Top Hat transports us back to the golden age of Hollywood, it is all about the glitz and glamour, a romantic narrative steeped in the fast screwball comedy genre of 1930’s America. It is a dance extravaganza with a showcase of Irving Berlin’s show tunes providing the perfect accompaniment to a night of precision tap dancing and Bill Deamer’s Olivier Award winning choreography.
For those who are not familiar, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers starred in the 1935 original movie of the same name – the plot is uncomplicated and quite farcical and tells the story of Jerry Travers (Alan Burkitt), a Broadway dancer, who falls for the stunning Dale Tremont (Charlotte Gooch). However, the course of love and romance never did run smooth and his failed attempts to woo her result in hilarious misunderstandings and mistaken identities. The simple but well-made plot is loaded with humour which the cast deliver with such impeccable timing and pace – once you let yourself get swept up with the sentiment and moral sensibility of the 1930’s, the comedy is an absolute delight.
Alan Burkitt’s dancing is technically flawless and perfectly synced as he tap dances with his silhouette in the hotel room above where Dale is trying to sleep. Charlotte Gooch impresses as the leading lady, a real triple threat – her charming stage presence and comic timing make her as mesmorising an actor as she is a singer and dancer.
Top Hat really feels as if it was made for the stage, the second act really thrives in front of a live audience, there is a sense of spontaneity from fashion designer Alberto (Sebastian Torkia)who is also competing for Dale’s affection. Horace (Clive Hayward) and Madge Hardwick (RebeccaThornhill) and eccentric valet Biggs (John Conroy) all impress also during the denouement – with well-paced lines and no use of a blackout, the humour reaches a crescendo which the audience love. Top Hat is not just any champagne – it is a pink champagne of the finest quality.
The show boasts over 200 different costumes, designed by the award winning Jon Morrell; the beautiful and functional art deco set design by Hildegard Bechtler’s is also a highlight. Top Hat is pure gold entertainment, clean and elegant fun – that will leave you toe tapping and singing ‘Cheek to Cheek’ all the way home.
February brings us Chinese New Year celebrations, Pancake Day and St Valentine’s Day…but it’s not all about dragons, roses and Jif Lemon. Here are my picks for the Manchester theatre scene throughout February…
Kate O’Donnell -Big Girl’s Blouse (Contact Manchester)
Contact Theatre Manchester have a whole bunch of good stuff to offer as part of Queer Contact 2015 celebrating LGBT arts and culture in Greater Manchester. The event runs from Thursday 5th February until Sunday 15th February, to coincide with LGBT History Month in the UK. For the full rundown please check out Contact Manchester here.
Using humour, music, and high kicks, Big Girl’s Blouse tells the story of a girl, Kate, who was born a boy and became a woman. Who knew what being transgender was in the 1970s? Not Kate’s family. The path to becoming a woman doesn’t always run smooth and with a lifetime of coming out, Kate has had to use every trick- theatrical and otherwise – to get by.
Created in collaboration with Olivier Award-winning director Mark Whitelaw.
There is a post show Q & A on 12th February with Dr Rachel Morris (Cosmopolitan).
Kate O’Donnell – Big Girl’s Blouse will be performed on the 11th and 12th February at 9pm. Tickets are £10 and £6 for concessions.
Laugh Local (Chorlton Irish Club) – Friday 7th February
Laugh Local is held on the first Friday of every month at Chorlton Irish Club. This Friday, Justin Moorhouse is joined by Jamie Sutherland, Holly Walsh and Iain Stirling. It’s a popular night in South Manchester, doors open at 6:30pm and tickets are £12.00 on the door (that’s if there are any left)! The comedy commences at 8pm and finishes up at around 11pm. All this comedy and a (free) pasty supper included in the price – what’s not to like?
The Mist in the Mirror (Oldham Colliseum)
Oldham Coliseum are proud to present the world premiere of The Mist in the Mirror. The original novel by Susan Hill has been adapted for stage by Ian Kershaw.
Hill is very well known for penning the original novel for chilling West End smash hit, The Woman in Black. This new production promises to be just as unsettling and atmospheric and is staged as if the audience are eavesdroppers to a fireside ghost story.
Visual theatre innovators, imitating the dog, will be on hand to scare you out of your wits. Their visual antics will create an unsettling feeling, on stage and off, that might just follow you home at the end of the night …
Runs from Friday 30 January to Saturday 21 February 2015 in Oldham then tours nationally
Check out this creepy trailer:
Enough of the scary stuff – isn’t February the month of amour…
And so we move on to a love story to set the pulse racing, Top Hat brings us all of the glitz and glamour from Hollywood’s golden age.
With tap dancing a plenty and celebrating all of that 1930’s song style and romance, Top Hat tells the tale of Broadway sensation, Jerry Travers who dances dances his way across Europe to win the heart of society girl Dale Tremont.
It’s won three Olivier awards for Best New Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costumes and it features Irving Berlin’s most popular toe tapping swoon tunes – Cheek to Cheek, Top Hat, White Tie & Tails, Let’s Face the Music & Dance and Puttin’ on the Ritz.
How can we resist!
Top Hat runs from the 10th February until the 21st February at Manchester’s Opera House.
Moving on to our beautiful Royal Exchange Theatre – there are a couple of shows I want to tell you about…
Scuttlers (The Royal Exchange)
Scuttlers tells the story of Manchester in 1885 as workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution – this is the worlds first industrial suburb, the air is thick with smoke and life is lived large and lived on the street. The young mill workers, the living cogs on its machines form the very first urban gangs. Inspired by the Manchester riots in 2011 and the stories of all of the Manchester gangs between the nineteenth century and today. This new play, written by Rona Munro, promises to give us an artistic commentary on youth gang culture and the cyclical nature of urban violence. And I believe, there are plenty of references to contemporary Manchester through the language, stage design and casting as we watch a nineteenth century Ancoats collide with twenty first century sensibility.
Running from the 5th February until the 7th March 2015.
Yen (The Royal Exchange)
Anna Jordan’s Yen won The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2013 and is receiving its world premiere in The Studio at The Royal Exchange.
The play explores a childhood of living without boundaries, where you are forced to grow up on your own. It tells the story of sixteen year old Hench and thirteen year old Bobbie, who live alone with their dog, Taliban, playing Playstation, watching porn; surviving. But when Jenny knocks on the door, the boys discover a world far beyond that which they know – full of love, possibility and danger…
Yen is running from the 18th February until the 7th March 2015.
And finally a trip up to The Lowry for some quality children’s theatre…
I Believe in Unicorns (The Lowry, Salford)
We are big fans of Michael Morpurgo in our house – of course, he is the author of The War Horse and we have a lot of his books. This story, adapted by Daniel Jamieson promises to be spellbinding and moving, telling the story of Tomas – who doesn’t like books or stories of any kind. He would rather be enjoying the great outdoors, clambering up a mountain or tobogganing with his father. That is until the Unicorn Lady comes to town and reels him in with her irresistable tales…
I Believe in Unicorns runs from 19th February until 22nd February 2015.
What a lovely treat for a half term theatre trip – you can catch the trailer here:
Following on from last year’s pantomime success, The Dancehouse Theatre, home of the Northern Ballet School, are back and keen to grant Manchester a Christmas wish by staging timeless classic Aladdin this year.
This pantomime is a perfect opportunity for the company to showcase their dancing talents, featuring many different dance styles from bhangra to ballet, all are skilled from the teeny tiny jazz dancers through to the feisty and rhythmic crew of street dancers.
The Dancehouse Theatre and Eight Freestyle poke fun at the expected pantomime tradition, managing to put their own stamp on the magical middle eastern adventure. The genie of the evil Abanazer’s diamond ring was a bolshy Liverpudlian, which ran well with the Mancunian crowd and the final fight scene between Aladdin and Abanazer played out with lightsabers, giving the nod to all of the Star Wars fans in the audience.
Although most of the energetic dance numbers were choreographed well and the popular chart music choice was a hit with the audience, there were moments in the story where the action seemed stunted and the audience were left trying to make sense of an empty stage.
There were also some problems with the sound quality throughout the show – occasionally my ear drums were rattling as the treble was booming and just like Widow Twankey sang in the show “All About That Bass”, some adjustments did need to be made.
The cast took every opportunity to interact with their eager audience by inviting people on to the stage and encouraging all to join in with the customary pantomime sing-a-long. The use of gauze to create a starry night as Princess Jasmine and Aladdin were suspended on a magic carpet was a highlight as was the amusing version of “Take me Out” to find a suitable husband for the Princess.
The Dancehouse Theatre and Eight Freestyle certainly succeeded in entertaining the whole family, with plenty of belly laughs, Christmas sparkle and not a reality TV star in sight. Aladdin runs at just over two hours long and with ticket prices starting at a mere £30 for a family of five, it really is excellent festive value for money.
-Kristy Stott
Originally published by What’s on Stage in December 2014.
DESH means ‘homeland’ in Bengali. Akram Khan has woven a full length contemporary solo on this subject and by moving the story between British and Bangladeshi culture, he intricately juxtaposes his personal experiences with folklore and evocative memories.
Akram Khan is a gifted storyteller and an outstanding dancer and performer – perhaps the most striking aspect of this performance is the way that he can achieve such intimacy despite the performance being delivered on such a grand scale.
Khan gives a transfixing performance and draws on his comparisons of two different cultures in this outstanding collaboration with Oscar-winning visual artist Tim Yip and Award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook. DESH is essentially a quest by Khan to make sense of his parents life in Bangladesh. Born in London, Khan wants to explore this culture to help him understand himself.
I walked out of the theatre deep in thought- there is a lot to take in- Khan’s personal cyclical narrative leaves you thinking for some time afterwards. Khan punctuates his traditional storytelling with humorous references to pop culture which suggests different character traits and the way that identity and family values can change with the passing of time.
The set is visually stunning particularly the section where Khan performs behind a large gauze which is projected with moving images. It is a real treat as we watch Khan stare in awe at an elephant, float down stream in a canoe and come face-to-face with a giant crocodile. Later we see Khan caught in a relentless but beautiful monsoon, hanging upside down between glimmering silvery fabric panels and it is magical.
The whole show has such fluidity- everything flows into everything else, the props constructed by Sander Loonen are used effectively throughout the performance. There is an aeroplane engine, central to the narrative, which is used as a telephone and there are two chairs- one considerably larger than the other, which are used to frame sections of Khan’s captivating performance.
By the close of the show, Khan has managed to excavate his fathers old shirt and he puts it on. We realise that Khan is telling a story that we can all relate to, cultural changes between different generations, the feeling of loss when you no longer have your parents and the questions that you wished you had asked them.
A beautiful and magnetising piece of theatre.
DESH is at the Lowry until 14 November.
-Kristy Stott
Post first published by What’s on Stage in November 2014
Russell Brand struts onto the stage with his trademark skinny leather pants, massive hair and long hippy wooden beads. A real presence. He doesn’t take himself too seriously – his whole performance is built on self irony – and he is not afraid to mock himself, expose his own failings and belittle celebrity.
He tells hilarious accounts of his experiences, accompanying them with film and projections; in all of his stories, he succeeds in sending himself up. It is all quite narcissistic, but it works because Brand is not afraid to poke fun at himself and expose his flaws – this is his appeal. Brand takes on a convincing Mancunian accent frequently during the show and straddling it with irony, he refers to himself as a “southern ponce”. The northern crowd love it.
His stand-up is sharp and he is compelling, articulate and slick. Lowering himself into the audience so that he can “examine” us all, he is confident with interacting and engaging with the crowd. He picks a few willing participants to banter with – “I’m like a vampire – I’ll only come in if you invite me”. The crowd are hysterical, many trying to grab Brand’s attention, one woman even hanging right over the circle balcony. Brand is not the Messiah, but he is the centre of adulation on this particular night at the Apollo.
Demanding a muscular fellow in the audience to “elevate” him to the stage, he begins his main show. He addresses themes of celebrity and explores the flaws in his four chosen heroes – Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Ghandi, Malcolm X – and seeks to prove that he is a little bit like them. He is uncensored and unapologetic about his own excesses, saying of celebrity: “Why would I attack a lifestyle that plucked me from poverty and dropped me into a tumble-dryer filled with tits and money?”
Through all of the 90 minutes of Brand’s self deprecating frivolity, it is clear that he is also using his position to influence and spread a message: “Choose your heroes carefully before culture chooses them for you.”
Russell Brand is a bit like marmite – you either love him or hate him. On this particular night in rainy Manchester, he goes down a storm.
This gifted comedian and wordsmith continues his Messiah Complex world tour in Glasgow tonight.
-Kristy Stott
First published by What’s on Stage in February 2014
Dinosaur Zoo is an interactive and educational show, suitable for all ages, by Australian company Erth. The show aims to animate the lesser known (but equally ferocious) dinosaurs that ruled in part of the Southern hemisphere which, we are informed, is referred to as Gordwanaland.
The young audience are encouraged to interact with narrator Australian zookeeper, Lindsey Chaplin, and her dinosaur puppets from the very start, especially, those sat in ‘The Danger Zone’ at the very front!
The show maintains a remarkable sense of surprise throughout – the lifelike dinosaur puppets move convincingly, easily fuelling a child’s curiosity, nervousness and amusement in equal measures. Lindsey is our host – her address to the audience is perfectly timed, her humour and friendly approach appealing to children and adults alike.
I attended with my dinosaur-obsessed 3 year old; who despite chattering all week about the show, lost his tongue when he entered the theatre, all wide eyed on seeing the stage set with hay bales and giant flora.
I could sense that many of the children were excited and apprehensive – not knowing what to expect. And although Lindsey explained that all of the dinosaurs in the show were puppets (and you could clearly see that they were being manned) – I think that many children forgot this fact early on, which added to the magic of the show.
Dinosaur Zoo, with interaction and science at its core, is very different from any of the other dinosaur shows that I have seen, and at just 55 minutes long it is perfect for the attention span of even very young children.
My only niggle lies with the staging of the show; due to the interactive element it would definitely have benefitted from being staged in the round or in a more intimate performance space. And from watching the trailer, this is what I was expecting.
However, Erth must have recognised this as being a potential issue and so overcame this by bringing all their dinosaurs out into the foyer after the performance, so that all of the children were able to get up close and personal with their favourite from the show.
If like me, you have a dinosaur obsessed child or one that you can borrow to accompany you, Dinosaur Zoo is well worth a visit!
-Kristy Stott
Originally published by What’s on Stage in October 2013.
