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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Drama in the Carry On shadows
What a carry on: Sid (Patrick Richmond-Ward, left) holding court in the splendid caravan set with Barbara (Emily Armstrong) and Kenneth (Ian Cornock) Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle & Dick Sutton Arts Theatre **** THIS is a game of two halves, as the old
football cliché goes, almost two very different plays on either side of
the interval all set around four of the 29 original Carry On films made
between 1958 and 1978. Each of the four episodes is proceeded by the
trailer for the original film with the curtain opening on the same set
each time, a rather fabulous, cutaway caravan designed by stage director
John Islip and built by John and his team using a real caravan chassis. It is not often a set gets a round of applause
but this one did and it deserved it. The opening is Carry on Cleo from 1964
when the scene is set. South African born Sid James is a rising star
afforded his own caravan on the set of the low budget film while the
rest had to slum it. We learn that Sid has two hobbies: gambling,
where he was not very good, losing tens of thousands during his career,
and women, where he was much faster and more single minded than any of
the horses he backed. Patrick Richmond-Ward is a passable Sid with his
dirty laugh and permanent grin, wandering hands and ever ready to jump
into bed . . . on to the couch . . . behind bike sheds . . . anywhere
attitude. He is matched by Ian Cornock as the acerbic
Kenneth Williams, who was actually in more Carry On films than Sid, 26
to 19. Williams and James had had a feud since their days together in
Hancock's Half Hour, and their love hate relationship continues.
Cornock has the gestures, flouncing and peevishness of Williams although
perhaps the odd hint of Brummie should be ironed out of our Kenneth's
affected tones. Williams' and James' relationship had perhaps more hate than love about it, a familiarity rather than a friendship. brought about through work rather than any rapport or bond. Williams was close to very few people throughout his life apart from his mother. He also had no romantic relationships, with male or female, to speak of either, claiming to be celibate. Carry On Cleo with Sid and Kenneth who were not s much friends as actors who kept being thrown together Into their lives came Barbara Windsor, in her
second Carry On film, played beautifully by Emily Armstrong who even
managed the famous scene from Carry on Camping when Babs' bikini
top flies off to reveal both her breasts – and, much to the dismay of
male members of the audience - she also revealed even quicker hands. She is a bubbly personality throughout and you
can see why Sid could fall for her. It is obvious from the start that
Sid, who has a fairly full schedule in the bedroom department, would be
more than willing to fit Barbara in, so to speak. Watching it all unfold is Sid's new dresser Sally played by Aimee Hall who is making quite a name for herself in the amateur theatre with Grange Players and Aldridge Youth in her CV and good reviews in Oleanna at Highbury just three weeks ago. Young enough to be his granddaughter she manages
to hold off Sid's advances throughout Cleo and again in Camping. No mean
feat as Sid goes through dressers as other people go through toilet
paper. Adding glamour and availability to Sid's lustful
life is the tragic actress Imogen Hassall, the Countess of Cleavage, who
was to take her own life with an overdose of barbiturates at the age of
38. She is played with a hint of vamp and more than a flash of thighs by
Liz Webster. The scene is set during Cleo and Camping which
give us a bit of a rollicking romp, with a hint of farce and a few barbs
thrown in but, rather like the Carry On films themselves, not much
substance. All that changes after the interval though when
the trio are involved in Carry On Dick and Terry Johnson's play,
based on well documented events, really starts in earnest. Babs has
married East End gangster Ronnie Knight who sends round his minder
Eddie, played with a sort of benign, none-too-bright menace by Dave
Douglas. Eddie is ostensibly Babs' driver but his real job is to keep
and eye on her and Sid and try to stop them getting too close. True to form Sid manages to not only tap up
Ronnie to borrow money but borrows his wife as well, as you might say. Sid is desperate to spend his life with Babs and
perhaps his greatest blow is when Ronnie is sent down for murder and
instead of running to Sid, Babs sticks by her husband. Richmond-Ward manages to make Sid, the Carry On
character of the first half, into a person, a lonely, old man full of
self pity and self loathing who has lost the only real love of his life. All the characters are changing. Williams is
becoming more depressed, more disillusioned at his failure as a serious
actor, telling Babs that we all hate ourselves for not becoming what we
wanted to be. Sally reveals her secret to the audience, if not
to Sid or anyone one else on stage, and finally we come to Carry On
Emmanuelle in 1978, two years after Sid had died on stage of a heart
attack during a performance of The Mating Game at
Sunderland Empire. People remember Barbara Windsor as the good time
girl with the twin attributes in Carry On films, and from The Queen Vic
in EastEnders, but they forget, or never knew, she also had a
career as a serious actress playing in Shakespeare and starring in Joe
Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane among other West End productions. She appeared as Marie Lloyd in Sing a Rude Song and was nominated for a Tony for her performance on Broadway for Oh, What a Lovely War. Barbara Windsor became more than just another challenge for Sid, she became an obsession She declined Emmanuelle when she discovered that not only was she being asked to do a small part but it was a part which, once again, gave a starring role to her breasts. Ironically Carry On's good time girl had decided the series was becoming too smutty and suggestive. Williams was fighting his own battle about
a scene he found a humiliating. He lost and had to do the scene in what
was to be his final Carry On film. He is perhaps the saddest character of them all,
classically trained but never being recognised as anything but a gay
comic figure. He bemoans hosting the TV series International Cabaret
when he discovered they were using canned laughter. “Slogging my guts
out for laughs that weren't even mine”. The caravan set at the end is dirty, dishevelled
and ready to be scrapped and Williams looks around and tells Babs “We
are all dead already. We just haven't the good grace to lie down.” He was to finally lie down ten years later from
an overdose of barbiturates with an open verdict recorded - the inquest
unsure whether his death was an accident or suicide. The play reveals not only the often sad lives of
three of the stars of the Carry On series but the back biting and
feuding and the less than glamorous lives they had to live on set at
Pinewood Studios with low pay and damp, dingy accommodation. Stardom
with not much in the way of glitter. The cast are not only believable as the
characters they portray but by the time the Carry On bubble has finally
burst they have turned them into people we actually care about. Director Claire Armstrong Mills made sure
the stage never appeared cluttered in the confines of a caravan and kept
up a good pace. Opening night saw a few assists from the prompt but
hopefully that will be her last contribution to a play which grows from
comedy to drama over the space of two and a half hours and 14 years. It
is funny, revealing and at times sad. To 31-03-12. Roger Clarke Just a word of
warning: there is some bad language in the production |
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