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| A Chorus Line |
Sadly, my first choice only managed a run of a few months at
the London Palladium, nor is it a show I reviewed myself. The original Broadway
production of A Chorus Line opened in
1975 and ran for 6,137 performances, garnering
no less than 12 Tony Awards. It was the longest running musical in
Broadway history, until overtaken by Cats
in 1997. Here in London it managed a respectable 3 year run, when it opened at
the enormous Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1976. The Palladium revival was a
loving re-creation of the original, using Michael Bennett’s original
choreography (Bennett died in 1987 of AIDS related lymphoma), and it brought
back many memories of when I was a young dancer, working in the West End. This
revival was every bit as brilliant as the original production and various
reasons were offered as to why it was not as huge a success this time round. Apparently
it had minority interest (only dancers and people in show business could have
any interest in the travails of being a Broadway/West End hoofer); at 90
minutes without an interval, it was too long and attention flagged; it lacked spectacle
being set, for the most part, on an empty stage with dancers in practice
clothes. But this was all true the first time round, and the show was a huge
success back then. Audiences have changed, I suppose. Certainly the second time
I attended this revival (on press night) the audience seemed more interested in
being seen themselves than watching the show.
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| Once |
I did review my next musical of choice, and am happy to
report that it is still running at the Phoenix Theatre, and absolutely demands
to be seen. Once was originally a
charming indie film, which has been expanded and fleshed out to make a full
evening at the theatre. The stage of the Phoenix has been decked out to look
like an Irish pub, where members of the audience can enjoy a drink before the show
and during the interval. Almost imperceptibly the show starts, while the
audience are still making their way to their seats. Not really a musical in any
conventional sense, it is original, charming, sublimely poetic, moving,
eloquent, and stylish. Don’t miss it.
Of my next three choices, only one is still running in the
West End, though the Menier Theatre production of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along enjoyed a new
lease of life when the production was filmed and shown in cinemas up and down
the country. Maybe it will eventually also get a DVD release. It has always
been one of my favourite Sondheim shows, though its rather cynical message
found little favour among audiences when it was first produced back in 1981,
when it ran for 44 previews and only 16 performances. At least Maria Friedman’s
debut production for the Menier Theatre did a lot better than that. Given a
slightly more upbeat twist by Friedman and via a few deft re-writes by
Sondheim, and with some fabulous performances (particularly Jenna Russell as
Mary and Damian Humbley as Charlie) this was a sure-fire hit.
Not to be missed was Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Alexi Kayle
Campbell’s superb The Pride at the
Trafalgar Studos. This superb play that juxtaposes two parallel love stories,
one from the 1950s and one from today, deftly reminds us that prejudice is
still here, despite the strides we have made in recent years. With fantastic
performances all round, this was an extremely memorable night in the theatre.
Still running (though the Apollo has been closed for a while
after part of the ceiling collapsed a couple of weeks ago) is the National
Theatre’s production of The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-Time. Wonderfully inventive, superbly theatrical,
this adaptation of Mark Haddon’s popular novel will no doubt run for years. We
were fortunate enough to book our tickets a few days before the production won
no less than 7 Olivier awards, as it sold out completely after that. I’m sure
it’ll be around for quite a while yet though.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Time Rice are back in the West End
this year, though not working together this time. Lloyd Webber ‘s new musical Stephen Ward is at present previewing at
the Aldwych and Time Rice’s musical version of From Here To Eternity (with music by Stuart Brayson) opened at the
Shaftesbury Theatre in October. In many ways a reassuringly old fashioned
musical (it is not sung through and has a very strong libretto by Bill Oakes),
it is a thoroughly enjoyable, brilliantly conceived and executed new show.
Let’s hope it has a deservedly long run.
In the cinema, I got the chance to review HBO’s Behind the Candelabra, made for TV, but
here given a theatrical release. Stephen Soderbegh’s direction is not always
sure footed, and the film drags a little in the middle, which might be less
noticeable in the context of a TV movie. He does however get wonderful
performances out of his all star cast. Aside from Rob Lowe’s brilliantly immobile plastic surgeon, there
are some great cameos from Dan Ackroyd, Scott Bakula and Debbie Reynolds
(remember her?), but the movie succeeds or fails on the work of its two stars,
and both Michael Douglas and Matt Damon give faultless performances. Damon is
thoroughly believable as the star struck young innocent who gradually descends
into drug addiction, and Michael Douglas quite simply gives one of the best
performances of his career. It would have been so easy, and so tempting, to
overplay the role and come up with a clownish caricature, but Douglas
completely avoids that trap, and comes up with a performance of great subtlety,
which deservedly won him an Emmy Award.
I didn’t review I Want
Your Love which was granted a limited cinema release in the UK. Given the
amount of explicit sex in the film, this is hardly surprising. Like Shortbus before it, director Travis
Matthews breaks new bounds in how to present sex on the screen. The sex, and
there is a lot of it, is real, and we get to see everything; blow jobs,
penetration, cum shots, the lot. What makes it different from your bog standard
porn movie is that this features real actors, and very good ones at that,
pushing the boundaries of what they will do on screen in the context of a role.
The sex scenes are handled rather differently than they would be in a porno,
and much more sensitively; the connection between the actors, the reactions on
their faces rather more important than the sex itself, though the camera
doesn’t shy away from that either. There’s not a lot of plot, so it certainly
doesn’t keep you on the edge of the seat wondering what will happen next. It’s
one of those movies in which people spend a lot of time talking to each other;
about their feelings, about their relationships, about work. I found it totally
immersing and involving.
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| How To Survive A Plague - Peter Staley |
Though I understand that many will not respond to I Want Your Love as I did, I do
recommend unreservedly David France’s masterly documentary How To Survive A Plague. This remarkable movie tells the story of a
small group of men and women in America, most of them HIV positive, who battled
against government indifference and departmental incompetence, to save their
own lives. In so doing they helped save the lives of 6.000,000. Gripping,
moving, inspiring, at times emotionally draining, it is a story that demands to
be told. Required viewing for every gay man, particularly those under the age of
30.
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| Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves |
And finally to a great piece of television, shown just this
last month on BBC4. Don’t Ever Wipe Tears
Without Gloves is an award winning Swedish three parter, based on novelist
Jonas Gardell’s trilogy about the impact of AIDS on the gay community in Sweden
in the early 1980s. Subtly and sensitively acted, and beautifully filmed, this
was great television, the last of its three episodes almost unbearably moving,
so much so that I watched it through a film of tears. If you missed its network
TV showing, then do not hesitate to buy it on DVD, but make sure you have a box
of tissues at the ready.
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