A little over a week past I heard an interview on BBC with Gay Soper, a frequent habitué of stage and screen here, on the subject of her latest show, The Sister Wendy Musical. The title was all I needed to hear, I ordered a ticket right off.

For those of you unfamiliar with Sister Wendy, she was a nun who made a vow of hermitage, lived in a caravan on the grounds of a convent, and turned into possibly the most influential television art critic ever. She was treated with contempt by many in the art world for her naivete, but greeted with joy by many more laypeople who welcomed her singular enthusiasm for art and her almost evangelical fervour. I couldn’t pass this up.

The show is at the Hackney Empire Studio, by Hackney Central station. This is a couple of stops past the Dunston/Kingsroad station which serves Arcola Theatre, so a bit of a haul. On a Sunday night, when the overground trains run only every half hour, this is significant. I got there with plenty of time, and had the chance to have a quick bowl of chow mein before the show. That was my first mistake.

The show was poorly attended. It had opened while I was gone, and I hadn’t read any of the reviews. Now that I have I can tell why. It was not well received. I can agree with much of what has been written by the critics, although I feel that some of them (Guardian, Times) brought their critical bias against Sister Wendy to bear upon the production as well. I think that unfair. That being said, however, the show was weak.

The book and lyrics are good, as is most of Gay Soper’s performance, though she must learn her lines better — a shortfall shared by many in the cast. It is the direction, staging, music and enthusiastic but amateurish supporting ensemble which drag this otherwise uplifting show down with the weight of their failings.

Staging a broad musical in an intimate setting (the theatre seats only a few dozen) is difficult. The broad strokes with which most characters in a musical are painted look cartoonish and foolish to a viewer only ten feet away. No adjustment for this was made, excepting on Soper’s part, and the result was a disappointment. Were this a fund-raising performance by a church group, it would have been impressive. As an off-West End show, with tickets going for £12, it failed. The blame for this, I feel, can be laid at the feet of Okai Collier company who produced the work. Omar Okai, direction/staging/choreography deserves much of this, though with an obviously thin budget one feels Simon James Colier gets his share of blame, as well.

I do feel I must address the seeming inconsistency in my opinion of this piece, with the amateurish appearance of so much of it, and my glowing review of The Grapes Of Wrath, which had a similarly amateurish cast. Well, where to begin… For one thing, Only Connect was right up front that they are a non-professional company. They are almost boastful of this, and of the nature of their work. I went into that performance not expecting anything better than a church fund-raiser. This show, in contrast, was promoted as an off-West End show, and I approached it with that level of expectation. Only Connect are a charity, and the show, besides its own good works factor, is a fund raiser. I gladly dropped a twenty in the basket on the way out, confident that it would be put to good use. Lastly, even though it was not a musical, the music in Grapes was better, better performed, and had a much greater impact in the show than anything in tonight’s show.

In all fairness, I must admit to having had to leave the theatre about 20 minutes before the end of the show (see the chow mein, above). I cannot believe, however, that any miracle prevailed in fixing the many flaws in the production that I witnessed while I was there. The final twenty minutes of a show may redeem an apparently weak script, but cannot make up for a poor performance or conception.

My final word? If you have £15 or less to spend on theatre in London, go see any of the other off-West End shows I have reviewed on these pages; Thin Toes, Last Living Unknown Soldier, A Prayer For My Daughter, The Harder They Come or even Double Portrait. Or, see a show in a bigger venue, like The Peacock where Sadler Wells stage its big productions, with a ticket from the half price booth in Leicester Square.

I wish Okai Collier well on their future productions, but hope they rethink their approach.

Oh, and a final note – as penance I had to wait nearly half and hour in the cold for the train. 🙁

When I left London for Prague the sunniest, and one of the warmest, Februaries on record had just ended. It was in the mid fifties and sunny as I rode the train to Gatwick. Not any more! It is still warm, got up to 50F today, but windy and drizzly. Tomorrow will be worse. It is predicted that we will have gales up to 80 mph by evening. People are being told to stay home, and the home office just hopes that the worst is over before the Monday morning commute.

And I have a ticket to see a musical treatment of the life of Sister Wendy in Hackney! I hope I don’t get blown off the platform waiting for the overground.

Today I went by tube to Monument to take a stroll by the Tower of London, across Tower Bridge, to visit the Design Museum. Monument (Bank and Monument) is so named for the monument to the Great Fire of London found next door. Not too much to look at right now:

I liked the walk down Lower Thames to Custom House and then along the embankment to the visitor centre for Tower of London. The Tower itself is more interesting to me for what the site and architecture hold than for the inners. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to those who have been reading these accounts for any time at all. I walked the perimeter of the site and took loads of snaps. Check the Day 27 Gallery for more shots.

After crossing Tower Bridge in a brisk wind I strolled along Shad Thames and the southern embankment to the Design Museum. They are hosting two shows, “Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object” and “Brit Insurance Design Award Winners, 2008.” Both good exhibits. I particularly enjoyed the award winners. This was quite the contrast to the unfulfilling show I saw in Prague.

I then high-tailed it up to the Barbican Theatre for a matinee of The Harder They Come, a new musical based on the 70’s movie of the same name. What a good time that was. I was lucky to check the web site this morning and get a last minute 5th row seat in stalls for only £10! The book has its problems, but the staging was innovative, the cast energetic and enchanting, the music expertly played and sung, and the whole works was lushly lit. High praise, and the longest standing ovation I have witnessed here, from a standing room only crowd.

That standing room only crowd was part of “2008 East: a festival championing the best of East London” This comprises dozens of arts groups, shops, restaurants, museums, etc. all trying to bring focus to the lively arts, entertainment and life styles of this vibrant part of the city. I thoroughly enjoyed my part of it, and would have gone to another show, “Marilyn and Ella” in Stratford, but with train works going on, and the weather threatening, I thought better of it and headed home. A quick stop for Kabob and then settle in to write and listen to the Beeb.

I’ll leave you with this interesting view of a shop window being (un)dressed in The City:

Ta!

Back in the UK and I spent only a brief time in the flat before heading up to Hackney, and the Arcola Theatre again, this time for another piece of new theatre, “Double Portrait” written and directed by Tom Shkolnik, a young film maker. This is a two-hander starring Jodie McNee and Nicole Scott in a tense character study.

The script is spare, the production interesting, and the acting is above par. What is missing is an end — there just isn’t one. The whole piece has the feel of a test, like Shkolnik is trying out some story ideas, and wanted to do so with audience support. The story is simple enough, and all too complex. A pair of sisters are separated by miles, and by lives lived. Nicole is a teacher in London, Jodie is wayward in Liverpool. Jodie is suicidal and misses her sister, who has taken care of her during the ugly split of their parents. Nicole is gaining independence away from home, and just starting to recover from a broken relationship.

To watch these two spiral both towards and away from each other is difficult, but we are drawn. McNee’s performance as Jodie is haunting and powerful. Her neediness is palpable, and the opening scene literally made me shiver, something which no other theatre experience has done on this trip. Scott’s performance as the more responsible sister is just as moving. She is a giver, in her family, her job and her relationship. In a telling scene she has an awkward visit from her ex, come to pick up his stuff. He wants to comfort her over Jodie, but she finds the strength to send him packing and stand on her own. This is a difficult scene under the best of circumstances, but made more so here by the fact that Scott must play the scene with a non-existent partner.

An especially effective device in this production is the presence of the two characters on the same stage (set by Agnes Treplin) the same space, but separated by hundreds of miles and their own, very different needs. This is especially effective under Neil Brinkworth’s thoughtful lighting design. These sisters do need each other, and the director makes us feel this deeply by placing them so close together on the stage while the distances between them grow.

This is a good bit of theatre, but it is only a bit. Presented in the smaller Studio 2 of Arcola’s unique energy-efficient building, such a short and as yet under realised production really should have been promoted more as a work in progress, and billed accordingly. The performances and directing would hold a longer show well, all that’s needed is the rest of the script.