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Just don’t
step on those shoes
Shaun Williamson as Jim and Mica Paris as Sylvia
Love Me Tender
The New Alexandra Theatre
****
LOVE ME Tender
is another sojourn into jukebox musicals, this
time taking the path forged by the likes of
Mama Mia
(Abba) and We Will Rock You
(Queen), weaving a story round the songs of a single artist – in this
case Elvis.
And
the result is a sort of Elvis does
Footloose as our hero Chad – guitar,
leather jacket, quiff, overactive pelvis, curling lip etc – is released
from jail – no prizes for guessing the show opens with
Jailhouse Rock
– and arrives in some backwater in small town America where pretty much
every bit of enjoyment is banned apart from breathing – and that allowed
only if it is not too heavy.
The
draconian laws of no loud music, public necking or tight pants are
enforced by bull horn toting Mayor Matilda Hyde, a puritanical, white
supremacist played beautifully for laughs by West Bromwich born Siân
Reeves, who played villain Sally Spode in Emmerdale.
Chad,
played with Fonz-like cool with a nice,
toungue in cheek humour by
Ben Lewis, needs repairs to his motorcycle and when the town’s grease
monkey mechanic Natalie, played by Laura Tebbutt, sees our hero she
falls gasket over piston for him.
Love at
first sight – except Chad’s first sight moment comes when he sees Miss
Sandra, played by Kate Tydman, owner of the town museum.
Meanwhile
nerdy trainee dentist Dennis, played
with spot on comic timing
by Mark Anderson, who is i n
love with Natalie, is invited to be Chad’s sidekick so Natalie decides
she too will be one of the boys to be close to Chad and dresses as a
man, Ed, – except Miss Sandra falls for him . . . her . . . Ed and it
becomes more involved when Chad also falls for . . . Ed
Then, to complicate matters further Afro-American Sylvia, played by soul
singer Mica Paris, who runs the local honky-tonk, has the hots for Jim
played by Shaun Williamson, Barry Evans in EastEnders who was last seen
in the Midlands struggling with the concept of identical twins as
gangster Charlie Clench in One Man, Two
Guvnors.
Following that dream: Natalie, played by Laura Tebbutt
and Ben Lewis as Chad
Charlie
meanwhile falls for Miss Sandra to complete a rather complex ménage à .
. .six, or sept even, if you count Natalie’s cross dressing.
So thank
heavens for Lorraine, daughter of Sylvia, played by Aretha Ayeh, and
Dean, son of the puritanical mayor, played by Felix Mosse, who actually
fall for each other with no complications . . . if you ignore a
puritanical, white supremacist mother.
Throw in Sherriff Earl, a man of few words played by Chris Howell, who
has the hots for . . . you starting to get the picture. Everyone falls
for someone in a circle of unreciprocated passion and the job of writer
Joe Dipietro is to sort it all out in time for the rousing finale with
Burning Love.
The
plot is loosely based on Twelfth Night
with a hint of Romeo and Juliet
thrown in, not that you need to know either play to follow what is a
pleasant enough storyline which avoids stretching imagination or
intellect too far.
The
occasional racial undertones do not always sit comfortably and I wasn’t
too sure about the red hooded Klan chorus line although I suppose,
probably unintentionally, it did echo Presley’s own racial
controversies.
He was a
white star at a time when segregation and a colour bar was the norm in
many Southern states, including his home state of Mississippi, and he
was seen by some whites as some sort of race traitor by championing
black music and causes, and by some blacks for finding the huge success
from black inspired music that was largely deni ed
to black artists at the time
Meanwhile
back at the lovefest, the other star of the show, as far as the audience
was concerned, was the music and with 758 songs recorded by Elvis in a
career that ran from 1953 to 1977, there was plenty of choice.
We
had the likes of Heartbreak Hotel, One
Night with You, It’s Now or Never, Blue Suede Shoes,
with several warnings not to step on them,
All Shook Up, Can’t Help Falling in Love
and the eponymous Love Me Tender.
Siân
Reeves as Mayor Matilda Hyde with Chris Howell bringing up the rear as
Sherriff Earl
If I can
dream, written by
Walter Earl Brown, was inspired by Martin Luther King’s
I have a dream
speech, and was a rather poignant moment for Dean and Lorraine while
Natalie, left alone gives a lovely, ballad tempo version of
Fools Fall in Love,
originally a Drifters track, by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
A
strength of the show is the quality of singing from all the leads. Paris
we all know about and her There’s
Always Me is a highlight but Shaun
Williamson comes in with a fine baritone, Lewis has the voice for rock
and little Aretha Ayeh can really belt out a song while Nerdy Dennis,
training to be a dentist, throws off the shackles in
It hurts me.
Throwing off more than shackles when she removes the glasses and lets
her hair down is Miss Sandra. Her Let
Yourself Go is not so much a seduction
as a sexual battering into submission, lovely stuff.
It
is billed as the new musical, which is not strictly true, although it is
certainly a new title having started life on Broadway as
All Shook Up
in 2005 where it ran for almost seven months, going on a US tour the
following year and arriving in Britain, in a new production, with a new
name, earlier this summer.
Some songs fit in well,
others are forced in there, and the script is a bit predicatable, but,
hey, this never set out to be West Side Story or Les Miserables, the
whole thing has a fresh, lively feel and is a fun musical, with a clever
set from Morgan Large and some nice touches, such as the saloon doors
and museum statue, from director and choreographer Karen Bruce who keeps
everything moving along at a cracking pace – even throwing in a moving
bus . . . sort of. The result is an
entertaining evening with plenty of feelgood factor to send any audience
home with a smile and a headful of songs. To
Saturday, 29 August.
Roger Clarke
24-08-15
Two for the show
****
ELVIS Presley may have
left the building, but the King’s rock ‘n’ roll music is still pulling
in the fans and entertaining new audiences.
His songs inspired this
musical, set in the 1950s, and the first night audience certainly
enjoyed the action and responded with an enthusiastic standing ovation.
Although the musical may not
have the strongest story, it is warm-hearted and amusing and not just an
excuse to churn out a succession of Elvis hits.
There are 25 of them woven
into the show, and they are cleverly used during the action which opens
with guitar-strumming Chad leaving prison, inevitably to the rousing
Jailhouse Rock.
Ben Lewis is superb as the
ex-con who rides his motorbike into a one-horse town in the American
mid-west and soon begins to transform the strict code of conduct
demanded by the puritan, loud-hailer-toting Mayor, Matilda Hyde, played
with delightful comic timing by West Bromwich born Sian Reeves.
The entire cast have excellent
voices, and can dance, but one of the highlights comes with
award-winning Mica Paris, playing bar owner Sylvia, singing There’s
Always Me. What a voice!
Shaun Williamson, best known
as Barry from EastEnders, seems able to turn his hand to anything in his
acting career, and he is a hoot as garage owner Jim, the middle-aged
widower looking for love, and Laura Tebbutt sparkles as his tomboy
daughter Natalie, who takes a shine to Chad.
Strong contributions, too,
from Mark Anderson as the geeky Dennis and Kate Tydman (Miss Sandra).
Karen Bruce is director and
choreographer of a lively show which runs to
Saturday.
Paul
Marston
24-08-15
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