A musical, staged live, in the park? That’s a miracle!
Jesus Christ Superstar (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London)
Verdict: A religious experience
Camelot (Garden stage, The Watermill Theatre, Newbury)
Henry V/The Merry Wives Of Windsor (The Maltings Open Air Theatre Festival, St Albans)
Verdict: A trifle tame
Verdict: Low-rent fun
FOR much of its 50-year history Jesus Christ Superstar has been shunned as embarrassingly uncool. That was until Timothy Sheader’s stadium- sized 2016 production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical version of the New Testament story at Regent’s Park.
Now that show has been gloriously resurrected, in the hope of working postlockdown miracles at the box office.
We were told to expect a scaled- down ‘concert performance’ running at 90 minutes without interval. But what we got looked very much fully fledged to me. Tom Scutt’s rock concert-esque set design with shelf-like steps is spectacular, and there’s otherworldly lighting from Lee Curran.
Most impressive is the ecstatic, non-stop, high- energy choreography from Drew McOnie — think free-form interpretive dance with a dash of pole dancing; flashes of Joe Wicks’s stretch and burn; and a showstopping Sister Act-style hallelujah chorus near the end. If this is just a concert version, the original must have ripped the veil of Regent’s Park in twain.
There are some whopping performances, too. Pepe Nufrio’s Jesus is an earnest and melancholy youth with a sometimes squeakysquealy voice. But cometh the song, cometh the rock god — for the metal numbers he matches Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, while reserving a sweet Harry Nilsson quality for gentler acoustic songs.
Some of those are a bit of a linguistic schlep up and down sonic mountains. Accordingly Ricardo Afonso as Judas and David Thaxton as Pilate lay it on extra thick (think AC/DC’s late lead singer Bon Scott). AND
I was highly amused by the bare- chested Pharisees, who seem to be modelled on the Rank film gong-ringer, but with sceptres instead of hammers.
What’s more, the evening has a tender, emotional core thanks to an exceptional performance from Maimuna Memon as Mary Magdalene. She has a rich, soulful, Adele-like voice, which brought the 30 per cent capacity crowd to rapt silence under their masks.
Your temperature is checked on the way in but, to be fair, it should probably be done again on the way out after this Biblical assault on the senses. Praise be — and welcome back, live theatre!
THe Watermill’s concert performance of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot may feel too tame in comparison. I salute the theatre for staging it in its verdant bowers, but I wish it was a little less prim.
Part of the problem is the tepid plot. Michael Jibson gets us under way as King Arthur with a morose number, I Wonder What The King Is Doing Tonight, which put me in mind of John Le Mesurier’s rueful Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army.
Paul Hart’s show is emotionally underpowered, too, with Caroline Sheen’s Guenevere only mildly tempted by the prospect of an affair with Lancelot. Her opener, The Simple Joys Of Maidenhood, expresses disappointment that the tradition of going to war for a maiden’s hand may be going out of fashion. It’s prettily sung, but there’s little passion here.
Marc Antolin’s Lancelot makes a promising start, vaunting his Gallic charms from the theatre’s rooftop in a pastel-green suit and aviator shades. Alas, he takes Guenevere’s ‘No’ for an answer all too easily, and turns out to be not so much Lance-a-lot as Lance-a-very-little.
The band pump out the notes with professional verve, but I’d rather they had let their hair down and been a good bit naughtier.
THe outdoor theatre revolution continues in St Albans’ Roman amphitheatre, with two splendidly low-rent Shakespeares.
Henry V, in which Harry once more rains death on the French at Agincourt, is presented as a school production… with loose ties, backchat and teachers trying to get down with the kids.
Cricket bats are used as english weapons, while the French get tennis rackets; and mops become cavalry horses. Mara Allen’s easy-going Henry could work on her ferocity, but it’s not taken too seriously, and the tone is set by a running joke about Stormzy’s Heavy Is The Head (the line actually comes from Henry IV Part II, but I won’t downgrade them).
Merry Wives, meanwhile, has the feel of the end of a boozy fete. It is presented, beside a burger van, as a 1980s karaoke night with a band called Spirit Of Wantonness.
The tale of the women of Windsor ganging up on randy Jack Falstaff substitutes the Hey Nonny Nonnys for songs such as Alice Cooper’s Poison and Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun. It ends with a choreographed version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, as they repair to the woods.
As the butt of the joke, Lachlan McCall’s Falstaff gets to croon along with Barry White on Just The Way You Are (‘Don’t Go Changing’), despite being transformed here into a slimline version of the famous fatso.
Best of all, both shows have a tireless sense of fun that no downpour could dampen.