Author: Zoë Pinnell

REVIEW: A Christmas Carol:  A Ghost Story

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

A heartwarming retelling of a Christmas classic with a supernatural edge

Mark Gatiss’ wonderful adaptation of this classic Christmas tale is at once haunting and
humorous, highlighting the ghostly aspects of the story without losing its festive charm and heartwarming message. With its brilliant set design, inspired lighting and a very talented cast, this show is truly a Christmas treat.

The production begins with a darkly comedic twist to the original, as we get to see Marley suddenly kicking the bucket at his desk! It makes for a fun beginning, but the fun doesn’t stop there. Gatiss’ production really leans into the ghostly aspects of the story, using lighting, puppetry and staging to create a sort of Victorian phantasmagoria. This production has some of the most effective and creative utilisations of screen I’ve seen on stage, adding texture and depth to certain settings and extra spookiness to the scary scenes.
Marley’s entrance had me on the edge of my seat: out of the dark, bodiless hand ringing bells reached out from the theatre’s terrace, and other bells chimed in on stage and surrounding the audience, getting louder and louder before reaching their overwhelming and clamorous climax when Marley’s white, chained figure suddenly flashes onto the stage with a bang. Marley, played to perfection by Neil Morrissey, delivers his chilling warning to Scrooge. As he exits, ghostly puppets appear in the audience seemingly out of nowhere and haunt the entire theatre as Scrooge contemplates the night he has ahead of him.

Matthew Cottle is fantastic as a more sympathetic and nuanced Scrooge, believable in his stinginess and foul temper, whilst still evoking emotion as his heart changes. Lance West was the stand-out cast member, effectively playing multiple roles: young Ebenezer; Fred, his nephew and one of the Cratchit children. Commanding the stage with magnetic energy, it was hard to look away from him when he was onstage! West threw himself into each role with complete abandon and he was a joy to watch. The whole cast was incredibly talented and polished, often playing multiple roles and embodying each of these roles with a distinctive energy.

Grace Daly is delightfully impish as the Ghost of Christmas Past, whilst Mark Theodore plays a slightly more serious Ghost of Christmas Present (though his ability to spread joy was not impaired!). The Ghost of Christmas Future was, as expected, a dark and faceless cloaked entity who glided rather than walked, and who communicated solely through pointing. Whilst this ghostly presence was as forbidding as ever, the effectiveness of the costume was cheapened by growling sound effects where silence would have been far more scary!

Georgina Lamb’s choreographed scenes were so joyful to watch and provided light relief from the heavier scenes. Mr Fezziwig’s Christmas do was a particular highlight – the dance was simple, but it enticed the audience into their social world and imbued the scenes with abundant warmth and merriment. The carol singing at the end equally had this quality, and it was especially touching when the changed Scrooge joined in. These moments of joy were not undercut by any unnecessary edgy humour or cheap tricks, but rather fully indulged in, drawing us in and giving a comforting, festive feeling.

‘A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’ embodies the Christmas spirit of this classic Dickens story whilst maintaining a supernatural edge. The heartwarming message of giving and redemption is at the core of this retelling, and you come away feeling full of Christmas cheer.

REVIEW: Royal Albert Hall Classical Coffee Mornings – Chantefable Duo “From Hillside Gardens”

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

“A wonderful performance, easing us gently into the new season and reminding us to live in the present a little more.”

Presenting their gentle ode to the seasons to the audience of the Royal Albert Hall’s Classical Coffee Mornings, the Chantefable Duo are soprano vocalist Mariana Rodrigues and keyboardist Andrew Cowie. ‘Chantefable’ is a French literary tradition in which a story is told through a blend of sung verse and recited prose. Rodrigues and Cowie give us their interpretation of this through a thoughtful selection of poetry and classical song, each piece conveying a sense of the seasons passing. Performed in the lovely Elgar Room of the Royal Albert Hall (with a coffee and pastry included in the ticket!), this Classical Coffee Morning is a delightful way to spend a Sunday. 

Both students of the Royal College of Music, the two musicians are bursting with talent and passion for their art, an energy that comes through as they perform. Rodrigues’ voice is beautiful, swelling with emotion when the song calls for it, and drawing out the humour in the poetry she performs with ease. The most distinctive aspect of this performance is that the spoken word is accompanied by Cowie’s entirely improvised music, making the concert completely unique and never to be seen again. This gave an immediacy to the performance that brought me into the present moment; this to me felt symbolic of the changing seasons and the feeling of time passing. 

Cowie’s performance is wonderful, but his skill really does shine when he improvises. He manages to perfectly match the tone of each spoken word, slow and thoughtful in the more pensive, jaunty and comical in those more humorous. However, it wasn’t always possible to understand the words Rodrigues was singing; I realise this is to an extent because of the vowel modification necessary to sound as beautiful as she did (and she really did!), but it did sometimes hinder any comprehension of a narrative being told with the music, which is somewhat the point of a chantefable. 

The music includes classical repertoire mostly taken from the 19th and early 20th century, with composers from Britten and Elgar to Quilter and Lehmann. The songs complement the poems which include Dickinson, Hardy and Betjeman to name just a few. You can feel that every piece has been chosen with a great deal of thought and consideration, each in keeping with the running theme of nature and seasonal change. A stand-out song was ‘There are fairies at the bottom of our garden’, composed by Lehmann. Rodrigues performed this spectacularly; the whole room listened with rapture as she proclaimed herself the fairy queen (and I can say I honestly believed her!). I also loved how McCaig’s poems on frogs framed the chantefable: both Cowie and Rodrigues conveyed the humour and joy in these poems perfectly. However, I would have liked a greater variation in the music played as the songs at moments felt a bit monotonous, possibly a result of much of the music being taken from the same time period. 

The Chantefable Duo gave a wonderful performance, easing us gently into the new season and reminding us to live in the present a little more. I would certainly see them again given the chance, and would recommend it to anyone else with a love of words and music, and a couple of hours to spare on a Sunday morning.

REVIEW: Falstaff

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

A jolly comedy opera with incredible performances and breathtaking sets 

In this interpretation of Verdi’s Falstaff set in 1946, the action begins with the fat, balding Falstaff (Renato Girolami) presenting his plan to seduce two wealthy women, Alice (Anna Princeva) and Meg (Stephanie Lauricella), to pay his debts. Discovering his plan, the women along with Alice’s daughter Nannetta (Mariam Battistelli) and Mistress Quickly (Valentina Pernozzoli) resolve to teach Falstaff a lesson. Alice’s husband, Ford (Rodion Pogossov), finds out from Falstaff’s disillusioned cronies that Falstaff has designs on his wife and determines to catch them together. Meanwhile, a forbidden romance blossoms between Fenton (Filipe Manu) and Nannetta, whilst Ford has plans to marry Nannetta off to Dr Caius (Gregory Bonfatti). Thus unfolds a hilarious series of events as Falstaff falls for the women’s traps and the men are thwarted by their own tricks.

Each elaborate set is replete with depth and detail. The first scene opens out in a Tudor-style inn. After the first scene the curtain fell, and for a moment I wondered if something had gone amiss backstage. This tension soon dissipated as the curtain rolled up, revealing an entirely new set: a cabbage patch set before the French double doors of Alice’s home. This continued between each scene to put together each wildly different set, creating more excitement for each scene as we awaited every new set to be unveiled like a magic trick. In this production, the key was in the finer details: in each setting, there were puppetry cats in every scene, like an Easter egg for the audience members with the sharpest eyes. They looked up indifferently upon the chaos, adding to the absurd comedy of it all.

The action plays across five different places, and whilst all the sets were breathtaking, the high street and the park stood out. The high street was also Tudor-style, the inn sandwiched between a bridal shop and a joke shop. Above the inn was Falstaff’s room, opened up like a dollhouse! The park scenery was spectacular: an audible gasp sounded as a wizened and twisting oak as tall and wide as a real tree was revealed. 

The physicality with which the cast carried the comedy was brilliant. Girolami embodies Falstaff fantastically, throwing himself into every mood swing with comic precision. Every person onstage overflows with talent, but Battistelli was a standout as Nannetta with her angelic soprano voice. The ensemble created colour and comedy, their presence felt most at the climax of each act, as when Ford led the whole town in a witch-hunt for Falstaff. They added chaos to the mix with a chain of slaps and a crowd of thumbs up directed at Ford as he tore his own house apart in his search. 

I knew there was a scene in which Falstaff was stuffed into a laundry basket and thrown into the Thames, and I was wondering how they would manage to do this. The answer: expertly! The women threw open the windows of Alice’s lounge as the men carried Falstaff in a basket and tipped him out onto the window sill, where he wobbled comically before falling off-stage, throwing a massive splash of water into view. 

The humour of this opera endures, and I was thoroughly amused throughout. The action was aided by the extremely detailed and thought-through sets. Championing a woman’s wit over foolish men, this opera is one that still entertains and endures over a century after it was composed. Though be warned – if you are a large, lecherous, conniving man you may be offended by some of the insults thrown at Falstaff throughout! However, the moral of this comedy opera is certainly to laugh at oneself, which we do as the cast raise a glass to the audience at the end. 

REVIEW: The Marriage of Figaro by Opera Kipling 

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

A fun but slightly confused imagining of Mozart’s famous opera

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is taking to the stage in Opera Kipling’s new, ninety-minute production. All the action in this opera occurs on the day of servants Susannah and Figaro’s wedding as the Count (Philip Kamanovitch) attempts to seduce Susannah with a plan to reinstate an old law that would allow him to have her. At the same time, the old housekeeper Marcellina (Deborah Holborn) is demanding that Figaro repays his overdue loan, or otherwise marry her! Chaos ensues as Figaro (Christian Loizou), Susannah (Rebecca Milford), the Countess (Eleanor Oldfield) and the page boy Cherubino (Alexandra Dinwiddie) band together to thwart the Count and Marcellina’s plans.

All the cast embodied their characters with brilliant energy and humour. Stand out members of the cast included Oldfield as the Countess, whose soprano voice was powerful even when lying on her back for almost the entirety of one of her arias! Milford embodied the cheeky and playful Susannah perfectly. Robert Tilson was wonderful with his sassy interpretation of Don Curzio: Tilson used his whole body (hips and all!) as a vehicle for his comedy, embracing the silliness of this comedy opera to the max; he was a joy to watch. Patrick Osbourne was brilliant, playing multiple roles with humour and versatility. The accompaniment for this opera was carried by a single pianist, Giannis Giannopoulos, who played fluidly and beautifully across the entire 90 minute production. Thanks to Giannopoulos, the full orchestra that is customary for opera was not at all missed. 

As an opera novice and a Marriage of Figaro virgin, a condensed, ninety-minute version of this typically three-hour opera was welcome. However, the condensing of this opera gave way to a loss of depth. We don’t get to see many scenes of Susannah and Figaro alone together, which is a detriment to the believability of their romance. At the midpoint of the production, I almost began to feel for the opera’s antagonist, The Count – he was being cheated on and deceived by characters that had so little stage time it was difficult to sympathise with them! These issues were exacerbated by a technical issue with the surtitles, which were sometimes partially or completely obscured by the lighting and smoke machine. This made it very hard to follow certain parts of the opera, a real let down for the cast. Despite the plot being somewhat lost or confused at times, Opera Kipling did embrace the light-heartedness of this opera which made it a very joyful watch. Schilperoort’s direction realised the silliness, the sass and the fun innate in this comedy, capturing the humour and the characters’ descent into chaos. 

The set is minimalistic in style. In centre-stage is an IKEA bed, around which all the action revolves.  The bed was put to effective use in all the scenes, successfully integrating into a range of different settings and working very well as a comedic device. I appreciated the very tongue-in-cheek use of the IKEA instructions as the contract! There were also two poles from which sheets are hung to signify a change in setting. In the forest scenes, the mattress is replaced with very artfully crafted grassy bed which was a lovely touch. However, a more dynamic and full set might have provided better context cues to understand the plot at large. The Opera Kipling company promise sass and silliness in their productions, taking inspiration from W.H. Auden’s quote: “No good Opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible”. On this, they certainly deliver; this production is full of humour and heart. However, sadly technical problems and plot confusion undermine the talent of the cast. 

REVIEW: SUNK INTO THE EARTH

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

A gripping play that deserves a bigger stage

Premiering this year on the Camden Fringe, Sunk Into The Earth is an original play written by Charlotte Ritter about murder, sisterly bonds and the lengths we go for those we love.

It opens out on five friends having a casual pizza and wine night. Their dynamics reveal themselves as you watch them chatting: a group of queer policewomen, Gwyn (Jillian Osbourne) is the loud, honest, token heterosexual; Julie (Caro Vinden) and Hypatia (Isabelle Dickey) are married, and expecting a baby; Lilith (Theo Ambrosini) is their fierce and charming housemate and Joan (Natalie Haven) is…Joan! The love and fondness they have for one another radiates from the intimate dialogue and the actors themselves.

The sudden arrival of Salame, portrayed by Ritter herself, throws the relaxed evening into chaos. Lilith is particularly outraged, and it’s revealed to the audience that Salame has just been released from prison, having served time for murdering her sister’s abusive husband. Salame is both unapologetic and withdrawn, a woman caught in a web of devastating trauma and murderous loyalty. As the play progresses, Salame begins to untangle this web with Lilith’s help, and, in a bittersweet end, finally free herself.

The tale unfolds through intimate conversations between the friends, and tense conversations between Salame and her sister Tallulah (Liz Kent). The dialogue is natural in a way that envelopes you in the group’s world, mimicking how real friends talk to each other. Ritter successfully marries light and dark as the play traverses difficult topics such as loss, abuse and codependence with surprising humour and sensitivity.

The action takes place across two different settings: the friends’ flat and a secluded spot in the park where the sisters meet. The use of the small stage was very effective: the delineation between garden, kitchen and living room was clear despite the minimal props and space. It was impressive how they completely transported the audience to the park setting by simply changing the lighting and adding birdsong. They made compelling use of the transitions between settings, as the actors sometimes intentionally overlapped between scenes, symbolic of the how the two settings and the moods that pervade them are inextricable and intertwined.

Whilst the script is loaded and intricate, it’s mostly easy to follow and punchy in the right places. However, there were a few places where the dialogue would benefit from tightening. Flaws in the writing were felt with Joan’s character, who didn’t have a subplot of her own, and didn’t propel the plot forward in any discernible way. Whilst Haven’s skilled acting made Joan feel lovable and real, she isn’t as fleshed out or defined as she should be.

Every single member of this cast brought an individual flair and raw feeling in their performance. Despite having less stage time than her fellow cast, Kent stood out with her powerfully delivered monologue in which she directly addresses the audience, inviting us to feel her grief and guilt with her. Charlotte Ritter’s portrayal of Salame was also really impactful, subtly conveying the emotions of someone trying to be strong whilst crumbling within. Honourable mention to Jillian Osbourne as the energy she brought to Gwyn was really unique and memorable.

Sunk Into The Earth is a gripping drama with twists aplenty, guaranteed to draw you in with its heartfelt writing and have you on the edge of your seats ‘til the very last second. It’s a play that could really go far with a few refinements and genuinely deserves a bigger audience.  Four stars!

REVIEW: The Magic Flute

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

An incredibly talented cast let down by technical mishaps and confused staging

Mozart’s The Magic Flute is the story of Prince Tamino, who falls in love with Pamina, daughter of The Queen of the Night. Upon discovering she has been taken by the evil high priest Sarastro, he vows to rescue her. With the bird-catcher Papageno in tow, Tamino undergoes a number of trials aided by a magical flute and guided by three spirits. Opera Greenwich presents their interpretation of this singspiel opera, with a live orchestra, sung in German and subtitled in English.

Usually, this opera begins in medias res, with Tamino saved from a serpent. Opera Greenwich decided to give context during the overture, supposedly to elucidate the plot. Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect: without singing, narration, or subtitles to clarify what was happening, we are shown The Queen of the Night falling in love, embracing a girl we suppose is Pamina, who is then taken away by a man later revealed as Sarastro. This mystifying beginning set the tone for the rest of the production, much of which I spent trying to puzzle out exactly what occurred during the overture!

The best thing about this production is the cast. The Three Ladies (Antonida Kocharova, Megan Artemova Thomas, Lizzie Hawes) were wonderful, comedic, and conniving. Ben Watkins takes on the comedy of the loveable Papageno with ease. His powerful baritone arias were sublime, and at times he entered the audience whilst singing, creating an immersive effect. Grigore Riciu is slightly staid as Tamino but outstanding in voice. Kennedy Blair Miller’s singing as Pamina was sweet and powerful, her acting emotive. Both sang wonderfully, but it was hard to buy into their romance due to a lack of chemistry. Ash Howard is spectacular as Monostatos, the slave unrequitedly in love with Pamina. He stands out with excellent stage presence and a powerful mezzo voice. Sarastro (David Banbury) has a powerful bass voice; while his spoken dialogues felt a little wooden, his character completely came alive in song. Meliza Metzger is formidable as the intimidating Queen of the Night, conveying anger and grief with great emotion. The Spirits and ensemble all sang marvellously, and the orchestra was also a joy to listen to.

Unfortunately, this cast was let down by some production choices. Some costumes were well thought-out: the Three Ladies’ black, feathery dresses were stunning, and the Spirits’ shiny skin-coloured bodysuits with silvery white material produced a ghostly, otherworldly effect. Papageno’s colourful feathered chest reflected the comedy of his character. Regrettably, Pamina is dressed in khaki trousers and a blue t-shirt. Since she is praised as extremely beautiful, it would make sense to dress her as such. Tamino’s outfit – t-shirt and trousers – was equally forgettable. It felt like thought went into the other costumes but not the leads’.

Set design was inconsistent in quality. The small stage used three large sheets for projections. With few props, the space felt empty. This was juxtaposed with an overwhelm of projected images that distracted from performances – particularly during the Queen of the Night’s famous aria, where Metzger’s singing was overshadowed by projections of her face screaming. The sheets worked best during shadow puppetry, like when a tree was created out of bodies and hands.

The final blow was technical difficulties. Subtitles failed in Act Two and later lagged or were incorrect. This made the plot hard to follow – a real shame, though not the cast’s fault.

Overall, this production boasts some amazing talents and despite its production flaws, I would recommend it if you’d like to listen to some incredible operatic powerhouses for a very fair price.