Section:GDN 12 PaGe:13 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 16:16 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian
Wednesday 7 August 2019 13
Live reviews
PHOTOGRAPHS: RYAN BUCHANAN; RACHEL KING; MIHAELA BODLOVIC; KARLA GOWLETT
and verve of his performances,
Gardiner seem s more intent on
emphasising the lush romanticism
of aspects of the score than in
bringing clarity and vigour to
Bernstein’s cracking rhythms.
It isn’t all loss though. At a
time when you’re just as likely to
fi nd a reality TV star as a trained
singer heading up a West End
musical , it is a rare luxury to
hear familiar numbers like Tonight
and Somewhere being sung by
trained singers who can actually
do justice to the music. And the
young cast, drawn from both sides
of the Atlantic, br ing infectious
enthusiasm and boundless
energy to the performance;
nowhere more so than in the male
ensemble number Gee, Offi cer
Krupke, both witty and slick.
In an ideal world with a
bottomless EIF budget, this
performance would have received
the theatrical staging it merited.
Rowena Smith★★★☆☆
Traverse, EdinburghUntil 25 AugustTheatre
Superstar
B
ach not Bernstein
is the composer
one associates with
John Eliot Gardiner.
Yet here Gardiner
is at the Edinburgh
festival conducting Bernstein’s
West Side Story for the fi rst time,
apparently a long-held ambition
following a night on the town with
Lenny six decades ago.
This is a concert performance,
of the slightly choreographed
variety, which can only go so far
in the Edwardian grandeur of the
Usher Hall (diffi cult to imagineanything looking like New York’s
Upper West Side circa 1950). Concert
performances of stage works
are usually either of rarities that
wouldn’t otherwise get a hearing or
of something epic and too expensive
for frequent productions. West
Side Story is clearly neither, which
begs the question as to why this
performance came about.
Bernstein’s music is undoubtedly
great, but overall this is a typical
numbers musical rather than
a continuous musical work.
Not a problem in the theatre,
but something that the concert
performance, without the staging to
bridge the gaps, really emphasises.
The high romance, especially the
voice-over dialogue, also seems
particularly mawkish when
removed from its visual context.
Nor could it be said that Gardiner’s
direction brings crucial new
insights to an already familiar work.
Though he is a period-instrument
specialist renowned for the energyT
he Edinburgh fringe
is good at bringing
forth harrowing
personal stories,
moving testimonies
of overcoming
obstacles, surviving illness,
abuse and addiction. Safe to say, the
list of painful subject matter doesn’t
usually include growing up as
the youngest of fi ve siblings in a
comfortable middle-class home.
That one of those siblings is Chris
Martin of Coldplay might add to the
intrigue but little alters the stakes.Such is the lot of Nicola Wren
and, to her credit, even she
doesn’t seem to think it is the
greatest problem in the world.
By her own telling, she appears
to have grown up with a loving
family, attended a non-abusive
boarding school and sailed
into drama college. Even a year
without work doesn’t seem to
have been so bad. That she stillcraves the attention of her big
sister and brothers (and at one
time her sister-in-law Gwyneth
Paltrow ), is unfortunate but
hardly devastating. There is no
survivors’ charity to sponsor
her and no collection buckets at
the end of the show.
What there is – and it is
Superstar’s saving grace – is a
considerable amount of charm.
Wren is an easy actor to like and
she makes you feel as if her minor-
league demon is worth wrestling
with. Taking the advice to write
about what you know, she tells
her not-really-showbiz story
of childhood pantos and movie
bit-parts as a way of trying to
come to terms with herself.
Superstar is not even that funny,
although Wren performs with
good humour and hits home with
a quality X&Y joke. It is her way of
stepping out of the shadows, and
it makes us happy to know she’s
sorting herself out.
Mark FisherComedy
John Robins
D
ritan Kastrati has
an extraordinary
story to tell. As
an 11-year-old
Kosovan-Albanian
refugee, he was
entrusted by his father to people
smugglers to make his way by boat,
train and lorry across Europe. We
know he survived because he and
Nicola McCartney have fashioned
a play out of his story in which he
appears. But, while the piece is
partly an adolescent adventure
story, it also explores the dilemma
of what it is like to be caught
between two cultures, countries
and languages.
Although we know Dritan will
eventually make it, the fi rst half
of the play keeps one in a state of
pleasurable suspense. It helps that
his father had submitted him to
rigorous tests in preparation for the
journey and that the young Dritan
was, as someone wryly observes,
“a cocky little shit”. E ven so, his
ability to read the intentions behind
people’s actions and to stand up to
mafi a men and rip-off merchants in
Italy and France is remarkable.
Once he joins his older brother
in Ilford and is farmed out to
a succession of foster parents,
the narrative loses some of its
momentum, even though it
makes the point that an infl exible
care system needs to make more
allowance for love.
The tension may wane but Neil
Bettles’s production for ThickS kin
ensures that the staging remains
lively throughout. Played by a fi ve-
strong ensemble on a tilted, rotating
platform, the piece conjures up
a whole European world with the
aid of simple props, such as steel
barriers and the actors’ expressive
bodies. Ajjaz Aw ad, Esme Bayley,
Daniel Cahill and Reuben Joseph all
impress but the real hero is Kastrati ,
who acknowledges that endurance
exacts its price as, briefl y returning
to Albania , he poignantly asks:
“ Where is my home?”
Michael BillingtonClassical
West Side Stor y
★★★☆☆
Usher Hall, Edinburgh★★★☆☆
Underbelly Cowgate, EdinburghUntil 25 August★★★★☆
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghUntil 25 AugustThen touring until 30 NovemberI
f you’re John Robins,
there’s always something
to be anxious about. In
his new show, Hot Shame,
it’s dating and damp. In
its predecessor, it was a
relationship breakup. Even when
that show won the Edinburgh
comedy award in 2017 , Robins had
cause to fret, as his triumph was
overshadowed by ex-girlfriend Sara
Pascoe performing her own set on
the subject , and by co-winner and
Nanette creator Hannah Gadsby.
What Robins’ fall-guy shtick
mustn’t obscure is that he is a top dog
at standup. Hot Shame is the title of a
book he displays stage right, mordant
readings from which punctuate the
hour. Each story details a mortifying
incident in our host’s life – such as
when, aged 15, he mistook fl irting for
saying “knickers” over and over.
The show’s fi rst half relates a
grownup version of that experience,
as Robins meets a woman in a New
York bar. They discuss Time’s Up
and Aziz Ansari – after which, Robins
feels powerless to make any further
moves. It’s a lovely routine about an
awkward “millennium man” in the
age of #MeToo , as Robins labours to
demonstrate both his sympathy with
the cause and his sexual confi dence.
It works because we know his
highly strung character so well:
Robins has only to pitch himself into
the scenario and let appalling foot-
in-mouth comedy take its course. His
second set piece reaps even bigger
laughs, as he buys a humidifi er to
help his “crispy towels” dry. In a
manner recalling Rhod Gilbert’s great
routine about tog ratings , he then
embarks on a neurotic odyssey into
online review sites and emasculating
encounters with tradesmen.
It is a masterclass in tempo,
tone and character, as apoplexy
ebbs to stunned disbelief, before
terminating in Robins’ wordless
horror at how badly he’s failed
at home improvement. Another
winning show from a man who can’t
stop losing for our entertainment.
Brian LoganTheatre
How Not
to Drown
Infectious
enthusiasm ...
West Side StoryFall-guy shtick ...
John Robins
in Hot ShameAdventure
story ...
Dritan KastratiColdplay and
childhood pantos
... Nicola WrenРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS