Three shows and a birthday
Why we all need to see people in pink tutus doing the splits
It is the time for feasting and boy, have I been feasting. I had rather a big birthday the week before last and marked it with lots of tiny celebrations which each involved eating and drinking an awful lot. Every year, the feast of Christina elides into the feast of Christ and I resign myself to the fact that it’s pretty much compulsory to over-indulge all the time.
But I’ve also been gorging on something that has made me feel light as a bird.
The first serving was a birthday surprise from my partner. I was touched to see, when we got to the theatre, that we were going to something called Crazy for You. Having spent the past two months living, eating and working together in one room, surrounded by boxes and paint cans, I’m not sure either of us could claim that passion for each other has always been our dominant emotion. But what we experienced in that building was a cocktail of passion, energy and joy.
The plot was ridiculous, of course. A man called Bobby is in love with musical theatre, but under pressure from his mother and fiancée to run the family bank in New York. He goes off to a mining town in Nevada to foreclose on a mortgage. The mortgage is on a dilapidated Victorian theatre. The owner’s daughter, Polly, is beautiful, hostile and determined to save the theatre. I think you can probably guess what happens next.
There’s music. There’s tap dancing. There’s subterfuge. There’s wit. There are people in dungarees - and in pink tutus - leaping on tables, catching beer bottles and doing the splits. They are doing all this while singing, dancing and generally navigating an exhausting trajectory of hopes raised, dashed and raised again. Will Bobby and Polly get together? Will the theatre be saved? And what about Bobby’s fiancée?
I don’t think I’ll be giving away any trade secrets if I tell you that no audience member should worry too much. This wasn’t Beckett. Godot was not going to keep us all in lifelong, agonising suspense. This was a rom com written by multi-award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin, based on their 1930 musical, Girl Crazy.
The original production of Crazy for You won a Tony on Broadway and an Olivier in London. In this revival, Charlie Stemp is magnificent – and unbelievably pliable – as Bobby. Carly Anderson is magnificent – and unbelievably agile – as Polly. The whole cast is magnificent. To act is hard enough. To sing is hard enough. To dance is hard enough. To do the whole damn caboodle, and come out smiling at the end, is like reciting the whole of Ulysses while climbing Everest in flip flops.
We both cried when it ended. If we could, we would have tap-danced to the Tube. Unfortunately, my shoes were pinching and I was feeling slightly sick after three different types of sandwich, two scones with jam and cream, four cakes, three glasses of prosecco, a double gin and tonic and a super-sized carton of mature cheddar and chive crisps. So we shuffled along instead, but in our heads we were gliding through the air in ostrich feathers and satin, or at least I was. I don’t think it would be possible to see this show and not emerge with some sense, in Gershwin’s words, that “Things Are Looking Up”.
Two days later, I was back at the theatre again. This time it was not in the West End. It was a theatre in Islington called The Big House, hidden away behind a big metal gate. The play was an “urban musical” called The Realness. It was certainly urban, set, I think, in Hackney (where I live). It’s about a young man who has just been released from prison and is trying to resist the forces that seem set on dragging him back into crime. He doesn’t manage to. (Around 30 per cent of offenders don’t.) By the time I was queueing up for my interval gin and tonic, I felt a horrible sense of doom.
That feeling proved justified. A gun went off. A baby died. The killer flaunted his wealth, power and jewellery at the funeral at a church very much like the one at the end of my road. It was heart-stopping, nerve-stretching, edge-of-the-very-uncomfortable-seat stuff. It was also wonderful. The writing was sharp. The acting was excellent. So was the dancing and so was the singing. Oh, and many of the actors had never acted before. Most of them were young people who had come out of the care system. About a quarter of the adult prison population in this country have been in care. More than half of the people brought up in care have been convicted of a criminal offence by the time they’re 24. So yes, “the realness” pretty much sums it up.
The Realness was directed by Maggie Norris, the founder and artistic director of The Big House, who works with these young people every day.
(I’ve been coaching a young man involved with The Big House over the past year. He works in a restaurant and wants to be an actor. His determination fills me with awe.)
People brought up in the care system don’t instantly take to clear schedules, firm rehearsal times and instructions from authority figures. But out of this challenging work, and the work of the writers, Maureen Chadwick and David Norris, and of the composer and lyricist Kath Gotts, Maggie has forged something beautiful. The Realness is about love, faith and finding the strength to go on. It’s gripping and extremely moving. It’s also surprisingly joyful. I left with a feeling it’s sometimes hard to cling on to. I left with a feeling of hope.
And then, last weekend, I went to see the work of another Maggie. This is Maggie O’Farrell, who, like me, used to work at the Poetry Society and at the Independent (in her case the Independent on Sunday). Unlike me, she went on to become an internationally bestselling writer. When you see this play, you can see why.
Hamnet, adapted by Lola Chakrabarti from O’Farrell’s Women’s-Prize-winning novel, is about a young Latin teacher who falls in love with a healer and clairvoyant. They have a family. The plague hits. Their son dies. The grief that follows almost tears them apart. It’s only when Agnes Hathaway goes to London to see a play by her husband, William Shakespeare, that she sees the depth of his sorrow. She also sees what he has made from it. She sees how human agony can be alchemised into great art.
No one has ever really understood how the son of a glove-maker from Warwickshire became the greatest playwright the world has ever known. No book or play can explain that, but in Hamnet we have a glimpse of how the ordinary can hide the extraordinary, and how one flawed human can somehow find the words to convey the muddle, the struggle, the hopes, the fears, the dreams, the richness and the miracle of the human heart.
The tickets for Hamnet were an incredibly generous birthday present from a friend. I was nervous about this birthday. I can’t quite believe that I’m now eligible for free swimming at my local pool. (I currently pay a monthly fee to swim there and never do.) But I am so grateful to have made it here. My sister died when she was 41. My brother died when he was 57. I was first diagnosed with cancer when I was 39 and again when I was 46. I made it! I bloody made it! And I marked it with delicious food and drink with some of my favourite people. I marked it with music and theatre and art.
Actors, writers, musicians and artists live from pay cheque to pay cheque. Many struggle to pay their bills and rent. They do what they do because they feel they have to do it. And what they do is their gift to the world.
I left all three shows wanting to sing, as Emma Stone did in La La Land, “Here’s to the ones who dream/ Foolish as they may seem/ Here's to the hearts that ache/ Here's to the mess we make”. It has been a messy year for many of us, but out of a mess it is nearly always possible to create something beautiful.
Let’s make something beautiful from 2024.
CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTION!
Among my own attempts to create beauty out of mess are my books.
My family memoir Outside, the Sky is Blue was described in reviews as “heart-lifting”, “a hymn to optimism”, “compelling”, “bracing” and “beautiful”. My first book, The Art of Not Falling Apart, was described as “wise”, “funny” and “uplifting”.
Either would make an excellent stocking-filler, along with a satsuma, an apple and, of course, a big bag of crisps. If your local bookshop doesn’t stock them (and mine doesn’t) then the naughty bookseller in the sky will oblige.
Happy Christmas to you all!
Happy birthday! We've seen two plays in the last couple of weeks, As You Like It at the DC Shakespeare theater in which the bard's words and play was teamed up with music by the Fab Four. It was fun! It meant a lot of the dialog was cut but it was a great evening out (with a happy ending).
The second was a lot tougher which I liked but my wife didn't (too dark for Christmas). The Seafarers by Conor McPherson at Roundhouse theater in Bethesda. Its about an Irishman who goes home to look after his blind brother, meets his friends, and an unexpected person turns up to play a game of cards, in which the main stake is his soul (I think you can guess who the stranger is). It was fascinating as McPherson, who was an alcoholic, manages to capture the 'pull' of alcohol and how its used as a crunch for dealing with significant emotional issues, and how manipulated they can be too, to get their own way. The cast made the characters very believable. Seeing good theater is always such a gift, particularly if they tackle a difficult topic (and DC theater has been on a roll recently).