Tag: Emma Burke

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REVIEW: Wharfemede Productions in Musicals Across The Multiverse, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Emma Burke’s wartime nurse performing Anthem, from Chess

“THE show’s concept is playful, radical too, and has the potential to be rolled out again,” predicted your reviewer, when encountering June 2023’s “out of this world” Musicals In The Multiverse.

Sure enough, here comes the bigger, bolder sequel, still with a “big cast, bags of energy and enthusiasm, and a fun idea for a show”, still with Helen “Bells” Spencer as director and Matthew Clare in charge of the remarkable musical arrangements as songs are freed from the chains of their usual presentation.

The company and venue has changed, from the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company and art deco Joseph Rowntree Theatre to Spencer and Nick Sephton’s Wetherby-based Wharfemede Productions and black-box Theatre@41, Monkgate.

The show title has replaced ‘In’ with the broader-sounding ‘Across’ to reflect an even more expansive multiverse: alternative worlds where musical favourites and newer works are turned on their head, taking on a new life with a change of gender, era, key or musical style, as musical director James Ball and his band, out of view behind curtains but worthy of a standing ovation in their own right, deliver Matthew Clare’s diverse, dazzling arrangements with such brio.

Nick Sephton and Helen “Bells” Spencer’s tender rendition of I Don’t Need A Roof

Attending Monday night’s dress rehearsal, the technical rough edges with the projection would be ironed out by tonight’s opening  show, and likewise Bells Spencer was keeping herself busy in taking notes, and even adjusting actors’ stage positions mid-number to achieve the right balance. Choreographer Connie Howcroft, when not performing, kept an eye on the big numbers too.

Musicals Across The Universe sits inside an end-on set design, usually bare to enable use of the full stage, even the stairway, with the occasional addition of chairs too, while projections, whether of a blur of Fake News or images of wartime Poland, accompany assorted numbers. Costume changes are frequent, sometimes amusing, often witty, always striking.

Act One opens with the full company finding its voice in Facade, a number from Jekyll And Hyde that is the essence of putting on a front, but with the truth still bursting through. As Long As He Needs Me, Nancy’s troublesome song from Oliver!, becomes more mournful, less desperate, in Jai Rowley’s interpretation.

The Place Where The Lost Things Go, from Mary Poppins Returns, is transformed into a children’s song, all the more moving in Matthew Warry’s performance, supported by Laertes Singhateh and Emelia Charlton-Matthews.

Lauren Charlton-Matthews: Outstanding rendition of Dear Bill from Operation Mincemeat. Picture: Simon Trow

Anthem, from Chess, takes on a Jazz Age air in Emma Burke’s rendition; Lauren Charlton-Matthews chose Dear Bill, from the Grand Opera House-bound Operation Mincement for her solo number, duly delivering the show’s best storytelling singing. 

Go The Distance/Defying Gravity, from Hercules/Wicked, vie for centre stage in a mash-up for David Copley-Martin, Emily Hardy, Naomi Mothersille and Zander Fick; partners Spencer and Sephton bring tender romance to Big Fish’s I Don’t Need A Roof and Tess Ellis revels in the stark solo spotlight in Miss Saigon’s Why God? Why?

Two Act One favourites follow in quick succession, first Rosy Rowley’s lonesome Mr Cellophane, from Chicago, her face marked by a painted tear, accompanied by the Dance Core in white masks with crimson lips and matching dark tears.

Listen, from Dreamgirls, branches out from dialogue to Jai Rowley expressing himself in British Sign Language, learned expressly for this performance, to be interpreted in song by James Ball as Matthew Warry takes over on piano.

Exchanging sign language: James Ball, left, and Jai Rowley in Listen

After the men-in-black smooth chops of When She Loved Me, from Toy Story, you will go potty for Connie Howcroft’s polka-dotty reinvention of Friend Like Me from Aladdin, with her Dance Core in tow.

Mickey Moran, outstanding in the 2023 show, comes to the fore in Act Two’s opening Queen Medley from We Will Rock You, both on lead vocals as bravura as Freddie Mercury and on guitar too. The show must go on, and indeed does with Naomi Mothersille leading Make Them Hear You from Ragtime.

Richard Bayton and James Ball address songs to each other as gay lovers on the path to separation, first in Bayton’s confessional Just Not Now, from I Love You Because, then Ball, wrought with tragedian drama in Abba’s The Winner Takes It All, from Mamma Mia!, the show’s outstanding solo turn.

It’s Never That Easy/I’ve Been Here Before, from Closer Than Ever, find Spencer, Howcroft, Emily Hardy and Naomi Mothersille in harmony; Tess Ellis, in cream, stands out from the crowd in the heartfelt Someone Like You, from Jekyll & Hyde, and Ben Holeyman does likewise in Gypsy’s Don’t Rain On My Parade. Take note of Kirsty Barnes, notebook in hand, in Santa Fe, from Newsies.

Life is a Cabaret for Zander Fick, surrounded by the Dance Core in Musicals Across The Multiverse. Picture: Simon Trow

Zander Fick, fresh from playing drag star Loco Chanel in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, dons fishnets, shiny red Latex top and matching high heels and lipstick, to darken Sally Bowles’s Cabaret, from Cabaret, into being more in keeping with the Emcee.

Bayton and Ellis, Holeyman and Barnes play two couples in declamatory tandem in the mash-up of Million Dreams and How Far I’ll Go from The Greatest Showman and Moana, and mother and child partnerships, Spencer and Singtaheh, Rowley times two and Charlton-Matthews a deux, express the bond movingly in Mamma Mia’s Slipping Through My Fingers. Abbie Law savours the last solo showcase in Shouldn’t I Be Less In Love With You, from I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.

The full company assembles for Blame It On The Boogie, from MJ The Musical, a celebratory finale led flamboyantly by Rosy Rowley and Mickey Moran that has everyone dancing to the Multiverse max.

Wharfemede Productions present Musicals Across The Multiverse, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 10 to 13, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Rosy Rowley. front, left, and Mickey Moran, front, right, lead the outbreak of dancing in Blame It On The Boogie, the finale to Musicals Across The Multiverse

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on York Opera in The Elixir Of Love, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, May 18 to 20

Hamish Brown as Nemorino and Ian Thompson-Smith as Dr Dulcamara in York Opera’s The Elixir Of Love

WITH spring in the air, a young man’s thoughts turn to love. Nemorino is the love-lorn peasant in Donizetti’s melodramma giocoso – let’s call it a witty farce – and the course of his true love is bound to run less than smoothly. So he looks to a love potion to fix his problems and finds himself in even deeper water.

That is the essence of Romani’s libretto, sung here in Ruth and Thomas Martin’s English translation. York Opera’s new production, in the hands of Chris Charlton-Mathews, making his directing debut with the company, provides just the tonic we all need as the sap begins to rise again post-pandemic.

The focus here is the con artist who supplies the potion (actually alcohol), the travelling medicine-man Dulcamara. Ian Thompson-Smith makes the role his own. Smarmy and smug, self-assured and spivvy, he is just what this production needs, given that it has been updated to the 1940s, with Italy desperately seeking to rehabilitate itself after the war. His baritone is firm, his diction is clear and his charisma never deserts him.

David Valsamidis’s Sergeant Belcore and Alexandra Mather’s Adina

Naturally he has the down-trodden peasantry eating out of his hand; they have been through hard times. This includes Hamish Brown’s Nemorino, whose journey from self-doubt to amatory success is neatly managed.

Over the years, Brown has gradually acquired a confident stage presence and this is his best character yet. He provides the greatest pathos of the evening in his last aria – Una Furtiva Lagrima (A Furtive Tear) in the original – with eloquent phrasing.

The target of his affections is the Adina of Alexandra Mather, who makes an engaging transition from standoffishness to tenderness. Her coloratura is in good nick and at its best in the finale. Oddly enough, she is less well-focused in easier passages earlier in the show. But talent will out and she surmounts her difficulties.

Emma Burke in her York Opera debut as Gianetta

David Valsamidis brings a strong baritone to the role of Sergeant Belcore, leading a rag-tag platoon of GIs and posing as saviour of the wretched villagers. His acting is less fluent but he has potential. So too has Emma Burke, who makes the very most of her cameo as Giannetta. We may look forward to their return in future productions.

The chorus is relentlessly enthusiastic and brimming with bonhomie. They certainly take Donizetti’s catchy tunes to heart and sing as if their lives depended on it. Two cautions, however. There were several occasions on the first night when they raced ahead of conductor Steve Griffiths.

His beat was perfectly clear from within the auditorium, but perhaps his proximity to the stage makes his baton hard to see on stage. If so, he should raise his arms a little; if not, the chorus must pay more attention.

York Opera in Donizetti’s witty farce The Elixir Of Love

Secondly, it is an error on the right side to be involved, but when a soloist is performing, individual members of the chorus should not be reacting as characters in their own right. Group chorus reactions are fine, solo ones are distracting. The exception of course is when the chorus itself is in the spotlight, when choreographed unity is to be encouraged.

Griffiths keeps his small orchestra on its toes and it answers his every call. Highlights include some notable flute passagework, and a mellow bassoon accompanying Nemorino’s last aria. Rhythms are strong throughout and the spirit of the dance is infectious. Maggie Soper’s costumes, as always, are right in period: we know at once where we are without being told.

In general, Charlton-Mathews does an excellent job of marshalling his forces on this small stage. He just needs a touch more discipline in his chorus. But this is a company whose morale is definitely back in high gear, suiting the season perfectly.

Review by Martin Dreyer