The Menier Chocolate Factory have done it again with the musical Sweet Charity. It was great to see this bitter sweet musical. Sweet Charity is the story of a American dance hall hostess. It was based on the Italian film by Fellini, The Nights of Cabria,. It was described as a dark version of the Cinderella story without the traditional happy ending. Fellini described the central character ‘ Cabiria is fragile, tender and unfortunate: after all that has happened to her, and after the collapse of her naive dream of love, she still believes in life….in spite of everything Cabiria still carries in her heart a touch of grace…. anyone may be Cabiria. That is a victim. Bob Fosse, the original director, saw the film and thought it would make a good musical The original musical opened on Broadway in 1966 and was an immediate success. It ran for over 600 performances. The book was by leading playwright Neil Simon and has the classics “Big Spender” “The Rhythm of Life” and “There’s got to be something better than this.
This production captures the style of the 60’s. Tamzin Outhwaite captures the naivety and hope of Charity. She is also a great dancer and is hardly off the stage.
I am pleased to report that it is another production from the 150 seat Menier Chocolate Factory that will transfer to the West End. It is going into the Haymarket Theatre.
Another production to look out for is a revival of ‘Aspect of Love’ the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical directed by Trevor Nunn at the MCF in the summer.

A very moving and well performed play. It is perhaps the best thing I have seen at Chichester for a long time. Everything came together to give a stunning evening. The acting was superb. Christopher Timothy played the part of Pa Joad. Portraying the anguish and futility of his life excellently. The dusk bowls in Oklahoma were caused by the farmers themselves, by the intensive farming methods. How much they new then that it was their fault I do not know.

The large cast of 22,  made great use of the thrust stage and used it is such a way that you felt the play is going to be diminished in a normal theatre. You wanted to feel their hope in looking for jobs, but knew that it was a scam to pay the least amount of money to each worker. You could say it ended on a high note, as a death was put to use in helping another human being live. It was a sad play in that it showed how those that have exploited those that hadn’t. It also showed the shear determination of the human spirit in adversity.

Finally the set and water effects were amazing. The backdrop was used part as a billboard showing old adverts which added comment to what was happening on the stage and also as an optical illusion to disconcert you. By the end of the evening you would swear that they had tipped the stage so you felt that the audience were walking downhill to the exits!

All in all a very good evening.

What a shame. To me this production had nothing to do with Oklahoma, the state not the musical. This was one of the first films I remember seeing. Gordon MacRae riding through the corn field on a bright sunny day singing ‘O what a beautiful morning’ is one of my favourite movie moments. In this production it was portrayed more like a procession out a Brecht play. There is no real colour or brightness. It is made to feel very dark, but this is what John Doyle has set out to do. He does bring out a different feel to the musical, but in doing so it could take place anywhere. We are still discussing the significance of the rose petals and the apples.
That all aside the music dancing and singing are great and if you close your eyes you can transport yourself to Oklahoma.

I went to see Cyrano de Bergerac at the Chichester Festival theatre on Tuesday night. This production is directed by Trevor Nunn. It was with some trepidation that I sat down to enjoy the performance, knowing that it was over 3 hours long.
Joseph Fiennes played the part of Cyrano with great finesse and a great nose. By the end of the play the nose did not catch your eye and you felt for the person underneath. Joseph Fiennes did an excellent job in the part. In the review outside the theatre it said that people were crying at the end. I did not see anybody crying but I did feel moved. It is not a happy ending due to his unrequited love for Roxanne.
The other cast members did a very good job and the set pieces were stunning particularly the battle scene at the barricades. Trevor Nunn is used to directing action scenes as his most famous work, Les Mis, shows.

The Chichester Festival Theatre Season has now started in the main theatre. The first production is Hay Fever by Noel Coward. It was written in 1923 in two or three days, inspired by a in New York with Lorette Taylor and her Family. The family behaved appallingly and were blissfully ignorant of their guest. Hence the Bliss family was born about an ageing actress and her self absorbed family.

It is typical Chichester fair. Diana Rigg is much better in this than in the Cherry Orchard last year, but as one reviewer states, she is in theory too old for the part. However she still gives a great performance as the aging actress who now lives in the country and is thinking about a return to the London stage. Her comic timing and facial expression are fantastic. Simon Williams shuffles about the stage as the father self engrossed in his book writing. The surprise for me was Edward Bennett who played a buffoon who idolised Mrs Bliss, was last seen in Hamlet as Hamlet. He was the understudy of David Tennent, who was off with a bad back for most of the run. This part did not stretch him as much.

A very enjoyable evening after a hard days work that did not require too much thought.

This is a new play by Simon Gray and Hugh Whitmore, based on Simon Gray’s The Smoking Diaries and his final book Coda. He is played by three actors, including Felicity Kendal, not at different time periods but all at the same time. It is as though he is having an inner conversation with himself. He talks about life from his early years to being diagnosed with cancer. It could be melancholy, but due to Grays sharp wit it is ofter hilarious.  You did feel what a waste of a life. But he knew what he was doing. He was warned by friends to give up smoking many times. He also drank heavily, consuming several bottles of champagne a night. He also had the habit of working through the night and sleeping in to midday. This did cause problems with his co author Hugh Whitmore, who had more sociable hours. But they have managed to construct a very enjoyable play about a man who lived life the way he wanted. At the end of the play he is told that instead of one year to live it was more likely going to be two. He then died, last August, not from the cancer caused by the smoking but from an aneurysm only a couple of months into his two years. He did not live long enough to complete the play.

There are some lovely passages in the play – “I regret the hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of cigarettes… pause, as if to denounce the weed, but ends … I’ve never experienced.”

My favourite is when he was talking to Harold Pinter, who also died last year, ”We can’t die yet, we haven’t grown up!” They were in their 70’s.

In the end it left me wishing to know more about this extraordinary man.

I also saw “The curious case of Benjamin Button”. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is nearly 3 hours long, but it kept my attention throughout. It was a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald which I had never read and never heard of before. It seems to say that your course in life is the same, whether you grow old naturally or are born old and become young. This is what happen to Benjamin. In growing up this way he had only a short time with the one woman he really loved before he grew too young for her. It was a sad and thoughtful film worthy of its Oscar nomination.

This Saturday we were in London to see A Little Night Music. This is one of my favourite musicals by Stephem Sondheim. It was at the Menier Chocolate Factory near London Bridge. This is a very small theatre with very hard bench seats for only 150 people. The show could not have been better for me. Trevor Nunn directed and the cast included Maureen Lipman and Hannah Waddingham, who I last saw as the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot. It also included Jessie Buckly who was runner up in the BBC production “I’d do anything”.

The rest of the season is sold out, but it will be tranferring to the Garrick Theatre in the west End in March. The show is all about tangled relationships at turn of the last century, which was fitting for Valentines day. It includes the song ‘Send in the Clowns’ http://www.menierchocolatefactory.com/a_little_night_music

Just to remind you that the special offers in the newsletter only last until the 13th March.

A patient very kindly gave me a copy of his book ‘Laughter in the Roar’. It is about variety and music hall in the first half of the last century. It is also about his family and in particular his Father, who was one of the O’Gorman brothers.  I enjoyed it because it took me back to my childhood. I remember going to the Hippodrome in Brighton and also parties at Emile Littler’s house in Poynings. Emile Little was a famous impresario.

On Tuesday night my wife and I went to see St Agnes Fountain. Chris While sings and plays guitar, bodhran & percussion. Julie Matthews sings and plays piano, keyboards & gazouki. Chris Leslie sings and plays mandolin, fiddle, dulcitar & whistles. David Hughes sings and plays guitar. They are a great folk band that only gets together at Christmas. They play Christmas carols adapted to their own style. It is a lovely start to the Christmas season. They sang a very amusing song ‘I Got My Lights Up’ (He’s got his Christmas Lights up). You can down this from their website. I should warn you that it is a rap!

I wish to thank the patient who sent me last Mondays Telegraph. There was a very interesting article on the opening, to rave reviews, of Billy Elliot on Broadway. The article is written by the creator Lee Hall. I quote from Oct 2 ” After the euphoria of the first preview night, I came to the theatre and wonder why the audience are still being seated at 8pm – the show was supposed to have started. I am told that the whole of downstairs has been taken by the American Arthritis Society and the Upstaires by the seniors of the Westchester County Country Club. Most of them are octogenarians and there is a buzz of hearing aids. The play eventually starts. Not a titter. It is a disaster. They clearly don’t get it. Yet at the end the place erupts. With immense difficulty they rise to their feet and applaud just like the first night. They had been watching it as a play, not as a comedy.”

I survived the sing along Mamma Mia at the Chichester Cinema on Saturday. It was good fun. I just hope the rest of the audience did not suffer too much from my singing.