Wargrave Theatre Workshop presents
LONDON IS LONDON
by William Shakespeare

9 - 11th June 2005
Woodclyffe Hall

Directed by Joe Haynes

From Bow Street to Bloomsbury and Berkley Square; from the Windmill to Wimbledon and Waterloo; through ‘ammersmith to ‘igh street ken’ and ‘yde park corner; from Downing Street to pantomime (is there a difference?); from suffragettes to ‘saucy girls’; from flushers to toffs! (what’s a flusher? Come and find out.)

Wedge will be presenting a fantastic, dramatic, comic and musical Tour of London. Seating will be cabaret style at numbered tables. Two nights only! Don’t miss it.

REVIEW: For two hours we were treated to a mixture of twenty six songs and revues incorporating thirty eight different numbers, from old fashioned Music Hall to up to the minute satirical, political sketches.  Each act moved seamlessly to the next and the thirty two members of WEDGE plus one from Junior Workshop, sang, danced and acted with a confidence to be envied by many older performers.  Congratulations to Ann Roberts and Chez Payne-Annetts for a wonderfully entertaining evening, full of surprises.  The standing ovation was well merited.

The theme was London and from the opening chorus of ‘Who Will Buy?’ to the final chorus of “Waterloo” with the enthusiastic audience joining in, we were treated to a musical and theatrical tour of the Capital.  Many of the sketches, such as ‘Turn again Livingstone, Lord Mayor of London’ and ‘There’s a Hole in my Budget’ adapted by Ann Roberts were sharply satirical.  The scene from ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ requires experienced and stylized acting and in spite of their youth, Jenni Leech and Lizzie Buckland showed maturity and confidence. I also must congratulate the performers in ‘Those Suffragettes’ who were wonderfully costumed and acted their roles convincingly.

The ‘Ole in the Road’ sketch performed by two talented actors, William Doward and Thomas Howes, was funny and well paced.  Both actors performed well in this and all their roles. As indeed did Tom Warlow in ‘There’s a Hole in my Budget’ and demonstrated a fine singing voice and confident acting.  Tom’s performance with Holly McCormick in the funny and surreal sketch, ‘The Great Train Robbery’ was again, well observed and confident. We are conditioned to expect a certain type of performance for traditional Music Hall and forget that young people do not have the same conditioning and they approached established musical numbers with a new freshness.  Katie Huyton’s ‘Burlington Bertie’ was a joy to watch and listen to.  Well done.

I don’t think that the hand held torches helped the actors of ‘In the Sewers of London’ although you could almost smell the subject of the sketch!   Young performers should remember that smiling is contagious, especially in the Chorus numbers and those who did, such as Grace Snell and Sophie Ramiz made everyone feel happier.

The lighting, music and costumes were excellent and congratulations to all the backstage team for assisting in an extremely entertaining evening.   

Joe Haynes