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It's Her Turn Now

It’s Her Turn Now

★★★

The Mill at Sonning

IT’S HER TURN NOW at The Mill at Sonning

★★★

It's Her Turn Now

“the play as a whole is genuinely very funny”

Meeting for a secret liaison in the Westminster Hotel, Tory junior minister Rebecca Willey gleefully urges special advisor to the opposition, John Worthington, to put on his “jim-jams” in preparation for the night of adultery ahead. The champagne and oysters are already on their way by the time Willey pulls back the curtains only to discover a limp body hanging across the windowsill. Attempting to move the body out of the hotel suite and evade discovery, any plans for the night are completely derailed as Willey (Elizabeth Elvin), Worthington (Raphael Bar), and Mrs. Willey’s PA, Georgia Pigden (Felicity Duncan) are tangled in an increasingly ludicrous web of lies.

‘It’s Her Turn Now’, adapted by Michael J. Barfoot and directed by David Warwick, is a gender-swapped take on Ray Cooney’s classic farce ‘Out of Order’. All of the action takes place in one room, a hotel suite set brilliantly designed by Alex Marker. A number of doors and, of course, the central sash window, allow the characters to revolve dizzyingly across the stage as Willey stands at the centre and struggles to maintain control as her life, and later her government, falls apart around her. This makes for some great moments of physical comedy, especially in Willey and Pigden’s manipulation of the corpse, and the play as a whole is genuinely very funny.

The central change replaces Cooney’s original male MP Richard Willey with the female MP Rebecca Willey, and the swap is quite effective, thanks in large part to Elvin and Duncan’s excellent performances as the conniving Mrs. Willey and the unfortunately implicated Georgia Pigden, respectively. The new dynamics that emerge refresh the play out of the overdone, and Barfoot’s writing plays on the swap humorously. That said, it nevertheless remains very safe, and somehow still manages to feel slightly old-fashioned: every swap, for example, is carefully carried through so that each romantic pairing remains a heterosexual one. The stakes are never really altered in any significant way.

“a refreshingly funny, well-acted and well-done take on the farce”

In a similar vein, despite a few moments of knowing wink-wink reference to the apparently perennially deceitful nature of politics, attempts at political bite are never really genuine: perhaps a missed opportunity, considering the not-so-distant memories of a certain health secretary. This is farce, however, and, while Big Ben looms through the window, the play never purports to be political. Our attention must instead be focused on the microcosm of disaster playing out in this one room.

Characters are rapidly accumulated as Willey, Pigden, and Worthington embroil themselves in deceit. However, as the play progresses, the pleasure of the double-triple-quadruple bluff does dwindle, and the fast and sinuous plotting of the first act is somewhat lost as the play becomes bloated and unwieldy with its own deceptions. I especially thought that the early interactions between Nurse Foster (carer of Pigden’s aging father, played by Jules Brown) and Georgia Pigden were a missed opportunity. Had the writing been marginally less focused on deception here, this could be a genuinely heartwarming moment. Instead, by the time the play tries to use it for denouement, the interaction has somewhat lost its power and become just another half-truth.

While the ending doesn’t seem quite tied-up enough to justify the increasingly convoluted plotting, and while the production remains, on the whole, quite offense-less, this was, overall, a refreshingly funny, well-acted and well-done take on the farce, that just about manages to pull off the gender-swap without taking advantage of it for cheap jokes.


IT’S HER TURN NOW at The Mill at Sonning

Reviewed on 7th October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Andreas Lambis

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Gypsy | ★★★★★ | June 2023
Top Hat | ★★★★ | November 2022
Barefoot in the Park | ★★★★ | July 2022

It’s Her Turn Now

It’s Her Turn Now

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Gypsy

★★★★★

The Mill at Sonning

GYPSY at The Mill at Sonning

★★★★★

Gypsy

“Rebecca Thornhill is quite remarkable as Rose, establishing her personality as the pushy, determined, possessive matriarch”

 

Billed as ‘A Musical Fable’ (although the pedants among us would describe it as a parable), “Gypsy” camouflages its many moral messages in a sheer razzamatazz account of the real-life Gypsy Rose Lee; the highest paid striptease artist of her time. Supposedly born sometime around 1910, the date has always been unclear due to her mother, Rose, constantly re-inventing her daughters’ ages to satisfy her own needs and the fluctuating child labour laws. It is Rose herself who ultimately occupies the central theme of what has been described as one of the ‘greatest American musicals’. Then again, it is hard to go wrong with composer Jule Styne, lyricist Stephen Sondheim and writer Arthur Laurents.

Joseph Pitcher’s production is one of The Mill at Sonning’s boldest projects to date which, it is safe to say, doesn’t put a foot wrong either. From the outset we are thrust into the precarious, decadent and exciting Vaudeville world of the 1920s. The overture – worthy of a night out in itself – spills onto and beyond the stage, musicians mingling with cast and audience, characters appearing from suitcases, and a colourful hint of the kaleidoscopic range of Natalie Titchener’s outstanding costumes.

The show displays the contrasting atmospheres of the world depicted. The highs, the lows, the glamour and the shabbiness. Sisters Louise and June are growing up in this world under the formidable shadow of Rose. The ultimate ‘showbusiness mother’, she pushes her daughters into the spotlight and into her own failed dreams with disastrous effects. The more vivacious June is pushed away, while the shy Louise longs for a normal life, eventually eclipsing her mother. Ultimately, she finds her own success in the world she sought to escape, transforming into ‘Gypsy Rose Lee’. Although it is her memoirs that inform the story, it is the mother’s voice that tells it and steals the show.

Rebecca Thornhill is quite remarkable as Rose, establishing her personality as the pushy, determined, possessive matriarch. But far from grotesque. She does monstrous things but is not a monster, and Thornhill perfectly understands that dichotomy. The comedic twinkle is matched by a sincere vulnerability that pulls the character away from cartoon brashness and, amazingly, we end up really rooting for her. If “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” is a showstopping climax to the first act, just wait for her rendition of “Rosie’s Turn” in Act Two.

Evelyn Hoskins, as Louise, wears the timid awkwardness like a mantle to protect herself. When forced to shed this (and, of course, more) her wide eyed abidance is quite moving, tipped by a heart-rending moment when she gazes back at her younger self. The transformation is complete, and uplifting, as she picks up the familiar motif number “Let Me Entertain You”. It’s a fascinating journey. Lost on the way, thanks to the antics of Rose, are sister June (an impressive Marina Tavolieri) and Daniel Crowder’s big-hearted agent Herbie. Crowder skilfully steps through the eggshells Rose has laid, dispelling humour and joy and ultimately heartbreak as the armour of his illusions are shattered.

This fine company brings out the best of Styne’s score and Sondheim’s inimitable lyrics, with choreography and production values to equal any West End or Broadway revival. It is a story of contradictions and contrasts. There is a darkness that is lightened by the witty libretto and sumptuous score, and a hardness that is softened by emotionally charged performances and the slick staging. There are lessons to be learned from the ‘fable’, but it never slips into platitude.

Rose tells her daughters to “leave them begging for more – then don’t give it to them”. This production certainly leaves us wanting more, but gives it to us too. In bucketloads. “Let Me Entertain You” it proclaims. Just try stopping them! A stylish, superbly crafted show that is also steeped in sympathy for the main characters. Since its original Broadway production in 1959, producers have toyed with the ending, often leaving it open as to whether there is reconciliation. This one? Well – just go and find out for yourself.

 

Reviewed on 1st June 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Andreas Lambis

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Barefoot in the Park | ★★★★ | July 2022
Top Hat | ★★★★ | November 2022

 

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