Rae Smith – charleshutchpress

Sheila Gold: Frank, incensed and muddying the truth in The Psychic at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Manuel Harlan

THIS critique comes with a personally signed request from theatre makers Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, paperclipped to the programme for their world premiere of The Psychic.

“Whilst we know it makes your job a little harder, we would love it if your review could steer clear of spoilers of any of the twists or secrets that you are about to learn,” they ask.

The Psychic has been up and running for a week of previews before Wednesday’s press night – with Jonathan Ross and actor Tim McInnerny among the high-spirited full house – and no doubt those twists and secrets are being shared already, but your reviewer’s lips are sealed on the minutiae of what unfolds.

Frances Barber’s prickly Rosa in The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

The north and south writer-director combo of Dyson (from Ilkley) and Dyson (from London) made the same request for Ghost Stories, their audacious spooky conceit that is still freaking out audiences after 16 years (and played the Grand Opera House, York, in March 2020).

After the paranormal scares and shrieks of Ghost Stories, Dyson, alumnus of the deeply, madly, darkly twisted League Of Gentlemen, teams up anew with regular creative co-pilot Nyman, actor, director, writer and collaborator with psychological illusionist Derren Brown for two decades, who played Winston Churchill in Peaky Blinders, by the way.

Illusions and disillusion play their part in The Psychic, a twisted dark thriller of jet black humour wrapped inside a state-of-the-nation study of fame and the corrosive impact of the Fourth Estate and radio shock-jocks, delivered with a theatrical sleight of hand in tandem with illusions designer Chris Fisher, lighting designer Zoe Spurr, sound designer Nick Manning, video designer Duncan McLean and, above all, set and costume designer Rae Smith, whose scene-setting is outstanding and well worth the longer-than-usual interval wait for the revelation of the gaudy interior of a Spanish villa.

Writer-directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson in rehearsal for The Psychic’s world premiere at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Dyson and Nyman were delighted to team up with the Theatre Royal in York, a city “drenched in the supernatural” as Nyman described it, for the torrid tale of TV’s most famous psychic, Sheila Gold (Eileen Walsh) in the immediate aftermath of losing a high-profile court case, costing her not only her reputation but also £500,00 in legal fees.

We join her as the audience on the first night of her latest tour, fighting back against the charge of being a charlatan with her golden Irish brogue and “gift” for contacting the other side.

It will not be an easy ride: heat-seeking, scandal-stirring, slick and slimy radio presenter Robert Hamm (Mischief Theatre regular Dave Hearn) is out to give her a hard time; niece Tara (Megan Placito, in her professional stage debut) demands she trains her in her showman skills and won’t take ‘No’ for an answer.

Showing her the ropes: Eileen Walsh’s Sheila Gold working with her “protege”, Megan Placito’s Tara in The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Enter a wealthy couple, Deepak (Jaz Singh Deol) and Nisha (Nikhita Lesler), with a desperate request for Sheila to conduct a séance to attempt to make contact with their late child. Sheila duly snatches at the opportunity to bleed them for money.

In the words of Dyson and Nyman, “what follows makes Sheila question everything she ever believed and leads her on a journey into the darkest corners of her life”. Occupying the darkest corner of all is her dysfunctional relationship with her mother, the anything-but-rosy Rosa (Frances Barber), her spiteful spiritualist forebear as a fortune teller on the Blackpool pier.

Central to The Psychic is the question: “Is any of it real?”, not only asking whether TV and stage show psychics are fakes, but also what is the truth of such lives beyond the TV screen, as Dyson and Nyman question “what really matters in life”.

Dave Hearn’s arch cynic of an investigative radio presenter, Robert Hamm, in The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Can you trust what you are watching amid Fisher’s illusions and McLean’s videos, and who is deceiving who in the fractured mother-and-daughter relationship of Rosa and Sheila? The greater truth here, beyond the price of fame, is the cost of greed and jealousy, as captured in the terrific performances of Walsh’s Sheila, Barber’s waspish, embittered Rosa and impressive debutant Placito’s aspirational Tara (Placito having grown up in a travelling showman family).

Dyson and Nyman serve up moments of shock-horror and utilise a disorientating sound pool – much in the manner of Danny Robbins’s 2: 22 A Ghost Story – but for all the supernatural intrigue, at its heart The Psychic mirrors Greek tragedies in its study of mortality and morality, the maternal and the matriarchal, the eternal and the material, the ethereal and the real, the heaven and the hell.

Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, until May 23. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Seeking contact with their late child: Jaz Singh Deol’s Deepak and Nikhita Lesler’s Nisha in The Psychic. Picture: Manuel Harlan

*Sir Willard White as Monterone in Rigoletto, his first Opera North role since 1984. Picture: Clive Barda*

EXPECTATION ran high in advance of this new Rigoletto from theatre director Femi Elufowoju Jr, not least because it marked his first venture into the world of opera.

Opera North’s last skirmish with Giuseppe Verdi’s piece was a grubby gangland affair in 2007 that eliminated aristocratic titles along with Giovanna. This time, according to an interview in the programme, the setting was present-day ‘Mantua, UK’, adding racism to the work’s already heavy load of problems in society.

There was absolutely nothing wrong in choosing black singers for all the “outsider” roles, headed by Rigoletto, Gilda and Count Monterone, and including Countess Ceprano and Marullo, but it became a dodgy move.

During the prelude, we saw Rigoletto being primped in a dressing-room, for what seemed like a play within a play; there was a purfling of lighting round the proscenium. Attendees at the Duke’s orgy were a scruffy lot, mainly in everyday clothes, with men in paint-splattered overalls as if they had accidentally strayed in from backstage workshops. So far, so egalitarian.

Rigoletto’s moanings about his deformity (supposedly a hunchback) fell on deaf ears: here was the tallest man in the cast, a striking figure, standing tall, albeit occasionally writhing and twitching as if having an epileptic fit.

Sharp-eyed programme-readers might have gleaned that his was mental disfigurement caused by Monterone’s curse – hard to believe. To everyone else, it looked dangerously as if skin colour was the cause of the scorn he endured, quite the opposite of the intended effect. In any case, directors should not rely on programme notes to explain what they put on stage.

*Jasmine Habersham as Gilda and Eric Greene as Rigoletto. Picture: Clive Barda*

There were further difficulties. The whole kidnapping episode had an aura of farce. The (mainly white) thugs were far from menacing in their vermillion onesies, brandishing electric torches in synchronisation like Keystone Cops.

Retreating, they reappeared in Coco the Clown masks. It was hard to tell whether they were intended to be figures of fun or if this was simply a directorial misjudgement. Either way, it had little to do with Verdi, still less his librettist Piave.

Gilda had to be clumsily kidnapped from astride the life-size zebra in her bedroom (her menagerie also included a toucan). Like the duke’s palace, it was gaudily decorated in red and gold designs by Rae Smith more redolent of Bollywood than Brentwood.

Rigoletto’s arrest by two heavily-armed British constables was doubtless intended to evoke the law’s use of excessive force based on colour. Uncomfortable, of course – but also irrelevant here. Indeed, so many superimposed details seemed to cloud the director’s intentions.

Eric Greene carried the title role with surprising grace, given the wide spectrum of attitudes he was supposed to strike. In mid-range, his baritone was flexible and clean, less so higher up where his focus was more diffuse.

His duet with Gilda was touching. She was Jasmine Habersham, who made a virtue of her light soprano in a poignant, delicately ornamented ‘Caro nome’. She also looked every bit the ingénue, kept apart and therefore out of her depth, even if she needed to soar more in ensemble.

*Alyona Abramova as Maddalena in Opera North’s Rigoletto. Picture: Clive Barda*

Roman Arndt’s self-regarding Duke seemed bent on Italianate tone at all costs, attractive enough but also mannered. Sir Willard White, returning to Leeds for the first time since 1984, injected authority as a stentorian Monterone. Callum Thorpe’s tattooed Sparafucile looked and sounded ruthless, pleasingly complemented by Alyona Abramova’s statuesque Maddalena.

They were certainly masters of the squalid landscape of Act III, with its corpse of a car, assorted detritus and shadowy lighting (Howard Hudson), a stylistic improvement on the tasteless décor earlier.

Despite the upheavals on stage, Garry Walker maintained a cool head and a decisive beat in the pit, and his orchestra reacted with discipline and confidence; the chorus was typically ebullient, if not quite as taut an ensemble as the orchestra.

But sight and sound were rarely synchronised: the director might have paid more attention to what is actually in the score. Opera audiences enjoy and understand history, even – given the chance – that of 16^th century Mantua. They do not react well to having modern precepts constantly forced down their throats, especially when these have little or nothing to do with the original opera.

We still await the arrival of a director with the courage to be traditional in this work.

Martin Dreyer

Further performances: January 29, February 4, 11 and 19, then on tour until April 1. Box office: operanorth.co.uk

Tag: Rae Smith

REVIEW: Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman’s world premiere of The Psychic, York Theatre Royal, until May 23 ****

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Opera North’s Rigoletto, Leeds Grand Theatre