Romeo and Juliet

As a teenager I never enjoyed Shakespeare. For me, he was a dead guy I couldn’t comprehend. Confined to our desks, we’d struggle through each and every word. Simply, Shakespeare was a crossword puzzle without a clue. Indecipherable. The only happy moment I remember from studying him was the day Mrs Brown assigned roles for Romeo and Juliet. The first leading role was given to our mate; the second to the object of his affection. He had loved this girl from the start of Year 7. It was a love as boundless as the sea. He would have sacrificed everything to be with her: his friends, his family, his name, even his Radiohead CD’s. But unlike the titular characters these feelings weren’t shared. There was to be no leaping over garden walls; no recitation of Smiths lyrics to a bedroom window; no elopement to Gretna Green; no suicide pile up at her family's burial plot. This was a tale of more woe than Juliet and Romeo, for he hadn’t unclasped his heart to her; he hadn’t spoken those three words of clichéd heroism, “I love you.” Here in Year 10 was his chance to theatrically experience a relationship the real world cruelly denied. Aware that this was a transcendental moment for our friend, we supported him in the best way we could: by laughing at him until he was too embarrassed to go on. There is nothing more brutal than the banter of the adolescent.

BANTER!

At university my degree involved me taking a module, ‘Approaches to Shakespeare.’ Each week I read a new Shakespeare play and would then have to talk about it the following week. Finding the time to read in a week was difficult: what with drinking and Deal and No Deal viewing commitments, I would usually find myself in a position where I’d have to skim-read the text. Skim-reading a Shakespeare play is fine if you have read the aforesaid; but if you haven’t, then you’re essentially entering the battlefield with only pacifists for support. Consequently, all talk on Shakespeare would pass me by. He was for brighter people than me.

Then I took a year out before becoming a teacher. I thought, ‘If I’m going to be teaching Shakespeare, then I need to grow to love him.’ Over the course of the year I took from the library King Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet. Without the encumbrance of deadlines, I read them at my own pace; soon I revelled in the language, realised that every word didn’t have to be realised, that the feel was the thing.

Me in training for teaching Shakespeare.

Now I teach Shakespeare every year: from Year 7’s to 11’s. I fear that I don’t always do a great job. Now that Speaking and Listening isn’t formally assessed, there’s a risk that teachers won’t treat the play as a script but as a text. Previously, you might take more active approaches, given these performative skills could be graded. As it is, with the amount of material we have to get through, it’s hard to kick the desks to one side; to give children the opportunity to play at being players.  Shakespeare has become the ghost of Banquo: whereas before he stood by my side, he now hovers above: his severed head a reminder I’ve let him down; his anguished expression caused by my academic dissection.

It’s not just teachers that are wrestling with how to communicate Shakespeare, but The Globe theatre too. The Globe is Shakespeare’s home; although it’s 17^th century fire means the building that stands today is only a replica of what stood before, it is the site where his most famous works originally played. Last year The Globe took the bold move of hiring Emma Rice, the visionary Artistic Director of Cornwall’s Kneehigh Theatre, renowned for daring retellings of classic works. For all the excitement that greeted her appointment, there was consternation too. Rice’s works are a feast for the eyes, how would she fare with a playwright for the ears? Her version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was well received with high receipts and re-tweets. Critics were neither celebratory nor condemnatory, arguing that amidst the play’s riotous fun some depth was lost. The movers and shakers of The Globe weren’t happy at all, rumours emerged they were less than impressed by the sound and lighting Rice adopted. Just a few years earlier, Mark Rylance and Eddie Redymayne had starred in Twelth Night, an original practices production that used Elizabethan costume, make-up and candlelight to recreate the conditions of Shakespeare’s time. Rice’s view was quite antithetical: she didn’t want to look back, but forward. She would not invite the ghosts to the party, but put on her proton pack and blast them back to where they came from. She wanted to reboot Shakespeare for a digital age.

An Original Practices production.

This reinvention of Shakespeare has led to Rice falling on her sword. Next year will be her last as Artistic Director; for such a traditional space, perhaps it was inevitable her tenure would end in recrimination. Despite that, she refuses to go quietly, curating a Summer of Love season that promises to carry her idiosyncratic stamp of wild abandon.

Romeo and Juliet is directed by Daniel Kramer, a friend that Rice describes as ‘one of the most exciting directors working in the world today.’ Last year Kramer was appointed the Artistic Director of the English National Opera, an ascension that would be a compliment if it weren’t for the company’s dire position. With financial issues and board members resigning, Kramer had the unenviable task of reigniting the institutions fortunes. The juxtaposition of an inexperience figure leading a prestigious establishment is a contradiction shared with Rice. Joining forces with a kindred rebel is the surest sign that Rice will not go quietly into the night.

Kramer’s Romeo and Juliet is a crazy collision of sounds and scenes. Critics have described it as a ‘bellowing pantomime,’ some have gone further with the epithets ‘desecrated’ and ‘vandalism.’ When it comes to The Globe there is a school of reviewer that believes a production should be done in hallowed tribute to The Bard. Whereas Rice and Kramer don’t view the space as a Shakespeare’s mausoleum; instead they see it as his playground, a place where he invented, experimented and entertained. Kramer’s isn’t a candlelit vigil to the man, but a Day of the Dead celebration of his life and work. It is a mess, yet an exciting one.

Pic. courtesy of The Stage.

The performance begins with a recorded prologue sound-tracking Lady Montague and Lady Capulet giving birth to dead caskets. It’s a provocative opening that makes you aware this production will be singular and indelicate. Then, we’re into the fight scene where both sides trading of innuendo is brought to an abrupt halt by the Prince, voiced by an actor off-stage. Now herein lies the problem: the Prince in the play is a force for good, trying valiantly to keep the sides from killing one another; here, he sounds like a disembodied Dalek, ready to exterminate any character that doesn’t fulfil his request. This was the first moment when I thought the director had done something unnecessary to the play.

We’re then into Romeo being melancholic over Rosaline, the woman he loves that won’t love him back. Mercutio’s role goes against convention and is played by a woman. At first, I thought this was just to highlight the character’s effeminacy, but over time I realised that the director had traded genders and made the character a woman. This worked fine, adding another layer to Romeo and Mercutio’s friendship, suggesting there was an undercurrent of love to their relationship. From there, we’re into the party scene which like Luhrmann’s is presented in fancy dress: we’ve got witches, serial killers and a man in a giant dog costume. The sophistication of the masked ball is thrown from the balcony as the party becomes a den of iniquity with YMCA dancing and semi-clad gyrations. When my school went a few weeks prior, there were walk-outs and it’s easy to see why traditionalists would take umbrage at the overtly lewd approach. Kramer doesn’t do the suggestive dick jokes of Shakespeare, instead he rams them down your throat – whether you like it or not depends a lot on your attitude to sex.

Party scene. Pic. courtesy of The Globe.

More problems arise in the play during the balcony scene where it appears to be played for laughs. In film versions, the lovers lack self-awareness, they are too consumed by love to care about whether they’re doing the right thing. In this re-telling, they’re self-conscious, Juliet considers her stance: demure or coquettish? Women have gone from passive recipients to active participants in the game of love, so Kramer’s decision can be justified. However, with the relationship moving at breakneck speed it doesn’t seem in keeping that they would pause in self-reflection. By the end of the first half, I felt as though I had been thoroughly entertained, but at the expense of feeling anything for the characters.

The second half gives the story more room to breathe. With the focus turned away from the families onto the individuals, there’s space for the characters to grow. If I didn’t believe in how the characters fell in love, I know believed they were in love. Despite the pace slackening, inventive decisions are made with the structure to sustain the young audience’s interest. During Juliet’s fake death scene, the families reaction is put alongside the news reaching Romeo, and the Friar’s worry about what this might mean. In the script these are three separate scenes, the decision to unite them brings a jump-cut effect that modern TV viewers are familiar with. Kramer argues in his notes that shows like Six Feet Under prove that audiences can balance multiple narratives in their heads in a way that Elizabethan audiences may have found difficult. This Shakespeare is for a generation that thinks fast, but perhaps not carefully.

Although I’m in two minds about the play, I’m completely clear-headed in the belief that the music was utterly wonderful. As the play builds towards its climax, Washington and Richter’s This Bitter Earth soars with heart-rending, spell-binding majesty. Following the lovers tragedy, an actor sings Sinead O’Connor’s In This Heart, a gorgeous lament to ‘my love, my love.’ The argument that I was being emotionally manipulated by the soundscape holds water, yet there is no denying that by the end I was moved.

Ultimately, I came away from The Globe feeling I’d seen something unique, not always brilliant, but unique. The play has been in existence for over four hundred years, if people want to see a tights and earnest rendition then there is enough out there. In a play consumed by oxymorons (loving hate, heavy lightness, serious vanity) the production too is oxymoronic: it’s respectfully disrespectful, beautifully vulgar, emotionally emotionless, an ordered mess. It’s brilliant at times; terrible at others. A marmite production that the public has taken to and the critics taken against. 

Rice and Kramer have signed their suicide pact with The Globe but like the lovers their legacy might just live on.  

Romeo and Juliet runs at The Globe until the 9th April.

After Hours

This week I’ve been listening to Scroobius Pip’s excellent Distraction Pieces podcast. Pip is a spoken word poet known mainly for the 2007 hit Thou Shalt Kill. Polemically semi-serious, it boasts such lyrics as, ‘Thou Shalt not worship Pop Idols or follow Lost Prophets,’ and ‘Thou shalt not think that any man over 30 that plays with a child is a paedophile. Some people are just nice.’ Since Thou he’s toured extensively, gathering enough celebrity to bring him to the attention of casting directors; thence his role in Taboo, the recent Tom Hardy drama. This straddling between music and acting makes for a fantastic podcast, since he has excellent contacts in both worlds. Going back through the archive, I’ve managed to hear his interviews with punk legend Billy Bragg; actor-director Paddy Considine and Four Lions’ Riz Ahmed. My favourite episode though was with writer John Osborne (not that one, the other one).

I won’t allege to know the whole of Osborne’s back catalogue, but I fell in love with his writing when I read a Stewart Lee piece about the BBC. A few years ago, it really did seem that there was a lot of Tory pressure on the corporation to make massive cuts; consequently, there was a feeling amongst artists that the institution was in danger. Lee references being stuck on the North Orbital with just the radio for amelioration. He listens to Osborne’s Don’t Need The Sunshine, a paean to the seaside that evokes memories of windswept picnics and sand-shovel burials. By the end of the Radio 4 programme Lee along with his family were in tears – why? Partly over it’s beauty, and partly because he knew no other radio station would commission it. I bought the book it was based on immediately.

I think Osborne appeals to me because he chooses topics that I’m passionate about. Don’t Need The Sunshine has him cross the country, describing his experiences at the different seaside resorts. Every summer my family traded a house for a beach hut, making Swanage beach our home for two weeks. Unsurprisingly, reading Osborne’s book about the life and death of this yellow world struck a particular chord. Another one of his book’s Radio:Head has him listening to a different radio station each day, underlining how diverse our wireless is. In his most celebrated offering, John Peel’s Shed, Osborne tells a tale of how he came to acquire the DJ’s old records and the impact they had on him. Seaside, radio and music: three of my favourite things. Osborne is going to Edinburgh this year with a show about the Radio Times; it’s almost as if he has focus grouped my brain for ideas.

John Osborne

So I love John Osborne’s work. He writes quintessentially English pieces: quiet stories that celebrate the mundane; all channeled through a wry eye for observation. In the interview he reminded of the sitcom he co-wrote with Molly Naylor. One summer drunk in the pub, Naylor asked him what would he most like to do; Osborne replied, ‘write a sitcom.’ From there, the pair went away and threw around story ideas. Inspired by the collaborative process, it wasn’t long before the two had a sitcom. Through a mutual friend, these made their way to Craig Cash, co-writer of The Royle Family. In The Royle Family, Cash played foil to Caroline Aherne; but since then he’s gone out alone, directing the under-rated Early Doors and The Café (I don’t have an adjective for this as I haven’t seen it. Like I said last week, I put being honest before your entertainment.) Having Cash on board was a boon for the pair: he’s an expert in low-fi, naturalistic set-ups- something these novices needed.   

After listening to the podcast, I thought I have to watch this sitcom. I tried YouTube, but nothing was there. I tried iTunes, but nothing was there. I tried Donald Trump’s brain, but … In the end I went onto Twitter, thinking I’ll tweet John Osborne and ask him how I could get ahold of it. I’m not even on the tweets so this gives you some idea how desperate I was. Looking at Osborne’s Twitter, the first tweet that came up answered my question: I could access the sitcom by signing up to Sky's NOW TV. So that’s what I did. Signed up to the online streamers 14 day trial and cancelled the thing immediately. Not since BT pulled the Champions League rug from under Rupert Murdoch’s feet has the man been so stitched up. This week I intend to watch The Trip, Mid Morning Matters and The Affair without giving the man a single penny. Will the billionaire Rupert Murdoch lose sleep over £6 a month? In my experience the wealthiest people are the ones who look longest at the bill, so I’m thinking, yes, my derring-do raid on his largess will send him spiralling. I reckon he'll be at home worrying: Will everyone find this loophole? Will families share their debit cards to co-ordinate successive 14 day free-trials? Will the ingenuity of this blogger unleash a butterfly effect on my empire? Ladies and gentleman, I’ve taken from Rupert Murdoch; I suggest you do the same. Just remember to cancel the thing, otherwise the fucker will be laughing all the way into Jerry Hall's cleavage.

I fought the Murdoch, and I won.

After Hours is a sitcom centred on the writers’ chief passions: music and radio. It begins with Willow logging on to the Internet radio show After Hours hosted by the hugely amiable, Lauren and Ollie. Soon after, the episode shifts to a café where Willow meets his girlfriend Jasmine. Greeting his order is Lauren, a voice he immediately recognises. Willow’s excitement at meeting her is palpable. Once seated though, his joy turns to despair as he’s let go by the woman he loves. Kind and empathetic, Lauren offers him a role on the radio show. Touched, Willow smiles. 

“I bet you’re glad you came in here now…. Other than being dumped,” backtracks Lauren.

So this is the set-up for a sitcom: a boy’s journey out of his bedroom into the bosom of the group. The transformation of Willow from being the gooseberry of the gang to the apple of every girl’s eye is a little fairytale; yet it is done with such charm you'll happily go along with it. In writing the sitcom, Osborne sad he and Naylor wanted to write a comedy for 6 Music listeners, and by having a shy protagonist they have an Indie frontman that viewers can get behind. The music choices are sublime too with tracks by The Smiths, Hefner and Pixies all featuring. This is a comedy for outsiders soundtracked by music for outsiders.

The cast of After Hours.

Over the course of After Hours we’re introduced to more characters with Willow’s friend Chris being a favourite. Episode two finds him downcast: his house has been broken into, but he vows to protect it to the death – apart from when he’s walking the dog or down the pub. Later, he informs the gang of what was taken: “They took everything. Money. Laptops. Passports. Both teles. Mum’s big wok.” There is a school of though that surrealism is easy; that all you have to say is “panda” incongruously to get a laugh – those people are wrong. Good comedians know the exact word, so it’s with these writers. I laughed from ear to ear on “Mum’s big wok.” It’s perfect. 

We also get to know Willow’s dad (Ardal O’Hanlon) and his friend, Geoff (John Thompson). In a hilarious incident, Willow’s mum tells her out of work husband about a job going in the vapid supermarket, he replies, “I wouldn’t whizz on it if it were on fire.” His wife chastises him like she would her son: “Stop showing off just because Geoff is here.” This isn’t the comedy of cruelty, but the laughs of the lovely.

After Hours cemented my love for all things John Osborne. So why not give it a go, all whilst picking Murdoch’s pockets. Lovely stuff.

After Hours can be pick-pocketed on NOW TV

42nd Street

For America’s thesps Broadway is the destination. Amongst theatregoers it’s known as The Great White Way, a tradition rooted in the 19^th century. The sobriquet came from the fact the district was one of the first to embrace electricity. Years on, actors continue to dream of the day when their name appears in illumination. For British actors, conversely, the West End is the place to be. There’s no denying our friends across the pond trump us when it comes to razzle-dazzle, but Old Father Time remains on our side. Our theatres are as old as your dad’s jokes, and as hallowed as the Wembley Turf. What London lacks in box office receipts, it makes up for in historical (star)dust.

It can be argued which theatreland is best; what is inarguable, however, is that both provide a platform for talented artists. To reach either destination is a phenomenal achievement. How incredible then must it be to perform simultaneously in both? (Both: how is that possible, blogger? How can you be in two places at once?) Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you: through the magic of theatre. For the West End is now home to Broadway classic 42^nd Street. Whilst stood on the most English of stages the cast are performing the most American of musicals. Through the red curtain’s sleight of hand, these players transform London’s West End into Broadway, meaning you get the best of both worlds.

A sign.

One such actor is Clare Halse. She is the best mate of my girlfriend. (My girlfriend actually has three best friends, but if I said ‘She is one of the best mates of my girlfriend, it would appear less emphatic and therefore less interesting. Some would argue that this bracketed explanation is wholly unnecessary, keeping us from more important details, but I feel happier now that I’ve made a full disclosure. Effectively what I’m saying is I’d rather this blog be honest than entertaining.) The two girls went to school together and have stayed friends, which is a pretty strong indictment of people they have met since.

The Girl along with her two other bessies have followed Clare’s career closely, seeing her do panto in Grimsby all the way through to starring in Paris. (I’d like to apologise to Grimsby for the wording of that sentence. The syntactic implication of putting your town opposite the world’s most beautiful place is that your town is a place devoid of love, art and style. This was purely coincidental and never my intention.) Significantly, they’ve seen her perform at Drury Lane before as Tweedle Dee in Shrek and an Oompa Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Sam Mendes

Now it might seem I’ve highlighted these roles for comic effect, suggesting Clare was in danger of being typecast as a woman prepared to wear a fat suit; however, this is not the case. To get anywhere near The West End is astonishing, to do it in a box-office smash like Shrek, and a Sam Mendes directed Charlie is close to impossible. She is a woman that has put the hard graft in, shown determination at the back, worked the channels, all to get a shot at leading the line. Through all that hard work she has become a fantastic centre-forward. (I might now be a fan of musical theatre, but that extended metaphor means my heart still belongs to football.)

In a case of life imitating art, Clare stars as Peggy Sawyer, a woman thrust from the chorus line into the spotlight. Starring alongside Sheena Easton (Bond tunesmith) and Tom Lister (Emmerdale), Clare delivers a virtuosic performance that beggars belief. Actors always talk about how tiring it is playing Hamlet or Lear: you’re on stage for three hours, there’s a lot of lines to remember, it’s psychologically intense – boo bloody hoo! Clare has to dance around the stage at a hundred miles per hour; then she has to somehow summon the lung capacity to sing; and then, with the remaining airwaves, speak – all whilst smiling! Ian McKellen, you maybe 77, doing eight performances a week of emotionally intense drama, but you no longer impress me. Do it in some dancing shoes, then I’ll applaud you, Gandalf!

The cast lose concentration and start a conga line. Pic. Broadway World

The show 42^nd Street began life as a movie in 1933. Being as it was the Depression, the raison d’être of the picture was to raise spirits. Following the Wall Street Clash, America was plunged into financial black-out. People were out of work and struggling to feed their families. Only the cinema offered some sort of escapism from the hardship faced. Whilst life was a monochrome of unhappiness, the black and whites sang in Technicolor. This was the time of obscenely ambitious dance numbers, ridiculously huge set pieces, wildly excessive spending – and the audience lapped it up.

Like many good movies, the picture was translated into a 1980 Musical, which would go on to win a Tony for Best Musical. Its transfer to London saw the emergence of the now ubiquitous star Catherine Zeta-Jones, who as second understudy went on to impress in the lead role. Following in Zeta-Jones’ footsteps then is Clare. (I should probably inform her fiancée to keep her away from old men, just in case she imitates Jones’ fancies. Are these brackets getting annoying?) Sorry if they (are)?

Clare's future.

42^nd Street begins with the curtain only partially raised, given us a chance to see a chorus line of dancing feet. The speed of footwork is truly awe-inspiring, even more bewildering though is the control at play. As in the tale of the metaphorical swan, these ladies are smiling on top, but you know they are kicking so bloody hard for it. From there, we’re into the musical where we learn of a new musical being rehearsed, Pretty Lady, under the director of Julian Marsh. Marsh is on his last chance: he has won and lost at Broadway; this time he desperately needs his numbers to come up. Unfortunately, he’s saddled with a leading lady that, for all her singing ability, just can’t dance. Normally dancing is a pretty key component for musical theatre, but given Dorothy Brock’s sugar daddy is bankrolling the production he has no choice. For all of the money going into the production, the guys and dolls of the chorus line are on the breadline. They desperately need the work to stave off poverty. One such girl is Peggy Sawyer, who eventually impresses the director into hiring her. When she accidentally injures Brock, she is elevated to star billing – and as they say, ‘the rest is history.’

The first half of the production boasts a terrific vocal performance from Sheena Easton, yet I preferred the second. Here, there is the brilliantly witty ‘Sunny Side to Every Situation’ (You've no dough, so relax, You don't have to pay an income tax.
You've no job so just pretend it's your vacation) and the hauntingly beautifully ‘Lullaby of Broadway.’ There’s also a crazy-ass staircase tap routine, which is Stomp: The Musical put to shoes; further, Clare gets to dance on a piano, which must be every dancer’s dream. For all of the spectacular numbers, my favourite moment is where the musical goes small and Clare’s feet converse with her co-star’s; at this point, the syncopated shift from fast to slow is mesmerising, offering a wonderful counterpoint to the otherwise glorious frenzy.

Clare on a piano. Pic. Broadway World

After the show, we got to go backstage and congratulate Clare. As my friend Gareth said (he’s my friend, but really I know him through being my girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend; if I put that though it would be a little wordy) … as my friend Gareth said, Clare’s dressing room could happily house a family. She had a bed, table and sink. Next door, a bathroom. Beyond that, a dressing room. I recommend that she sublets it on Sunday for a bit of extra dough. Joining us for popcorn and prosecco was co-star Tom Lister, who was as impossibly charming off-stage as he was on.

For the girls seeing their best friend star in a West End show was a very proud moment indeed. 

Towards the end of 42^nd Street, before Peggy’s debut, she is told: "You're going out there a chorus girl, but you've got to come back a star!" So it was with Clare. Keep going, lass!  

42nd Street is currently at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane