Grease The Musical is at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh this week (Mon 27 Sept – Sat 02 Oct) and it is hard to believe that this show is now 50 years old (the original stage production was in 1971). Many of us (myself included) would, however, have been introduced to the story and characters of Grease via the now iconic 1978 film starring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta.  

Grease the Musical and Grease the film have always been two different takes on the same story, and anyone that is familiar only with the film should be aware that the theatrical stage show has always been a very different production.  The film version of the story did its best to turn this story into a far more sugar-coated one than the original, but it never managed it completely, and you only have to listen to the lyrics of the original show songs in the film (some new ones were written for the film) to realise that there is a real “urban” story here with explicit content and a real bite to it.

Since the film version, audiences have quite rightly expected to hear their favourite songs in the stage show too, so the two versions have merged together over the years, and the result has been a little bit of theatrical magic that has thrilled generations of fans of the show.   You have to ask then, was a re-working of the show needed from director Nikolai Foster (the first major one in 25 years)?  The answer to that depends as always on the eye of the beholder, and I had reservations myself about what someone was going to do with one of my favourite musicals. I am still not sure that every change here was necessary; we have some new songs here, but they fit in well to the story.  More importantly though, this version of the story has gone back to the core material of the original story line whilst still being smart enough to retain some of the film songs too.  There is a darker edge here to any other version of Grease the Musical that I have seen over the years.

This is a young cast for this show, and that is the way that it should be, but any cast for this show always will have the unenviable job of many people comparing their roles to the massively popular film, and that is always a bit unfair. This is a story of being young and it needs that energy that a young cast can bring to it. Grease is also important in musical theatre in general because it provided a vehicle for young and upcoming talent to learn their stage craft, and there are always too few opportunities for them to do this.

The two headline stars for this tour are Georgia Louise (Sandy) and Dan Partridge (Danny). For tonight’s performance however, the role of Sandy was played by Ellie Kingdon who gave a very solid performance here, and worked well with her co-star Dan. The “known name” in this show was of course Peter Andre who was obviously having a lot of fun on-stage camping up his dual roles as Teen Angel and disc jockey Vince Fontaine.  This story is of course a musical and the choreography has all of the sharpness that you would expect from an Arlene Phillips production.

Musically, this show was hitting all the right notes. Dan Partridge is reprising his role of Danny here and is obviously comfortable with his songs and Ellie Kingdon got an enthusiastic response from the audience for her take on Hopelessly Devoted To You.  This song was obviously intended to be delivered in a “power ballad” style for this show, but it is always to me a fragile song of a teenage heart breaking in two.  Always nice to see the Greased Lightning song rightfully returned to Kenickie (Paul French) as it was “stolen” in the film by Danny (Travolta).  Stealing the show a little for me though was the performance by Tendai Rinomhota as Rizzo on one of my favourite songs from this show, the very dark, but honest, There Are Worst Things I could Do.

Grease the Musical is still, despite the darker tones underneath, it a fun show, but it is never the children’s show that some people imagine it to be and it has very adult themes (as always).  The show was, however, a welcome return to seeing live musical theatre back on stage at The Festival Theatre and the perfect tonic for everyone in the audience tonight after all of the problems of the past 18 months or so. It was good to see an audience just having fun, perhaps forgetting any problems they had for an evening, and leaving the theatre with smiles on their faces.  A job well done, Grease.

Review by Tom King (c) 2021
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH

This book, published in 2021, is the second in a series of a comprehensive four book project that covers the history of the shipyards of Leith and the Leith-built ships that were constructed there to find service all over the world.  This volume carries straight on from the first book that told the story up until the end of World War I, and takes us through the post WW1 years, into the difficult years of the depression of the 1920s and the even more difficult years of the early 1930s, a decade of course that was to culminate in the start of the global conflict of World War II.

Like the first book, the author’s personal experience of being in the working environment of Leith shipyards is crucial to his understanding of not only the many stages and many trades that go into building a ship of any size, but also an obvious love of shipbuilding and still great pride in not only his own working skills, but the many different skills of everyone working alongside him.

This book is the story of not only the ships constructed at Leith, but also the shipyards of Leith, and features the history of names that gave employment to generations of Leith workers. Names that include Cran & Somerville, Hawthorn & Co, and of course the “of its time” leader of the pack Ramage & Ferguson.  This is also a story of acquisitions as one after the other, these names fell on hard times to be taken over by their neighbour on “ship-builders row”.  Even the mighty Ramage & Ferguson was to eventually fail in the 1930s and be taken over by the “newcomer” Henry Robb, a company that was to dominate not only Victoria Dock, but Leith shipbuilding and Leith employment for decades to come.

This book, like the previous volume, follows the history of the shipyards from their actual records of ship construction and we move forward as the ships are built, often finding the fates of many of the ships built in Leith.  The fate of no ship built at Leith is more elusive though than that of the mighty Kobenhavn. In her day, this was the largest sailing ship built at a British yard (with engines if needed).  Her sails alone covered an area of over 52,000 square feet with over 23 miles of rope for the running rigging.  On her 9th voyage between Buenos Aires and Australia this incredible ship failed to reach her end destination and, to this day, no confirmed wreckage has ever been found.

The story of the Kobenhavn is a stark reminder of just how much of a risk the open seas were (and still are) to any ship, and we sometimes take for granted the loss of life, even in peacetime, that was to be the price that all too many sea-farers paid for their wages.

This book covers times of plenty just after WWI when so many ships needed either repaired, re-purposed back to their original purposes (many had been requisitioned by the war office for other uses), or new orders to replace the millions of tons of shipping lost during the war. Still there was this never ending paradox of the skilled shipbuilder; working fast enough to keep up with a schedule that often ensured the ship be completed in the fastest time keep building costs down and profits high for the buyers, whilst at the same time knowing that if another ship was not waiting to be built that they were “laid-off” with no wages until more work came along.  Of course, Health and Safety regulations as we now know them were almost non-existent in these days too, and the job, which involved working outdoors in all weathers, was a hazardous working environment to be in if you were not very careful, or often just very lucky. This is also the story of a time when world freight went by ships and not air transport and when cargo had to be unloaded and did not arrive containerised at the docks.

As with Volume 1, the author has a light touch of writing history and you can read this book as either a general introduction to the ships and the shipyards or if you have a deeper level of interest move further into the history of the ships with written and photographic records that are obviously the result of much detailed research.

The shipyards are all gone from Leith now, and the streets that once filled the air with the sounds of thousands of workers’ footsteps and voices have long ago fallen silent.  Leith however is a place where history often stays in one form or another, and Leith Victoria AAC founded over 100 years ago in a hut at Ramage & Ferguson is still in Leith (having moved home a few times over the years) and known to generations simply as Leith Victoria Boxing Club.  

Review by Tom King (c) 2021
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH

Grounded is the new and 6th studio album from German-based folk band Cara. This album was originally planned to be released in 2020, but events in the world were to take us all down different paths and force many a well-laid plan to be re-scheduled, including this one with the appropriately named title of the album Grounded which is due for release now on 15th October 2021.

If you have not come across Cara before, then the band take their name from the Scottish/Irish Gaelic word for “Friend” and features Gudrun Walther: Vocals, Fiddle, Accordion; Hendrik Morgenbrodt: Uilleann Pipes, Irish Concert Flute, Whistles; Jürgen Treyz: Guitar, Dobro, Banjo, Vocals; with Scotland’s/ Edinburgh’s very own Kim Edgar completing the band line-up on Vocals and Piano.

Cara was founded 18 years ago and currently is one of the most successful folk bands in Europe (and further afield).  Part of the reason of not only the longevity of the band, but also their success is that each band member is an accomplished musician in their own right, and brings something very different to the band, and the result is music that is simply timeless.

The 12 songs on this album come from many sources and many strands with skilful arrangements of traditional folk classics and newly written songs.  It is hard to imagine any other band so seamlessly blending work by Bob Dylan (Lay Down Your Weary Tune) and Robert Burns (Lassie, Lie Near Me) into one soundscape, or taking the story of meeting a Faerie Queen which has been whispered down the gentle winds of time (True Thomas) and making an old island working song (The Cockle Gatherer) feel like they have always belonged together.

There are new songs here too, like The Spell of Winter, but in the overall context of this album, they sound like they have been with you for a very long time, and that is one of the hardest things to do in folk music, make the new sound like it has always been there.

Anyone who has seen Cara perform live will also immediately recognise the instant appeal of some of the instrumental jigs and reels on this album too.

From a production end, this album has a lot going on not only in the recording studio, but also in the packaging of the product, and the album comes with an informative booklet on all the songs on the CD.

If you want more information on the band, and their tour schedule visit https://www.cara-music.com/index.php/en/.


Tracks
1. The Cockle Gatherer ('S Trusaidh mi na Coilleagan) (4.35)
2. The Windhorse (3.41)
3. Lay Down Your Weary Tune (5.11)
4. The Grounded Traveller: March for the Grounded Traveller / Trip to the Fridge (5.04)
5. Lassie, Lie Near Me (Roud V39584) (4.14)
6. B&B Jigs: Gan Ainm / Paddy Keenan's / The New Leaf (4.16)
7. True Thomas (Roud 219; Child 37) (5.56)
8. The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow (4.49)
9. Jaboozy (3.20)
10. The False Lover Won Back (Roud 201; Child 218; G/D 5:974) (4.46)
11. Milky Way Set: Milky Way / Boys of Chicago / Not Tuscany (5.17)
12. The Spell of Winter (4.15)

Review by Tom King (c) 2021
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH

MAKING NUNO: Japanese Textile Innovation from Sudo Reiko is at the Dovecot Studios Edinburgh from 17 September 2021 to 8 January 2022, and if you have any interest in textile manufacturing and design then this is an exhibition not to miss.

This innovative and informative exhibition is the end product of a new partnership between Dovecot and Japan House London and the Centre for Heritage Art & Textiles in Hong Kong (CHAT) which focuses on works by acclaimed textile designer Sudo Reiko, Design Director of leading textile firm NUNO (Japanese for fabric).

For many of us, the creation of a textile is almost taken for granted and that is perhaps understandable as the product is everywhere, particularly in our world of mass-production surplus. It has not always been like this though; textile has been literally interwoven into the fabric of our society for thousands of years and in pre-industrial society highly valued for both its practical and artistic uses.  We have also too often taken as simply accepted the design on fabrics as if they just appear there by magic; perhaps they really do, but it takes a skilled fabric designer and equally skilled workers in fabric to make that magic happen.  We are all living in a world where there is a constant need to re-focus on what skilled artisans bring our world, and the connections that they have not only to traditional crafts, but also to something often unseen and indefinable, a connection maybe to something that has always been with us, but is so elusive that we can rarely touch it - human creativity.  This last statement is important because through the skills of the textile maker and designers we actually get to touch, to hold creativity in our own hands.

Over the five large installations in this well designed exhibition we get the chance to be reminded that there are still people out there who care about the endless possibilities of creating something wonderful from design inspiration to finished product, and also doing it in a way that allows the industrial processes of manufacturing to be both innovative in its use of materials and sustainable for this and future generations.  This use of traditional crafts and the exploration of applying them to new materials and production methods has been at the forefront of Reiko’s work and design ethic for the past 30 years.

This exhibition is a rare chance to get a glimpse into the world of Sudo Reiko and NUNO, to see how design and industrial manufacturing processes combine together from initial design to the end product. Some of these displays are hauntingly fragile and obviously not for touching as you get the feeling that they could vanish like a spider’s web in the morning mist if you did so, but that adds to their mystery.  That is also the one addition that I would have added to this exhibition, some small textile samples in books that we can actually touch to let us all experience the different textures of the materials and even the designs upon them. Reiko is designing, and NUNO is manufacturing, textiles in art that have an air of fragility that is often a wonderful illusion to a product designed to have a very practical use and life-span.

Review by Tom King (c) 2021
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH

balletLORENT made a long overdue return to the Festival Theatre Edinburgh tonight with The Lost Happy Endings.  This production is a specially written for dance adaptation by author Carol Ann Duffy of her popular 2006 children’s  book of the same name.

The title of this production is perhaps both prophetic and perfect for a dance company, as like many other dance (and music/theatre/arts) companies across the world, the last 18 months have been difficult times with tours cancelled and an uncertain future ahead. Thankfully balletLORENT have survived the storm and are back on stage where they belong, even if this production was still under strict social distancing measures at the theatre.

On paper, this production has everything, a magical story of what happens if Jub, the person responsible for collecting all the happy endings to stories at the end of the day, is unable to do her job, narration voice-over by Joanna Lumley, interesting stage, costume, and lighting design, and of course the talents of the choreographers and dancers of  balletLORENT.  Something is not right though, something is not doing what I love from this company so much, that ability to interweave story and dance and just when you think you have everything figured out to then take an unexpected twist to everything.

I don’t know what exactly is not working here for me, but perhaps the biggest problem is me, myself, I.  This production is essentially a children’s fairy story and I am trying to watch that magical world that a child can imagine from anything, (let alone a theatre stage) through the jaded eyes of an adult who knows that not every story has a happy ending rather than a child who perhaps still believes that every story will have a happy ending.

The very format of this production is also one that I think requires a lot of children in the audience for maybe a matinee performance rather than an evening one, and also the narration format invites a lot more closeness to the story than any large theatre stage can give; this is a production and a story to be told close up and personal.

Perhaps being a more cynical adult (let’s hope young children have not yet reached that point in life), I actually enjoyed the new “not happy” endings to all of my favourite fairy stories of my childhood better than the originals.  I also found myself emphasising very much with the witch in this story, who for some reason had a much better defined and to me far more interesting personal history than our principal character Jub.  This allowed our witch (Gwen Berwick) to steal every scene that she was in over Jub (Benedicta Valentina Mamuini), and that is no reflection on the talents of either performer.  Witches always are scene stealers, but why do they nearly always have to be dressed in black?

I have to admit that one scene did bother me here, and that was the use of plastic sheeting to create the effects when Jub is captured.  Not only do we have more than enough problems with plastic in this world, but is wrapping someone in plastic a good idea to present to an audience that could have many children in it? Could a fine muslin or similar fabric not have achieved the same desired visual effects?

There is of course a solution to the problem of The Lost Happy Endings, and how beginning and end affect the readers of the stories is interestingly told to us by the use of the full night moon in the sky as a projection screen.
Interesting music too for this production, but for some reason I was expecting our witch to remember dancing to something like Abba’s Dancing Queen.

Oddly, whilst watching this production I kept seeing the possibilities of this story being re-told for adults, as its potential to weave a fairy story into the lives and emotions of adult relationships is endless.  We may not all get the happy endings that we want, but we all still hope for them.

Despite my thoughts on this production, balletLORENT still remains one of my favourite dance/performance companies, so if there are still tickets available for tomorrow night’s performance, give this show a chance.

Review by Tom King (c) 2021
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH