Tea with a timeless tiger

THE GUARDIAN – 19th September 2011
The Go-Between – review
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
****
Loss of innocence … The Go-Between.

The British musical just got more interesting with the arrival of Richard Taylor and David Wood's exquisitely layered version of LP Hartley's novel about a young boy's loss of innocence during a country-house summer in 1900. "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," is the celebrated opening line, and Taylor and Wood are doing things differently, too, with this evocative study of betrayal, class and curses that almost entirely eschews nostalgia and the Broadway musical model.

Such is the subtlety displayed in the telling of the story of 12-year-old Leo that you get the sense Taylor and Wood genuinely love this novel and are not just plundering it. Out of his class and out of his depth while spending a summer with a school chum, Marcus, he finds himself playing the messenger in the illicit love affair between Marcus's older sister, Marian, and tenant farmer, Ted.

Set on Michael Pavelka's atmospheric design, a teetering, crumbling room of memories, the show's trump card is the intricate dialogue between past and present (1950) – the young, wide-eyed Leo caught up in the dangerous games of adults and learning to lie, and his older self, emotionally crippled by the events of 50 years ago.
It's not the kind of score you come out humming, but it has moments of aching beauty. It's also quite a leisurely affair. But its considerable virtues include ambition, being wonderfully alert to the casual entitlements and cruelties of grown-ups – particularly very privileged ones – and a superb, fluid production from Roger Haines. Only someone who had brutally cut all ties with their own childhood selves could fail to appreciate this quietly passionate show that wears its damaged heart on its sleeve.

The Observer, Sunday 16 October 2011

The Go-Between – review
Derby theatre, Derby

James Staddon and William Pearson as the old and young Leo in The Go-Between: 'packs a singular emotional punch'. Photograph: Robert Day
The jewel-like precision of David Wood's adaptation is immediately apparent: LP Hartley's oft-quoted opening line to his 1953 novel is subtly but significantly altered. "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there" becomes: "The past is a foreign country; you do things differently there!" This shift is instantly dramatic: the ageing narrator in dull, sensible tweeds angrily addresses the elegant Victorian ghosts conjured from the pages of his childhood diary. They, in turn, accuse the narrator of trapping them in the vice of his memory and demand release (for him as much as for themselves). The struggle to reconcile past and present springs theatrically to musical life.

Michael Pavelka's design hauntingly evokes the 1900 country house setting: a drawing room whose walls seem made from the faded silver backing of ancient mirrors, whose skew-angled doors open on to the promise of golden cornfields and wide, river-running spaces. Here, the worn, seam-cheeked narrator (a harrowed James Staddon) shadows the beautiful "angel" boy he once was (a shining William Pearson), simultaneously witnessing and reliving the child's transition from innocence to desolation via the experience of carrying letters between illicit lovers.

The increasingly menacing atmosphere and intricate emotional inter-relations are tellingly conveyed by Richard Taylor's score for solo piano (played on stage by musical director Jonathan Gill), voices and occasional bells. Impressionistic in its time-folding arpeggios and trills, rich in its mood-enhancing chords and otherworldly chimes, this music speakingly incorporates silence into its texture, which is as shimmering and delicate as Tim Lutkin's faded-sunshine lighting. Lyrics (by Wood and Taylor) are lucidly delivered by a vocally and physically impressive cast who, under Roger Haines's precise, choreographic direction, conjure vivid scenes – a fall from a haystack, a village cricket match – through fluid, unshowy movement. This multifaceted gem packs a singular emotional punch.

An interview about THE GO-BETWEEN

Northampton Chronicle and Echo
Saturday 5th November 2011-11-22
THE GO-BETWEEN review by Nick Spoors

Based on the revered novel by LP Hartley, set in summer 1900 Norfolk, a firm fixture in the English literature canon, the Go-Between musical already had a cultural colossus against which to measure itself. Notwithstanding an almost equally lauded 1970 Harold Pinter film, all cricket whites and English stately homes, it makes you wonder why on earth anyone thought there was room for yet another adaptation.  Yet David Wood and Richard Taylor smash this one over the heads of the bowler and fielders and far, far over the pavilion for one of the biggest musical sixes this reviewer has had the pleasure of seeing.

Following a legendary novel, the reading of which means snorting up nostalgia through the nostrils like sepia-tinted narcotics, you have to create some ambience.

On Thursday night nostalgic atmosphere was rising off every surface on the Royal stage like steam off a Norfolk dray horse.

By turns eerie and euphoric, the actors almost sang the tragic and romantic tale straight into the souls of the audience, engendering the wistfulness and sadness of distant memory.

Middle-aged Leo Colston stumbles across a diary which prompts him to reluctantly revisit buried recollections of the summer spent at a school friend’s stately country home, where he is transformed from outsider to hero and back again.  Leo is the unknowing, then unwilling go-between (or ‘postman’) forced out of boyish loyalty to carry illicit love notes between simple farmer Ted and Leo’s friend’s engaged sister, with whom he is also besotted.

This is a study of guilt and the agony and ecstasy of human memory.  Older Leo is implored to trawl through painful memories by the ghostly figures of the Norfolk household.

The union between the past and present is seamless throughout.  Guy Amos (as the young Just-William-esque Leo) soared like the Butterfly of one of the most moving numbers in a score that rarely budged from poignant.

Both old and young Leos mimic each other in spell-binding movement like shadows joined through time, and intertwine in harmonies that add dimensions to the lyrics.  James Staddon, as middle-aged Leo, observed his 12-year-old younger self with astonishing range of expression.  I didn’t realise there were more than a dozen subtly different ways to look wistful but Staddon, also a fine singer, apparently has all of them in his armoury.

Indeed it is advisable to look to him to interpret the scene; you will always think again about what is going on.

For ‘grown-ups work in strange ways’ is the ghostly refrain that drifts through this haunting musical. But the apparent childhood truism carries a tragic and sinister meaning.  The real heart of this apparent paen to romance is the manipulation and corruption of a child and the ripples that reach the present day.

Not only have Wood, Taylor and all the singers successfully interpreted the message of The Go-Between, they may even have managed to add to its legend.

One suspects Leslie Poles Hartley would have approved.

Whatsonstage review

Shaun’s Big Show – (tour – Stevenage) – 19th February 2011

Venue: Gordon Craig Theatre
Where: Stevenage
Date Reviewed: 19 February 2011
WOS Rating:

On one side of me was a little girl of pre-school age. On the other was a lad who looked as though he was just about to start secondary school. Both had attendant adults. Both were completely enthralled by what was happening on-stage, the girl standing up and gripping on to the back of the seat in front of her, as though trying to involve herself even more in the show. The boy's attention hardly faltered. The grown-ups in the audience seemed to be equally enthralled.

This, of course, is Shaun’s Big Show, correctly billed as a music and dance extravaganza for all the family. It is based on a successful children’s television series, but the stage version works in its own right, making plasticine thoroughly plastic with brilliant choreography by Bill Deamer and clever designs by Susie Caulcutt. The adaptation is by David Wood, who uses sounds to replace words; Simon Townley has provided a musical accompaniment to the action which references a bewildering succession of classical, traditional and popular music.

Deamer’s choreography matches this. The precision-toed cast step nimbly from hornpipes to Irish dance, from classical ballet to tap-dancing, taking in the occasional mazurka, schottische, ice-dance contest and can-can number on the way. There’s an eleven-strong cast to perform all this with Christopher Unwin’s farmer emulating [Valentin le Déossé] in his agility. Scott Matthews is Bitzer, the sheepdog trying to keep sheep. Pigs, a ferocious bull (cue the toreador’s aria from Carmen) and his human master in some sort of order.
The sheep are a neatly differentiated flock, from a clinically-obese ewe who still manages the splits with aplomb – not that easy in a thickly-padded costume – to our hero himself (Mark Williamson). Ruby Mills, Marianne Phillips and Michael John bleat in support. The three very naughty pigs are Sarah Saxby, Ryan Campbell Birch and Benjamin Ibbott; their disco sequence with the farmer’s purloined gramophone is great fun. Michelle Campbell and Robyn Ford complete the cast.

Both the costumes themselves and the masks are very good. I wondered if the cast would doff the headpieces at the curtain-calls, but I think that retaining them kept the sense of magic alive. What keeps the adults in the audience enthralled is, I suspect, catching at the musical and choreographic hommages as they spark into and out of the action. There should, perhaps, be a competition to see how many you can catch – no cheating allowed! Quite frankly, if you’re looking for the ideal introduction to dance theatre for very young children, this is it.
- by Anne Morley-Priestman

The Weston Mercury