“tells a festive story with a hilarious mix of cheer and cynicism”
It’s New Year’s Eve and Brendan is working late. Dejected and bored, he is in no mood to celebrate but a chance encounter with a girl changes everything. Striking 12 is a warm and funny retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl. Set in modern New York, this production has updated the classic fairy tale with a sweetness that does not lose the touching sadness of the original story.
Declan Bennett and Bronté Barbé do a good job as the titular characters Brendan and the Match Girl. Barbé plays the vulnerable fairy tale Match Girl as well as the modernised one who sells Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) lamps instead of matches. This may seem like a bizarre way to update the story, but it works well to paint a picture of Brendan as an overworked bah-humbug New Yorker. With exposed brick walls, malleable staging and use of vintage lighting, the Union Theatre is also a wonderful space for a show set in New York. The use of matchboxes as tickets and matches on stage was also a great added touch.
Along with the talented Andrew Linnie on piano, Kate Robson-Stuart and Leon Scott brilliantly switch between acting and playing multiple instruments to infuse the story with perfect comedic timing. There are some fantastic numbers, particularly ‘Matches for Sale’ and its reprise in ‘Say What?’ Put together, the songs tell the story of The Little Match Girl, and then self-consciously play with what a modernised version of the story would look like. In doing so, Oliver Kaderbhai’s careful direction blends the tenderness of the fairy tale with modern wit. The show’s real magic is held in the hands of Danielle Kassaraté whose Narrator is effortlessly charismatic, adding some fantastic moments of empathy and humour.
This is a tight performance that strikes the right tone throughout. Without falling into the trap of irritating unwarranted optimism that so often taints musicals at this time of year, Striking 12 tells a festive story with a hilarious mix of cheer and cynicism. It will end the year with a lovely, simple message: that sharing some sincere festive spirit can make us less sad, and failing that, there’s SAD lamps.
“a living archive that celebrates not only the life of a remarkable man but those who loved him as well”
Miriam Sherwood never got to meet her grandfather, and yet, in spite of this, she has managed to write a cabaret with him. Rendezvous in Bratislava chronicles the life of Jan ‘Laco’ Kalina, a prolific writer of cabarets and jokes, of plays and no less than five autobiographies. But, sifting through her grandfather’s writings and photographs, Sherwood has found a way of telling her grandfather’s story and her own. What emerges is a cabaret, a personal history and a living archive that celebrates not only the life of a remarkable man but those who loved him as well.
Set in a cosy living room, complete with period furniture and a piano, Rendezvous in Bratislava, is extraordinarily intimate. As the audience sits at cabaret tables, the boundaries between them and stage are blurred from the start. We are invited in as guests on Sherwood’s journey. Perhaps because we are so involved, we are able to see the details of Laco’s life, and the way which details do not necessarily have to add up because life, for better and for worse, can be messy.
The narrative that unfolds is both personal and political. Born in 1913, in Czechoslovakia, Laco’s life traces turbulent times as he escaped persecution during the Nazi occupation only to be later deemed a threat by the ensuing communist regime. But Laco’s work seems to have been devoted to laughter, and the show is peppered with his dark jokes translated from Slovakian by Sherwood.
Accompanying this is some brilliant original music, composed and performed by Thom Andrewes and Will Gardner who capture the playfulness of cabaret. From radio transmissions and cassette recordings to live renditions, the songs and performances are weaved into the story through an innovative medley of mediums. There are a few numbers which combine folk tunes and classical cabaret with a modern twist. With the help of a band of top musicians (František Holčík, Martin Jeriga and Maria Rehakova), the songs of Rendezvous in Bratislava bring to life a period of cabaret which nurtured laughter and entertainment in the darkest of times.
At the core of this piece is Miriam Sherwood’s sensitive storytelling. There is an honest fascination with her grandfather that marks each moment. As she reads extracts of Laco’s work, it is as if her voice is in conversation with his. There are several layers of very careful translation going on; from Slovak to English, from text to stage and from the personal to the performative. It is in this dialogue and these movements of translation that the real drama resides.
Rendezvous in Bratislava is a unique and unusual piece of theatre, the only one that I have seen that incorporates music and dance with readings from extracts and even a slideshow. It is funny, warm and heart-wrenching. “The success of a cabaret revue,” writes Laco, “depends on whether we are able to make a programme of artistic and ideological impact from a mosaic of small moments”. Rendezvous in Bratislava indeed does just that, it is a mosaic of some beautiful and strange, small moments.
