Tag Archives: Vicki Davids

Witness for the Prosecution

Witness for the Prosecution

★★★★

London County Hall

Witness for the Prosecution

Witness for the Prosecution

London County Hall

Reviewed – 27th April 2022

★★★★

 

“The courtroom setting is of course a highlight”

 

Witness For the Prosecution has been intriguing and entertaining tourists and Londoners alike since 2017, and I don’t see why it should stop any time soon.

Baby-faced Leonard Vole (Joshua Glenister) is being accused of murder, having been found in the wrong place at the wrong time, but despite his seemingly obvious innocence, the evidence is shaky. Will his open features and simple nature be enough to redeem him?

Agatha Christie does well to create this stuffy, old-boys’ club legal system full of lots of back-slapping middle-aged men. It feels almost timeless in that it could be 1850 just as easily as 1950. But in walks Leonard’s wife Romaine Vole (Lauren O’Neil) dressed all in black, and suddenly we’re in technicolour. The women are the flavour of this otherwise slightly musty courtroom drama, with Romaine leading the pack, feline and cryptic in beatnik beret and blood-red lipstick. But housekeeper Janet Mackenzie (Mandi Symonds) and even the hardly-seen jealous woman, and mysterious blond (Lily Blunsom-Washbrook) in the second half are a glorious disruption.

Where previous casts have chosen a slightly subtler route, this new production has opted for campy over-the-top histrionics which I think suits the echoey chamber and oft-nightmarish script perfectly. Leave the naturalism to the proscenium arches.
The courtroom setting is of course a highlight, the lofty ceilings and dark wood adding flair to what is otherwise a pretty conventional production. A select few are seated as the jury, and others are sat in the press gallery. The rest of us play a ghost audience to a murder trial that has happened many times before in this same space. It’s just unusual enough to appeal to the savvy theatre goer, and plenty accessible for the enthusiastic novice looking for a good story to get stuck into.

The production claims to be running only until September, but considering how long The Mousetrap has been going, I’d say there’s still a good appetite for Christie in the city, and Witness is a much snappier story in a far more engaging setting.

 

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Ellie Kurttz

 


Witness for the Prosecution

London County Hall – currently booking until 25th September

 

Previous review of this show:
Witness For The Prosecution | ★★★★★ | September 2021

 

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Big the Musical

Big the Musical

★★½

Dominion Theatre

Big the Musical

Big the Musical

Dominion Theatre

Reviewed – 18th September 2019

★★½

 

“The book and score are entirely forgettable; the rhymes from a Hallmark card and devoid of wit or charm”

 

In 1996, eight years after the now legendary film, starring Tom Hanks, hit American screens, Big – The Musical premiered on Broadway. Nearly 25 years later, Morgan Young, director, choreographer and chief architect of this Dominion production, has finally realised his dream to bring it to the London stage. It has not aged well. Despite the inordinate amount of money clearly spent on this production, and a few very good performances, the whole show seems distinctly creaky, and slightly tawdry too, like a ride at a cheap fairground on which you slightly fear for your safety.

The story is that of 12 year old Josh Baskin (Jay McGuiness), who, sick of being small, makes a wish at a travelling carnival to be big, and wakes up in the morning with the body of a full-grown man. Fleeing from his terrified mother (Wendi Peters), who fails to recognise him, and with the aid of his best friend Billy (Jobe Hart in last night’s performance), he winds up in New York, where he rises to success at an ailing toy company owned by George MacMillan (Matthew Kelly), getting romantically entangled with Susan (Kimberley Walsh) along the way, before returning to his real age and his home. It’s a fairly slight tale, and the message, such as it is, is sentimental stuff – hang on to your childhood, don’t grow up too fast, and bring the honesty and playfulness of childhood into your adult life. Grown-ups get a pretty bad press in this fable all in all; the apogee of this being the dreadful yuppie dinner party in act two, in which, inexplicably, the supporting men appear to be dressed as versions of Alan Partridge. Sophisticated it isn’t; that quality being distinctly off-message it would appear.

The overall look of the show is disappointing, and the decision to use huge video screens as the centre piece of each scene is a mistake. It distracts from and deadens the action, and also, importantly, takes away from any attempt at intimacy. We are always at a big stadium gig, even in the show’s more tender moments, which serves them badly. The lighting doesn’t help either. All of which underlines the question continually in mind – ‘Why is this a musical?’. It feels like a musical by numbers because that’s exactly what it is. A traditional musical structure has been superimposed on a film narrative. And it doesn’t work. The book and score are entirely forgettable; the rhymes from a Hallmark card and devoid of wit or charm. The only moments to draw widespread audience laughter are in the spoken dialogue. Not a good sign.

The principals are well-cast and work hard. Jay McGuiness perfectly embodies the child-in-man Josh; Kimberley Walsh softens beautifully from power-dressed executive to the girl looking for love she so clearly is, and Matthew Kelly gives a tremendous turn as Macmillan. Wendi Peters is a consummate professional and lends performance oomph to a pretty scant role, but, as with the kids in the cast, she is of the strident MT singing style, which arguably runs counter to emotional depth. Jobe Hart did, however, stand out as Billy last night and most certainly has a musical theatre future. It’s a shame that all this professionalism serves such an underwhelming show.

Finally, it is more than disappointing to see an all-white adult chorus in a West End musical in 2019 (representing the working population of NEW YORK!), as it is to see the only transvestite/transexual character equated with the rotten underbelly of the city. Theatre at this level has no excuse not to do better.

 

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Alastair Muir

 


Big the Musical

Dominion Theatre until 2nd November

 

Recent shows covered by this reviewer:

 

Bare: A Pop Opera | ★★★ | June 2019
Becoming The Invisible Woman | ★★ | June 2019
Three Sisters | ★★★★ | June 2019
Chiflón, The Silence of the Coal | ★★★★ | July 2019
Grey | ★★ | July 2019
Margot, Dame, The Most Famous Ballerina In The World | ★★★ | July 2019
Once On This Island | ★★★ | August 2019
The Weatherman | ★★★ | August 2019
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre – Programme A | ★★★★ | September 2019
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre – Programme C | ★★★★ | September 2019

 

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