Casting announced for encore season of Follies at the National Theatre
Casting has been announced for the return season of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s musical Follies at the National Theatre in February 2019.
Casting has been announced for the return season of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s musical Follies at the National Theatre in February 2019.
Julian Eaves reviews King the musical by Martin Smith presented by the London Musical Theatre Orchestra at Hackney Empire.
The National Theatre are bringing their acclaimed sell-out production of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies back in 2019.
Committee is without a doubt one of the most exciting new musicals you’re going to see this year.
Maybe we were all weary at the end of a full day of theatre; maybe, and with ample justification, the cast were flagging after appearances in different roles in the previous two parts of the trilogy, but whatever the explanation Richard III seemed something of an anti-climax rather than a natural culmination of this notable revival of the Barton/Hall Wars of the Roses.
Suffice to say that Barton and Hall attempt to clarify the bewildering blizzard of switched allegiances, broken promises and inconclusive battles that form the later section of Shakespeare’s Henry plays, and largely succeed in doing so.
In the case of Betty Buckley as Carlotta, the casting was inspired. Her powerful and joyful rendition of I’m Still Here stopped the show. But it was Anita Dobson’s self-deprecating turn as Stella which finally galvanised the entire company into glorious cohesion: her attack in Who’s That Woman was splendid (a gutsy belt matched her tap-dancing prowess) and she and all of the other women acquitted themselves well in bringing Andrew Wright’s clever choreography to life. The younger versions of Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy were spot-on, engaging and sublime. Christine Baranski’s Phyllis was brittle, regal and immaculately stylish.
McIntyre directs with careful, thorough assuredness, avoiding the easy trap of treating the material like the melodrama it could so easily become, preferring instead to focus on true and believable characterisation and detailed, intimate, and utterly believable situations and exchanges.
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