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Britain really does have talent 42nd
Street
Stage Experience
The New Alexandra Theatre
**** STAGE Experience is an annual theatrical
treat in the West Midlands when the New Alex stage is taken over by a
bunch of youngsters who fill it to the flies with bags of enthusiasm and
no small amount of talent. What is remarkable is the fact they sat down for
the first time and read the script just two weeks earlier and 12 days
later And it is not just on stage, there are also 10
Stage Experience youngsters stage managing, and running the sound and
light desks. This is Pollyann’s 12th Stage Experience show and
is perhaps her biggest to date – a full cast all dancing on stage at one
time points to the scale while the fact the sets have come from a
Broadway production via a UK professional tour give you an idea of the
quality of the production.
Throw in an excellent 15 piece orchestra under
Musical Director Chris Newton, many who played on the UK tour of the
show, and the youngsters had a lot to live up to – but they managed that
and more, from the first opening number with the entire cast in a tap
routine to the final curtain calls down a stage filling, art deco
staircase. The story, set in the Depression era 1930s is a
simple backstage musical: Peggy Sawyer, arrives in New York from
Allentown, Pennsylvania, with no experience but a head full of dreams of
Broadway. She is too late for the
auditions for Broadway’s latest show,
Pretty Lady, but by a fortunate
sequence of events ends up not only in the show but as the star – helped
in part by colliding with the original star on stage and breaking her
ankle. It might not be the most common route to promotion but is
certainly effective. Peggy is played with a great deal of confidence
by Caprice Lane who has just completed her A levels at William Brookes
School in Much Wenlock. She has a lovely voice, tap dances like a dream,
she can act and to top it all she is pretty – so what’s not to like. Matching her in the tap
dancing stakes is Matt Pidgeon as Billy Lawler,
Pretty Lady’s
romantic lead. He is currently four times World Tap Dance Champion and
it is easy to see why, but it is not just tap, he has an easy, natural
manner on stage. Katie Gladwin, from Solihull, impresses as Maggie
Jones, the co-writer and producer of Pretty Lady while Mollie-Anna Riley
gives a lovely performance as Dorothy Brock, the aging star who has done
nothing to speak of for the past 10 years, but still has enough of a
name to put bums on seats. She is famous for her less than modest
dancing ability and Riley, who has a fine voice, gives her a nice air of
bitchiness to go with it. Keeping those feet a tapping – or hidden in the
case of Dorothy – is choreographer and dance director Andy Lee, with a
very Pulling the show
together is the legendary, hard-nosed director Julian Marsh played by
Northfield actor Mark Shaun Walsh who excelled at the Rev Shaw Moore in
last year’s production of Footloose
– and just to prove it was no fluke, he
has done it again. The part demands a commanding presence and an air
of maturity befitting a hard-bitten, well established Broadway director
– not easy for a 21-year-old but he pulls it off in some style,
displaying a fine, well trained baritone voice.
The musical started life as a Busby Berkeley
dance extravaganza from 1933 and there is a lovely tribute to the
unrivalled Berkeley and his elaborate geometric pattern dance numbers
using an angled mirror above the stage. The leads are supported by a fine cast and
ensemble and although the stage is often crowded it never looks a mess
and no one becomes scenery or props, everyone has a part to play even if
it is in the background. Carving a successful career on stage,
particularly in musical theatre, makes the labours of Hercules seem a
doddle, particularly with so many talented youngsters on so many
university and college theatre courses. There just aren’t enough jobs
for even a small percentage of successful graduates. So these youngsters
face a challenge. This show proves they are good enough and deserve to
succeed, now they just need the theatre gods to smile on them. The show has some
well-known songs such as Lullaby of
Broadway, We’re in the Money and the
eponymous number, Forty Second Street
and sports a cast with boundless contagious enthusiasm with an audience
leaving with a smile on their face, happily humming tunes from the show.
You can see why to Saturday, 15 August. Roger Clarke
13-08-15
And down the street a little . . .**** THIS is just about the ideal show for
Stage Experience to parade their talents, and the ambitious youngsters
grasp the opportunity in great style. More than 100 are in the cast, some of whom have
never appeared on stage before, but in a matter of weeks outstanding
professional director and choreographer, Pollyann Tanner, has drilled
them into a superb team. They revel in the story, set during the great
American depression in 1933, which follows newcomer chorus girl Peggy
Sawyer who takes over from the injured leading lady at short notice and
saves the new musical, Pretty Lady, from closing down. Caprice Lane, an 18 year-old whose ambitions for
a stage career should be realised, is excellent as Peggy, impressive
singing the big numbers and supremely confident in the tap dancing
sequences. She has some great moments with Matt Pidgeon and
Mark Shaun Walsh, both giving powerful performances as leading man Billy
Lawlor and show director Julian Marsh. Fine performances, too, from Katie Gladwin
(Maggie Jones) and Mollie-Anna Riley (Dorothy Brock, the injured veteran
star who is replaced by Peggy). The musical has timeless songs like We’re In the
Money, Lullaby of Broadway, Shuffle Off to Buffalo and, of course, Forty
Second Street, all played stylishly by the orchestra under musical
director Chris Newton. Since 2003 nearly 1,500 young people have taken
to the New Alexandra Theatre stage under the guidance of the Stage
Experience staff, enjoying the challenge of appearing in professional
scale productions, and some have gone on to enjoy acting careers.
Several of the current group are already heading the same way. In addition, others have worked with the
theatre’s team on various aspects of showbiz….including sound and
lighting.
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director and choreographer Polyann Tanner has turned 110 wannabes into a
professional standard show.
professional looking display by Nicholas Jones.