Matilda

Matilda: Capturing the imagination of children and the wallets of adults alike

Very good news emanating from our cousins across the pond, as Matilda opens to rave reviews from pretty much every critic on Broadway. Whilst it doesn’t make the show any less brilliant if it fails to convert to our American Matilda friends, a Broadway smash is still seen as the gold standard for any musical – and there are many West End hits that failed to become the next ‘Phantom’ (over £5.5 billion sales worldwide and counting).

As the Guardian points out, there is money to be made in this market – the RSC anticipating £11 million advance by the end of the first day. £2.5 million was made in previews alone. It recouped its £7 million costs in London in ten weeks and plays at 98% capacity ever  since its October 2011 opening. However without the Broadway gold star then it makes the global tour of ‘Les Mis’ that much more likely, it means opening up to tours of Australia and Asia, across Europe and indeed anywhere else where it could be marketed.

There may be some in the art world that still sneers at playing to the gallery, at the rather déclassé notion of thinking about returns on investment, but this ignores the 15% real terms cut to the RSC’s Arts Council funding. It ignores just how much productions like Les Mis and Warhouse lined the coffers of publically subsidised theatre companies in the times of plenty so that now, when times are difficult and will continue to be so for some time, we see the National managing to erect a completely new temporary space in ‘The Shed’ rather than cutting costs and going dark whilst the Cottesloe is renovated. It allows the RSC’s annual tour to Newcastle to be reinstated.

In the week of Thatcher’s death it seems appropriate that the biggest product in British Theatre is a musical subsidised by the public sector. It was entirely in keeping with her vision that success in theatre equated directly to success at the box office, and to this Matilda appears to of hit the brief. However could Matilda have been made purely with private investment; could the private sector have brought the true subversive nature of Dahl to the stage? Could they have taken the risk on such a child-centric production? Would they have wanted to spend money on a production that decries the traditional family, that cocks a sneer at perceived lower-brow passions and that hires a lyricist as dynamically witty as Tim Minchin?

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And the winners were…looking back at the 2012 Olivier awards

So in the final analysis the 2012 Olivier awards ended ‘not with a bang but with a whimper’.  The relentless march of the Matildas’ continues apace, more than a match for T-2 in terms of remorselessly crushing all that stand in their way. The Evening Standard Awards pointed towards what was to come but the warnings weren’t heeded and on Sunday, at approximately five o’clock in the afternoon, the Matildas’ laid waste to another awards festival. The destruction, when it came, was all but total. 

Nominated in ten categories, the Matildas’ blitzed the competition in seven to break the RSC’s own record that has stood firm for over 30 years; back when Nicholas Nickleby made all bow before him. They took a clean sweep of almost all the major musical catagories, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best New Musical, Best Director & Best Theatre Choregrapher – the only break in the chain came with the surprising victory of Nigel Harman in Shrek: the Musical. It is thought his victory, as the vertically-challenged Lord Farquaad, only come about as judges mistook his diminutive stature for the infamous fifth Matilda, and awarded him the prize accordingly.

The other musicals kneel before the newly crowned queens of the West End. The big loser of the evening being the box office smash hit Ghost: The Musical. As unappealing as the concept may sound, it has unsurprising and dispiritingly been ‘box-office dynamite’. However not so much of a hit with the judges; going home empty-handed despite nominations in 5 categories.

Two rather more depressing news items is that London Road also managed to lose out in each of  its 4 categories. Each time nominated against a Matilda, each time losing out. Crush, Kill, Destroy. The other woeful piece of news is the fact that Les Miserables managed to somehow win the BBC Radio 2 Audience Choice Award. Seriously, how many awards does it need to win? Hasn’t it had enough, haven’t people had enough? We are going to get it rammed down our throats later in the year, as Oscar-magnet Tom Hooper and hotel-destroying-magnate Russell Crowe have been handed the reigns to put it into every multiplex in the country. Can we not have a break, please?

The Open Air Theatre’s production of Crazy for You continuing its late-blossoming West End success story, managing to snag two awards in just three nominations and taking home for hotly contested Best Musical Revival – fending off stiff competition from Singing in the Rain, South Pacific and the Wizard of Oz.

In the non-musicals (or plays, as some like to style them) it was a much closer fight. With no overall winner, Frankenstein and Anna Christie both walked away with two, whilst Collaborators and Roadkill ended up with one apiece. In the battle of the celebs, Jude Law lost out again (following the Evening Standard Awards) to the Jonny & Benny show in Frankenstein. If this seemed strange, what seems almost perverse is that Frankenstein picked up Best Lighting Design but Underworld’s magnificent pulsating score failed to win Best Sound Design and Mark Tildesley failed to even get a nomination for his epic set that made full use of the Olivier’s vast open spaces.

Ruth Wilson picked up a richly deserved Best Actress gong for Anna Christie, in doing so she fended fending off a series of  ‘A-List’ stars in Kristin Scott-Thomas, Lesley Manville and Celia Imrie; all of whom gave solid performances in rather less solid plays. Still a much-deserved win and one that suggest a bright future is ahead of her (if she can be kept away from the bright lights of the silver screen).

And talking of bright futures – in some of the most heart-warming news of the evening, Sheridan Smith completed her double by walking off with Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her role in Flare Path. This follows her Best Actress win in Legally Blonde last year and marks a triumphant return to the stage and is proof that she is capable of doing serious alongside light and frothy.

Olivier Awards 2012…and the winners are…

Tomorrow night sees the stars of the stage descend upon the Royal Opera House for what is arguably the biggest night in England’s (or perhaps more contentiously given the list of nominees – London’s) theatre world: the Laurence Olivier Awards. It will be possible to watch the event live via the red button on the BBC, or listen to Radio 2, from 19:30.

As is often the case the list of nominees make for interesting reading and arguably casts a brighter light on the theatre scene than the list of those who actually win. Rather than going through the complete list of the  runners and riders, a quick glance across the categories does raise some interesting talking points.

8 Key Questions

  1. In what can only be seen as a damning indictment of the non-subsidised West End stomach for risk-taking, the only nominated new play that premièred outside of the subsidised sector was an adaptation of the most famous of all Ealing comedies. Whilst well-received by the critics, is it not possible for a playwright to be allowed to stage new work in the West End (special exemptions for famous Hollywood actor/writers not withstanding)?
  2. Is it a thin year dramatically? Even the revivals don’t seem to have their usual vim. Hopefully Anna Christie will be recognised for its fine work and it will be up against a strong revival of Rattigan’s Flare Path; a playwright very much in vogue.  However Noises Off seems to be a rather populist choice when you consider the fine year the Donmar had with the rarely performed and excellently executed ‘Inadmissable Evidence’ directly following Anna Christie.
  3. Will London Road be able to withstand the Matilda charge? It lost out to populism at the Evening Standard Awards, and whilst Matilda is a fine and deserving winner in its own right isn’t it time that London Road was recognised for the stunningly brave and unique production it is (and for those who missed it first time, it is coming back to the Olivier this summer – a portent perhaps?)
  4. Can the Sheridan Smith success story continue? Everyone’s favourite 2 Pints of Lager…breakout star is up for a fairly unique double; after picking up Best Musical Actress at the first time of asking for Legally Blonde, Ms Smith will be hoping to make it two in two years for her fine performance in Flare Path. However competition is tough in a category that also includes Mark Addy, Bryony Hannah and Johnny Flynn; all of whom should be regarded as excellent contenders in their own right.
  5. Just how many can Matilda win? The remarkable story continues and you don’t fancy anyone coming up against them. Best new musical to edge out London Road? Bertie Cavill is surely a lock-in for Best Actor Musical. Does anyone have the heart to deny the Matilda’s their moment as Best Actress Musical? Paul Kaye could be on shakier ground as he is up against Katherine Kingsley’s Lina Lamont – a scene-stealing role if  ever there was one. And after all that there is a raft of technical awards that someone has to win.
  6. The Best Actress/Best Actor awards seem totally up for grabs. Desperately hope that the double-header Cumberbatch/Lee Miller is overlooked as Frankenstein wasn’t that great.  My personal preference would be a Ruth Wilson/Jude Law double for Anna Christie. However Douglas Hodge in Inadmissible Evidence would be a worth winner.
  7. What is the point, I mean really, what is the point of the BBC Radio 2 Oliver Audience Award when you have to chose between Jersey Boys /  Wicked / Les Freakin  Mis and Billy Elliot? How about giving us a write-in winner?
  8. How much more alive does theatre feel when you look at the nominees in Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre? Mogadishu and Roadkill could have been strong contenders in the main categories but here they feel punted to the sidelines.

And finally good luck to all the nominees.

Laurence Oliver Awards 2012

Even better than Cook’s chocolate cake

Cambridge Theatre, 21 December 2011 – booking until Oct 2012

There is a long and often inglorious history of converting  much-loved books into musical theatre. The temptation for doing so is obvious; flying in the face of overwhelming critical disdain, Les Miserables has provided a template  for financial success. It has a mantelpiece of audience-choice awards, a global army of devoted fans and by January 2010 it was celebrating notching up 10,000 performances in the West End. In short the tills have not stopped ringing since the original Cameron Mackintosh-Trevor Nunn production in 1985.

A salient and oft-overlooked fact by those who sneer at Les Mis is that this success has seen the RSC (producers of Matilda) through the brutal conditions suffered in the 1980’s under a prime minister who held Andrew Lloyd Webber as a shining example of artistic achievement. No doubt Jean Valjean would not have countenanced betraying his principles in such a manner but clearly the financially imperatives of publically subsidised theatre led to Trevor Nunn’s rather more pragmatic vision.

With Les Miserables finally beginning to flag, transferring to the noticeably smaller Queens Theatre and with the famous Barricade seemingly less than impressive in its new surrounds, the RSC have sought to launch a new cash cow in the form of a major new musical adapted from a well-known book. Clearly it was though that the National’s approach of writing a verbatim musical, ‘London Road’, about the serial killing of five prostitutes in Ipswich was not the way to long-term commercial success.

However the road to the West End is paved with the carcasses of plots from their literary womb untimely ripped. Topping this sad and unfestive tree must be Gone With The Wind, critically reviled and starring a woefully miscast Darius (remember him?), but there is also Carrie The Musical, a concept so clearly problematic that the mind boggles at the commissioning process. For most of 2012 we have been entertained by the sorry stories emanating across the Atlantic surrounding the sheer ineptitude of Spiderman: The Musical; a show that could only have come from trouble-shooting consultants who identified a previously unidentified cross over between comic book fans and musical theatre goers.

The RSC must have approached Roald Dahl’s much-loved children’s book with some trepidation. He is an author who, like Enid Blyton, never seems to go out of fashion despite offering a nostalgic view of England that those reading the books will find hard to reconcile with a world of X-Boxes and Club Penguin. With a central premise built on libraries, it even smacks of radicalism that seems very at odds with Dahl’s natural conservatism.

Continue to the full review here

And for a special sneak preview…