Bat out of hell - "All revved up with no place to go"

In the late sixties the first rock musical Hair defined a genre in an innovative and compelling form that has seldom been surpassed. Perhaps only the staging of the Who’s rock opera Tommy has really combined successfully rock music with a strong story line and its influence is hinted at in the criss-cross pattern around the proscenium arch which echoes the Tommy album cover. But in Bat out of hell we have a exciting new rock musical that combines strong rock anthems, innovative staging and a large talented cast to produce a genuine modern rock musical for today. Having seen it in Manchester and at The Coliseum in 2017 it was with great anticipation that I saw it in its new residency at the Dominion.

Jim Steinman has created a wonderful dynamic show around the music made famous by Meatloaf. There are strong allusions to Peter Pan in the story created to link his songs. We have Peter, here called Strat, leading the lost with his special confidant , Tink and falling in love with Raven (Wendy ) while being pursed and at war with Falco (Hook) .But at its heart are the love stories between Strat and Raven and between Falco and Sloane (his wife and Raven’s mother).

From the moment Strat, played by Andrew Polec, climbs on stage to polish his beloved Harley Davidson and delivers his menacing opening monologue the tone is set .He is a leader, a rock star and his lost tribe will follow him against the police state lead by Falco.  Raven played with youthful innocence by Christina Bennington is locked away from him in her 1st floor bedroom but she breaks free to meet him.  She is embarrassed by her own parents’ passionate love making played with amazing stage presence and powerful voices by Rob Fowler and Sharon Sexton.

The relationship between these two couples is supported by a wonderful cast of 26 (perhaps at times too many) with standout performances from Danielle Steers as Zahara and Wayne Robinson as Jagwire. Their duet of “Two out of three ain't bad” is exciting and, but they surpass this with a thrilling “Dead ringer to love”. Throughout the songs are backed with high energy modern tribal choreography.

The staging is grandiose and multi layered with amazing automated scene changes, multiple projections and some stand out special effects to create the post-apocalyptic city of Obsidian.

Of course at the heart of the show is the music with classic rock anthems such as “Objects in the Rear View Mirror”, “Dead ringer for love”, “Bat out of hell”, “I'd do anything for love”, and “All revved up with no place to go”, sung with great musicality and energy the show builds to an exciting finale which is certain to produce standing ovations night after night.

The production have just announced six sing along performances to add to the fun.

Nick Wayne

4 stars

Killer Joe - "A highly sexualised taut tragicomedy"

Great drama should challenge the cast, take production risks and leave the audience breathlessly on the edge of their seats and this West End premiere of Killer Joe certainly does all three of these. Author Tracey Lett’s subject matter is an unpleasant, poor dysfunctional trailer trash family in southern USA and its adult content is certainly a risk for a West End audience. The play presents producers and cast with a number of challenging physical sequences but they pull it all of with great skill to create an exciting dramatic climax that does have the audience at times pin drop silent and then on edge of their seats before rising as one for a standing ovation.

The extremely detailed design of the trailer home by Grace Smart, exquisite lighting design by Richard Howell and atmospheric musical underscore by Edward Lewis create a perfect setting. It’s claustrophobic and chaotic with the neighbours close by and the family living on top of each other and the use of primary colours to illuminate windows and doors adds to the tension and sense of a threatening environment. The family unit is inherently unstable when they invite Killer Joe into this caravan to assist with their problems.

Simon Evans’ direction creates a highly sexualised taut tragicomedy which is often on the edge of descending into a very dark shocking thriller.  It is a sort of Sam Shepherd (bleak, surreal and alienated American citizens) meets Joe Orton (shocking but amusing black comedy).  Murder, infidelity, fraud, incest, violence against women, drugs and alcoholism are all tackled often graphically. It requires a strong cast working effectively together to deliver this extraordinarily combustible mix of depraved characters.

The first we meet is Dottie, the young mentally damaged innocent twenty year old played with a fragile intensity by Sophie Cookson as she tidies the caravan before climbing on the roof where she escapes her family members. She is the pivotal character of the story being the object of desire but also the young child in need of protection.

Her brother Chris is a wild dangerous disruptive force and the catalyst for the explosive events that unfold. Adam Gillen gives an extremely physical performance twisted in physical and emotional pain. Much of the time it is manically over the top but his poignant telling of the failure of his rabbit farm is in contrast mesmerizingly quiet.

His father Ansel (Steffan Rhodri) seems to seek the simple non confrontational life – watching TV, drinking beer - and appears almost uncaring about his children. His new wife, Sharla is the fourth member of the family to share this space. Neve Mcintosh is challenged to descend from sexual siren to a frightened submissive with a guilty secret and it is uncomfortable watching at times as the violence increases.

Into this family is unleashed Killer Joe with shocking effects on them all. Orlando Bloom creates this cool, scheming, dangerous interloper speaking in a southern drawl and deliberately burying the memory of his film creations of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean and Legolas in the Lord of the Rings. He inhabits the character with a gripping compelling slow delivery which is almost soothing and chilling at the same time. His presence on stage becomes the focus and he controls the action until the final moments.

The whole glorious production builds to a traumatic climax in which Fight Director Jonathan Holby and Movement Director Oliver Kaderbhai create choreographed mayhem veering quickly between extreme realistic violence to comic knockabout cartoon brutality.

You may not like or sympathise with the characters or the play content but this is a brilliant piece of dramatic storytelling wonderfully executed by an excellent cast in a first class production that reflects on the gun-toting underclass of America.

Pressure - "There is nothing predicable about British weather"

David Haig has written and stars in this fascinating play about a little known critical role in the D-Day landing planning played by Group Captain James Stagg, a committed straight talking Scottish meteorologist who is called upon to lead an international team to predict the weather conditions in the channel for the landings. Set in the room he occupies constantly in the run up to the events in Southwick House on Portsdown Hill in Hampshire over the period from 2nd June to 6th June 1944, the play explains his predictions and the response from Allied Command.

It requires the audience to understand the different terminology and techniques in predicting the weather and the writing manages to make this interesting. On the one hand the American Krick uses historical charts over the last twenty one years, whereas Stagg uses his intimate experience of British weather patterns and a 3D view of conditions including the high level gulf streams. He says he is a scientist not a gambler and says amusingly " there is nothing predicable about British weather" and that a long range forecast is twenty four hours plus! It is a critical decision for General Eisenhower because he has to safely land 160,000 men and equipment on the Normandy beaches. As one character says there is so many tanks and equipment in Britain that "only the barrage balloons stop the country sinking"!

The play revolves around three characters. Stagg, played wonderfully by David Haig himself, a man who despite his brilliance is racked by doubts caused by the pressure of his work and home life situation. Eisenhower is a very convincingly performance by Malcolm Sinclair, a clear leader but also feeling the pressure of his decision and its impact on the lives of the soldiers, especially the paratroopers to land behind the enemy lines. The third character is the General's driver / secretary, Kay Summersby, a charming performance from Laura Rogers, although she is perhaps too similar to the character Sam in the TV series Foyle's War. There are touching scenes between the three of them enjoying an orange or glass of whisky and a rather over extended comparison between American football and rugby union.

They are well supported by the rest of the cast with an amusing cameo by Michael Mckenzie as a local electrician seconded to the unit and not allowed to leave, a devise used to explain some of the background to the five DDay beaches, and from Philip Cairns as the unbending American meteorologist, Colonel Krick.

The sense of the moment and the pressure on the occupants of the room is enhanced by the view from the balcony of the weather condition through the window, the sound of the planes outside and the blackout curtains over the windows. The large frame up stage is used to mount the weather maps at key moments and project the date and time which despite the fact that we know the outcome before the start does enable Director John Dove to create tension and drama in the lead up to the go/no go decision.

With the recent success of the movies Dunkirk and The Darkest hour and the excellent new play Shadow Factory at the Nuffield Southampton, Pressure is another World War II story that celebrates some of the key personal human stories behind Britain's war. It makes for an enjoyable and intriguing evening’s entertainment and another success for David Haig

Lieutenant of Inishmore - "It is incidents like this put tourists off Ireland"

Martin McDonagh is a very confident and clever writer whose most recent success was the film "Three billboards outside Ebbing Missouri" but he must also have felt incredibly brave when he wrote "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" in 1994 (although it was not staged until 2001) as it is a very dark satire about the IRA and their splinter group the INLA. He spares no punches in portraying them as "fecking" idiots whose answer to everything is torture and murder. The plot is simple Mad Padraic, a terrorist so dangerous that he is thrown out of the IRA, is disturbed to hear that his beloved cat Wee Thomas is ill that he interrupts his torturing of a local drug dealer to rush to his home on the island of Inishmore to be with him. It sets up an elongated black comedy sketch worthy of Monty Python or Spike Milligan.

The setting designed by Christopher Oram, as always with Michael Grandage's artful productions is impressive and detailed. The main scenes take place in his father's cottage on the island , which apart from the plain blue cyc outside the front door and windows, looks incredibly solid and shows Padraic's humble rural background. The rest of the scenes are played in front of a splendid 3D map of the island of Inishmore which is also used to cover scene changes in the cottage.

The two central characters who open the play are the terrorist's father Donny, a delightful comic performance by Denis Conway who has been charged with looking after the cat and the young  Davey, an impressive West End debut by Chris Walley who has discovered the body of the cat on the road and boosts a "girl's mane of hair". They decide to let Padraic down the gently with the news, just like the very old joke about the person told to let people down gently by saying the cat is on the roof when it has died and later explains to his relative that the mother in law is on the roof. This is the level of the farcical comedy throughout even in the dark bloody scenes of torture and murder which comes to a climatic conclusion in a bloodbath at the end of the play.

Aiden Turner plays Padraic, dressed in a white vest and a two revolver holster and is required to look mean and broody throughout even when he encounters a love interest with another would be terrorist Mairead played with cool authority by Charlie Murphy. Even in his most desperate difficulties with three guns at his head and hands tied he still believes "something will turn up". His fan base from his role on TV Poldark will easily put aside his unpleasant character and enjoy his performance.

They are well supported by other members of the INLA who are seeking to keep control of the group and are involved in the desperate shootout which leads one character to muse, "it is incidents like this put tourists off Ireland" and another to reflect that "I don't suppose it is the travel that attracts fellas to the INLA".

Michael Grandage's company consistently deliver very high quality productions, well cast, beautifully staged and directed with a strong clear hand and never let the audience down.