Ian Cheeseman presents Break-a-Leg on Tameside Radio, which is packed with great guests and theatre music. Read his latest column here...
Last week, here in my column dedicated to all things theatrical, I wrote about juke box musicals and mentioned that the latest incarnation of this format that I’d seen was Head Over Heels, with the story of Arcadia set to the songs of the US Girl Band the Go Gos. It was staged at the Hope Mill Theatre, which is just behind Ancoats in Manchester.
I’d been to this venue before, to see a play about Manchester City’s goalkeeping great Bert Trautmann, but this was a full-blown Broadway Musical on stage. The venue is small but the cast was impressive. Julie Stark, who played Gynecia, was part of the 25th anniversary tour of Les Miserables and was a regular in We Will Rock You in the West End and Maiya Quansah Breed, who played Philoclea, has also played Catherine Parr in Six: The Musical, and those are just two examples of the pedigree of the amazing cast.
The choreography was stunning, the acting was mesmerizing and the singing was top class. I couldn’t find any fault with it. However, the story is based on Arcadia, which was written by renowned English poet Sir Philip Sidney, who lived in the 16th Century. I found it difficult to follow, especially as the language used, described by the passionate director Tom Jackson Greaves as, “a rebellion against the confines of history, a celebration of uniqueness, a light in the dark”, challenging.
I agree. It’s joyous and diverse, and speaking personally, I’ve always been a fan of the Go Gos and the songwriting of Charlotte Caffey and Belinda Carlisle, so I knew I’d love it from the start. The reason the original version of this show only ran for six months on Broadway, from July 2018, is because the Go Gos don’t have that cross generational appeal that other juke box musicals have.
I love Bat out of Hell, a musical which is based on the songs of Jim Steinman, made famous by Meatloaf. That too has a surreal story line. When my son watched it, he told me he loved it but hadn’t a clue what was going on. I felt a bit like that when I watched Head Over Heels. As a fan of the music, and as a fan of live theatre, I was gripped, but if you asked me to give you a synopsis of the story I’d struggle, apart from telling you who fell in love with who.
The night I was there the Hope Mill Theatre, wasn’t full and it’s only a small venue anyway. That broke my heart. Those talented creatives deserved a much bigger audience.
By complete contrast, I interviewed one of the cast of Opera North’s Ariadne auf Naxos, by Richard Strauss, which will be at the Lowry in Salford on Friday 10 March. Jennifer France plays Zerbinetta and told me about her excitement at being back in the North, having trained at the Royal Northern College of Music, after first attending a performing arts school with a view to a career in the West End.
Jennifer told me, “Opera is just like Musical Theatre, it’s all about story telling. We’re doing an English translation in this production. The whole first half is in English, from the original German. Some people could be nervous, coming to the Opera for the first time but there are subtitles everywhere so you can follow it and the most important thing is we, the performers, understand every word, so we can act it in the way it should be.”
Jennifer was a fascinating interviewee and will be one of my guests on Break-a-Leg, my weekly show on Tameside Radio 103.6FM, this Sunday (12 March) from 7pm.
You can join Ian for Break-a-Leg on Tameside Radio 103.6FM every Sunday evening from 7pm to 9pm and Wednesdays from 9pm to 11pm. You can also catch up on previous episodes here.
