(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019
it’s friday! opera
School for Handel is a scandal
Rinaldo (Glyndebourne
Festival Opera)
Verdict: Fourth-form end-of-term show
★★★✩✩
The Argument
(Theatre Royal, Bath)
Verdict: Modesty scarcely blazes ★★★✩✩
A
rguments are like
wildfire. A carelessly
tossed fag-end can
incinerate a land-
scape, just as an idle
remark can torch a marriage.
that is the theory of this small
flame of a drama by novelist William
Boyd, starring Felicity Kendal.
the set-up is certainly promising: a
young married couple disagree about
a film and, next thing they know,
they’re separating, sceptical parents
are getting an oar in and best friends
are falling out. But, to be honest, a
single swan Vesta match packs more
heat than this slender production.
Interestingly, the more punches
that land below the belt, the more
the audience love it.
that goes for the language, too: the
more four-letter words, the more the
rafters rattle. And this from a largely
sober, pensionable crowd with a
thorough grasp of decorum.
the good people of Bath want
roasted red meat. their favourite
line? ‘many a happy couple cheer-
fully detest each other.’ Boyd,
however, is comparatively vegan.
In short (and it barely clocks 70
minutes), it’s a comedy of manners
that’s a little too decorous. simon
Higlett’s set offers all the visual
fireworks of a travelodge.
that may be a look favoured by
the north London Belsize Park elite
of this yarn, but the story needs
more weight and substance.
the closest we get to profundity
is our scorchingly superior leading
lady, an Oxford-educated curator at
the British museum played by Alice
Orr-ewing. ‘marriage is being your-
self,’ she says. Oxford clearly needs
to reassess its entry criteria.
Orr-ewing does have the posh
acidity and bone-china complexion
of a Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but that’s
about as much character as we get.
simon Harrison as her hunky Pr
hubby, meanwhile, is tall, dark and
handsome — but also a little bit
dreary and, dare I say it, wet, with his
whining about being patronised.
K
endAL, as always, fizzes
like a sparkler. But, as
Orr-ewing’s mother, Boyd
hasn’t given her enough
firepower to light a barbecue. she
toasts her daughter well enough, but,
significantly, vapes on stage, rather
than lighting properly toxic tobacco.
Yet she can still singe her fellow
actors with an irritable revolve of her
ankle or weary roll of her eyes.
rupert Vansittart as her husband
Frank is the most interestingly
messy character. In Christopher
Luscombe’s all too neat and tidy
production, he is a boozy walrus,
crashing a theatrical picnic.
Pink face matching pink chinos
(separated by graph paper shirt), he
Boys soar, rockets roar
Peter PAn and his companions
soar and swoop over rooftops and
overhead in sally Cookson’s adapt-
ation of J. m. Barrie’s classic, but a
black cloud hangs over neverland.
John Pfumojena’s relentless,
ruthless boyishness in the title role
is not enough to ward off adolescent
angst... nor the wise Wendy (daisy
maywood), who struggles to get him
to work out the physical implications
of ‘mummies and daddies’.
neither can it banish the blues of
Captain Hook (Kelly Price, doubling
as mrs darling), haunted by that
swallowed clock whose tick-tock
starts to sound biological.
excellent performances notwith-
standing, the cast as a whole seem
a little swamped by their surround-
ings. the troubadour’s vast stage
and 1,200(!)-seat auditorium is a
little too much room for the (very
good) ensemble to run around in
or for lyrics to be heard over the
(extremely good) band.
Plenty of space, though, for michael
Vale’s grungy set designs — and those
wonderful special effects.
Harnesses and ropes in full view
Peter Pan (Troubadour White
City Theatre, London) ★★★★✩
Brainiac Live!
(Garrick Theatre) ★★★✩✩
Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain
Part Four (Apollo Theatre)
★★★✩✩
Review by
Patrick Marmion
THIS production is so ludicrously
misconceived, you cannot even
concentrate on some very good
singing, as the audience laughs
in all the wrong pieces.
Rinaldo is a serious Handel
opera about the First Crusade,
but director Robert Carsen
has turned it into a combina-
tion of St Trinian’s and Nigel
Molesworth’s St Custard’s, with
episodes reminiscent of the
Keystone Kops. The great hero
becomes a bullied schoolboy.
Fortunately, he is sung by the
superb Polish countertenor
Jakub Jozef Orlinski, promoted
after the illness of another
singer. Orlinski has a focused,
almost metallic, voice, but the
metal is pure gold and the
technique flawlessly flexible.
His beloved Almirena, who
has the poignant hit Lascia
ch’io pianga, is portrayed by
the Italian soprano Giulia
Semenzato with both lyrical
fervour and excellent style,
even triumphing over the gym-
slip she is condemned to wear.
The other outstanding singer
is the American bass-baritone
Brandon Cedel as the Saracen
leader Argante, who handles
his virile voice as if he has been
singing Handel all his life.
The Russian soprano Kristina
Mkhitaryan is a fearsome
sorceress, a few ill-advised
shrieks apart, and other roles
are well done. Handel’s operas
lack the powerful contra-
puntal choruses that make his
oratorios so compelling, but
they compensate with a wealth
and variety of arias and duets.
Carsen, obviously ill at ease
with a supernatural element
that he should take for granted,
commits the cardinal sin of lack-
ing faith in his material.
As some of the Baroque era’s
finest music passes by, you
constantly ask yourself: ‘Why is
this scene set in the bike shed?’
and ‘What are they doing in
the dormitory?’
Russian maestro Maxim Eme-
lyanychev and the Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment do
their best to divert us from the
puerile tosh on stage.
TULLY POTTER
Felicity’s
feisty, pity
the play’s
so soggy!
Page 48
marcin
(Marcin)
#1