Issue 25 / 26 - 2004
Prompt Corner 
There are two answers to the question posed on the front cover of this issue. The first relates to the old, old story of the chronic atrophy of arts coverage in Britain: not enough resources either to keep a full network of regional stringers or to send London-based writers out often enough, not enough editorial interest in doing so. Not until a production becomes news. And by then, in this case, it was too late. Which leads me to the second answer, and very rapidly past it and into a prolonged burst of soapboxing.
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti (Dishonour) had its press night on Monday 13 December in Birmingham Rep's studio space, The Door. If any national publications sent a reviewer to cover it, no review appeared that TR has seen. And I rather think we would have seen, because of what subsequently happened. On Thursday 16, police were called to a protest outside the theatre, and four arrests were made. Further protests, including an attempt to storm the theatre, occurred on Saturday 18: around 400 protesters were involved, five policemen were hurt and some 800 people in both The Door and the Rep's main house space (including a large number of children, at a performance of The Witches) were besieged and eventually had to be evacuated. Windows and doors were destroyed, and backstage equipment smashed when some of the demonstrators gained entry. On Monday 20, the theatre management reluctantly cancelled the rest of the play's run on immediate grounds of health and safety. Bhatti has subsequently been in hiding, in fear for her life, subsequent plans for performances or rehearsed readings of Behzti have been shelved at her request after the threats to her increased. So there's the second answer: by the time it was deemed worthy of coverage, it could no longer be seen. Now for the rant.
Shameful
This is the single most shameful and depressing event to take place in Britain in my theatregoing life. I almost left both my career and my country because of it. Shame and blame attach to the West Midlands Police, whose response was plainly inadequate to the level of protest; to those media and social figures who responded to the protests and cancellation with a "No, but..." in circumstances where such an attitude can only in practice be interpreted as "Yes"; to government ministers who either failed to grasp the magnitude of what had happened or blithely dismissed it; and, of course, to the protesters.
I've been trying to avoid mentioning this, because in so many ways it isn't relevant, but as it happens, Bhatti is a British-born Sikh, her play involves sexual abuse and murder in a gurdwara (a Sikh temple), and the protesters were from the Sikh community. It can be downright damaging to portray the matter, as a number of commentators have, in terms of a "them" refusing to accept the cultural norms of an "us". I repeat, Bhatti is British-born, and no doubt so were many if not most of the violent demonstrators. This isn't a matter of Sikh or Asian values against Judaeo-Christian or European ones: the deplorable action of the Roman Catholic diocese of Birmingham in urging a boycott of the play, and pundit Mary Kenny's too-terse description of the campaign of violence and intimidation as "successful", show that the matter cuts across such lines. It's about freedom, pure and simple.
Get over it
Every time such a freedom-of-expression matter arises, we hear the line (as, in this case, from Archbishop Vincent Nicholls) that "The right to freedom of expression has corresponding duties to the common good." And it's indubitably true. The trouble is that those duties are in fact the opposite of what such people always go on to claim. The duty is not principally one of responsibility or not causing offence on the part of the speaker (writer, whatever): that would mean that no right of free expression existed, merely a contingent permission, an arbitrarily revocable licence. The duty is in fact on the part of everyone else, and it is the duty to tolerate offence short of real, quantifiable criminal harm. The law has no place coddling our sensibilities; it's there for cases of actual damage, not bruised senses of propriety, and not for acquiescing in the current cultural trend where we all want to claim privileged status as being victims at the hands of someone else. The solution for us as a society is easy to state and to grasp, if harder to accept or achieve. We need to get over it: to cultivate a general attitude where we accept that some things have to be borne and that, however irksome individual instances may be to us, this principle is in fact morally right. The current government announced plans a while ago to introduce legislation outlawing incitement to hatred on religious grounds, to parallel that which already prohibits incitement to hatred on racial grounds. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this proposal, it's important to note that Behzti would not have fallen foul of such legislation: the "hatred" thus incited refers to actual criminal harm, not offended sensibilities.
There's been a lot of pious twaddle talked about this matter. From Archbishop Nicholls, as aforesaid. From Sikh community leader Mohan Singh, who managed to say both "We are not bothered about rape scenes or paedophiles - we know that there are good and bad people from every background and religion" and "Sikhs are not like that" without apparently noticing any contradiction. From arts minister and Birmingham MP Estelle Morris, who said, "Although today is a very sad day for freedom of speech, I think the Rep has done the right thing" - well, er, isn't it your parliamentary job to uphold such freedoms when riots enforce censorship, rather than pretending to ponder matters but actually just lying supine after the fact? Most lamentably from minister for race equality Fiona Mactaggart, whose breathtakingly insensitive response merits quoting at some length: "One of the things about protesters is that very often they create unintended consequences and I suspect that the message of the playwright will get a wider audience following this and the play might even get a new audience in another theatre. In my experience, very often the consequence of that [violent protests] is that the ideas of the play gain a wider audience than they would have had, had there not been such protests. That people feel this passionately about theatres is a good sign for our cultural life. It is a sign of a lively flourishing cultural life." In other words, all's well that ends well, even though it hasn't ended well yet, but it usually does, so we in the government need not bother ourselves with the fact that - let's repeat it, as it seems to need repeating - violence forced the cancellation of a play simply because some people didn't like it. A playwright is in hiding after threats on her life. Morris once resigned as Secretary of State for Education because she candidly admitted that she didn't think she'd been up to the job; astoundingly, she seems to have had no such doubts on this occasion. As for Mactaggart, it beggars belief that those smug remarks could come from an erstwhile chair of Liberty (formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties). If she won't resign, she should be universally shunned in all her ministerial dealings.
Impotent
Yes, there has also been a heartening amount of solidarity behind the simple notion of freedom. Despite all the foregoing, most media comment has been along supportive lines, not least in the forceful letter which appeared in 23 December's Guardian, signed by over 300 members of the theatre world (including the editorship of this magazine). But all our liberal outrage and good intentions are impotent if there's inadequate official attention paid as well; and as long as such blinkered stupidity prevails at ministerial level then all we can hope to do is lessen the scale of defeat, not reverse the result.
Yes, too, let's keep a sense of perspective. One reason why the Behzti story has died down is the incalculable disaster of the Asian tsunami. If Bhatti's play had enjoyed a total sell-out run, the number of people who saw it would have amounted to scarcely 2% of those fatalities so far confirmed in Asia as this issue goes to press. There can be no question which matter demands more, and more immediate, concern and attention. (As well, of course, as media focus. There's no story without storytellers. Cast your mind back - good Lord! - 16 years to the Satanic Verses brouhaha. Do you remember that first book-burning in Bradford? No, you don't; the media scarcely reported it at all, so the event was repeated a month later with better PR, and that's the one that got the coverage. And while we're at it, remember that the fatwa on Salman Rushdie has never been lifted: 16 years on, he remains condemned to death.)
But the issue of mob censorship won't go away. The longer we ignore this mugging of our freedom, the more arduous it's going to be to claw that freedom back.
Oh, and late-breaking news as we go to press: following the BBC's laudable decision not to cancel its television broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera as scheduled on 8 January, protests have included the claim that "There should be freedom of speech but there should never be freedom for desecration." Meanwhile, the controller of the channel has had to engage security guards to protect his home and family. Shall I re-type the last 1500 words all over again, changing some of the religious references, or shall we just all swear quietly together under our breath and then proceed to the rest of the past month in theatre?
Elsewhere
Not that there's a great deal of space left for that. Well, some things are important (like my blood pressure). An account of my seasonal experiences appears separately at the back of this issue, and I saw few straight(ish) productions for which a review of mine doesn't already appear herein. Obscure pop-generation gag: when I pointed out to my friend that one of the chorus performers in Mary Poppins was called Howard Jones, we both started wondering whatever happened to the '80s synth-pop merchant of the same name, and indeed to his mime-artist sidekick; when the company started an odd Edwardian bodypoppin' routine to accompany Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, we realised that the spirit of the latter at least was alive and well. Oh, and Michael Billington may have had to wait until around 9.32 for "the one moment of genuine ecstasy" in the show, but that was at an early-starting press night; for the rest of us, it's closer to 9.55.
The reason Fix Up is so melodramatically bald (if
it were an episode of Thunderbirds, you'd be able
to see the strings) is that author Kwame Kwei-Armah is in
this instance less interested in the shape of his story than
the shape of history. As a lengthy programme interview (with
Kwei-Armah as interviewER) indicates, the play is a tour
d'horizon of a century and more of black consciousness. It
gives us a reading list and, as it were, sets the essay question,
but seems to think that asking the question is enough. In
such a provocative and tendentious area, one in which Kwei-Armah
has clearly shown his involvement and concern, it's not. We
need to discuss the various responses too.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
It's been an enjoyable year at the back. The compensation for not getting to all the top London shows has been not having to write about them. The substitute for relentless scootering into the West End or its fringes has been some exotic trips overseas. The fact of becoming quickly invisible to some Press Offices is not too hard to bear. And I can confess that the gentle handover of the Record over the first part of the year was a very useful form of cold turkey, so much so that I no longer fidget of an evening if I'm not going to a show.
All of which is to say that I've been pretty lazy in the Christmas season, when I could have been out and about more. Perhaps it's as well I stayed in, since I find myself with a dangerously Scrooge-like attitude to what I did see. I'm not alone in finding The Firework-Maker's Daughter more worthy than enjoyable, with its rather wealthy approach to poor theatre and laughable attempts at adding music - wait an hour for a song, then along come two at once. I'm less supported in finding Rufus Norris's Sleeping Beauty almost equally boring. It had been souped up to fill the big Barbican space, and looked very impressive - rather too impressive, indeed, under Tim Mitchell's overdone lighting; but for all Daniel Cerqueira's vicious excellence as the ogress it began to overstay its welcome after two hours and became quite purgatorial after three.
High hopes for a new Phil Willmott spoof, Femme Fatale, were dashed quite early by a full but meandering plot and Ted Craig's failure to make stage use of his talented singer-actor-musicians: every time they had to do duty as a band, they hid behind the scenery. Still, it's worth noting the two girls, leggy Elizabeth Marsh and ingénue Rosie Jenkins.
Infuriating mannerisms
Biggest disappointment was Peter Hall's As You Like It at the Kingston Rose. Apart from a lively opening wrestling match, it took for ever to get started, and even longer to get funny, let alone touching. Much of the blame lies with Rebecca Hall, whose infuriating mannerisms and "oh, look, a new word" mangling of the verse delayed matters unconscionably. Dad had taken the sensible precaution of hiring a very solid middle order batting line-up of James Laurenson, Michael Siberry and Philip Voss, who all delivered, but the rest of his cast were submerged in the evening's general gloom.
The most curious event of the Christmas season was Quest. It got some pretty murderous reviews, especially from critics lamenting the damage done to the original Gawain poem, which is a bit like knocking Camelot for being unfaithful to Malory. A mish-mash it certainly was, but I think more credit should go to those brave souls who put it together, daring to mix a Desmond Olivier Dingle view of King Arthur with aerialists and stiltwalkers from the world of performance, jousting knights from an equine world of their own and a bracing dose of Glastonbury faery to top it off. To attempt this on a Fringe budget, in a tent on Clapham Common, must seem like total madness, but it's a madness that shows there to be life and invention around still in the most unlikely corners of our theatre. It gave us colour and spectacle on a shoestring, and I warmed to its ramshackle jollity much more than to some of the earnest, technically superior but sadly po-faced attempts to reach a family audience mentioned above.
And the year?
So, what did 2004 bring us? It brought increasing concern about the viability of the West End for straight plays, not helped by a number of new ones that had little right to be there. Unfortunately, as well as the irredeemable failures (Calico¸The Holy Terror.), there were some that deserved better (The Shape Of Things, Fuddy Meers) and lost us the future services of Kenny Wax and possibly the Mendes/Newling Scamp organisation. The trend to import American TV and film stars continues, with varying results - Oleanna and When Harry Met Sally both did well, and Christian Slater's presence hugely helped one of the year's surprise successes, the revival of .Cuckoo's Nest. An even bigger surprise, though completely justified, was the popularity of Festen, which has propelled Rufus Norris into the directorial big league. All the same, the size of the Cuckoo and Festen casts mean that they're not going to make investors rich - the transfer of Democracy, another much-praised but large-cast production, got back just over half its investment. I wonder how The Old Masters did - ham acting still seems to work its dubious magic.
The National followed Democracy with more hits, led by The History Boys, Alan Bennett's latest hilarious investigation of his sexuality. I'm about the only voice not raised to fortissimo in praise of the Hytner régime, because I think its quest for cheap, Jerry Springer/Funny Thing popularity is leading it to neglect one of the main responsibilities of a national theatre - the staging of revelatory versions of established work from the international canon. On the other hand, it has been great to see it fulfilling another equally important purpose, that of leading national debate, in Democracy, The Permanent Way and - most splendidly - Stuff Happens. The year's best news is the return of political theatre, not just from the old guard of David Hare and David Edgar (Continental Divide). Justin Butcher's Dubya trilogy was uneven but at its best hit hard, while the austere factuality of Guantánamo hid some magnificent stagecraft. It's a pity that attempts to nail the Blair cartel got only as far as Follow My Leader, but this resurgence of dissent ensures that there will be more. (Funny that one of the West End's more unlikely successes should be an earlier account of the futility of war, Journey's End.)
Wonderful to see the RSC regain its morale and a sense of purpose, even if the main-house tragedies were on the pedestrian side. Another Swan thread, the Spanish Golden Age, was almost as successful as the Jacobethans, and reminded us that as well as a charismatic leader in Michael Boyd the company has a strong supporting team in Greg Doran and Laurence Boswell. Quite how they managed to wipe a couple of million off their debt on a reduced, Barbican-free programme is hard to work out, and perhaps best left obscure.
The stirrings in the regions are very much due to the arrival of a new breed of young, adventurous directors up and down the country, and an almost complete turnaround in Scotland. David Farr and Simon Reade, Rupert Goold, Jonathan Church, Anna Mackmin, Gemma Bodinetz have all had an impact. Now Sam West joins them, an exciting prospect.
Question marks
There are more question marks over the mid-range London theatres, with Hampstead still unsettled and the Almeida wavering. Trafalgar Studios and the Menier have found an immediate place, however, something which still eludes the New Players and the Pleasance. Some of the most interesting work of the year is going on in the tiniest, least reviewed fringe venues. The White Bear found fame at last with the transfer of Round The Horne. Revisited, consolidated for its director Michael Kingsbury with another comic throwback, Ying Tong, in Leeds. The Finborough had a very good year, the Courtyard had a couple of fine revivals in the spring, and the Gatehouse is always worth a look; the Union can go up and down, but has offered some very good shows - a pity that the current offering, Pippin, doesn't quite come up to scratch, with some fine design let down by a below-par cast.
The leading critics still can't get their heads round performance theatre, which is ever more popular with young audiences - see their bemused reactions to Shunt, last issue. Nor are they very aware of foreign work, unless it's at the Barbican in the now essential BITE seasons. A very well chosen programme of exciting work at the ICA should have put that space back on the map, but few noticed the arrival of fine experimental companies from Hungary, India, Italy, the Lebanon and Slovenia during a busy year.
Kid gloves
There are signs at last that black and Asian theatre no longer need condescending, kid-glove treatment, in the unqualified success of writers like Kwame Kwei-Armah and Roy Williams and West End productions like Simply Heavenly and the all-Indian Twelfth Night. And finally, big musicals (which have never had the kid glove treatment), are well and truly back with the admired Mary Poppins, the overhyped, resolutely old-fashioned but irresistible The Producers, and the critically slaughtered but publicly adored The Woman In White, all three ensuring a healthy year-end for the industry.
On the other side of the fence, we have lost Michael Coveney and Robert Gore-Langton as regular reviewers, both in unfortunate circumstances. We thought we'd lost Toby Young, too, but for better or worse he's back from an American foray. And quite a lot of managements will note with relief that Rhoda Koenig's gone very quiet.
Ian Herbert | ian@herbertknott.com
Contents / Reviews
London |
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ALADDIN New version by Bille Brown |
Old Vic |
17 Dec | 22 Jan | 1729 |
ALADDIN Adapted by Susie McKenna |
Hackney Empire |
7 Dec | 8 Jan | 1720 |
ALADDIN By Paul Elliott |
New Wimbledon |
17 Dec | 16 Jan | 1715 |
ARTHUR SMITH'S DANTE'S INFERNO Revival of comedy show |
Comedy |
20 Dec | 2 Jan | 1667 |
AS YOU LIKE IT Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Rose of Kingston |
3 Dec | 18 Dec | 1661 |
C'EST BARBICAN! Return of entertainment by Duckie |
The Pit |
14 Dec | 9 Jan | 1712 |
THE CHIMES Adapted by Les Smith from story by Charles Dickens |
Southwark Playhouse |
8 Dec | 1 Jan | 1714 |
CINDERELLA Adapted by Jonathan Petherbridge |
Greenwich |
7 Dec | 15 Jan | 1724 |
A DOLL'S HOUSE Revival of play by Henrik Ibsen |
Greenwich Playhouse |
7 Dec | 9 Jan | 1672 |
ESCAPOLOGY New play by Chris Goode |
Camden People's |
8 Dec | 18 Dec | 1690 |
FEMME FATALE New musical by Phil Willmott with Stefan Bednarczyk |
Warehouse Croydon |
12 Dec | 20 Feb | 1675 |
THE FIREWORK-MAKER'S DAUGHTER Adaptation of book by Philip Pullman |
Lyric Hammersmith |
2 Dec | 22 Jan | 1704 |
FIX UP New play by Kwame Kwei-Armah |
Cottesloe |
16 Dec | 23 Mar | 1693 |
THE GRUFFALO Return of adaptation from the Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler book |
Pleasance |
18 Dec | 3 Jan | 1776 |
HARD SELL New play by Craig Baxter |
Theatre 503 |
9 Dec | 19 Dec | 1669 |
HIS DARK MATERIALS Revival of two-part adaptation (revised) by Nicholas Wright, from Philip Pullman |
Olivier |
8 Dec | 2 Apr | 1707 |
HOT MIKADO Gilbert & Sullivan adapted by David H Bell/Rob Bowman |
Upstairs at the Gatehouse |
18 Dec | 30 Jan | 1665 |
IN ONE EAR Composed by Evelyn Ficarra |
Lyric Studio |
2 Dec | 1 Jan | 1670 |
JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH Revival of David Wood adaptation of Roald Dahl book |
Polka |
11 Nov | 22 Jan | 1719 |
KEN CAMPBELL'S OLD KING COLE Revival of play by, er, Ken Campbell |
Cochrane |
2 Dec | 9 Jan | 1728 |
MARY POPPINS Musical by the Sherman Brothers (with Stiles & Drewe) based on P L Travers/Disney |
Prince Edward |
15 Dec | 1677 | |
THE MIKADO Gilbert & Sullivan, new version by Chris Monks |
Orange Tree |
17 Dec | 12 Feb | 1686 |
MOTHER GOOSED! Seasonal entertainment' details unknown |
Brick Lane Music Hall |
26 Nov | 6 Mar | 1739 |
PAM ANN Devised and performed by Caroline Reid |
UCL Bloomsbury |
15 Dec | 8 Jan | 1676 |
PIPPIN Revival of musical by Stephen Schwartz |
Union |
9 Dec | 8 Jan | 1664 |
PLATFORM New adaptation of novel by Michel Houellebecq |
ICA |
3 Dec | 16 Dec | 1666 |
PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES Revival of play by Mustapha Matura, from J M Synge |
Tricycle |
6 Dec | 22 Jan | 1697 |
QUEST: THE LEGEND OF THE GREEN KNIGHT New play by Carolyn Spedden |
Big Top, Clapham Common |
20 Dec | 3 Jan | 1737 |
ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) |
Albery |
21 Dec | 8 Jan | 1688 |
ROUND THE HORNE - REVISITED Christmas edition of Brian Cooke adaptation from radio scripts |
Venue |
2 Dec | 22 Jan | 1725 |
RUMPLESTILTSKIN AND OTHER GRIZZLY TALES New adaptation of traditional stories |
New Wimbledon Studio |
1 Dec | 23 Dec | 1713 |
SLEEPING BEAUTY Return of Rufus Norris adaptation from Perrault |
Barbican |
17 Dec | 11 Jan | 1716 |
SLEEPING BEAUTY New version by Hope Massiah and Delroy Murray |
T R Stratford E15 |
9 Dec | 22 Jan | 1723 |
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS By Paul O'Grady, Tudor Davies, Paul Elliott, Carole Todd |
Victoria Palace |
17 Dec | 23 Jan | 1734 |
THE SNOWMAN Return of Bill Alexander adaptation from Raymond Briggs with Howard Blake music |
Peacock |
11 Dec | 9 Jan | 1706 |
TARTUFFE Revival of play by Molière in a version by Ranjit Bolt |
Arcola |
9 Dec | 30 Dec | 1671 |
VIENNA TO WEIMAR Cabaret show by KT Sullivan and Karen Kohler |
Jermyn Street |
14 Dec | 21 Dec | 1685 |
WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD BOOK? Adapted by Jonathan Lloyd from the book by Lauren Child |
Soho |
4 Dec | 9 Jan | 1703 |
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS Adaptation of Kenneth Grahame |
UCL Bloomsbury |
20 Dec | 9 Jan | 1727 |
WORLD CUP FINAL 1966 New musical by Tom Morris and Carl Heap |
BAC |
1 Dec | 15 Jan | 1701 |
Regions |
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AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' Revival of musical based on the work of Fats Waller |
Sheffield, Crucible |
7 Dec | 22 Jan | 1743 |
THE DRESSER Revival of play by Ronald Harwood |
Richmond |
2 Dec | 4 Dec | 1740 |
GOING DUTCH New play by John Godber |
Hull Truck |
17 Dec | 22 Jan | 1746 |
LONDON ASSURANCE Revival of play by Dion Boucicault |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
6 Dec | 15 Jan | 1741 |
THE ODD COUPLE Revival of play by Neil Simon |
Liverpool Playhouse |
14 Dec | 15 Jan | 1745 |
PUTTING IT TOGETHER Musical revue based on the work of Stephen Sondheim |
Harrogate, Studio |
7 Dec | 2 Jan | 1746 |
Other Christmas shows |
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Casts and/or reviews for ALADDIE (Glasgow), ALADDIN (Edinburgh, Guildford, Perth), ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (Bristol), ARABIAN NIGHTS (Newbury), BABES IN THE WOOD (Dunfermline), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Cumbernauld, St Andrews, Stratford-upon-Avon), THE BORROWERS (Glasgow), A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Oxford), THE CHRISTMAS QUANGLE WANGLE (Edinburgh), CINDERELLA (Kirkcaldy), DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD (Cardiff), DICK WHITTINGTON (Richmond), HANSEL AND GRETEL (Northampton), HOLLY AND IVY (Stirling), JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (Glasgow, Musselburgh), THE LAST LITTLE FISH IN THE NET (Edinburgh), THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (Leeds), THE LITTLE MERMAID (Glasgow), MERLIN AND THE CAVE OF DREAMS (Manchester), MERLIN AND THE WINTER KING (Derby), MERLIN THE MAGNIFICENT (Dundee), MISS YESTERDAY (Scarborough), MOTHER GOOSE (Glasgow, Motherwell), PETER PAN (Oxford), RAIN (Cardiff/touring), THE SECRET GARDEN (Bristol), SLEEPING BEAUTY (Edinburgh), THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (Sevenoaks), THE WITCHES (Birmingham) |
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Christmas Round-Up
Ian Shuttleworth
Normally I approach the pre-Christmas theatre season with, not trepidation or dislike, but a sort of grim resolve to just get through it and out the other side... like Steve McQueen on that motorbike towards the end of The Great Escape, with just those last few fields separating me from the Switzerland of the new year. Of course, I always end up back in the cooler. (And no, I can't believe I just compared myself to Steve McQueen either.) I was also wary of taking over the Yuletide beat here this year from the blessed Verena Winter, who is literally a doctor of panto.
And yet, despite these reservations, and despite also the superficial repetitiveness of my fare - three Aladdins, two Sleeping Beautys, two Philip Pullman adaptations and so forth - I've felt more engaged on my December rounds this year than for some time. More than ever I came away with a sense of the range of approaches possible within a single area, and a sense that those approaches are far more often vibrant and inventive than we may give them credit for being, even when they don't in the event come off.
Daft
Take that trio of Aladdins, for instance. Guildford has a strong reputation for straight-down-the-line panto excellence, and in many ways this year's production bore it out. Royce Mills is a terrific dame: full of double-entendres, but his brand of camp is so old-school cuddly that no-one could possibly take offence at them. Still, he gets beaten off the starting blocks by Sylvester McCoy's Abanazar, lewdly asking the audience, "Shall I rub my ring?" McCoy is a solid bet in this kind of show: game for a quick nod to his Dr Who past in the form of a Tardis gag, and even revisiting one of the daft stunts he used to perform 30-odd years ago in the Ken Campbell Roadshow. (He's also the subject of the most delicious in-joke of the season: when Abanazar is captured at the end of the show, and the Emperor asks, "What shall we do with this villain?", up pipes the reply, "Make him do another tour of Pride And Prejudice!" - a farrago which began in Guildford earlier last autumn.)
The odd thing about this Aladdin to my mind, though, is that it's clearly strongest the closest it sticks to the formula of set-pieces, conventional characters and so on. Paul Hendy makes a fine Wishee Washee - as current or former children's TV entertainers often do in that kind of big-best-mate role in panto - but when his script tries to be sharp or ring the changes, it seems to flounder. Many of the scripted exchanges are trite (no, the wrong kind of trite), and the decision to include a handful of musical numbers from Half A Sixpence is just bizarre. The ambivalence is personified in Britt Ekland as the Genies of the Ring and the Lamp. One hopes she knows that she's there as a butt of humour, for acting that's not even wooden but chipboard and for the double-edged irony of lines like "We [genies] all possess the secret of eternal youth"... but I'm not entirely sure.
Adrift
That sense of strength in tradition, weakness in innovation, is much more graphic in The Old Vic's Aladdin. First things first: Ian McKellen is absolutely first-rate as a dame. He clearly knows and loves the tradition, and luxuriates in getting the chance to wear it for himself just like his endless series of spectacularly naff frocks. It's also the sheer force of McKellen's enjoyment that salvages a number of otherwise too-cute self-conscious references, such as "Don't encourage me, or I'll go on longer than a Trevor Nunn production!" or his response to Aladdin being chased by police for the alleged theft of a ring: "Oh, not another Ring...!" His legs aren't bad, either.
The rest of Bille Brown's version simply tries too hard to be different. Joe McFadden is a natural Wishee Washee, all bouncy bonhomie; unfortunately, he's cast (possibly out of deference to internal rhyme) as Aladdin. There is no Wishee Washee; instead, there's Dim Sum, a strangely ineffectual moustachioed family friend whose under-written part leaves Maureen Lipman adrift. Her plight, though, is as nothing compared to that of "the bundle of fun that is Sam Kelly" (as the Society of London Theatre's listings recently described him). Kelly can be relied upon to pump up the chuckle quotient from the thinnest of raw material, but even he is becalmed here, and downright wasted. Brown's script, and Sean Mathias's production, too often felt... not as arid as an essay on pantomime, but rather like a photograph that has all the requisite elements in shot, well composed, lit and defined, but nevertheless fails to capture the unique radiance of the arrangement. It understands the form intellectually, but not viscerally.
Indefatigable
As for Susie McKenna's Hackney Empire's Aladdin, well, just light the blue touch paper, stand back and wait for the colourful explosions. This is a show that knows exactly where its audience is at, and gets in there and mixes it with them, yet without losing the essence of panto. Tameka Empson's brand of cheek is put to excellent use in her Genie of the Ring, Kat B is a Duracell-powered Wishee Washee, and if Nikki Stokes is way too shallow as Aladdin, the rest of the production more than compensates. Most of all, of course, Clive Rowe as Widow Twankey. I'd seen Rowe in a variety of roles (most recently in Simply Heavenly, from which he took leave of absence for this bout of Twankey-panky), but surprisingly never as a dame. Now I know why he has such a strong reputation in the field. Let me just say this: ye gods. The Man is indefatigable. He can also bellow louder than a full house at the Hackney Empire, which... well, stop and marvel at the concept.
Hackney has long been one of the two enjoyably raucous pantos in London, the other being at Stratford East. Or so I thought. But I realised this year that I haven't been to a Stratford panto since 2001, and consequently have missed the innovations of Hope Massiah and Delroy Murray. I've become a big fan of Murray's in the course of 2004, from his musical direction of The Big Life at Stratford to his discreet but clever score for Blest Be The Tie at the Royal Court Upstairs, and it's his musical sensibilities that underpin the change of tack in the E15 pantos such as this year's Sleeping Beauty. Rather than either cheesy standards or cut-from-a-template musical numbers, Murray and Massiah have written a show that's full of contemporary R&B. I'm not wild about the genre, and hate the term's appropriation to describe such relatively anodyne material compared to '60s glories, but that's exactly what's on offer here - see my review on p1723 for more details - and I've no hesitation admiring the show's craft and strength on its chosen ground.
Glory
For my personal taste, though, the Young Vic-in-exile's Sleeping Beauty at the Barbican is simply the business. A whole world that's rich, strange, unsettling, chucklesome, occasionally downright infantile (repeated fart gags ahoy!)... but as complex and wondrous as all the best stories, that have both the magic of story and the wisdom of showing you real life through a colourful prism. Writer/director Rufus Norris acknowledges that the ideas for the production were first nurtured a decade or so ago in the too-briefly brilliant atmosphere afforded by the Arts Threshold venue. Even after all these years, I still cherish Helena Lymbery's compelling performance there as Prospero, and I've been an admirer of hers ever since. Her Fairy Goody here is in some ways the greatest part she's had in that time: a good-bad, honest but flawed, contradictory creature who's plainly doing her best, both supernatural and intensely human at once. Even if the rest of my December had been pitiless drudgery, this show would have raised the entire season to glory.
Those Pullmans in brief: The Firework-Maker's Daughter good but not great (review on main pages); His Dark Materials less charismatic in terms of the central clutch of performances but much improved by Nicholas Wright's revisions, which render the story and atmosphere crisper and harder-edged. The puckishly militant feeling grew on me through the day that this is a production that needs to find a host venue somewhere in Bush's America, as a civic duty.
As for Lily Savage's perfunctory (and, in the case of supporting player Fogwell Flax, almost fascinatingly unfunny) Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, the biggest laugh I got was before the show, when a young man asked me for my autograph thinking I was filmmaker Michael Moore. Alas, he's rather more svelte than me. Happy New Year! (FX: sound of baseball thwacking repeatedly against cell wall; fade up end theme.)