pyekan

Last night I saw a moving, funny and life enhancing production at Ray Rackham’s new Theatre near Monument. It was put together by Alexis Gregory and directed by Robert Chevara – a formidable talent. Alexis interviewed LGBT people made homeless because of their sexual orientation. Heartrending and yet uplifting because of the way they managed to deal with their situation. Four quite brilliant actors took on the roles and Alexis had arranged the material in such a fashion to bring out the emotion and comedy turning it into a piece of ensemble playing. We in London and in the Creative industries have no idea how gay young people are treated in the other parts of the country. Michael Fatogun played a young British Nigerian whose father wanted to send him back to Africa to learn how to be a real man. ‘Riley Carter Millington played a gay trans male ‘Jack’, transitioning from the gender he was assigned at birth’ . Kit Redstone acted the role of a young man who decided to be a woman and was trying to do it himself by taking pills advertised on the internet and Laura Jane Ayres played a lesbian who had become an alcoholic. All of these had suffered physical and mental abuse from their schoolmates and from their families. All had at one time become homeless and all took pleasure in ‘coming out’ to Alexis so that their stories could be told.

RAGTIME book by Terence McNally, Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

At the Charing Cross Theatre.

The Charing Cross Theatre group of great creatives bring another triumphant revival to its hallowed stage. In the Spring we had the truly amazing ‘Titanic’ and now here comes ‘Ragtime’ a powerful story of real life.

The plot is derived by Terence McNally from E L Doctorow’s novel in which he places fictional characters in real life historical situations and has been transformed into a superlative musical by Terence McNally. We are in early twentieth century America. Unwelcome immigrants, brutal gun toting policemen, and racial violence are all played against the background of sometimes soaring, often toe tapping Ragtime music ‘Ragtime asks us to listen to the music of our lives’ it says in the programme. Stephen Flaherty has achieved a stunning score with intelligent lyrics by Lynn Ahrens.

This show is acted and played by actor/musicians. This can often be really annoying, but somehow the director Thom Southerland has managed to make it seem quite natural and even historical characters manage to fit in some instrumental expertise. J.P Morgan plays the Ukulele and Henry Ford the Harmonica? This sounds frivolous, but they are three very serious stories.

Three basic but intermingled stories – a White middle class family with a loving, caring mother beautifully played and sung by Anita Louise Combe, who adopts a deserted mother and her baby. The father is Coalhouse Walker a musician from Harlem, a glamorous figure in a checkered suit played by Ako Mitchell, who is looking for his wife and child. Coalhouse is supposedly the inventor of this syncopated style of music and Ako with MD Jordan Li-Smith, play two pianos carrying most of the score.

The third story concerns a poor Jewish immigrant who makes a living making silhouettes in order to feed and nourish his little daughter. The lives in these stories entwine and come together at the end as each makes their way in the new country.

There are real life historical characters within the show. Appearances by Evelyn Nesbitt (The crime of the century) played by Joanne Hickman – also Cellist, Harry Houdini (The piano accordion) and most significantly, Emma Goldsmith the Russian born, Jewish Anarchist Politician is played powerfully by the very elegant Valerie Cutko.

It is a dense plot, there is a plethora of exciting music and complicated characters – too much to talk about – has to be seen.

 Ragtime music – like Shakespeare’s poetry – is the beat of our hearts. This is a show with heartbeat, heartbreak and supreme elegance.

=

NARCISSUS

The reflection of a beautiful face

A face whose deformities don’t show

Because the expression is tender.

This is what Narcissus saw

How would he have felt

If he had seen himself in HD

ALINE WAITES© MAY 2006

FATHER TIME

TAKES YOU BY SURPRISE.

SUDDENLY

YOU CAN’T OPEN SCREW TOP JARS

ALL PACKAGING BECOMES A NIGHTMARE.

WHEN GETTING UP IN THE MORNING

YOU HAVE TO TEACH YOURSELF TO WALK

TO PUT ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

WITHOUT LIMPING OR TOTTERING.

PEOPLE START OFFERING YOU THEIR SEATS IN THE TUBE.

I PREFER TO STAND

ON SHORT JOURNEYS

GETTING TO ONES FEET AGAIN

CAN BE AWKWARD AND EMBARRASSING.

IT NEVER HAPPENS DURING RUSH HOURS

PEOPLE HAVE FOUGHT SO HARD FOR THEIR SEATS

THEY’RE NOT INCLINED TO GIVE THEM UP.

IT SEEMS THAT MOST DAYS

SOMEONE DIES

AN OLD FRIEND FROM WAY BACK.

WHERE DO THEY GO?

IT WOULD BE REALLY NICE IF THEY COULD GET TOGETHER

AND HAVE A CHAT.

I ALWAYS THINK HEAVEN

WOULD BE LIKE THE BBC CLUB

WITHOUT THE BORING PEOPLE.

NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT?

I DON’T CARE

I’M TOO OLD FOR THAT KIND OF NONSENSE.

YES. MOVEMENTS ARE GETTING PAINFUL

AND YET INSIDE THE HEART IS STRONG

ONE CAN FALL IN LOVE EVERY DAY

BECAUSE EVERYBODY AND EVERY THING

IS MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL

THAN IT WAS BEFORE.

AND DID YOU ?

by Aline Waites

AND DID YOU LIE AWAKE IN BED

WITH WAKING DREAMS TO FILL YOUR HEAD;

AND DID YOU FOOLISHLY RESOLVE

THAT YOU WOULD PUT AN END TO LOVE?

THEN DID YOU YEARN TO TOUCH MY HAIR

AND QUICKLY RISE AND PUT ON CLOTHES.

THEN – FEARING I WOULD NOT BE THERE

LIE BACK UPON YOUR BED AND DOZE?

THEN DID YOU WAKE UP WITH A START

TO SUFFOCATE AS IN A TOMB

AND WITH A WILDLY BEATING HEART

PACE ALL ABOUT YOUR LONELY ROOM?

AND DID YOU STAY AWAKE TILL MORN

AND DID YOU WATCH THE EARLY DAWN

AND CURSE YOURSELF FOR BEING SHY?

I THINK YOU DID – AND SO DID I

©Aline Waites.

Eve Ferret: Pimlico Paté

at the St James Theatre Studio

Larger than life is one way of describing this woman. She is all heart, all soul. She is out to give us a great time and boy does she deliver. With her signature peignoirs, her huge piled up red hair – no one else ever had hair that big. Her exceptional vocal quality – and her voluptuosity (my own word) she is a completely unique presence. A one off.

Much of her lyrics are put into musical form by her guitarist/composer who was unable to be with her on this occasion. But on stage is a great blues piano player Johnny Miller. He follows Eve perfectly – not an easy thing to do. Not content with just backing her up on the St James’s grand piano, he accompanies her on the pencil. Now there’s a rarity.

I say this to one and all – if you ever get a chance to see this lady perform, grab it with both hands. She is a marvel.

aline waites

COW IN THE RAIN

Bloody October

fuckin wet

what’s a poor cow to do?

Pleasant morning in the barn.

Chewing cud

Contemplating.

Then that bloke came along

Started pulling at my tits!

Fuckin liberty

I mean, what gives him the right?

Decent chap enough

Said Hello Daisy

Who’s a Beautiful Old Cow

Which I took as a compliment

Even though my name is Ermintrude.

Then he put me out to pasture

In a field covered in shit

Typical male

Warm in the sun I admit

But now

This!

Cold wet stuff.

OH BUGGER

ALINE WAITES © may 2006

updated 1^st October 2016

KINDER TRANSPORT

by Diane Samuels.

At the Chickenshed

Chickenshed is a British company based in Southgate, London. It is a company that makes beautiful and inspirational theatre, bringing together people of all ages and from all backgrounds. Their aim is to entertain, inspire, challenge and inform audiences and participants; to celebrate diversity and allow individuals to flourish.

For forty-two years Chickenshed has been working with children and adults of all ages. Begun by teacher Mary Ward and composer Jo Collins in a disused chicken shed in Barnet, London, it now has a large building with four performance spaces including a spacious Bar area in North London. Mary Ward and Jo Collins were both awarded the MBE for their services to entertainment and education.

Chickenshed supports over 1,000 children and young people every week. Mary Ward realised that people could learn better from drama than by another means, and those who may have been backward at academia were able to shine on stage when they were allowed to create work to suit themselves.

Kinder Transport at the Chicken Shed. It is the ideal place to see a show about refugees As it deals with children who are escaping from Nazi oppression it is appropriate at the time when refugee children are running from the terrible happenings in Syria. Set just before the First World War, they were mostly Jewish children brought over to England in secret by people who suspected that Jews may be in danger and to avoid Hitler’s domination in Germany . They were brought over with just one suitcase containing their clothes and given to English fostering parents.

The play asks the question – what happens when the Nazi regime is over, and surviving inmates of concentration camps come looking for their lost children. Children who are by now grown up and have a sincere desire to be English and to forget about their early life in Germany.

It is a policy at the Chickenshed to combine members of the Chickenshed community with experienced professional actors and Kinder Transport is no exception. A couple of very well known TV faces are on the cast list. Evie Edgell who received great critical acclaim recently for her role as Roberta Blake in Holby City plays the welcoming foster mother and gives an exceptionally heart-warming performance. She is in stark contrast to the edgy and confused Evelyn who has had the traumatic experience of being transferred from one life to another. She is played as a typically English young woman Evelyn by the famed actress Michelle Collins – a firm long-time supporter of the Chickenshed. Playing the part of young Eva from the age of nine until adolescence is Hope Marks, a young, talented actress who must be destined for a successful career in the future.

Her Jewish mother is Gemilla Shamruck who is a member of the Chickenshed staff. The tragedy of her face as she returns from Auschwitz and meets the very English young woman who was her little daughter is a haunting memory.  Pete Dowse is another Company member; he plays a ghostly Ratcatcher, the Pied Piper of Hamlyn  who kidnapped all the children and whose book is more or less the basis of Diane Samuel’s play. Evelyn’s young daughter who is curious to understand her mother’s uncomfortable feelings about anything German played by Mirrim Tyers-Vowles who is a recent chicken shed graduate.

Lou Stein who worked at Watford Palace and founded the Gate in Notting Hill, is the Company’s newly appointed artistic director, and he has given us a fascinating event that will stay in the memory.

I sat next to the author last night for I Love Lucy.  This is not so much play as a sort of memoir and a love letter to a very dear friend. A woman who was loved by ‘ninety per cent of the world’. Not sure about this, but certainly at the time of her fame she occupied many a TV screen for a half hour every week for twenty-five years.

The young Lee Tannen watched every episode after it was recorded –  each one over and over again. It was a wonderful surprise to him as a child when he found out he was actually related to his idol .  It took him a while before he could actually speak to her without stammering but when he did he became a very close friend for the last ten years of her life after her much-regretted divorce from Desi Arnaz.

It is related in first person with Stefan playing the young Lee. He is a very attractive young man with warmth and humour and great timing and Sandra Dickenson is a revelation as Lucy – she treats the character with enormous  compassion and she is totally grounded – not the feather-brained character we saw on the screen – resembling rather  more a kind of strawberry blonde Ethel Merman.  

He gives her many amusing things to say although as in this kind of memoir one thinks maybe he tweaks it a little in order to get the full humour of the lines. She is incredibly funny in her remarks about Joan Crawful, Lauren Bacall , her strange encounters with Bette Davies and her infatuation with the beautiful Carole Lombard and her widowed husband Clark Gable – who never recovered from the sorrow of her death.. 

At one point he cleverly gives his version of a scene – and then the real one of what  really happened just as we all edit our stories when we tell them, in order to make them more interesting.

As I said it doesn’t really function as a play  but an account of an unusual relationship. The story is told with great humour and quite a bit of pathos. It’s a great evening’s entertainment.