Next to Normal – Wyndham’s Theatre – Saturday 6th July 2024

If Music Be the Food of Mental Health, Play On…

Singing is so well known now to help us access areas of emotion talking alone cannot reach, and the melodies, lyrics and vocal performances in ‘Next to Normal’ illustrate that in such a perfectly beautiful way. This is also a musical that reaches depths of psychology with revolutionary openness and honesty. It is not that other musicals don’t have poignant hidden themes, but they are so often just that, hidden in the midst of a fairytale like story. ‘Next to Normal’ is so explicit in its reality. The struggles and traumas of each character fully visible or indeed audible. Tom Kitt created the music, and Brian Yorkey the book and lyrics. ‘Just Another Day’ immediately presents us with a ‘normal’ day in the lives of Diana (Broadway & West End star and Olivier award-nominated Caissie Levy) and her family, who are husband Dan (highly experienced Jamie Parker), son Gabe (award-winner and nominated Jack Wolfe) and daughter Natalie (award-winner Eleanor Worthington-Cox). It rapidly becomes clear their normal is unboundaried chaos strongly catalysed by Diana’s bipolar disorder and, as we gradually discover trauma. They are all trying to manage the impact of that on them individually and the family dynamics in a wonderfully dysfunctional way. As we are introduced to the potential drug-treatment for Diana, with her psychopharmacologist played by yet-another award-winning performer Trevor Dion Nicholas, we enjoy the complications and humour of all the different medications and what might go with what or what might counteract what and the entire cast join in ‘Who’s Crazy/Psychopharmacologist and I’. There is just one other cast member – Jack Ofrecio, who plays ADHD-owning Henry, who is hoping to form a relationship with Natalie. As the production progresses, we also see Diana try psychotherapy (with her rock star therapist also played by Trevor Dion Nicholas) and dramatically too ECT. A link in the theatre programme provides resources of information and support in connection with ‘ApplauseForThought’ for anyone affected by the themes or content in the production. Weirdly, maybe, I was not. I fully recognised how good and powerful the story and performances were, and how ‘true’ they also were to the disorders, traumas, actings out, and all sorts else involved in all the characters journeys through the play. In addition, how open and emotionally connected the performers were with the audience – I appreciated all that, but with a sense of detachment, or as though I was a supervisor feeling empathy for everyone involved, but not falling into the pit. To be fair to myself, it was a kind of busman’s holiday – my day job is as a psychotherapist and I have experience of the whole kaboodle of the issues, which the piece explored, both professionally and personally.

Ironically, though, it was in peer supervision, when asked if the production did justice to bipolar, I felt cold chills going through my body, and the tears started welling-up. Yes, all so true to my experiences with Mum, her mental health challenges and their impact on me. I immediately heard Gabe & Natalie’s song ‘Superboy and the Invisible Girl’ in my head, and thought about how things had been with me and my brother. I won’t spoil this story by explaining why Gabe was ‘Superboy’, but my perception as a child was that my brother got far more attention, and was elevated into being more interesting and enjoyable to be around than myself. On his side there were reasons I won’t go into – on mine, I certainly did feel like ‘The Invisible Girl’ – unseen as everybody else was too occupied with their own concerns, yet also deliberately hyper-good so as not to attract any attention – hiding all within myself… and also, as I didn’t realise then, being the ‘blank screen’ therapist for Mum. All that has been processed in therapy and counselling training, but it does not make me immune from being triggered and that’s all ok – just heals another part of my herstory by revisiting it.

Having said that, for me, only a fraction of the whole range that bipolar can present was explored in the play. Diana lacked the extreme anger and hostility than can be exhibited, and, unlike my Mum, didn’t spend vast amounts of time hiding away in bed. But then that would make for a very boring experience for the audience watching! Then again would be a little like watching that first reality TV – ‘Big Brother’ – at night when everyone was asleep in bed 😉 I feel I did get most from witnessing Natalie’s story and how her attempts at relating with Henry, reflected – at times on stage literally – interactions between her parents Diana and Dan. I feel there are ever so many nuances in this production, and it would take several watches to take everything in. I may well try to go again, or at least listen to and study the lyrics and the music several times more 😊

My Mum was very resistant to psychotherapy and sadly in the main drugs actually made her worse. You’ll have to go see this musical to see if the same is true for Diana. Happily, for Mum her mental health improved vastly in later life, and she and I became closer as we healed the distance between us caused by the negative aspects of her bipolar. She even grew to respect psychotherapy after she asked me ‘Does it actually help’ and I replied ‘Yes, for some people, it really does’ 😊 Ultimately Diana does want to give Natalie a normal life, but she realises she has no idea what that is… As Natalie replies, ‘I don’t need a life that’s normal, that’s way too far away, but something Next to Normal would be ok, yes, something Next to Normal, that’s the thing I’d like to try, close enough to normal to get by…’

‘Next to Normal’ is way far away from being a ‘Normal’ Musical. It is Outstandingly Super-Visible, High-Flying, Gloriously Alive, Essential as Air <3 NextToNormal – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2024

'Curtains' - Wyndham's Theatre - Saturday 21st December 2019

(Rated 5/5 ) 

'Curtains' is a wonderfully sparkling fun murder mystery musical comedy, which incorporates elements of vaudeville, musical drama, comedy, farce, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, spoof, play within a play and even a play within that! There's excellent song compositions with such poignant lyrics and catchy musical tunes as well as emotive subtext giving us powerful psychodrama between its characters in addition to skilful comedic turns. 

The show opens in 1959 Boston, Massachusetts on opening night of the play within a play etc, as the cast perform a wild west number for their production of 'Robbin Hood of the Old West' and their star Jessica Cranshaw (puts you in mind of Jessica Fletcher of 'Murder She Wrote') is murdered at curtain call. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi - played for this set of performances by stand-up comic Jason Manford. His character is a fan of musical theatre and as he investigates what then become a series of murders - do they have a serial killer on their hands?! - gradually develops into the role of director and even producer. Will he raise the show's success and maybe even find love? We have a whodunnit as good as the best crime writers may produce with a detective getting to play a variety of the greatest fictional sleuths (hints of Poirot, Morse, David Tennant in 'Broadchurch' et al) and sing and dance onto the bargain. His dream come true!

The original concept is by Peter Stone with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb - the latter pairing that gave us 'Chicago' and 'Cabaret'. Sadly during the writing of this show, Ebb passed away, leaving Kander to finish and write for them both. My personal favourite number is 'I Miss the Music' as performed here by Andy Coxon as Aaron, in which he sings about struggling to produce music without his writing partner Georgia - played by Carley Stenson - Oh, how life imitates art! 

We are given the classic set of characters you'd find on stage - divas, handsome leading men, rival performers craving the starring role, backstage support and stabbers!, those engaged in love trysts, a tough apparently unempathic producer Carmen Bernstein (Rebecca Lock) and her daughter the ingenue - Emma Caffrey as Bambi Bernet. Carmen comes across as fiercely critical of Bambi but what is really going on behind the scenes? Well actually so much! This piece works on so many levels and has far greater depth than might immediately meet the eye or even heart!

Highly entertaining as well as highly emotive with superb performances by all. 

Curtains – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2019

‘Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle’ – Wyndham’s Theatre – Saturday 16th December 2017

(Rated 7/5 ) 

This review has been uncertain – in fact I have not been able to predict whether it would be written at all. I saw the play with my father 9 days before Christmas and then the very fact of Christmas coming and preparations for that made it difficult for me to be certain of finding time to write it. I have also not been able to be sure of getting it done since and now I sit typing I feel uncertain – as to be fair I do for all reviews and all my writing – as to what words and in what order and with what spaces in between will come out of me right now. What I can be certain of is that it was such a special evening that I would be very disappointed not to have this review to permanently try to record my experience of it for the future. That said I feel doubtful as to how much I will remember and - when I read it back at some uncertain future date – what memories of emotion will be triggered. Life is of course very uncertain. There is very little we can hold on to for sure. If we look hard at something and keep focusing on it as though to capture it forever we may not even realise it is moving away from us… until perhaps it has totally gone. Decades earlier I would never have known having seen a stage show with both my parents – that it would be the last time I would do so with Mum and that it would be years before Dad and I did so with just her spirit – but oh what a spirit filled with love of the theatre – with us. The thought of that on that night and now makes my head spin with the unpredictability of us beings and our being in this world…

So maybe I should end my philosophising a la Heisenberg and get on with writing what I thought about it! For this one I had no real expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. A play about a chance meeting between two very different people – both who have spent years trying to control their existences in this uncertain world – and found strategies to cope creating – apparently – a resistance to any kind of a relationship between them. And having met once by chance why would they meet again and so develop any connection at all in any case? In the development of his two-hander, writer Simon Stephens plays with numerous ideas involving Heisenberg’s Principle and has it as a third character constantly impacting on Georgie and Alex’s interactions, their dialogue, their circumstances and discussion of ideas on how the principle plays out in music, dance and many other aspects of life. It is as though the scientist Heisenberg – with us the audience of researchers - is studying these two humans in an experiment and the wonderful staging and production – so minimal yet capable of expressing so much – reflect that concept. With just a very few props - which the actors assist the mechanics of the staging to appear and disappear – different locations and rooms are created with the aid of the audience’s imaginations and actors descriptions. The lighting is used to either stark or hazy effect as though to create chemical solvents into which to add the substances – the characters. Will they attract or repel?

Alex (Kenneth Cranham) does seem to be initially repelled by the unwanted advances of Georgie (Anne-Marie Duff) at the busy railway station where they first meet. She is American, out-spoken, kind of crazy and much younger than himself. He is a quiet English butcher who loves the silence of walks, dancing and the spaces between the notes of Bach. Anne-Marie Duff is exceptional giving us a character of maddening attractiveness and humour and whom we can’t believe as she lies! Kenneth Cranham provides the perfect foil. Together their performances are mesmerizing. Her exuberance complimented by his stillness, they go on a journey together through the wealth of human feelings with Simon Stevens giving us just enough information about their backstories and the actors emoting so well as to make us fully empathise with them both and fascinated by how things will turn out for them. What will be the results of the experiment? What can be we conclude about uncertain human behaviour in our unpredictable settings?

#HeisenbergPlay

Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2017

‘Don Juan in Soho’ – Wyndham’s Theatre – Saturday 3rd and Wednesday 7th June 2017

(Rated 5/5 ) 

It had to happen – DT as DJ – David Tennant as Don Juan ;) - a totally charming man playing a despicable seduction-crazed rogue – and his adorable long-suffering servant / companion / sidekick Stan - played delightfully by Adrian Scarborough – does warn us not to be charmed by him. And yet we completely are, whilst maybe feeling a little discomfort that we are watching the deplorable yet hilarious almost sexual exploitation – though as he says ‘I am not a pussy grabber’ – of many women, and a few men. DJ is eminently ‘fuckable’ yet ‘unhaveable’ and he celebrates that. He cares not a jot for anybody, being totally untouched by the pain he is causing his new wife Elvira – Danielle Vitalis.

Don Juan has appeared many times over in Operas, poems, plays, philosophical writings and other and there are lovely refs to Don Giovanni in this production. Yet this is a very deliberately contemporary version – ever so much a version for our times making multitudes of references to our experiences of today. In fact so much so that DJ’s rant speech in Act 2 was changed through the run to reflect current events – more on that later but for example including ‘climate change denial by an orange orangutan’ (actually an offence to orangutans ;)). I wish I’d seen it after the UK general election result to see what may have been added then.

David is Delicious as DJ!! And Hilarious and Wonderfully Vile too! He clearly thoroughly enjoyed playing a character so different to himself in behaviour and attitude. DJ is a very clever witty cynic. He loves seduction more than sex itself and will go to any lengths without worrying about who gets hurt – even killed along the way. Being attached won’t save you – in fact will make him want you even more – like the newlywed bride – of whom he hears about in the gents and tells Stan about whilst changing character from himself to the newlywed husband by respectively increasing and decreasing the space between his thumb and forefinger held down as his crotch! And there are so many similar hilarities – including a blanket covering yet another young lady satisfying him – and his responses in facial expressions and sounds - whilst he chats up the bride.

There’s dancing and singing too – most notably between DJ and Stan – DJ moves so sensually and naturally whilst Stan is both funnily awkward yet really good too.

The production is excellent and includes a moving statue of Charles II, staging of Soho itself and a flying bicycle J

This stage-play is by award-winning writer Patrick Marber - a radical entertaining adaptation of Molière’s original play - and was first performed at The Donmar Warehouse in 2006. I did not see that version – in which Rhys Ifans played DJ – but get the impression this one is more impressive. I also have a very strong suspicion that DT did some co-writing with his friend Patrick J I really enjoyed the whole show – especially on second seeing being much closer to the stage in stalls second row – so well worth it! – my favourite part of it is DJ’s rant speech on hypocrisy and the ‘development of man’. It’s highly amusing, clever, witty, scathing, cynical and in some ways self-deprecating eg. the ref to the insincere work of actors and doing the ‘ancestry show’. He comments how we have developed from the caveman drawing an animal on his wall – ‘Well Done’ – to Vlogging and telling each other ‘I bought a plum’. How we are obsessed by others ‘Follow Me, Follow Me, Like Me, Like Me’ – which he demonstrates with a thumbs up. How a ‘concrete block’ is now an iPhone! We just have ‘different tools’.

I’d highly recommend this except that I can’t because the final performance was yesterday! Whoops and apologies. Though selfishly it’s good to have my own experience of it to look back on and remind me of those feelings being an audience member for one of the shows I have found most enjoyable and entertaining J Sadly no DVD but the stage-play is available.

Wyndham’s is a lovely theatre in Louis XVI style from 1899. A more classic space in SOHO!

Don Juan in Soho – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2017