchit being shown it? Apparently to show him that if you “live long enough, there must be reward for every man.” This is supposed to be the big heart-warming Christmas message: that his life and the life of his children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren might be torturous and near impossible to bear, but one day, someone in that long line might be allowed a little happiness. This seems deeply depressing to me. It also takes forever to work out what the point is.
Emil Bestow’s staging is simple but fairly effective. A criss-cross of wooden slats lays against the back of the stage, housing a few nestled lanterns and sitting in a pile of snow. This is most effective in the blue-black light of a cold winter’s night, when Cratchit is walking home, the warm glow of the lanterns in stark contrast to the bitter cold. Cratchit’s work desk serves as a general prop- something to sit and climb on, to move around and bang with an angry clenched fist. It’s a bit lacklustre in its most anachronistic moments- sitting in the middle of a battlefield, or in the middle of a Soho nightclub- but it serves its purpose.
Dagleish is a genial, amusing Cratchit, winning the audience over with a jaunty charm. His character could do with a bit more meat, but he makes do. Freya Sharp does her best to play all the parts Dagleish can’t. Her facial expressions carry her, bringing a lot of physical comedy into what are generally quite surface parts.
I feel I’ve said this quite a lot recently, but it needs to be at least fifteen minutes shorter- there’s an especially long rant about how awful Scrooge is which could definitely be chopped in half, and there’s a weird Christmas feast hallucination-type scene on the battlefield that I didn’t really understand at all, and which didn’t appear to add anything to the story.
All in all it makes for an entertaining evening if you’re already in the jolly spirit and looking for something festive to hang it on (no pun intended). But through a cynical un-christmasy eye it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.
