Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Tom Wrigglesworth review, Soho Theatre, for The Arts Desk

[My first review for The Arts Desk, concerning the excellent 'kindly twig' himself, Tom Wrigglesworth.]

Firstly, no, Tom Wrigglesworth's Open Return Letter to Richard Branson isn’t that letter. His epistle is not to be confused with Oliver Beale’s, whose email to the Virgin boss complaining about the food on a Virgin flight went viral last year. The Sheffield-born comic, currently appearing at the Soho Theatre in London, set about an altogether more decent-hearted campaign after witnessing some gross unfairness meted out to an elderly passenger on a Virgin train journey last autumn.

Wrigglesworth was nearly arrested when he organised a train-wide whip-round after a grandmother was fined £115 by a ticket inspector for mistakenly being on the wrong train because Virgin had given her the wrong itinerary. But Wrigglesworth has since miraculously managed to persuade the train company to stop imposing draconian on-the-spot fares, helped by the titular letter, significant coverage in the media and – if you believe the beautifully embellished finale – an inspiring “I am Spartacus” platform showdown from his fellow passengers when their journey had ended at London Euston and the police had been called.

Wrigglesworth’s show is equal parts storytelling, history and social commentary, glued together with more rage and waspishness than you might expect from a man who resembles a kindly twig in tweed. Each bureaucratic nightmare is darkly characterised with League of Gentlemen-style voicing, while the painfully sad description of Lena, 75 – in tears after handing over a roll of hard-saved money that was intended to buy Christmas presents for her grandchildren – threatens to derail Tiny Tim as Britain’s most festivally tragic near-miss.

For Wrigglesworth has a verbal skill that borders on genius, skewering a folk-song use of rhyme and rhythm with a forceful wit and sending up the British curmudgeon with wicked skill. His descriptions of fellow travellers, from a group of “northern Golden Girls” engaged in a verbal rally of dour sayings to the jobsworth ticket inspector “ejaculating an orange ticket of misery” towards poor old Lena, are as much of a joy as the actual jokes themselves.

At one point he gets so carried away on a tangent about tinned fruit that he comes unstuck altogether. “You were on a train!” somebody reminds him. But so deft is the lanky comedian’s way with words – he was nominated for this year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award for this show – that, when he does lose the plot, it’s more like a ballerina pausing mid-pirouette than a comedic car crash. Why Radio 4 hasn’t yet prostrated itself at his door and begged to be allowed to bottle these rants is beyond me.

It’s certainly clear that he needs to move on. Whether Wrigglesworth is bored stiff of performing the same show for much of 2009, or just knows it too well, this does at times come across as more of a motivational workshop than a living, breathing comedy show. As he addresses the back of the Soho’s studio space like Dame Judi Dench aiming for the gods, it takes a while to feel fully engaged. But once he’s relaxed into his storytelling it’s terrific.

What lifts this show above a twee bit of eye rolling and “Ticket inspectors – what are they like?” is that Wrigglesworth did that most un-British thing and got involved, with a tangible result. “Lena’s Law” now means passengers who have to buy or adjust their ticket on Virgin Trains are charged the appropriate fare rather than the top-possible price. Wrigglesworth is also now petitioning that all train companies follow suit and it’s incredibly uplifting to see comedy that not only blasts a problem but delivers a solution.

Tom Wrigglesworth is at the Soho Theatre 5-7 November. Book here. He will be touring the UK from 17 January 2010. Information

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Live radio theatre? The perfect night out and in - The Guardian

[Guardian.co.uk, Television&Radio, 14 October 2009]

Radio theatre lets your imagination run wild, but seeing a live radio play recording makes the form doubly entertaining

An old American radio

Liberating … radio drama. Photograph: Corbis.

Until recently, if someone told me I had a face for radio, I would probably have burst into tears and spent a week in a balaclava. At least until I met Mariele Runacre-Temple, director of the internet audio drama Wireless Theatre Company, who creates fully rounded play performances for radio recordings; that means actors perform in costume, off book and with stage directions. There's no mugging in front of microphones here.

Barring a really terrible seat at the theatre, where all I could see was the top third of a door and was effectively just listening, I'd never 'watched' a radio play – or particularly wanted to. In fact, I'd always assumed that radio drama, as with the Answer Me This! podcast and BBC7's excellent Undone, was recorded in someone's sitting room, with a harassed producer making squelching noises using a bucket and some Play Doh.

What I – and I suspect most people – particularly love about radio plays is that the listener gets to decide what the world looks like. You don't get a numb bum from a rotten theatre seat and you can crack on doing whatever you like while listening to a play.

The closest thing theatreland has to mimicking this success is the Fortune theatre's massively successful The Woman in Black . Here is a stark production, cloaked largely in darkness and relying on sound effects, with just two actors on stage. Yet, it's terrifying. It's easy to understand why it works similarly for radio.

In fact, I'd wager that horror and spook stories work better on radio than they do in the West End. Wireless's last live show was a selection of Edgar Allan Poe stories, and listening to it on air meant that your imagination could run riot and conjure imagery far scarier than a set designer could budget for.

Of course, some productions work better than others. The revival of Kenneth Williams's radio show Stop Messing About earlier this year was a bit of a damp squib, but Fitzrovia Radio Hour's comic renditions of scripts from the 1940s and 50s have proved so successful that, after a year performing radio plays to audiences at the tiny Bourne & Hollingsworth bar, they moved in June to the 300-capacity Underglobe beneath Shakespeare's Globe.

So why, when we can listen to something in all its polished glory on the radio or in the theatre, do we still want to go and see it behind the scenes? With Fitzrovia Radio Hour, the tongue-in-cheek delivery, costumes and retro humour are part of the package, but it's more than that. Being there when something is being recorded is thrilling. For an hour or so, the audience get to be part of something being created around them. With theatre, you're coughing up £30 plus on an ephemeral delight. With a live radio recording, you get to see it, then turn it on its head and reinvent it for yourself in your imagination later – now that's value for money.

Monday, September 21, 2009

We need a Royal Court for musicals, The Guardian

[Guardian.co.uk, Stage, 21 September 2009]

With the West End unwilling to gamble on untried productions, New Musicals Network is a lifeline for developing musicals

Arinze Kene (Raymond) and Naana Agyei-Ampadu (Yvonne) in Been So Long at the Young Vic

Leading the field ... Can we develop more musicals of the quality of Che Walker's Been So Long? Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Last night I saw the future of musical theatre. Some of it was genius and some of it was ho-hum, but given the domination of film adaptations and jukebox musicals in the West End, it was bloody exciting to see it at all.

Snappy Title, a cabaret of songs from new musicals to launch the New Musicals Network, was a showcase to support composers and lyricists who might otherwise disappear under the pressure of not being Lloyd Webber or an 80s pop star. NMN is a bit likes Mumsnet for musical writers – a lively forum for ideas, tips, networking, and yes, songs.

Compered by Mary Poppins composers George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, last night's new songs were performed by West End cast members giving their time for free – an indication of dire straits if ever there was one.

It seems more people than ever are going to see musicals, but with an expectation of comforting familiarity that doesn't apply to the rest of theatre; nobody wants to be challenged, it seems, when they're forking out £50 per ticket. But without new blood being pumped into the genre, we'll end up trapped in a theatrical Twilight Zone populated entirely by drag queens, film adaptations, and greatest hits CDs.

Even the Edinburgh fringe, an invaluable platform for new material, seems to treat musicals with vague embarrassment and a lack of critical seriousness. You're unlikely to see a musical transferring south with the fanfare of Black Watch.

There was one Edinburgh show last night that demands to be seen. Three superb songs came from 2008's Only The Brave, a second world war love story following a family and a platoon in the lead-up to D-Day. Another three songs made me wish I'd caught Landor Theatre's production of Austentatious, a 2007 musical about a regional production of Pride & Prejudice.

And remember the critical clawing given to Menopause: The Musical? Olly Ashmore's middle-age break-up musical Hot Flush 2 wiped the slate clean with Wake Up TV, this year's Stiles and Drewe award-winner for best song.

I'd also like to see more from Gregory & Kim's Korean musical Falling, whose gender-bending reincarnation love story sounded bizarrely like Miss Saigon meets Hedwig. Their song wasn't the best, but the idea was just bonkers enough to work.

Musical theatre needs new schemes like this because while there's nothing as unfashionably creepy as a bad musical, there's nothing as life-affirmingly wonderful as a good one. I'm still trying to wipe the screeching monstrosity of 2004's The Woman In White from my mind, but Che Walker's musical update of his play Been So Long made my 2009.

Simply, we need a Royal Court Theatre for musicals, developing new shows without West End pressure. The closest thing so far is Perfect Pitch, an annual showcase of new work at the Trafalgar Studios. But while the Royal Court's runs give new plays a month or so to breathe, here you get two shows a day from 3-7 November – stress, much?

British musical theatre can't, and shouldn't, lean on past and borrowed glories in the way it does now. Let's hope NMN gives new talent a chance to shine because, God knows, the West End needs it.