ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE ADELPHI. To 2 August.
Liverpool.
ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE ADELPHI
by Phil Wilmott additional music by Elliot Davis.
Liverpool Playhouse To 2 August 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu 1.30pm Sat 2pm.
Audio-described 17 July 7.30pm.
BSL Signed: 19 July 2pm.
Captioned 12 July 2pm.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 0151 709 4776.
www.everymanplayhouse.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 July.
Hotel romance of women, men and a horse.
With Sergio Leone it was the West, for Mick Martin Wigan (most recently at Bolton), and for Phil Wilmott Liverpool’s best-known hotel; the place where something happened “Once Upon a Time”. Yet neither Leone’s film nor Martin’s play indulges such utter romance as Wilmott’s new musical at Liverpool Playhouse.
From its modern-day tourist babble, as Jo is asked by fellow-receptionist Neil to leave with him, she escapes to the roof, where a mysterious woman stands alone, zooming the action back to the hotel’s 1930s glory days, when it was home to visiting Hollywood stars.
They are backdrop to the story of two workers rising from local poverty, Alice hard-working and dependable, Thompson a ducker-and-diver reformed by his love for her.
Theirs is less a love story than a series of incidents in which he agrees to work in the hotel’s lowliest bowels to become worthy of her. Each emotional crisis provokes a new song or repetition of one already sung in the upbeat score.
Any reality is blown apart as war is drafted in to heighten tension, and events become absurdly sketchy. Eventually modern times recur, the young of today learning from the yearning story of their predecessors. It’s hokum throughout, as Wilmott the writer, with his parodic quintet of Dick Barton plays behind him, is doubtless well-aware.
Wilmott the director knows exactly what will make a grand show, with local poverty forming a jolly knees-up in Andrew Wright’s choreography, which makes a welcome return, energising the darker second act with defiant war-time dancing in the hotel.
Christopher Woods’ revolving set swings the Adelphi into romantic golden existence under Ben Cracknell’s lighting, showing Liverpool’s meaner strreets through creased pictorial sheets. Julie Atherton is affecting as Alice, Helen Carter comically overdone in contrasting roles. The men tend to be stiffer with the dialogue.
It’s popular hokum, extended a fortnight already. And a story where the hotel appoints its first woman manager stands well at this midpoint of Liverpool’s culture year, as the theatres run jointly by Deborah Aydon and Gemma Bodinetz sizzle with energy in contrasting stories of love and war.
Jo/Young Alice: Julie Atherton.
Thompson: Simon Bailey.
Babs/Hollywood Wife: Helen Carter.
Lord Rothmore/Hollywood Producer: Neil McCaul.
Fritz/Neil/Frank: Tom Oakley.
Older Alice/Mo Thompson: Natasha Seale.
Roy Rodgers/1st Movie Star: Nick Smithers.
Ensemble: Lisa Clifford, Sophie Edwards, Victoria Inez Hardy, Michael Ledwich, Kane Murray, Sally Peerless, Jennifer Riley, Jennifer Thornton.
Director: Phil Willmott.
Designer: Christopher Woods.
Lighting: Ben Cracknell.
Sound: Jason Barnes.
Musical Arrangements/Musical Director Elliot Davis.
Choreographer: Andrew Wright.
Dialect coach: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Assistant director: Joe Fredericks.
Additional musical arrabngements/Assistant musical director: Mark Collins
Assistant choreographer: Gemma Fuller.
2008-07-07 11:03:22