With the planned detour to Paris falling through due to the absence of the man I had wanted to see (and then funny enough the whole show getting cancelled, so I got a refund), this trip to London became the first fully normal long theatre weekend in the capital since before all the Covid mayhem started - no ridiculous tests to cross a border, no masquerade and also no flights involved, just the usual leisurely trip through Belgium and beyond by train to my usual haunt behind King's Cross Station.
My first show of the trip took me to the National Theatre after a longer absence there and to the latest home-grown hit “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” by Sheffield duo Richard Hawley and Chris Bush. The title is a reference to the brutalist Park Hill estate in Sheffield, built in the 1960s to replace pre-war slum housing and which dominates the skyscape until today. It has since offered homes to several generations of people, all with their own hopes and dreams and it’s these people’s stories the musical tells. The show became this winter’s surprise hit, making me think that I am not the only one who’s become tired of “meta” shows and noisy teen popsicals, and just wants to see real stories about real people for a change.
That said, when a show comes with so much praise, it’s hard to actually live up to it and while I did enjoy it very much, it also wasn't the wow! experience I had hoped for. The set-up is brilliant – we see three different generations living successively in the same flat – first white working-class couple Rose and Harry, then black immigrants Joy, George and Grace and finally white middle-class Londoner Poppy, all reflecting how the estate went from a dream come true for people who had left the slums behind to going downhill in the 80s and 90s before becoming trendy after extensive renovations in the new millennium. Often people are shown in the flat at the same time and yet in their own timelines, their stories interwoven, with a nice surprise towards the end when we realize how they are connected.
The cast is universally fantastic, with some great newcomers like Faith Omole and Samuel Jordan as Joy and Jimmy, the interracial couple of the late 80s and 90s, West End stalwarts like Alex Young as Poppy and Robert Lonsdale as Harry, and my personal discovery, the amazing Maimuna Memon as Nikki with a voice to rival Amy Winehouse (Hadestown people, seek no more, you have found your Eurydice). But I found the stories slightly clichéd – Harry, working in Sheffield’s famous steel factories, loses his job when Thatcher takes the axe to British manufacturing and spirals downwards, while Rose keeps them going and finally leaves him, Joy’s and Jimmy’s teenage love ends with her getting pregnant, an early marriage and her hopes for a career as a doctor dashed before she ends up a single mom when Jimmy gets stabbed during the worst decline of the estate.
More interesting was contemporary Poppy’s story, a typical Londoner bringing wine, gin and Ottolenghi recipes to her flat, who gets hounded by ex-lover Nikki, from who she had run away. You keep wondering what Nikki’s oh so terrible deeds were, but unless I missed something, all she did was cheat on her once, which... yea, not good, but from I had read online before, I thought she had at least run over her cat or something. It also turned out that Poppy had chickened out of marrying her three times and also, unlike so many characters in various shows, Nikki was self-aware of "being too much in every aspect". So while others may have complained a "contrived happy end", I personally very much rooted for her and thought dull Poppy with a stick up her backside (who never dated anyone else for years, which was telling enough about her ongoing feelings for Nikki) could use a firecracker in her life. Or maybe it was just me in love with sassy Maimuna and finally seeing a strong, complicated, complex and fascinating female character on stage, rather than the usual whiny dames? And we already had two women ending up bereft with both Rose and Joy losing their men, so surely a single happy end wasn't over the top either.
If I have one (small) complaint about the show, it was that the songs weren’t really written for the characters but culled from Richard Hawley’s back catalogue like a jukebox musical. I couldn’t help wishing that these truly beautiful indie rock songs, which I enjoyed very much as such, had been written FOR the characters to express their feelings directly and not in some vague "only just matching" way, because it all could have been even more intense. That said, it was still a very clever, engaging and beautiful musical about normal people and the nearly three hours flew by. I don’t think it would survive in the West End, but I could see it do a limited run there before going on tour – while the show is set in Sheffield, I think the stories are truly universal, no matter where you are. On a more personal note: How cool is it when you watch a new TV series on the train and find the leading lady sitting right next to you in the flesh the same evening?
I had nothing much planned for the Friday and hadn’t really considered a day trip, so instead I went to the V&A to visit their "Musicals Re:Imagined" exhibition with several costumes from recent and older musicals – which felt like an extension of their regular theatre collection that also contains several costumes, but was still very nice to see:
The upper row should be recognizable to every musical fan worth their salt. Below left is a collection of costumes worn by true theatre legends Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Helen Mirren and the original Joey puppet from War Horse. Still wonder how the poor performers felt who were told "you got the job - playing the horse's ass for a year".
Afterwards I took myself shopping for a while, then crashed into the hotel for a longer break before the second show on my list. It’s billed as "George Takei's Allegiance", although book, music and lyrics are by Jay Kuo. However this has always been Takei’s pet project. Best known for playing Mr Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series, he made it his mission to remind people of the internment of Japanese citizens in the USA in World War II, which happened to his own family, too, and the torn allegiances of these people. The musical pits Sammy, who enlists for the US army, against his sister Kei, who falls in love with and marries Frankie, one of those who refuse to fight for the army that has stolen their homes, businesses and everything. The musical didn’t do well on Broadway despite its powerhouse casting, though I can see how it arrived at a bad time when people were tired of musicals that were a (bad) imitation of the ballad-heavy mega musicals. Now, after ten years of noisy pop musicals, the melodic score with great ballads and ensemble numbers was very welcome to the ears. Another thing, I am guessing at, is that middle America really doesn’t like to be reminded of an occasion when they treated a group of citizens terribly instead of their usual basking in being the glorious heroes of the war period.
Either way, I enjoyed the show very much, more even than Sky’s Edge, as it brought home to me how important it is that characters sing songs that are tailor-made for them and truly reflect their feelings and emotions. The cast was excellent throughout with Telly Leung and George Takei himself reprising their roles from Broadway as young Sammy and old Sam/Granddad, joined by Aynrand Ferrer as Kei, Patrick Munday as Frankie and Megan Gardiner as nurse Hannah, the only white American showing kindness to the interned Japanese. And what a joy it was to see a strong female Asian character taking centre stage in the shape of Kei and not the usual godawful clich of a white man’s exotic fantasy/hooker. As on the whole I couldn’t help thinking that just as with "The Band’s Visit" and the Bob Marley musical last November, THIS is what I think diversity should be – putting tales from all over the world onto the stage, rather than messing with classics or virtue-signalling casting.
On Saturday I went to Battersea early as the weather made it possible to finally walk around the park there and get a closer look at the Peace Pagoda - which I had already wanted to see on my first trip to the Turbine Theatre, but then it was darkening and rainy, so absolutely pointless. Now I truly enjoyed the park itself with the gorgeous pagoda (bigger than I thought) and other nice (and some rundown) bits during a few hours in which London almost held the promise of a sunny spring day. I finally met a friend in person for the first time over lunch at a Malaysian restaurant (that very much tasted of holiday for me) directly beside the Turbine Theatre and then to see "Eugenius" together. I had loved this little nerdy musical at the Other Palace some years ago, where it felt like a big warm hug and a West End transfer had apparently been firmly planned already, when Covid turned things upside town as so often.
Being in the tiny Turbine Theatre now felt more like a downgrade, though they tried their best with a digital background giving it all a comic book feel. It's still a delightful tale of nerdy friendship and love and the new central trio - Elliot Evans as Eugene, James Hameed and Jaina Brock-Patel as his besties Feris and Janey - was just as good as the ones who went before them. Still, while it was entertaining enough and least something I still think this show deserves a much bigger and better production. Thanks to my aisle seat I even got a superhero mask to keep, which was sweet (especially since I usually never get extra goodies that seem to be distributed more and more often at shows recently) and I came out of the show having enjoyed myself quite a lot again.
How do you get from Battersea in the far southwest to the Tower in the far east of London easily and comfortably? By boat! Since both theatres were close to piers, the official Thames Clippers provided a surprising and really nice mode of transport. Especially when I rushed to Battersea Pier after the matinee and found one boat at the pier, being literally the last person to hop on board. My destination was, for the first time, the new Bridge Theatre by Tower Bridge, whose immersive versions of "Julius Caesar" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" I had already seen on NT Live and enjoyed. Now they had tackled "Guys & Dolls", a musical, that given the amount of revivals in London, seems to be far more popular on this side of the pond than it its spiritual home New York.
My only experience with immersive theatre had been the brilliant "Here Lies Love" at the National Theatre some years ago, where I had been much happier to perch on a seat above the mayhem than be in the middle of it, so I did the same here, in a bargain "restricted view" seat that wasn't restricted at all. But... Reader, I don’t know what happened, but I absolutely couldn't get into this. I hated almost every second of it and on top of that it was the coldest I've been in a theatre since that unforgettable matinee of Spiderman in New York years ago (and I wasn't the only one, everyone in my corner kept their coats and jackets on). Why exactly this production failed to take off for me, I don’t know. It wasn’t the cast to be sure. Wherever they found Andrew Richardson, he was (finally!) a perfect suave attractive leading man as Sky Masterson, perfectly matched by Celinde Schoenmakers' Sarah Brown and Daniel Mays' comic perfection as Nathan Detroit. I didn’t care much for Marisha Wallace’s interpretation of ditzy Miss Adelaide as a "brassy big black woman" and she certainly didn’t have comedy chops, but ultimately it didn’t matter to me as I just couldn't really care for anyone through this too long evening.
I think the main problem is (which I already noted at "Allegiance") that by playing in the round, you play to everyone and no one. How could I be charmed by Sky singing "My time of day" when I only see his back through this and his part of "I’ve never been in love before"? And with the need to have everyone get a look at people's fronts, they kept the cast constantly moving around – on top of watching the standing audience shuffle around all the time, which worked for a few crowd scenes like Times Square or the street of Havana, but robbed every thing else of its intimacy. It didn’t help that you could often see the stage hands in the pits starting to shuffle people around and prepare the next scene, while one was still going on. Everything was restless and I never once felt like I was truly in New York with the characters. Or Havana for that matter, where, in yet another misguided attempt at virtue-signalling they had Sky and Sarah visit what I suppose was a gay club (why?) with only male dancers and Sarah trying to prise Sky off another guy. While it didn’t come across as homophobia to me as some said (and even if, had it been so wrong for a prissy missionary in 50s NYC?), it just came across as stupid to exclude the female dancers when the one big cliché of Caribbean dancing is sexy dancing by girls in big dresses and boys in tight pants. So, the upshot for me was, and I am aware that I’m probably alone in this, that this kind of immersive theatre is not for me, unless it has been specifically written that way (as "Here Lies Love" has). Maybe it's indeed better to be part of the moving crowd in the pit, so you have more opportunities to see the performers from the front, but after a long day I just can't be arsed to spend another three hours on my feet. My theatre going means sitting in a big darkened room with others, immersed in the different world that’s in FRONT of me, on a stage, not the chaos I witnessed here.
So what can I say? Sadly, on the whole, it was the second fairly mediocre trip to London after the one in November which had also been dominated by small off-West-End-shows. Sure, I still got some great shows out of both, but I also truly miss the razzle-dazzle of some real good big shows in the West End. While I know I could never stop travelling to London completely, right now I feel more disenchanted than ever. All I can hope is that the next trip in summer – with three BIG new productions and a revival giving some much needed revisions to a modern classic I’ve come to find unpalatable – will bring back some of the magic I used to feel in London’s Theatreland.
