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This is an excellent entertainment. It is based on the childrens book ‘War Horse” by Michael Morpurgo, about a horse which is brought up by a your lad who looses it when the father sells it to the army so that it can fight in the 1st world war. It is basically a puppet show with live actors. If your idea of a puppet shown is Thunderbirds think again. The play was developed at the National Theatre and a lot of time was spent in developing the the horses. The horses are very believable so much so that you can feel their pain and suffering during the performance. You do not ‘see’ the puppeteers, they blend into the back ground.
The story is very strong and moves along at a fair pace. It includes music and folk songs that add to the experience. Look at the web site to get an idea of how good it is. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/45205/home/war-horse-official-website.html

Andrew Lloyd Webber has received much negative press regarding Love Never Dies. Lover Never Dies is the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, the musical he wrote for Sarah Brightman over 21 years ago. It starred Michael Crawford and his wife Sarah Brightman. The music had been released on a CD some months before and produced three top ten hits. It was based on a very well known story which had been make into several films. The most famous was with Lon Chaney playing the disfigured Phantom. The musical was an instant hit and has been doing well all around the world.
Love Never Dies is a completely new musical. It is the first for many years not to be based on any other source. The music and the story were released only weeks before it opened. It had very mixed reviews.
I went to see it several weeks ago and was very impressed. The story has moved on by 10 years. The characters have developed and I feel they are made more believable. I never believed in the characters in the original Phantom and I felt it was the poor relation to Les Mis. The action has moved to Coney Island where the Phantom fled. The opening evokes the feeling of the fun fair and starts to pull you into the story. Christine is now a very successful Opera singer, who is saddled with her husband Raoul, who has become a gambler and an alcoholic. They also have a 10 year old boy Gustave.
The music is not as memorable as Phantom but is very powerful and a joy to listen to. The sets are well conceived and certainly as good as the original but in a different style.

Overall a very enjoyable musical with a strong ending. I feel it will develop over the coming months. The cast are excellent and it deserves to have a long run

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.