July 2012 Archives

When you’re a theatre person like I am, writes Oliver Tompsett, you can never fall out of love with the business. We continue to have a passionate and fruitful relationship with all things theatre for our entire lives. As in any healthy successful relationship, there will be changes we must adapt to. Anyone who still thinks we need the Spotlight ‘book’ should not only learn to open a web browser, but should also open their eyes to the future.

I am changing my approach to how I can increase my chances of employment in musical theatre. I’m not the only one who is taking such measures, and I want to explain why.

Theatre — and musical theatre in particular — is obviously dominated by the need to sell tickets. For producers, that means raising the profile of their show, ensuring that word of mouth is good, and making people come and see their show over the rest. One of the most popular tactics is to use “names” or “celebrities” in the principal roles of their show. With recognisable faces pasted all over their advertising, the public is promised not only an evening’s entertainment but a glance at someone off the telly. This isn’t a new tactic at all, but has been on the increase for some years now.

So, how do actors, like myself — or even the undiscovered talent from around the country, that already have only a few ways in — even get half a chance, when nearly every lead role that’s going is almost certainly heading toward the next winner of Dancing on Ice? (A show which, by the way, I would love to be on!)

The answer is to continue to be the best you can and take every opportunity to not only improve your craft but also make people sit up and watch what you can do. The paths you take to raise your profile can be anything between making yourself available for the local cabaret and showcasing your talents to a small audience, to the other extreme of auditioning for a nationwide talent search that might showcase your ability to millions — as I tried to do with ITV’s Superstar.

To open this post, I cede the floor to Mary Magdalene, as imagined by Tim Rice for the Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar:

I’ve been living to see you.
Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this.
This was unexpected,
What do I do now?
Could we start again please?

I’ve been very hopeful, so far.
Now for the first time, I think we’re going wrong.
Hurry up and tell me,
This is just a dream.
Oh could we start again please?

I’m a firm believer that, for all their flaws, TV casting shows have so far produced net gains for the industry as a whole. They do come with their faults, of course, but on the whole they’ve combined enjoyable television with increased awareness of musical theatre to an audience that wouldn’t normally consider such things.

Or at least, that’s what I thought before Superstar. The whole show, which finishes tonight, seems to be setting itself up to fail, doing so many things that both prevent the programme from being as entertaining as it could be, and from it being taken as seriously in the industry as it could have done.

Now, for the first time*, I think TV casting is going wrong. Dear ITV, could we start again, please?

No? Oh, well, here’s what I’d change if we could.

* NB: I didn’t watch Grease is the Word.

Have you tried larping? If you’ve never heard of it, it stands for live action role playing, a hobby where enthusiasts recreate famous battles. With all its gruesome boys’ toys, the medieval period is one of the most popular.

It’s generally regarded as a bit of harmless make believe, but when you take part and someone thrusts a weapon at you that could skewer a manatee, you get a sense of the very real thrill and terror of 15th century battle. It was with this in mind that I sat down to Shakespeare’s bloodiest play of all, expecting “the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries, the dead men’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans for husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers” in all its glory.

Sadly, in this department director Thea Sharrock’s Henry V isn’t up to scratch.

• The Hollow Crown: Richard II
• The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part 1
• The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part 2

This weekend Richard Eyre’s contribution to the Hollow Crown came to a hefty conclusion — with more pomp, more ceremony, and, you’ve guessed it, even more of the rotund Simon Russell Beale making Sir John Falstaff’s foibles unexpectedly unjolly (a performance that’s been splitting opinion, but I’m still a fan).

In Part 1, you didn’t see as much of Jeremy Irons as you would like. This time, playing King Henry like Joe Cocker auditioning for Lear, all those memories of Brideshead Revisited, and that dashing, edgy Charles Ryder come flooding back to remind us that if you want calculated, gloomy or edgy, a dead-set Mr Irons is still one of the best. I suspect when Geoffrey Palmer’s Chief Justice warns Falstaff not to “wake a sleeping wolf”, he’s talking about the man whose eyes put the hollow in the hollow crown.

Over on his daily theatre blog, Mark Shenton lays into ITV’s new theatre reality casting show, Superstar:

It’s certainly depressing that established talent feels it’s necessary to submit themselves to the indignity of a public popularity contest. Where will this pandering to public taste end?

Over the last five-and-a-bit years on this blog, I’ve reviewed most of the BBC’s output in this genre, from Any Dream Will Do onwards. And while I’m not going to be writing weekly reports for The Stage this time round, I’m still going to be watching every episode.

There is much wrong with the format, as I’ve repeatedly noted over the years. On the basis of Superstar’s first two episodes, which aired on successive nights last weekend, those largely remain: the audition process and boot camp stages, both of which could be entertaining to the general public as well as instructional to those who want to learn both what to do and (more importantly) what not to do in the audition room, are ridiculously shortened in the hurry to get to live shows and revenue-generating premium rate phone voting (the BBC’s phone votes raised money for the Corporation’s Performing Arts Fund - what ITV does with its cash has yet to be determined).

Henry IV is packed with glorious bawdiness and drama, but for some reason screen adaptations are rare.

The BBC took it on in 1960 with mini-series An Age of Kings, casting a likeable Sean Connery as Hotspur. Then came Orson Welles who, in a realisation of his lifelong ambition, played Falstaff in 1967’s Chimes at Midnight, a sumptuous combination of the tetralogy for the big screens.

Kenneth Branagh dreamed of Robbie Coltrane in the same role in his rousing Henry V from 1989, Michael Pennington’s masterful seven part stage series came a year later, and then Gus Van Sandt’s My Own Private Idaho sparked thousands of teenage girls’ Own Private fantasies of Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in 1991. But since then, more than 20 years of silence, and I can’t work out why. Where else can you find an aspiring leader who, while plotting his way to the top, wins the support of his “pitiful rascal” underlings by pretending to like pints? Oh, wait, hang on…

Starting on Saturday and continuing for the next three weeks, BBC2 is showing a sequence of Shakespeare’s historical plays under the umbrella title of The Hollow Crown. Writer and theatre reviewer Jonathan Watson will be reviewing each film every Monday.

The last time the BBC spent this much money on the monarchy, it was a right royal you-know-what. During the jubilee, thousands braved the horrible weather and lined the Thames in soggy formation, as “so many greedy looks of young and old through casements darted their desiring eyes” to the Royal Flotilla. The more sensible among us stayed at home to watch it unfold on telly. After all, we’d been promised a perfect vantage point, expert analysis and essential viewing without getting soaked or crushed by a stranger in a Union Jack tuxedo.

What we didn’t bargain for, however, was Fearne Cotton and Jake Humphreys presenting the jubilations like they were a segment on Saturday morning children’s TV. At one point, as Prince Philip jigged about on the top deck of the Spirit of Chartwell, I thought Dave Benson Phillips might show up and gunge the right royal husband, before a panning shot back to Cotton who, as she gave two thumbs up, would shout ‘wicked!’ into the camera.

Well, maybe not, but you get the idea.

And, after a flood of more than 5,000 complaints including Stephen Fry calling it “mind-numbingly tedious” on Twitter, the pressure was on the Beeb not to make the same mistakes with The Hollow Crown, its major contribution to the Cultural Olympiad. Thankfully, this time around there’s no such cock up, despite the fact the Bard and TV don’t always make for successful bedfellows. In fact, Rupert Goold’s film — the first of four spanning Richard II, both parts of Henry IV and Henry V — is a camp, luxurious triumph.